NO LIES RADIO » Rendition

Ten Years of Guantánamo_on Project Censored

noliesradio — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:18:51 +0000

This show was broadcast January 19, 2012.
It is now audio archived here

Coming up every Thursday at 7:00 pm Pacific * 10:00 pm Eastern * 02:00 GMT
Will be archived here after the broadcast.

Broadcast From Berkeley, California

PROJECT CENSORED RADIO:

Ten Years of Guantánamo

Today’s program we address Ten Years of Guantánamo and the Evisceration of the Rule of Law. Joining us will be investigative journalist Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files; Almerindo Ojeda, professor of linguistics and director of the Guantánamo Testimonials Project at University of California, Davis; and Pardiss Kebriaei, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, an organization that has led the way in seeking accountability for torture and arbitrary detention at Guantánamo. We will also have live music in studio from one of the most notable political folk musicians of our time, the one and only David Rovics. Show Hosts: Mickey Huff and Peter Phillips, with Abby Martin of Media Roots.

Broadcast from Berkeley–Hard hitting News and Public Affairs with hosts Mickey Huff and Peter Phillips of Project Censored on KPFA’s morning show. The mission of Project Censored is to teach students and the public about the role of a free press in a free society – and to tell the News That Didn’t Make the News and Why. Originally broadcast on KPFA on January 13, 2012.

THE INAUGURATION OF POLICE STATE USA 2012. Obama Signs the “National Defense Authorization Act “

noliesradio — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 05:40:25 +0000

by Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, January 1, 2012

With minimal media debate, at a time when Americans were celebrating the New Year with their loved ones, the “National Defense Authorization Act ” H.R. 1540 was signed into law by President Barack Obama. The actual signing took place in Hawaii on the 31st of December.

According to Obama’s “signing statement”, the threat of Al Qaeda to the Security of the Homeland constitutes a justification for repealing fundamental rights and freedoms, with a stroke of the pen.

The controversial signing statement (see transcript below) is a smokscreen. Obama says he disagrees with the NDAA but he signs it into law.

“[I have] serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”

Obama implements “Police State USA”, while acknowledging that certain provisions of the NDAA are unacceptable. If such is the case, he could have either vetoed the NDAA (H.R. 1540) or sent it back to Congress with his objections.

The “National Defense Authorization Act ” (H.R. 1540) is Obama’s New Year’s “Gift” to the American People.

He justifies the signing of the NDAA as a means to combating terrorism, as part of a “counter-terrorism” agenda. But in substance, any American opposed to the policies of the US government can –under the provisions of the NDAA– be labelled a “suspected terrorist” and arrested under military detention.

“Moreover, I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation. My Administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law.”

Barack Obama is a lawyer (a graduate from Harvard Law School). He knows fair well that his signing statement –which parrots his commitment to democracy– is purely cosmetic. It has no force of law.

His adminstration “will not authorize” what? The implementaiton of a Law signed by the US president?

Section 1021 is crystal clear. The Executive cannot refuse to implement it. The signing statement does not in any way invalidate or modify the actual signing by President Obama of NDAA (H.R. 1540) into law.

“Democratic Dictatorship” in America

The “National Defense Authorization Act ” (H.R. 1540) repeals the US Constitution. While the facade of democracy prevails, supported by media propaganda, the American republic is fractured. The tendency is towards the establishment of a totalitarian State, a military government dressed in civilian clothes.

The passage of NDAA is intimately related to Washington’s global military agenda. The military pursuit of Worldwide hegemony also requires the “Militarization of the Homeland”, namely the demise of the American Republic.

In substance, the signing statement is intended to mislead Americans and provide a “democratic face” to the President as well as to the unfolding post-911 Military Police State apparatus.

The “most important traditions and values” in derogation of The Bill of Rights and the US Constitution have indeed been repealed, effective on New Year’s Day, January 1st 2012.

The NDAA authorises the arbitrary and indefinite military detention of American citizens.

The Lessons of History

This New Year’s Eve December 31, 2011 signing of the NDAA will indelibly go down as a landmark in American history.

If we are to put this in a comparative historical context, the relevant provisions of the NDAA HR 1540 are, in many regards, comparable to those contained in the “Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State”, commonly known as the “Reichstag Fire Decree” (Reichstagsbrandverordnung) enacted in Germany under the Weimar Republic on 27 February 1933 by President (Field Marshal) Paul von Hindenburg.

Implemented in the immediate wake of the Reichstag Fire (which served as a pretext), this February 1933 decree was used to repeal civil liberties including the right of Habeas Corpus.

Article 1 of the February 1933 “Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State” suspended civil liberties under the pretext of “protecting” democracy: “Thus, restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press, on the right of association and assembly, and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications, and warrants for house-searches, orders for confiscations, as well as restrictions on property rights are permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.” (Art. 1, emphasis added)

Constitutional democracy was nullified in Germany through the signing of a presidential decree.

The Reichstag Fire decree was followed in March 1933 by “The Enabling Act” ( Ermächtigungsgesetz) which allowed (or enabled) the Nazi government of Chancellor Adolf Hitler to invoke de facto dictatorial powers. These two decrees enabled the Nazi regime to introduce legislation which was in overt contradiction with the 1919 Weimar Constitution.

The following year, upon the death of president Hindenburg in 1934, Hitler “declared the office of President vacant” and took over as Fuerer, the combined function’s of Chancellor and Head of State.

The Reichstag Fire, Berlin, February 1933

Germany’s President (Field Marshal) Paul von Hindenburg

Obama’s New Year’s Gift to the American People

To say that January 1st 2012 is “A Sad Day for America” is a gross understatement.

The signing of NDAA (HR 1540) into law is tantamount to the militarization of law enforcement, the repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act and the Inauguration in 2012 of Police State USA.

As in Weimar Germany, fundamental rights and freedoms are repealed under the pretext that democracy is threatened and must be protected.

The NDAA is “Obama’s New Year’s Gift” to the American People. …

Michel Chossudovsky, Montreal, Canada, January, 1st 2012

Today, January 1st, 2012, our thoughts are with the American people.

READ FULL STORY HERE

The President Who Signed Indefinite Detention Without Charge or Trial Into Law

noliesradio — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 05:24:19 +0000

by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

Global Research, January 1, 2012
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law today. The statute contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision. While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations. The White House had threatened to veto an earlier version of the NDAA, but reversed course shortly before Congress voted on the final bill.

“President Obama’s action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. The ACLU will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in Congress, or internationally.”

Under the Bush administration, similar claims of worldwide detention authority were used to hold even a U.S. citizen detained on U.S. soil in military custody, and many in Congress now assert that the NDAA should be used in the same way again. The ACLU believes that any military detention of American citizens or others within the United States is unconstitutional and illegal, including under the NDAA. In addition, the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war.

“We are incredibly disappointed that President Obama signed this new law even though his administration had already claimed overly broad detention authority in court,” said Romero. “Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today. Thankfully, we have three branches of government, and the final word belongs to the Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on the scope of detention authority. But Congress and the president also have a role to play in cleaning up the mess they have created because no American citizen or anyone else should live in fear of this or any future president misusing the NDAA’s detention authority.”

The bill also contains provisions making it difficult to transfer suspects out of military detention, which prompted FBI Director Robert Mueller to testify that it could jeopardize criminal investigations. It also restricts the transfers of cleared detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to foreign countries for resettlement or repatriation, making it more difficult to close Guantanamo, as President Obama pledged to do in one of his first acts in office.

CONTACT: media@dcaclu.org

Global Research Articles by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

READ FULL STORY HERE

Obama administration backs bill authorizing indefinite military detention of US citizens

noliesradio — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:52:58 +0000

by Joseph Kishore

Global Research, December 15, 2011
World Socialist Web Site

The Obama administration declared Wednesday afternoon that it was abandoning its nominal threat to veto a military authorization bill that explicitly authorizes the indefinite military detention of anyone the federal government declares to be a terrorist or supporter, including US citizens.

The final passage of the bill is now virtually assured by the end of the week. It marks a new stage in the collapse of the most basic democratic rights in the United States and the erection of the framework of a military-police state.

From the beginning, the administration has supported all fundamental components of the bill, while criticizing it largely from the standpoint of defending executive power. In a statement, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that a few cosmetic changes this week ensured that it “does not challenge the president’s ability to collect intelligence, incapacitate terrorists and protect the American people.”

A few hours later, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of the legislation, 286-136, with support from both big business parties. Democrats split 93-93 on the bill, while Republicans voted for it by a margin of 193-43.

The Senate is expected to vote on it Thursday, before it arrives at the president’s desk. Both houses of Congress had already passed earlier versions of the same legislation, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The bill would allow for the open-ended detention of anyone caught up in the “war on terror,” without trial or charges, including US citizens. This is the first explicit legislation to effectively abolish habeas corpus (the right to challenge unlawful detentions) and the constitutional rights to a fair trial (the Sixth Amendment) and due process (the Fifth Amendment).

Another provision requires that such individuals be taken into military custody, with an exception for US citizens. The military seizure of US citizens is left to the discretion of the executive branch. This means the effective abolition of the Posse Comitatus Act, which has restricted use of the military for domestic policing for more than a century.

The main concern of the administration was that the requirement for military custody could hamper actions of other agencies engaged in counterterrorism operations, such as the FBI and CIA. An earlier policy statement from last month outlined the White House position that the requirement on military detention was an “unnecessary, untested, and legally controversial restriction of the President’s authority to defend the Nation from terrorist threats that would tie the hands of our intelligence and law enforcement professionals.”

The White House has cited the extra-judicial assassination of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki (a US citizen) as evidence that there should be no restraints on the form through which executive power is exercised.

In response to White House pressure, House and Senate negotiators on Monday agreed to compromise language that states that nothing in the bill will affect “existing criminal enforcement and national security authorities of the FBI or any other domestic law enforcement agency…regardless of whether such… person is held in military custody.”

Another measure would allow the president to waive requirements on the grounds of “national security.”

The administration also expressed the concern that the explicit authorization of indefinite detention was not necessary, as the White House claims that this power is already incorporated in the Authorization to Use Military Force, passed in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks. Its inclusion in the bill could prompt judicial review. Carney’s statement declared, “Though this provision remains unnecessary, the changes ensure that we are merely restating our existing legal authorities and minimize the risk of unnecessary and distracting litigation.”

Commenting on the amended version, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement earlier this week: “The sponsors of the bill monkeyed around with a few minor details, but all of the core dangers remain—the bill authorizes the president to order the military to indefinitely imprison without charge or trial American citizens and others found far from any battlefield, even in the United States itself.”

This assault on fundamental democratic rights has been packaged into a $662 billion military spending bill, including funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill also includes new sanctions against Iran and the renewal of the AUMF, which was passed after the September 11 attacks and used to justify everything from aggressive war to domestic spying.

It incorporates a sweeping definition of those who are subject to the law, including anyone who “substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces” and “any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities.” This language can be stretched to include virtually anyone, including political opponents of US wars justified on the pretext of the “war on terror.”

The battlefield is defined in the legislation to encompass the entire world, including the “homeland”—that is, the United States. A person can be detained “under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities”—that is, forever.

The White House was particularly concerned to ensure that the legislation not restrict the ability of the executive to detain US citizens indefinitely. During the early drafting procedure, it requested that Congress strip out language that would have excluded citizens from the indefinite detention clause.

The entire “debate” within the political establishment over the NDAA testifies to the collapse of any commitment to democratic rights within the American ruling class.

Joseph Kishore is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Joseph Kishore.

SEE FULL STORY HERE

The Indefinite Detention Bill DOES Apply to American Citizens on U.S. Soil & Proof Obama Asked for it & will Sign It!

noliesradio — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:19:34 +0000

Posted on December 14, 2011 by WashingtonsBlog

“Don’t Be Fooled”: The Indefinite Detention Bill DOES Apply to American Citizens

Even at this 11th hour – when all of our liberties and freedom are about to go down the drain – many people still don’t understand that the indefinite detention bill passed by Congress allows indefinite detention of Americans on American soil.

The bill is confusing. As Wired noted on December 1st:
It’s confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas’ Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — “U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority.”
A retired admiral, Judge Advocate General and Dean Emeritus of the University of New Hampshire School of Law also says that it applies to American citizens on American soil.

The ACLU notes:
Don’t be confused by anyone claiming that the indefinite detention legislation does not apply to American citizens. It does. There is an exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032 of the bill), but no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial (section 1031 of the bill). So, the result is that, under the bill, the military has the power to indefinitely imprison American citizens, but it does not have to use its power unless ordered to do so.

But you don’t have to believe us. Instead, read what one of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Lindsey Graham said about it on the Senate floor: “1031, the statement of authority to detain, doesapply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”
Another sponsor of the bill – Senator Levin – has also repeatedly said that the bill applies to American citizens on American soil, citing the Supreme Court case of Hamdi which ruled that American citizens can be treated as enemy combatants:
“The Supreme Court has recently ruled there is no bar to the United States holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant,” said Levin. “This is the Supreme Court speaking.“
Levin again stressed recently that the bill applies to American citizens, and said that it was president Obama who requested that it do so:

Under questioning from Rand Paul, another co-sponsor – John McCain – said that Americans suspected of terrorism could not only be indefinitely detained, but could be sent to Guantanamo:

U.S. Congressman Justin Amash states in a letter to Congress:
The Senate’s [bill] does not even distinguish between American citizens and non-citizens, or between persons caught domestically and abroad. The President’s power, in his discretion, to detain persons he determines have supported associated forces applies just as strongly to Americans seized on U.S. soil as it does to foreigners captured on a far away battlefield.
Two retired 4-star generals (Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar) write in the New York Times:
One provision [in the bill] would authorize the military to indefinitely detain without charge people suspected of involvement with terrorism, including United States citizens apprehended on American soil. Due process would be a thing of the past.
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson – General Colin Powell’s chief of staff – says that the bill is a big step towards tyranny at home. Congressman Ron Paul says that it will establish martial law in America..

Indeed, Amash accuses lawmakers of attempting to intentionally mislead the American people by writing a bill which appears at first glance to exclude U.S. citizens, when it actually includes us:
Pres. Obama and many Members of Congress believe the President ALREADY has the authority the bill grants him. Legally, of course, he does not. This language was inserted to keep proponents and opponents of the bill appeased, while permitting the President to assert that the improper power he has claimed all along is now in statute.

***

They will say that American citizens are specifically exempted under the following language in Sec. 1032: “The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.” Don’t be fooled. All this says is that the President is not REQUIRED to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or trial. It still PERMITS him to do so.

READ FULL STORY HERE

House-Senate Revise Indefinite Detention Bill in Bid to Avoid White House Veto, But Fears Remain

noliesradio — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:18:37 +0000

democracynow.org 12-14-2011

The House is expected to vote today on a massive $662 billion defense bill that could usher in a radical expansion of indefinite detention under the U.S. government. A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act would authorize the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect anywhere in the world without charge or trial. The measure would effectively extend the definition of what is considered the U.S. military’s battlefield to anywhere in the world, even the United States. The White House has issued a veto threat with backing from top officials, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and FBI Director Robert Mueller. But lawmakers are hoping several last-minute revisions will address the concerns and eliminate the veto threat, but critics warn the bill poses a major threat to basic constitutional rights. We speak to Chris Anders, the senior legislative counsel in the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington Legislative Office. “This is putting people in prison, potentially for the rest of their lives, based on nothing more than suspicion,” Anders warns.
READ FULL STORY & TRANSCRIPT HERE

If you feel so inclined, you can let Congress know how you feel about this issue here:
Senate contact list
House contact list

Release of ‘Censored 2012′_on Project Censored

noliesradio — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:05:15 +0000

This Show was broadcast by No Lies Radio on October 6, 2011.
It is now archived — Use Player

Coming up every Thursday at 7:00 pm Pacific * 10:00 pm Eastern * 02:00 GMT
Will be archived here after the broadcast.

Broadcast From Berkeley, California

PROJECT CENSORED RADIO:

Release of Censored 2012: Sourcebook for the Media Revolution

Mickey Huff: “Good morning. Welcome to the Morning Mix, the Project Censored Show on Pacifica Radio. I’m Mickey Huff in studio with Peter Phillips and Abby Martin. Today’s show: for the entire hour we take a look at the top censored stories and media analysis for 2010-11, as we celebrate the release of Censored 2012: Sourcebook for the Media Revolution out this week on Seven Stories Press. We’ll hear from professors, from students, from community contributors across the U.S. So, please stay with us for the hour as we have, again, action-packed news that you can use that the corporate media didn’t want you to hear.” Also, on today’s programme, “Steve Zeltzer will join us at the bottom of the hour for Work Week Radio.” Show hosts are Mickey Huff, Peter Philips and Abby Martin.

Rafah Crossing to Open: Is Egypt Changing the Rules?

noliesradio — Tue, 03 May 2011 02:49:03 +0000

uruknet.info

By Richard Lightbown

May 1, 2011

Egypt announced last week that it intends to open the Rafah Crossing to the Gaza Strip on a permanent basis. Commenting on Israel’s Army Radio on 30 April the Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces General Sami Anan was reported to have said that this is not a matter of Israel’s concern. Officially perhaps he is incorrect since the 2005 Agreed Principles for Rafah Crossing make it plain that the opening of the crossing is very much dependent on the cooperation of the Government of Israel. However since Israel has never seen fit to abide by the Agreement on Movement and Access (hereinafter called ‘the Agreement’) of which these Principles are a part one might conclude that General Anan has a valid point.

The Agreement was intended to facilitate movement within the Palestinian Territories, open Rafah as an international crossing point to enable the passage of people and “promote peaceful economic development and improve the humanitarian situation on the ground”.

It is worthwhile reiterating here the main points agreed by Israel and Palestine following negotiations facilitated by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, EU representative Javier Solana and Quartet Special Envoy John Wolfensohn.

• Crossings into Gaza were to operate continuously. Of the five crossings from Israel the main crossing at Karni would process 150 trucks of exports per day in December 2005, which would rise to 400 by the end of 2006.
• Israel would permit the export of all agricultural products for the 2005 season and ensure the continued opportunity thereafter of Gazan producers to export.
• Israel also undertook to make the West Bank passages fully operational as soon as possible. Bus convoys were to be established on the link between Gaza and the West Bank by the end of 2005 and truck convoys were to begin in January 2006.
• Construction of the seaport for Gaza could start once Israel gave assurances that it would not interfere with its operation.
• Discussions were to continue on the rehabilitation and operation of Gaza’s airport.
• Rafah Crossing would be restricted to Palestinian ID card holders and others in agreed categories by prior notification to Israel with approval of senior Palestinian Authority leaders. The crossing would be operated by Egypt and the Palestinian Authority monitored by EU officials.
• Rafah was also to handle exports from Gaza while imports into Gaza from Egypt would pass via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel.

One year after the agreement OCHA reported that “the ability of Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip to access either the West Bank or the outside world remains extremely limited and the flow of commercial trade is negligible”. For people in Gaza the situation never got any better.

The main crossing from Israel at Karni was opened in December 2005 but during 2006 it was closed for more than 50 per cent of its scheduled operating days by Israeli Authorities citing security reasons. On average only 12 truckloads of goods per day were exported from Gaza (three per cent of the target figure for the end of 2006).

Despite emphasis in the Agreement on permitting the export of agricultural produce for the 2005 harvest season, only 465 tonnes were exported of nearly 14,000 tonnes produced (i.e. slightly more than three per cent) while a further 25 per cent was sold locally or through Israeli wholesalers. The remainder of the crops were given away or destroyed.

Sufa Crossing was used primarily for the import of construction materials. During the first year of the Agreement it was open for only 60 per cent of scheduled days. Erez Crossing was not used for commercial goods and Kerem Shalom Crossing was boycotted by the Palestinian Authority and was open by humanitarian cargos only.

Since the introduction of the Israeli closure regime on Gaza in 2007 all crossings other than the small inconvenient crossing at Kerem Shalom were gradually closed to goods traffic. This remaining crossing has not been open continuously, and was closed between 5 and 13 April this year on the grounds of continuing rocket fire and security threats against Israeli soldiers. The reopening on 13 April allowed the resumption of imports and one truckload of export produce. During the week of closure approximately three-quarters of a million cut flowers designated for export from Gaza were lost through spoilage (incurring estimated losses of US$110,000).

Truck and bus convoys between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were never introduced.
Plans to upgrade the port of Gaza following the Oslo Accords began after finance was provided by Dutch, French and European investments. Starting in 1994 the work was constantly hampered by Israeli obstruction of materials and workers. Finally, one year into the project, Israeli forces bombed the port and completely destroyed it. The revival of the scheme under the 2005 Agreement was stillborn because of Israel’s refusal to provide the required assurances. (The US-led committee to oversee these arrangements as required under the Agreement was never established.)

Nothing came of the intentions to reopen Gaza’s international airport which has been closed following bombing by Israeli forces in December 2001.

In five months following the capture of Gilad Shalit on 25 June 2006 the Rafah Crossing was open for only 14 per cent of the time and since that time has never been open continuously. Although President Mubarak must shoulder much of the blame for this and the Palestinian authorities are not without responsibility the Government of Israel was largely to blame for this situation by its manipulation and use of the terms of the Agreement for the opening.

Egypt’s declared intention to open the crossing into Gaza reflects a radical change from the policy of Hosni Mubarak and promises to provide a lifeline to the moribund Gazan economy that has been deliberately targeted by Israeli policies which are illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention. In February IRIN reported that the World Bank believed that using Rafah as a trade corridor to the Suez Canal container terminal or Cairo International Airport could be done at a cost equivalent to or less than using Israel’s port or airports. Continuous opening will allow producers to effectively plan their transport arrangements free of the whim of a malignant border control. It will also allow students with overseas placements to take up their studies, and provide an opportunity for the rebuilding of Gaza including the refurbishment and replenishment of its dire medical system. (For as the surgeon Dr Mustafa Yassin told the Turkel Committee on 13 October 2010 “I haven’t seen anything like Gaza in my life, and I hope that I won’t ever see it again.”)

The question remains whether Egypt will be allowed to carry out this policy or whether it will be prevailed upon to reverse its plans. Israel’s quisling administration in the US has already provided more the US$116 million to Egypt in order to finance border security and combat tunnel trafficking. This included provision for a mobile ground surveillance radar and support system and a border tunnel activity and detection system. Will the US sit idly by as Egypt’s new regime renders this expenditure irrelevant and worthless? Or will it dare to defy the winds of change in the Arab world by racking up the pressure on its erstwhile ally to bring it into line against Gazan resistance?

Meanwhile in nearby corners of the Mediterranean Sea, Mossad and the organizers of the next flotilla are playing out a sophisticated game of hide and seek. If the flotilla avoids the saboteurs and successfully takes to the sea Mr Netanyahu will be forced against his natural inclination to make a major political decision. Does he unleash the dogs of war and try to face down world opprobrium, or does he sit meekly by and allow the fleet to pass on victorious to Gaza? Either way he stands to be hoist on the petard of his own intransigence. Perhaps the Egyptian government will make the decision for him by rendering the blockade obsolete.

At the same time a successful entry into Gaza by sea will demonstrate many things. It will show the possibilities for trade by sea to complement the land crossing. It will refute the liars that deny that Gaza has a port and the doubters at UNHRC and elsewhere that it is a place where one can unload cargoes even now. It will also demonstrate the need for the world to insist that Israel allows the Gaza port to be refurbished. Above all it will demonstrate that people of courage and determination can accomplish what weak, collaborative governments fear to do.

Dare we hope this time that righteousness will prevail?

- Richard Lightbown is an activist against war and injustice.

READ FULL STORY HERE

South Africa: President Aristide Due at Airport Late Thursday for trip home to Haiti over US objections

noliesradio — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:24:34 +0000

allafrica.com 3-17-2011

Johannesburg — Former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide would address the media at Lanseria airport in Johannesburg later on Thursday, the foreign ministry said, suggesting that he was leaving South Africa after seven years in exile.

“We are inviting the media to Lanseria airport at 8.45 pm. He will speak to the media. He may discuss his plans,” foreign ministry spokesman Clayson Monyela told Sapa.

Earlier on Thursday Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane told reporters Aristide had failed to give the government any indication of when he planned to return to the Caribbean island nation.

Chabane reiterated that despite US warnings on the timing of the move, Pretoria would not press the charismatic former leader to wait until after Sunday’s run-off presidential polls to go home.

He said the South African government could not hold Aristide “hostage”.

“What I should stress is that we are not sending former president Aristide to Haiti. He was given the passport by the government of Haiti and we can’t hold him hostage if he wants to go.

READ FULL STORY HERE

Revolution in Libya: Protestors Respond to Gaddafi’s Murderous Backlash with Remarkable Courage; US and UK Look Like the Hypocrites They Are

noliesradio — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 06:53:24 +0000

Andy Worthington uruknet.info

February 21, 2011

“Now people are dying we’ve got nothing else to live for. What needs to happen is for the killing to stop. But that won’t happen until he [Gaddafi] is out. We just want to be able to live like human beings. Nothing will happen until protests really kick off in Tripoli, the capital. It’s like a pressure cooker. People are boiling up inside. I’m not even afraid any more. Once I wouldn’t have spoken at all by phone. Now I don’t care. Now enough is enough.”

These are the words of a young woman in Libya — a student , a blogger and a member of the youth protest movement in Libya that is part of a growing uprising against the tyrannical 41-year reign of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Speaking to the Guardian by phone from her home on the outskirts of Benghazi, the eastern city where the revolution in Libya began just six days ago, and where hundreds of protestors have been killed by Gaddafi’s security forces, she said, “I’ve seen violent movies and video games that are nothing compared to this. I can hear gunshots, helicopters circling overhead, then I hear the voices screaming. I can hear the screeching of four-by-fours in the street. No one has that type of car except his [Gaddafi's] people. My brother went to get bread, he’s not back; we don’t know if he’ll get back. The family is up all night every night, keeping watch, no one can sleep.”

Described by the Guardian as “an expert in subverting net censorship,” who “had regularly posted messages online to gather support” for the protests that began last week, the student explained how, since the uprising began, “her internet connection is down, landlines cut off, mobile coverage interrupted, electricity sporadically cut off and the house plunged into darkness.” She added, “There are even stories here that he [Gaddafi] has poisoned the water, so we dare not drink. If he could cut off the air that we breathe, he would.”

Unlike the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, where there was remarkably litle bloodshed, and the dictators Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak fell from power through the pressure of sheer numbers, there are no signs that Colonel Gaddafi has any intention of relinquishing power without a bloody fight. As the Guardian also reported, sources close to his family told the Saudi paper al-Sharq al-Awsat, “We will all die on Libyan soil,” and it appears that the brutal suppression of the uprising in Benghazi is being led by one of his sons, Khamis, described as “the Russian-trained commander of an elite special forces unit,” and that another of Gaddafi’s sons, Saadi, is also present, along with Abdullah al-Senussi, the regime’s long-standing head of military intelligence.

For those familiar with Libyan history, the brutal response to the uprising is typical, demonstrating what experts told the Guardian was Gaddafi’s “instinctive brutality when faced with challenges to his rule.” The London-based writer and activist Ashour Shamis explained, “For Gaddafi it’s kill or be killed. Now he’s gone straight for the kill.”

In the 1980s, as the Guardian explained, Gaddafi “sent hit squads to murder exiled ’stray dogs’” who challenged his dictatorship, and throughout the 1990s he crushed Islamist opposition — and any other political opposition — at home, most notoriously instigating a massacre of at least a thousand prisoners in Abu Salim prison in Tripoli in June 1996, as I reported in an article in 2009, entitled, UK protestors mark 13th anniversary of Libyan prison massacre.

An adept survivor, Gaddafi came onside in the “War on Terror” after the 9/11 attacks, prompting the most miserably transparent examples of hypocrisy on the part of Western nations, as their leaders queued up to welcome the former pariah as an ally, and barely managed to disguise their excitement at having access to Libya’s rich oil reserves.

In ingratiating themselves with the dictator, both the US and the UK willingly abandoned former opponents of the regime, who had, until then, been regarded as victims of oppression. The US willingly rounded up exiled Libyans in Afghanistan and Pakistan, sending them to Guantanamo and labeling them as “enemy combatants.” Two of these men eventually accepted voluntary repatriation from Guantanamo, but both were imprisoned on their return, and only one of the two, Abu Sufian Hamouda (transferred in October 2007), has been released, while the other, Muhammad al-Rimi (transferred in December 2006), is still held in Abu Salim.

Both of these men are, however, more fortunate than Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the emir of a training camp in Afghanistan, who was rendered by the CIA to Egypt after his capture in Afghanistan in December 2001, where, under torture, he falsely confessed that two al-Qaeda operatives had been meeting with Saddam Hussein to discuss the use of chemical and biological weapons. Although al-Libi recanted his tortured lie, it was used to justify the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and after al-Libi had been moved around various other secret prisons, he was returned to Libya, where he conveniently died, reportedly by committing suicide, in May 2009, just three days before the US reopened its embassy in Tripoli.

In the UK, meanwhile, Libyan asylum seekers, who had found themselves welcomed as refugees from the terrorist-supporting dictator Gaddafi, suddenly discovered that they had been designated as “terror suspects,” and were imprisoned without charge or trial pending deportation.

When judges went off-script, refusing to allow the government to return any of these men, and ruling that the “diplomatic assurances” agreed between Gaddafi and the UK government, which purported to guarantee that they would be treated humanely, were worthless, the men were then held on control orders, an oppressive form of house arrest that, like the deportation regime, involved them being held without charge or trial on the basis of secret evidence.

After the Law Lords — following the lead of the European Court of Human Rights — ruled in June 2009 that the control order regime breaches Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to a fair trial, the Libyans had their control orders dropped, either because the disclosure of any information would have demonstrated that they were pawns in a deeply cynical game, or because their liberty was now useful to Gaddafi, who, at the time, was brokering a deal with former political opponents, whereby they would left unmolested if they renounced violence.

As the unrest in Libya spreads to the capital, Tripoli, the Gaddafi regime continues to respond with brute force, using planes to fire on protestors. Whether they can prevail against a people who are overcoming their fear in vast numbers and are apparently prepared to die in an attempt to secure their freedom remains to be seen, but the regime is clearly under threat. Last night, another of Gaddafi’s sons, Saif al-Islam, the supposed moderate and reformer of the family, embraced by Western hypocrites as a sign of the way forward, was wheeled out to deliver an incoherent speech on TV that was full of threats, hyperbole and lies.

Although he conceded that it was a “tragedy” that Libyans had died and stated, “There were some planning errors,” including “Errors from the police … and the army that was not equipped and prepared to confront angry people and … to defend its premises, weapons and ammunition,” he also warned apocalyptically of “civil war” unless order was restored, telling the TV audience that his father was still in the country and that the regime had the fiull support of the army. “We will fight to the last minute, until the last bullet,” he said.

He also claimed, “There is a plot against Libya,” blamed “an Islamic group with a military agenda” for the bloodshed in Benghazi — despite there being no evidence of Islamist involvement in a movement spearheaded by young people, trade unions and lawyers — and said Libya “would see ‘rivers of blood,’ an exodus of foreign oil companies and occupation by ‘imperialists’ if the violence continued.”

At the time of writing, al-Jazeera was reporting that “At least 61 people were killed in clashes in Tripoli,” but that “The protests appeared to be gathering momentum, with demonstrators saying they had taken control of several key towns in the country,” including Benghazi. Ahmad Jibreel, a Libyan diplomat, who confirmed rumors that the justice minister Mustafa Mohamed Abud Al-Jeleil had resigned because he “sided with the protesters,” also told al-Jazeera that “key cities near Libya’s border with Egypt were now in the hands of protesters, which he said would enable foreign media to now enter the country.”

Summing up the spirit of resistance, he said:
Gaddafi’s guards started shooting people in the second day and they shot two people only. We had on that day in Al Bayda city only 300 protesters. When they killed two people, we had more than 5,000 at their funeral, and when they killed 15 people the next day, we had more than 50,000 the following day. This means that the more Gaddafi kills people, the more people go into the streets.
Echoing this spirit, I have just received a message from an exiled Libyan friend, who told me:
Finally and maybe we will be free at last! I am having sleepless nights filled with euphoria about what’s happening in Libya. I am so sick of being in exile and not being able to contribute to my country’s development. Am sick of being ashamed of it and what Gaddafi made of it.
As the situation continues to develop, those words mean much more to me than the platitudes of government representatives in the US and the UK, who have done so little to oppose Gaddafi’s rule, and so much to enrich themselves, and who, in addition, have almost excelled in cynicism when it comes to Libya’s role in the “War on Terror.” As my friend also told me:
All I can say is that we are all so excited about the prospects of change and the ability to have some say in how to manage our wealth of natural resources. The West robbed us of this right earlier, then we allowed our own dreadful leaders do the same and worse.
Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in July 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, on tour in the UK throughout 2011, and available on DVD here), my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

:: Article nr. 75222 sent on 22-feb-2011 00:04 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=75222

Link: www.andyworthington.co.uk/2011/02/21/revolution-in-libya-protestors-respond-to-g
addafis-murderous-backlash-with-remarkable-courage-us-and-uk-look
-like-the-hypocrites-they-are/

:: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.

READ FULL STORY HERE

Former presidents’ return to complicate Haiti’s political situation

noliesradio — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:11:58 +0000

English.news.cn 2011-02-09

SANTO DOMINGO, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) — The arrival of former president Jean Claude Duvalier in Haiti and the possible return of exiled Jean-Bertrand Aristide have made the country’s political crisis all the more complicated.

The Haitian government confirmed on Tuesday that former president Aristide would receive the passport he requested to return to Haiti, after having been living in South Africa since 2004.

On Jan. 20, Aristide expressed his wish to return home, four days after the return of Duvalier, who had lived in exile for 25 years in France.

Duvalier, known as Baby Doc, ruled Haiti from 1971 to 1986, inheriting his power from his father at the age of 19. He is now living in the capital city of Port-au-Prince.

Aristide strongly opposed Duvalier’s dictatorship. But he was deposed by general Raoul Cedras only eight months after being sworn in in February of 1991 as the first democratically-elected president in Haiti.

Later in 1994, Aristide was able to recover his power with the help of the United States, and was reelected president in 2000. In 2004, he was overthrown again and sought exile in South Africa.

Now both Duvalier and Aristide seem ready to rejoin the Haitian story which is still in the chapter of mismanagement, terror, hunger, social tragedies and natural disasters — over a year after the hit of a powerful earthquake, which killed more than 250,000 people and left at least 1.3 million homeless.

READ FULL STORY HERE

Live Video-Cast from Berkeley, Calif.–Project Censored Annual Awards

noliesradio — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 15:00:59 +0000

Coming Up Sat Feb 5th – 7pm Pacific * 10pm Eastern * 03:00 GMT
This event was broadcasted Live on February 5, 2011. The video archive is below.

Project Censored Annual Awards Event – Top 25 Censored Stories: 2009-2010 & Censored 2011 Book Celebration

Please join the Project Censored team celebrating their 35th year and release of Censored 2011 book! Project Censored and Media Freedom Foundation Board members and student interns are gathering to acknowledge our collaborative work and past year’s top stories. An evening of celebrations emceed by Berkeley’s Nora Barrows-Friedman, investigative journalist, with keynote by Tracy Rosenberg of Media Alliance. Music provided by Vic Sadot and Kevin Glaz.

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, please help to support by attending in person. Saturday, February 5, 2011. The days activities start at 2:30pm Pacific. 1924 Cedar St (at Bonita), Berkeley, California. Evening events start at 6:00pm Pacific and have a sliding Scale $5-$20, no one turned away for lack of funds, wheelchair accessible. Click here for more details on the days events. Co-sponsored by Project Censored/Media Freedom Foundation, BFUU Social Justice Committee, Flashpoints and the Morning Mix at KPFA, No Lies Radio (streaming the evening events live at http://NoLiesRadio.org), Media Alliance, Seven Stories Press, and Justice in Nigeria Now.
Contact: mickey@projectcensored.org, peter@projectcensored.org

This is a No Lies Radio News Live Videocast.

Afghans for Peace!_ on Soapbox

noliesradio — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:50:48 +0000

This show was broadcast January 29, 2011.
It is now archived here — Use Player

Coming up every Saturday at 1:00 pm Pacific * 04:00 pm Eastern * 21:00 GMT

Afghans for Peace!
Canadian resident PhD student Spogmai Akseer, representing that whole group of Aghans world wide, both internal and abroad, who take a stance against war and occupation in Afghanistan and demand that the Afghan people be allowed their right to self determination. That group is formally known as Afghans for Peace. They present a non-propagandized “view from the inside” of Afghan reality. Spogmai Akseer pretty strongly contradicts the “official” line that we are in Afghanistan to sell war profiteering to the American public “protect the women” and rebuild a nation. Sorry, boyz and grrlz: the truth is Afghan women are steadily getting into worse and worse shape. Just as Malalai Joya told us back in November 2009, nobody can very much tell any difference between Karzai’s warlords and the warlords of the Taliban. Rebuilding a nation? Spogmai tells of the rampant profiteering and corruption in the country today. She tells us of schools built but never used because of no heat, no water and no utilities – in the Afghanistan’s frozen winters. Just don’t miss her view from the inside!

This interview is from January 23, 2011.
Cindy’s website is here.

The CIA’s Role in Egypt’s Regime Change? Who Is Omar Suleiman?

noliesradio — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 06:57:14 +0000

by Jane Mayer

Global Research, January 30, 2011
New Yorker online

One of the “new” names being mentioned as a possible alternative to President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Omar Suleiman, is actually not so new to anyone who has followed the American policy of renditions for terror suspects. After dissolving his cabinet yesterday, Mubarak appointed Suleiman vice-president, and according to many commentators he is poised to be a potential successor, and an alternative to Mubarak’s son and intended heir until now, Gamal Mubarak. Suleiman is a well-known quantity in Washington. Suave, sophisticated, and fluent in English, he has served for years as the main conduit between the United States and Mubarak. While he has a reputation for loyalty and effectiveness, he also carries some controversial baggage from the standpoint of those looking for a clean slate on human rights. As I described in my book “The Dark Side,” since 1993 Suleiman has headed the feared Egyptian general intelligence service. In that capacity, he was the C.I.A.’s point man in Egypt for renditions—the covert program in which the C.I.A. snatched terror suspects from around the world and returned them to Egypt and elsewhere for interrogation, often under brutal circumstances.

As laid out in greater detail by Stephen Grey, in his book “Ghost Plane,” beginning in the nineteen-nineties, Suleiman negotiated directly with top Agency officials. Every rendition was greenlighted at the highest levels of both the U.S. and Egyptian intelligence agencies. Edward S. Walker, Jr., a former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, described Suleiman as “very bright, very realistic,” adding that he was cognizant that there was a downside to “some of the negative things that the Egyptians engaged in, of torture and so on. But he was not squeamish, by the way.”

Technically, U.S. law required the C.I.A. to seek “assurances” from Egypt that rendered suspects wouldn’t face torture. But under Suleiman’s reign at the intelligence service, such assurances were considered close to worthless. As Michael Scheuer, a former C.I.A. officer who helped set up the practice of rendition, later testified before Congress, even if such “assurances” were written in indelible ink, “they weren’t worth a bucket of warm spit.”

Global Research Articles by Jane Mayer

READ FULL STORY HERE

Egypt’s uprising and its implications for Palestine

noliesradio — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 06:27:03 +0000

Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 29 January 2011

Egyptians call for Mubarak’s ouster at Tahrir (Liberation) Square in Cairo, 29 January 2011. (Matthew Cassel)

We are in the middle of a political earthquake in the Arab world and the ground has still not stopped shaking. To make predictions when events are so fluid is risky, but there is no doubt that the uprising in Egypt — however it ends — will have a dramatic impact across the region and within Palestine.

If the Mubarak regime falls, and is replaced by one less tied to Israel and the United States, Israel will be a big loser. As Aluf Benn commented in the Israeli daily Haaretz, “The fading power of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s government leaves Israel in a state of strategic distress. Without Mubarak, Israel is left with almost no friends in the Middle East; last year, Israel saw its alliance with Turkey collapse” (“Without Egypt, Israel will be left with no friends in Mideast,” 29 January 2011).

Indeed, Benn observes, “Israel is left with two strategic allies in the region: Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.” But what Benn does not say is that these two “allies” will not be immune either.

Over the past few weeks I was in Doha examining the Palestine Papers leaked to Al Jazeera. These documents underscore the extent to which the split between the US-backed Palestinian Authority in Ramallah headed by Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction, on the one hand, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, on the other — was a policy decision of regional powers: the United States, Egypt and Israel. This policy included Egypt’s strict enforcement of the siege of Gaza.

If the Mubarak regime goes, the United States will lose enormous leverage over the situation in Palestine, and Abbas’ PA will lose one of its main allies against Hamas.

Already discredited by the extent of its collaboration and capitulation exposed in the Palestine Papers, the PA will be weakened even further. With no credible “peace process” to justify its continued “security coordination” with Israel, or even its very existence, the countdown may well begin for the PA’s implosion. Even the US and EU support for the repressive PA police-state-in-the-making may no longer be politically tenable. Hamas may be the immediate beneficiary, but not necessarily in the long term. For the first time in years we are seeing broad mass movements that, while they include Islamists, are not necessarily dominated or controlled by them.

There is also a demonstration effect for Palestinians: the endurance of the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes has been based on the perception that they were strong, as well as their ability to terrorize parts of their populations and co-opt others. The relative ease with which Tunisians threw off their dictator, and the speed with which Egypt, and perhaps Yemen, seem to be going down the same road, may well send a message to Palestinians that neither Israel’s nor the PA’s security forces are as indomitable as they appear. Indeed, Israel’s “deterrence” already took a huge blow from its failure to defeat Hizballah in Lebanon in 2006, and Hamas in Gaza during the winter 2008-09 attacks.

As for Abbas’s PA, never has so much international donor money been spent on a security force with such poor results. The open secret is that without the Israeli military occupying the West Bank and besieging Gaza (with the Mubarak regime’s help), Abbas and his praetorian guard would have fallen long ago. Built on the foundations of a fraudulent peace process, the US, EU and Israel with the support of the decrepit Arab regimes now under threat by their own people, have constructed a Palestinian house of cards that is unlikely to remain standing much longer.

This time the message may be that the answer is not more military resistance but rather more people power and a stronger emphasis on popular protests. Today, Palestinians form at least half the population in historic Palestine — Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip combined. If they rose up collectively to demand equal rights, what could Israel do to stop them? Israel’s brutal violence and lethal force has not stopped regular demonstrations in West Bank villages including Bilin and Beit Ommar.

Israel must fear that if it responds to any broad uprising with brutality, its already precarious international support could start to evaporate as quickly as Mubarak’s. The Mubarak regime, it seems, is undergoing rapid “delegitimization.” Israeli leaders have made it clear that such an implosion of international support scares them more than any external military threat. With the power shifting to the Arab people and away from their regimes, Arab governments may not be able to remain as silent and complicit as they have for years as Israel oppresses Palestinians.

As for Jordan, change is already underway. I witnessed a protest of thousands of people in downtown Amman yesterday. These well-organized and peaceful protests, called for by a coalition of Islamist and leftist opposition parties, have been held now for weeks in cities around the country. The protesters are demanding the resignation of the government of Prime Minister Samir al-Rifai, dissolution of the parliament elected in what were widely seen as fraudulent elections in November, new free elections based on democratic laws, economic justice, an end to corruption and cancelation of the peace treaty with Israel. There were strong demonstrations of solidarity for the people of Egypt.

None of the parties at the demonstration called for the kind of revolutions that happened in Tunisia and Egypt to occur in Jordan, and there is no reason to believe such developments are imminent. But the slogans heard at the protests are unprecedented in their boldness and their direct challenge to authority. Any government that is more responsive to the wishes of the people will have to review its relationship with Israel and the United States.

Only one thing is certain today: whatever happens in the region, the people’s voices can no longer be ignored.

Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse and is a contributor to The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict (Nation Books).

READ FULL STORY HERE

Obama’s National Security State — Michael Ratner _ on Guns & Butter

noliesradio — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 16:10:18 +0000

This show was broadcast on January 24, 2011.
It is now archived here — Use Player

Coming up today and every Monday at 7:00 pm Pacific – 10:00 pm Eastern – 03:00 GMT

GUNS AND BUTTER with Bonnie Faulkner
Obama’s National Security State — Michael Ratner
Michael Ratner discusses current law and practice regarding the writ of habeas corpus, the right to challenge detention; preventive detention; secret sites; Guantanamo and Bagram Air Base; extraordinary rendition; targeting of American citizens for assassination; surveillance and infiltration of political groups; Miranda. Michael Ratner is an attorney and president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit human rights litigation organization based in New York, New York.

Mohamed Harkat, victim of Canadian Islamophobic witch-hunt _ on The Kevin Barrett Show

noliesradio — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 05:28:42 +0000

This show was broadcast on January 25, 2011.
It is now archived here — Use Player

Coming up Tuesday at 9:00 am Pacific – 12:00 Noon Eastern – 17:00 GMT
Will be archived here after the broadcast by Tuesday evening.

“THE KEVIN BARRETT SHOW”
Mohamed Harkat, victim of Canadian Islamophobic witch-hunt!
–His wife Sophie Harkat joins me Tuesday.

Email your questions or comments now.

Sophie Harkat will discuss the legal lynching of her husband Mohamed, who is under house arrest and threatened with deportation to the torture chambers of the Algeria under Canada’s “Security Certificate” program. (“Security Certificate” means the Canadian government does not have to produce any evidence to prove its “terrorism” smear.)

Mohamed Harkat’s real crime: He joined a peaceful, democratic political party called the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) when he was a student at Algeria’s University of Oran in the late 1980s. In 1989, the FIS was poised to sweep into power with more than 80% of the vote, when the Algerian military junta (with the cooperation of the US and France) abruptly canceled elections, arrested the leaders and members of FIS, locked them in concentration camps and set about torturing and murdering them. Mohamed Harkat survived because he fled the country.

The Algerian military regime then launched the bloodiest false-flag terror campaign in history. Dressing up its own death squads as “Islamists,” the regime murdered more than 100,000 people over a ten year period. Algerian military death squads, wearing phony “Islamist” garb, would cordon off villages and neighborhoods known to support actual (peaceful, democratic) Islamists, and slaughter every man, woman and child in that village or neighborhood. Algerian and Western media would then blame “Islamic terrorists” for the massacres. The combination of smear tactics, torture, and mass murder worked, and the vicious US-backed Algerian junta retained power, despite the heroic efforts of FIS supporters to restore democracy.

The Canadian government claims that Harkat became tangentially involved with Algerian and internationalist Islamists working to restore democracy in Algeria by overthrowing the brutal military regime behind the false-flag death squads. That’s a little bit like claiming someone is a “terrorist” because they once did charitable work with Mother Theresa. But the government refuses to make public any evidence to back its “charge” that Harkat is a heroic fighter for democracy! Like everything else about the phony “war on terror,” the Canadian witch-hunt against Mohamed Harkat an outrage, a farce, a travesty of justice, a pile of BS to rival Mt. Everest.

More information:
www.justiceforharkat.com
www.harkatstatement.com
On Security Certificates and the case.
A short documentary about security certificates on Youtube.:

Check out Kevin’s new book: Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters.

The Kevin Barrett Show is independently produced and hosted by Kevin Barrett and these shows are externally produced content. All externally produced content broadcast on No Lies Radio is the sole responsibility of the program-content producer and is not the responsibility of NoLiesRadio.org. Any questions or concerns should be directed to the content producer.

Anniversary Madness — Roe V. Wade & Gitmo_on Soapbox

noliesradio — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:31:01 +0000

This show was broadcast on January 22, 2011.
It is now archived here — Use Player

Coming up every Saturday at 1:00 pm Pacific * 04:00 pm Eastern * 21:00 GMT

Anniversary Madness — Roe V. Wade & Gitmo
Cindy presents admirably scurrulous election satire by no less than George Carlin, and then “celebrates” two anniversaries, one famous and most healthy for our nation – but oh so hated today by the “religious right” (which is really neither) – Roe versus Wade – and the other, a truly sickening anniversary, that of the opening of Guantanamo Bay Prison, on Jan 11th, 2002. Roe versus Wade is commemorated by Somer Loen, a long-time activist for the Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights, or BACORR. The disgusting opening of Guantanamo Bay Prison by Matthew Daloisio of Witness Against Torture, another long standing activist against our modern Imperial “Death State” (as so eloquently designated by one of our webmaster’s heroes, Arthur Silber). Cindy and Matt have an illuminating discusion about Guantanamo and its meaning for America’s future. A future which we all hope will be far brighter than today’s sad state of affairs.

This interview is from January 16, 2011.
Cindy’s website is here.

Jan 13, 2011 __Project Censored Speaks Out!

noliesradio — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 16:52:11 +0000

This show was broadcast January 13, 2011.
It is now archived here — Use Player

Coming up every Thursday at 8:00 am Pacific * 11:00 am Eastern * 16:00 GMT

LIVE Broadcast From Berkeley, California

PROJECT CENSORED SPEAKS OUT with Mickey Huff and Peter Phillips

Live from Berkeley–Hard hitting News and Public Affairs with rotating hosts Mickey Huff and Peter Phillips of Project Censored on KPFA’s morning show. The mission of Project Censored is to teach students and the public about the role of a free press in a free society – and to tell the News That Didn’t Make the News and Why.

Persecuted Muslim Veteran Zahid Chaudhry_on The Kevin Barrett Show

noliesradio — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:09:23 +0000

This show was broadcast January 11, 2011.
It is now archived here — Use Player

Coming up Tuesday at 9:00 am Pacific – 12:00 Noon Eastern – 17:00 GMT
Will be archived here after the broadcast by Tuesday evening.

“THE KEVIN BARRETT SHOW”

Persecuted Muslim Veteran Zahid Chaudhry
joins me Tuesday

Email your questions or comments now.

Guests: Zahid and Ann Chaudry, victims of Islamophobia and US government persecution.

From Rebecca Campbell:

Ever since September 11, 2001, the US government has engaged in an unexplained, ruthless persecution of legal US resident Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry and his wife Ann. This decorated disabled US Army veteran, with a sterling record of service both in the military and out, now faces deportation from the US to his native Pakistan in mid-January 2011. If this happens, Zahid, now confined to a wheelchair, may face further injury and death in an increasingly US-destablized environment that may offer him little protection from those who already have targeted him here in this country for the past ten years.

You can see a detailed account of Zahid Chaudhry’s brutal, decade-long persecution by the US government and find more information at the following link: “For Your Projection: The US Government’s Long Jihad Against a Decorated Disabled Muslim Veteran.”

Check out Kevin’s new book: Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters.

9/11 whistleblower Susan Lindauer_on The Kevin Barrett Show

noliesradio — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 05:59:57 +0000

This show was broadcast January 4, 2011.
It is archived here — Use Player

Coming up Tuesday at 9:00 am Pacific – 12:00 Noon Eastern – 17:00 GMT
Will be archived here after the broadcast by Tuesday evening.

“THE KEVIN BARRETT SHOW”

Ex-CIA asset & imprisoned 9/11 whistleblower Susan Lindauer
joins me Tuesday

Email your questions or comments now.

As a U.S. Intelligence Asset, Susan Lindauer covered anti-terrorism at the Iraqi Embassy in New York from 1996 up to the invasion. Independent sources have confirmed that she gave advance warning about the 9/11 attack. She also started talks for the Lockerbie Trial with Libyan diplomats. Shortly after requesting to testify before Congress about successful elements of Pre-War Intelligence, Lindauer became one of the first non-Arab Americans arrested on the Patriot Act as an “Iraqi Agent.” She was accused of warning her second cousin, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and Secretary of State Colin Powell that war with Iraq would have catastrophic consequences. Gratis of the Patriot Act, her indictment was loaded with “secret charges” and “secret evidence.” She was subjected to one year in prison on Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas without a trial or hearing, and threatened with indefinite detention and forcible drugging to shut her up. After five years of indictment without a conviction or guilty plea, the Justice Department dismissed all charges five days before President Obama’s inauguration.

Link to transcript of this show is here.

Find her book on Amazon here.

Blurb for Susan Lindauer’s book Extreme Prejudice:

The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq

What if the government decided to invent a great lie to sell a disastrous war and a questionable anti-terrorism policy? What would happen to the assets who know the truth?

Former CIA Asset Susan Lindauer provides an extraordinary first-hand account from behind the intelligence curtain that shatters the government’s lies about 9/11 and Iraq, and casts a harsh spotlight on the workings of the Patriot Act as the ideal weapon to bludgeon whistle blowers and dissidents. A terrifying true story of “black budget” betrayals and the Patriot Act, with its arsenal of secret evidence, indefinite detention and threats of forcible drugging, EXTREME PREJUDICE reveals one Asset’s desperate struggle to survive the brutal cover ups of 9/11 and Iraq. EXTREME PREJUDICE delivers a high tension expose of the real facts surrounding the CIA’s advance warnings of 9/11 and Iraq’s contributions to the 9/11 investigation. For the first time, it discloses the existence of a comprehensive peace framework before the War, which would have accomplished all major U.S. objectives in Baghdad without a single casualty. A true life spy thriller that goes inside the Iraqi Embassy and prison on a Texas military base, EXTREME PREJUDICE reveals the depths of deception by leaders in Washington and London to promote a questionable image of their successful anti-terrorism policy, and the shocking brutality used to suppress the truth of their failures from the American people and the world community.

Above all, EXTREME PREJUDICE offers a critical examination from the defendant’s chair of the Patriot Act’s assault on the most cherished Constitutional rights in a Court of law, when liberty and freedom to dissent from government policy are the highest stakes.

“Susan Lindauer deserves unreserved admiration for this brave and moving account of her steadfast refusal to crumble under the shameful abuses to which she was subjected. She has provided us with an overdue exposure of the depths to which governments are all too prepared to descend to prevent disclosure of their dishonesty and malfeasance, her knowledge having been gained through bitter personal experience.” –Robert Black, Q.C., Scottish architect of the Lockerbie Trial at Camp Zeist

“Unfolds like a suspense thriller from deep within the struggle for global sanity, at the hands of those perpetrating dark secrecy. Lindauer reveals faces of our national truth few Americans imagine. Chilling, heartbreaking, horrifying and hopeful, EXTREME PREJUDICE offers a depth of historical insight critical to transforming our future. Pay attention.” –Janice Matthews, Director, 911Truth.org

Check out Kevin’s new book: Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters.

Wikileaks, the United States, Sweden, and Devil’s Island

noliesradio — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 05:49:39 +0000

The Anti-Empire Report

January 1st, 2011
by William Blum
www.killinghope.org

Wikileaks, the United States, Sweden, and Devil’s Island

December 16 … I’m standing in the snow in front of the White House … Standing with Veterans for Peace … I’m only a veteran of standing in front of the White House; the first time was February 1965, handing out flyers against the war in Vietnam. I was working for the State Department at the time and my biggest fear was that someone from that noble institution would pass by and recognize me.

Five years later I was still protesting Vietnam, although long gone from the State Department. Then came Cambodia. And Laos. Soon, Nicaragua and El Salvador. Then Panama was the new great threat to America, to freedom and democracy and all things holy and decent, so it had to be bombed without mercy. Followed by the first war against the people of Iraq, and the 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia. Then the land of Afghanistan had rained down upon it depleted uranium, napalm, phosphorous bombs, and other witches’ brews and weapons of the chemical dust; then Iraq again. And I’ve skipped a few. I think I hold the record for most times picketing the White House by a right-handed batter.

And through it all, the good, hard-working, righteous people of America have believed mightily that their country always means well; some even believe to this day that we never started a war, certainly nothing deserving of the appellation “war of aggression”.

On that same snowy day last month Julian Assange of Wikileaks was freed from prison in London and told reporters that he was more concerned that the United States might try to extradite him than he was about being extradited to Sweden, where he presumably faces “sexual” charges. ¹

That’s a fear many political and drug prisoners in various countries have expressed in recent years. The United States is the new Devil’s Island of the Western world. From the mid-19th century to the mid-20th, political prisoners were shipped to that god-forsaken strip of French land off the eastern coast of South America. One of the current residents of the new Devil’s Island is Bradley Manning, the former US intelligence analyst suspected of leaking diplomatic cables to Wikileaks. Manning has been imprisoned for seven months, first in Kuwait, then at a military base in Virginia, and faces virtual life in prison if found guilty, of something. Without being tried or convicted of anything, he is allowed only very minimal contact with the outside world; or with people, daylight, or news; among the things he is denied are a pillow, sheets, and exercise; his sleep is restricted and frequently interrupted. See Glenn Greenwald’s discussion of how Manning’s treatment constitutes torture. ²

A friend of the young soldier says that many people are reluctant to talk about Manning’s deteriorating physical and mental condition because of government harassment, including surveillance, seizure of their computer without a warrant, and even attempted bribes. “This has had such an intimidating effect that many are afraid to speak out on his behalf.” ³ A developer of the transparency software used by Wikileaks was detained for several hours last summer by federal agents at a Newark, New Jersey airport, where he was questioned about his connection to Wikileaks and Assange as well as his opinions about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. ⁴

This is but a tiny incident from the near-century buildup of the American police state, from the Red Scare of the 1920s to the McCarthyism of the 1950s to the crackdown against Central American protesters in the 1980s … elevated by the War on Drugs … now multiplied by the War on Terror. It’s not the worst police state in history; not even the worst police state in the world today; but nonetheless a police state, and certainly the most pervasive police state ever — a Washington Post study has just revealed that there are 4,058 separate federal, state and local “counterterrorism” organizations spread across the United States, each with its own responsibilities and jurisdictions. ⁵ The police of America, of many types, generally get what and who they want. If the United States gets its hands on Julian Assange, under any legal pretext, fear for him; it might be the end of his life as a free person; the actual facts of what he’s done or the actual wording of US laws will not matter; hell hath no fury like an empire scorned.

John Burns, chief foreign correspondent for The New York Times, after interviewing Assange, stated: “He is profoundly of the conviction that the United States is a force for evil in the world, that it’s destructive of democracy.” ⁶ Can anyone who believes that be entitled to a full measure of human rights on Devil’s Island?

The Wikileaks documents may not produce any world-changing revelations, but every day they are adding to the steady, gradual erosion of people’s belief in the US government’s good intentions, which is necessary to overcome a lifetime of indoctrination. Many more individuals over the years would have been standing in front of the White House if they had had access to the plethora of information that floods people today; which is not to say that we would have succeeded in stopping any of the wars; that’s a question of to what extent the United States is a democracy.

One further consequence of the release of the documents may be to put an end to the widespread belief that Sweden, or the Swedish government, is peaceful, progressive, neutral and independent. Stockholm’s behavior in this matter and others has been as American-poodle-like as London’s, as it lined itself up with an Assange-accuser who has been associated with right-wing anti-Castro Cubans, who are of course US-government-supported. This is the same Sweden that for some time in recent years was working with the CIA on its torture-rendition flights and has about 500 soldiers in Afghanistan. Sweden is the world’s largest per capita arms exporter, and for years has taken part in US/NATO military exercises, some within its own territory. The left should get themselves a new hero-nation. Try Cuba.

There’s also the old stereotype held by Americans of Scandinavians practicing a sophisticated and tolerant attitude toward sex, an image that was initiated, or enhanced, by the celebrated 1967 Swedish film I Am Curious (Yellow), which had been banned for awhile in the United States. And now what do we have? Sweden sending Interpol on an international hunt for a man who apparently upset two women, perhaps for no more than sleeping with them both in the same week.

And while they’re at it, American progressives should also lose their quaint belief that the BBC is somehow a liberal broadcaster. Americans are such suckers for British accents. The BBC’s Today presenter, John Humphrys, asked Assange: “Are you a sexual predator?” Assange said the suggestion was “ridiculous”, adding: “Of course not”. Humphrys then asked Assange how many woman he had slept with. ⁷ Would even Fox News have descended to that level? I wish Assange had been raised in the streets of Brooklyn, as I was. He would then have known precisely how to reply to such a question: “You mean including your mother?”

Another group of people who should learn a lesson from all this are the knee-reflex conspiracists. Several of them have already written me snide letters informing me of my naiveté in not realizing that Israel is actually behind the release of the Wikileaks documents; which is why, they inform me, that nothing about Israel is mentioned. I had to inform them that I had already seen a few documents putting Israel in a bad light. I’ve since seen others, and Assange, in an interview with Al Jazeera on December 23, stated that only a meager number of files related to Israel had been published so far because the publications in the West that were given exclusive rights to publish the secret documents were reluctant to publish much sensitive information about Israel. (Imagine the flak Germany’s Der Spiegel would get hit with.) “There are 3,700 files related to Israel and the source of 2,700 files is Israel,” said Assange. “In the next six months we intend to publish more files.” ⁸

Naturally, several other individuals have informed me that it’s the CIA that is actually behind the document release.

The right to secrecy

Many of us are pretty tired of supporters of Israel labeling as “anti-Semitic” most any criticism of Israeli policies, which is virtually never an appropriate accusation. Consider the Webster Dictionary definition: “Anti-Semite. One who discriminates against or is hostile to or prejudiced against Jews.” Notice that the state of Israel is not mentioned, or in any way implied.

Here’s what real anti-Semitism looks like. Listen to former president Richard Nixon: “The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality. … most of our Jewish friends … they are all basically people who have a sense of inferiority and have got to compensate.” This is from a tape of a conversation at the White House, February 13, 1973, recently released. ⁹ These tapes, and there are a large number of them, are the Wikileaks of an earlier age.

Yet, as the prominent conservative Michael Medved pointed out after the release of Nixon’s remarks: “Ironically, though, no American did more to rescue the Jewish people when it counted most: after the 1973 Egyptian-Syrian surprise attack destroyed a third of Israel’s air force and killed the American equivalent of 200,000 Israelis, Nixon overruled his own Pentagon and ordered immediate re-supply. To this day, Israelis feel gratitude for this decisiveness that enabled the Jewish state to turn the tide of war.” ¹⁰ So, was Richard Nixon anti-Semitic? And should his remarks be kept secret?

In another of his recent interviews, Julian Assange was asked whether he thought that “a state has a right to have any secrets at all.” He conceded that there are circumstances when institutions have such a need, “but that is not to say that all others must obey that need. The media has an obligation to the public to get out information that the public needs to know.” ¹¹

I would add that the American people — more than any other people — have a need to know what their government is up to around the world because their government engages in aggressive actions more than any other government, continuously bombing and sending young men and women to kill and die. Americans need to know what their psychopathic leaders are really saying to each other and to foreign leaders about all this shedding of blood. Any piece of such information might be used as a weapon to prevent yet another Washington War. Michael Moore has recently written:
We were taken to war in Iraq on a lie. Hundreds of thousands are now dead. Just imagine if the men who planned this war crime back in 2002 had had a Wikileaks to deal with. They might not have been able to pull it off. The only reason they thought they could get away with it was because they had a guaranteed cloak of secrecy. That guarantee has now been ripped from them, and I hope they are never able to operate in secret again.
And, dear comrades, let us not forget: Our glorious leaders spy on us all the time; no communication of ours, from phone call to email, is secret from them; nothing in our bank accounts or our bedrooms is guaranteed any kind of privacy if they wish to know about it. Recently, the FBI raided the midwest homes of a number of persons active in solidarity work with Palestinians, Colombians, and others. The agents spent many hours going through each shelf and drawer, carting away dozens of boxes of personal belongings. So what kind of privacy and secrecy should the State Department be entitled to?

Preparing for the propaganda onslaught

February 6 will mark the centenary of the birth of Ronald Reagan, president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. The conservatives have wasted no time in starting the show. On New Years Day a 55-foot long, 26-foot high float honoring Reagan was part of the annual Rose Parade in Pasadena, California. To help you cope with, hopefully even counter, the misinformation and the omissions that are going to swamp the media for the next few months, here is some basic information about the great man’s splendid achievements, first in foreign policy:

NicaraguaFor eight terribly long years the people of Nicaragua were under attack by Ronald Reagan’s proxy army, the Contras. It was all-out war from Washington, aiming to destroy the progressive social and economic programs of the Sandinista government — burning down schools and medical clinics, mining harbors, bombing and strafing, raping and torturing. These Contras were the charming gentlemen Reagan called “freedom fighters” and the “moral equivalent of our founding fathers”.
El SalvadorSalvador’s dissidents tried to work within the system. But with US support, the government made that impossible, using repeated electoral fraud and murdering hundreds of protestors and strikers. When the dissidents took to the gun and civil war, the Carter administration and then even more so, the Reagan administration, responded with unlimited money, military aid, and training in support of the government and its death squads and torture, the latter with the help of CIA torture manuals. US military and CIA personnel played an active role on a continuous basis. The result was 75,000 civilian deaths; meaningful social change thwarted; a handful of the wealthy still owned the country; the poor remained as ever; dissidents still had to fear right-wing death squads; there was to be no profound social change in El Salvador while Ronnie sat in the White House with Nancy.
GuatemalaIn 1954, a CIA-organized coup overthrew the democratically-elected and progressive government of Jacobo Arbenz, initiating 40 years of military-government death squads, torture, disappearances, mass executions, and unimaginable cruelty, totaling more than 200,000 victims — indisputably one of the most inhumane chapters of the 20th century. For eight of those years the Reagan administration played a major role.
Perhaps the worst of the military dictators was General Efraín Ríos Montt, who carried out a near-holocaust against the indians and peasants, for which he was widely condemned in the world. In December 1982, Reagan went to visit the Guatemalan dictator. At a press conference of the two men, Ríos Montt was asked about the Guatemalan policy of scorched earth. He replied “We do not have a policy of scorched earth. We have a policy of scorched communists.” After the meeting, referring to the allegations of extensive human-rights abuses, Reagan declared that Ríos Montt was getting “a bad deal” from the media.
GrenadaReagan invaded this tiny country in October 1983, an invasion totally illegal and immoral, and surrounded by lies (such as “endangered” American medical students). The invasion put into power individuals more beholden to US foreign policy objectives.
AfghanistanAfter the Carter administration provoked a Soviet invasion, Reagan came to power to support the Islamic fundamentalists in their war to eject the Soviets and the secular government, which honored women’s rights. In the end, the United States and the fundamentalists “won”, women’s rights and the rest of Afghanistan lost. More than a million dead, three million disabled, five million refugees; in total about half the population. And many thousands of anti-American Islamic fundamentalists, trained and armed by the US, on the loose to terrorize the world, to this day.
“To watch the courageous Afghan freedom fighters battle modern arsenals with simple hand-held weapons is an inspiration to those who love freedom,” declared Reagan. “Their courage teaches us a great lesson — that there are things in this world worth defending. To the Afghan people, I say on behalf of all Americans that we admire your heroism, your devotion to freedom, and your relentless struggle against your oppressors.” ¹²
The Cold WarAs to Reagan’s alleged role in ending the Cold War … pure fiction. He prolonged it. Read the story in one of my books. ¹³

Some other examples of the remarkable amorality of Ronald Wilson Reagan and the feel-good heartlessness of his administration:

Reagan, in his famous 1964 speech, “A Time for Choosing”, which lifted him to national political status: “We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet.”
“Undermining health, safety and environmental regulation. Reagan decreed such rules must be subjected to regulatory impact analysis — corporate-biased cost-benefit analyses, carried out by the Office of Management and Budget. The result: countless positive regulations discarded or revised based on pseudo-scientific conclusions that the cost to corporations would be greater than the public benefit.”

“Kick-starting the era of structural adjustment. It was under Reagan administration influence that the International Monetary Fund and World Bank began widely imposing the policy package known as structural adjustment — featuring deregulation, privatization, emphasis on exports, cuts in social spending — that has plunged country after country in the developing world into economic destitution. The IMF chief at the time was honest about what was to come, saying in 1981 that, for low-income countries, ‘adjustment is particularly costly in human terms’.”

“Silence on the AIDS epidemic. Reagan didn’t mention AIDS publicly until 1987, by which point AIDS had killed 19,000 in the United States.”

– Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman ¹⁴
“Reagan’s election changed the political reality. His agenda was rolling back the welfare state, and his budgets included a wide range of cuts for social programs. He was also very strategic about the process. One of his first targets was Legal Aid. This program, which provides legal services for low-income people, was staffed largely by progressive lawyers, many of whom used it as a base to win precedent-setting legal disputes against the government. Reagan drastically cut back the program’s funding. He also explicitly prohibited the agency from taking on class-action suits against the government — law suits that had been used with considerable success to expand the rights of low- and moderate-income families.”

“The Reagan administration also made weakening the power of unions a top priority. The people he appointed to the National Labor Relations Board were qualitatively more pro-management than appointees by prior Democratic or Republican presidents. This allowed companies to ignore workers’ rights with impunity. Reagan also made the firing of strikers an acceptable business practice when he fired striking air traffic controllers in 1981. Many large corporations quickly embraced the practice. … The net effect of these policies was that union membership plummeted, going from nearly 20 percent of the private sector workforce in 1980 to just over 7 percent in 2006. ”

– Dean Baker ¹⁵
Reaganomics: a tax policy based on a notion of incentives which says that “the rich aren’t working because they have too little money, while the poor aren’t working because they have too much.”

– John Kenneth Galbraith
“According to the nostrums of Reagan Age America, the current Chinese system — in equal measure capitalist and authoritarian — cannot actually exist. Capitalism spread democracy, we were told ad nauseam by a steady stream of conservative hacks, free-trade apologists, government officials and American companies doing business in China. Given enough Starbuckses and McDonald’s, provided with sufficient consumer choice, China would surely become a democracy.”

– Harold Meyerson ¹⁶
Throughout the early and mid-1980s, the Reagan administration declared that the Russians were spraying toxic chemicals over Laos, Cambodia and Afghanistan — the so-called “yellow rain” — and had caused more than ten thousand deaths by 1982 alone, (including, in Afghanistan, 3,042 deaths attributed to 47 separate incidents between the summer of 1979 and the summer of 1981, so precise was the information). President Reagan himself denounced the Soviet Union thusly more than 15 times in documents and speeches. The “yellow rain”, it turned out, was pollen-laden feces dropped by huge swarms of honeybees flying far overhead. ¹⁷

Reagan’s long-drawn-out statements re: Contragate (the scandal involving the covert sale of weapons to Iran to enable Reaganites to continue financing the Contras in the war against the Nicaraguan government after the US Congress cut off funding for the Contras) can be summarized as follows:

I didn’t know what was happening.
If I did know, I didn’t know enough.
If I knew enough, I didn’t know it in time.
If I knew it in time, it wasn’t illegal.
If it was illegal, the law didn’t apply to me.
If the law applied to me, I didn’t know what was happening.

Notes

Sunday Telegraph (Australia), December 19, 2010 ^?
Salon.com, December 15, 2010, “The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning’s detention“. See also his attorney’s account of Manning’s typical day; and Washington Post, December 16, 2010^?
The Guardian (London), December 17, 2010 ^?
New York Times, December 19, 2010 ^?
Washington Post, December 20, 2010 ^?
Diane Rehm show, National Public Radio, Dec. 9, 2010^?
The Guardian (London), December 21, 2010 ^?
Information Clearing House, December 23 2010, “WikiLeaks to Release Israel Documents in Six Months“^?
Washington Post, December 12, 2010 ^?
From Medved’s radio show, December 14, 2010; “Nixon: The Anti-Semitic Savior of Israel” ^?
Al Jazeera, December 22 2010, Frost Over the World: Julian Assange interview ^?
March 21, 1983, in the White House ^?
“Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II”, p.17-18. Also for the five countries listed above, see the respective chapters in this book. ^?
June, 2004; Mokhiber is editor of Corporate Crime Reporter; Weissman, editor of the Multinational Monitor, both in Washington, D.C. ^?
April, 2007; Baker is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington, DC ^?
Washington Post columnist, June 3, 2009 ^?
“Killing Hope”, p.349 ^?

–

William Blum is the author of:

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org

READ FULL STORY HERE

Timetable Abandoned: U.S. And NATO To Wage Endless War In Afghanistan

noliesradio — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 07:32:18 +0000

by Rick Rozoff*

No one who has an ear to the ground will be surprised to learn that President Obama’s announced 2011 Afghan drawdown was nothing but a political mirage. The Pentagon and NATO are in Afghanistan for the long haul. Through a network of partnerships across the globe and military installations including nuclear weapons, they have forced themselves into the heart of Eurasia, controlling resources and reaping benefits the strategic value of which calls into question any prospect for de-escalation.

13 November 2010 voltairenet.org

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CentCom: Control of the “Great Middle East”

The mainstream news media and alternative sources alike have seized on a recent revelation – though it is hardly such – published by McClatchy Newspapers that “The Obama administration has decided to begin publicly walking away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the war in Afghanistan in an effort to remove emphasis from Barack Obama’s pledge that he would begin withdrawing US forces in July 2011.” [1]

An article in this series of over a month earlier, “U.S. And NATO To Wage War 15-Year War In Afghanistan And Pakistan” [2], documented that much and more, and any attentive reader of news on the Internet during the preceding weeks would not have been surprised by the McClatchy feature.

On October 25 Edmund Whiteside, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Council Secretary, spoke at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and according to the local press said, “Expect the war in Afghanistan — the longest military engagement in both Canadian and American history — to continue for a ‘very long’ time.” In his exact words, “Afghanistan will be a very long military venture.”

His position will be confirmed at the NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal next week, as will a major commitment demanded by the U.S.-dominated military bloc’s new Strategic Concept to be adopted at the meeting: The retention of nuclear arms in NATO’s arsenal and the continued stationing of American nuclear bombs in Europe. Whiteside also argued: “Canada says that it doesn’t need ballistic missiles. But Canada is part of a nuclear policy alliance. There’s no getting around that….” [3]

On November 8, the day before the McClatchy article appeared, the spokesman for the 152,000-troop, 50-nation, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, German Brigadier-General Josef Blotz, stated that “no timetable has been set for withdrawal of coalition troops from Afghanistan.”

Blotz confirmed that “There has been no timetable yet.”

In regard to transferring security control to Afghan forces, he said, “We will not [proceed] according to a fixed timetable, it will be carried out based on conditions to be achieved over the next couple of years.” [4]

On November 11, Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada spoke on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Seoul, South Korea and said that “he’s decided … to keep troops in Afghanistan in a noncombat training role after Canada’s combat mission ends in 2011.”


Prime Minister Harper addresses Canadian troops in Afghanistan, October 2009.

Associated Press cited a senior Canadian government official verifying that his nation “will keep 750 military trainers and 250 support staff in Afghanistan until 2014….” [5]

A similarly bleak perspective on any withdrawal – or beginning of one – next year was offered on the preceding day by the commander of British forces in southern Afghanistan, Major General Nick Carter, who “gave a devastating assessment of the war effort in Afghanistan.”

Carter admitted that “In my tour I lost 302 soldiers. Most of them American. The cost in blood and treasure has been enormous.” He added that NATO wouldn’t know if it was winning – whatever that word signifies in a war already in its tenth year and escalating to new heights by the day – until June of 2011, “when the fighting season begins again” and the Atlantic Alliance and the Pentagon can “compare Taliban attacks with this year.” [6]

The U.S. and NATO – the distinction is merely formal as recent estimates are that 140,000 of the 150,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan now serve under NATO command – have lost 633 troops in the war as of November 11. That compares to 521 for all of last year and 295 in 2008. 1,184 of the total 2,203 Western military deaths in the country have occurred in the past 22 months.

Citing U.S. Air Force statistics, an ABC News report of November 10, “Number of Afghan Air Strikes Highest Ever,” disclosed that the amount of air strikes conducted in Afghanistan in October – approximately 1,000 – was the highest monthly total in the war that began in 2001, up from 700 the previous month, which itself marked a 172 per cent increase over September of 2009.

The article also detailed that the amount of American and NATO combat sorties so far this year, 26,948, exceeds the previous high of 26,474 from last year. [7]

Across the border in Pakistan, the U.S. has launched at least 20 drone missile attacks that have killed 130 or more people since the beginning of last month.

A violation of Pakistani airspace by a NATO helicopter gunship in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas occurred on November 2 for at least the fifth time since September, with one killing three Pakistani soldiers on the last day of the latter month.

Earlier this month opposition parliamentarians in Pakistan “expressed serious concern over the violation of Pakistani airspace by North Atlantic Territory Organisation (NATO) forces” and “staged a walkout from [a] Senate session in protest and strongly condemned the airspace violations by NATO forces.” [8]

According to a feature in India’s Frontline magazine, “President Obama has substantially increased defence spending and has expanded the war in Afghanistan,” and “the Obama administration has wholeheartedly endorsed the Bush administration’s policy of eliminating terror suspects using pilotless high-tech drone aircraft.


Drone damage in Afghanistan.

“Instead of using the laborious technique of capturing alleged terrorists from their hideouts in crowded cities and remote villages, the drones just bomb the house or village where the suspects are holed up. In the process, there has been huge collateral damage. Innocent civilians killed far outnumber those killed in the fight against the occupation.

“Ever since he took office two years ago, Obama has made the deadly drones a key instrument in his fight against the militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The drones are also being used liberally to target militants in Yemen and Somalia.” [9]

The Afghan war in its tenth year has expanded into a far broader conflict, one which grows in both scope and lethality with each passing week and will escalate yet further before it begins to wind down, if it ever does.

President Obama’s pledge last year to “draw down” U.S. and NATO combat forces from South and Central Asia – they are also stationed in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – next year is now revealed to be the transparent political manipulation it was from the start.

A piece by Stephen M. Walt was published on the website of National Public Radio on November 11, entitled “Foreign Policy: Bait And Switch In Afghanistan.”

Walt is a professor of international affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, serves on the editorial boards of Foreign Policy, Security Studies, International Relations, and the Journal of Cold War Studies, and is the co-author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy with John Mearsheimer.

He wondered at the chorus of surprise, genuine or feigned, that has greeted the McClatchy article, stating:

“I don’t know anyone who thought the U.S. could turn things around in 18 months, and that particular deadline was little more than a piece of political sleight-of-hand designed to make escalation look like a temporary step. Reasonable people can disagree about whether Obama’s decision to escalate in Afghanistan was the right one (I think it wasn’t), but Obama’s straddle on this issue is one reason why some of his most enthusiastic supporters have become disenchanted.”

Listing historical precedents, and at least hinting at the public’s inveterate gullibility, Walt added, “there’s a long tradition of presidents telling the American people that some new military mission won’t take long and won’t cost that much. Nixon told us he has a ‘secret plan’ to end the Vietnam War (he didn’t) and Bill Clinton said U.S. troops would only be in Bosnia for 12 months (it was more like nine years). President George W. Bush and his advisors said that the occupation of Iraq would be brief and pay for itself yet we are still there today. And now Obama has done essentially same thing: selling an increase committed by suggesting that it is only temporary, and then backing away from his own self-imposed deadline.” Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy: Bait And Switch In Afghanistan National Public Radio, November 11, 2010

Further vows to deescalate the conflict, not only the longest war in American history as was noted above but also in Afghanistan’s, will predictably follow the U.S. political cycle, especially the 2012 presidential election and Obama’s presumed reelection bid, but will prove as false as last year’s.

The Pentagon and what on November 19 and 20 will be officially unveiled as global NATO have reaped substantial benefits from the war in Afghanistan that both are reluctant to relinquish. They have insinuated their militaries into the center of Eurasia for the long haul. And they have built an international network of installations and military partnerships to service the war, from the world’s first multinational strategic airlift operation in Hungary to a transit base in Kyrgyzstan through which at least 50,000 troops pass each month in and out of Afghanistan and the subordination of the armed forces of scores of nations in Europe and Asia.

In recent days, for example, the Afghan war has provided the U.S. and NATO with unprecedented opportunities to expand their worldwide military reach:

President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, which has the largest oil and natural gas reserves in the Caspian Sea Basin and borders Russia and China, visited NATO Headquarters in Brussels to meet with Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Rasmussen “thanked President Nazarbayev for his country’s support for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan,” [10] and Nazarbayev announced that “Several Kazakhstani troops will serve at the headquarters of the international coalition in Afghanistan.” [11]

Admiral Giampaolo di Paola, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, visited Georgia to meet with the country’s defense and foreign ministers and the chief of the Joint Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces and to inspect the NATO-supported Krtsanisi National Training Center, the newly established NATO Liaison Office in the nation’s capital, and the “33rd Battalion of the III Infantry Brigade going to replace [the] contingent of the 32nd Battalion currently deployed in Afghanistan.” [12] Georgia fought a five-day war with Russia in August of 2008 and NATO is training its armed forces for more than just the war in Afghanistan.

U.S. Special Operations Command recently concluded training exercises for troops from the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Poland in Germany. The Pentagon described their purpose as follows:

“Coordination and synchronization between conventional and special operations forces (SOF) is crucial on the modern battlefield since both share integral roles within an area of responsibility – whether it involves intelligence gathering or conducting combat operations….[T]he training event was part of an annual brigade-level mission rehearsal exercise…to prepare conventional force units assigned to the U.S. European Command area of operations for deployment to Afghanistan.” [13]

Lithuania and Poland have borders with Russia and both host NATO forces, at an air base in the first and a training center in the second nation. Earlier this month the Czech parliament approved the deployment of additional troops, including special forces, to Afghanistan next year, raising the nation’s NATO contingent to 720 soldiers.

Also this month, Polish troops trained at an Illinois Army National Guard base an hour’s drive from Chicago, and a Polish officer involved in the training stated: “We train together because we fight together. If we train together we fight and work better in Afghanistan. It is good idea to train together before we deploy. We are good soldiers and our brigade was deployed in Iraq two times and in Afghanistan so we work at a high level. We are ready.” [14]

The connection between nations supplying troops for the war in Afghanistan and the U.S. committing to intervene on their behalf in conflicts with neighboring states was recently affirmed by Philip H. Gordon, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.

At a strategy meeting in Poland late last month he said: “I think there is broad support among allies for the balance between NATO’s traditional missions of Article 5, which is collective defence, and also the need for the Alliance to deal with new security challenges around the world, and we are very comfortable with that balance.” [15]

The Swedish parliament has extended the deployment of troops to Afghanistan, where Sweden is engaged in combat operations and has lost troops for the first time in two centuries, months after the government abolished the last vestige of conscription to meet NATO “professionalization” demands and announced a mandatory foreign deployment obligation for all troops.

Last week German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg visited Mongolia, which also borders China and Russia, and met “with soldiers of the first Mongolian mission contingent, which had been deployed to the German defense area in Afghanistan.” [16]


President Barack Obama arrived in Mumbai, India on November 6 and announced $10 billion in business deals with his host country which he claimed will contribute to creating 50,000 new American jobs. By some accounts half the transactions will be for India’s purchase of U.S. military equipment and half the new jobs will be created in the defense sector.

Against the backdrop of President Obama’s visit to Mumbai and New Delhi, reports have surfaced that India could be enlisted to provide troops for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Indian defense analyst Bharat Singh recently asserted that “The almost 9,000 Indian troops deployed on UN peacekeeping missions could easily be re-deployed in Afghanistan.” [17]

In Bulgaria, where the Pentagon has acquired four new military bases – including two air bases – since 2006, Defense Minister Anyu Angelov recently stated that 7 percent of his nation’s defense – if it can be called that – budget is allotted for the war in Afghanistan, where troop strength will rise from 536 to over 600. He also said that Bulgaria “will be setting no deadline for withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan.” [18]

Nevertheless, James Warlick, U.S. ambassador to the country, spoke at a conference entitled “Europe for Afghanistan: from Understanding to Support” held at the Military Club in the Bulgarian capital, saying “Bulgaria could up its efforts in Afghanistan and do more.” [19]

The consolidation of a far-reaching military nexus for and dependent on the Afghan war is not limited to Europe’s east. Last month “A small corner of Cornwall [became] Afghanistan.” At the Royal Air Force St Mawgan facility 1,000 troops from NATO’s Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) participated in “a major NATO training exercise, the first of its kind in the UK” [20] in preparation for deployment to Afghanistan in January.

“The ARRC servicemen were in the county preparing for their final training before being deployed for operational service in Afghanistan next year.

“Exercise ARRCade Spear II aims to offer recruits training ahead of their work as part of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force.” [21]

Shortly afterward, “328 soldiers, including 45 teams from the full-time British Army, UK Territorial Army teams and entrants from foreign armies” took part in Exercise Cambrian Patrol in Wales, “as one of the most prestigious patrolling tests within NATO.” [22]

From Cornwall to Mongolia, Kazakhstan to Illinois, Sweden to Wales, Poland to Georgia, Lithuania to India and beyond, NATO and the Pentagon are strengthening military partnerships and networks around the Afghan war. Neither Washington nor Brussels is in a hurry to abandon a conflict that has allowed both to globalize their military roles.

Supreme Court to review “war on terror” claim against Ashcroft

noliesradio — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 06:02:15 +0000

By John Burton wsws.org
20 October 2010

On Monday, the United States Supreme Court accepted review in its first “war on terror” case of the 2010 term, a suit brought against former Attorney General John Ashcroft by an American-born convert to Islam who was jailed as a “material witness” in 2003. Plaintiff Abdullah al-Kidd was held in inhumane conditions for more than 2 weeks and then confined under virtual house arrest for the next 15 months.

Obama administration lawyers filed a petition for certiorari on Ashcroft’s behalf to set aside a ruling by two judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which cleared the way for a trial seeking money damages from the Bush administration official for these civil-rights violations. The White House is working to protect Ashcroft and defend the anti-democratic policies established under President George W. Bush.

Al-Kidd, born Lavoni T. Kidd in Kansas, converted to Islam while attending the University of Idaho, where he was a highly regarded football player. On March 16, 2003, federal agents arrested him at Dulles International Airport as he was leaving for Saudi Arabia to attend a well-known university on a scholarship.

Federal agents interrogated al-Kidd and confined him in high security cells lit 24 hours a day—first in Virginia, then Oklahoma, and finally Idaho. He was frequently handcuffed, shackled and strip-searched. After 16 days, he was released on the conditions that he live with his wife and in-laws in Nevada, limit his travel to three other states, surrender his travel documents, report to a probation officer, and consent to home searches.

During the ensuing months, al-Kidd lost his job as an employee of a government contractor, because he was denied a security clearance, and separated from his wife. He also lost the opportunity to study abroad on the scholarship.

The only purported basis for al-Kidd’s arrest and detention was a warrant deeming him a “material witness” in a case brought against a University of Idaho doctoral student, Sami Omar al-Hussayen, who had been indicted for violating a provision of the recently enacted Patriot Act. Al-Hussayen had been setting up web sites on behalf of the Islamic Association of North America (IANA), which publishes and distributes Islamic religious books in various languages.

The IANA had not been designated a terrorist organization. According to the indictment, however, its web sites sometimes posted links to other sites that sought to recruit and raise funds for Chechen and Palestinian groups.

The al-Kidd warrant was issued on an FBI agent’s affidavit describing his contacts with al-Hussayen and the IANA. It also stated that al-Kidd was “scheduled to take a one-way, first-class flight (costing approximately $5,000) to Saudi Arabia.” In fact, al-Kidd had a round-trip, coach-class ticket, costing $1,700. The affidavit omitted the facts that al-Kidd was a US resident and citizen, that his parents, wife, and two children were likewise residents and citizens, and that he had cooperated with the FBI on several occasions over the past year.

The Patriot Act case against al-Hussayen went to trial in the United District Court for Idaho 15 months after al-Kidd’s arrest. On June 10, 2004, the jury returned not guilty verdicts on all the terrorism-related charges, after hearing six weeks of testimony and deliberating for another week (See: US jury acquits Idaho webmaster of terrorism charges).

Because he was also accused of violating immigration laws by working while in the country on a student visa, al-Hussayen accepted deportation to his native Saudi Arabia following his acquittal on the terrorism charges.

Although held under virtual house arrest for 15 months, al-Kidd was never asked to testify in the al-Hussayen case. In fact, he was not called by the government as a witness in any proceeding, and was never alleged to have been involved in any illegal conduct. He described himself in a 2004 interview as “anti-bin Laden, anti-Taliban, anti-suicide bombing, anti-terrorism,” according to the New York Times.

Al-Kidd filed his civil rights lawsuit in Idaho federal district court against Ashcroft and a number of other federal officials, alleging that the Bush administration misused the material witness statute as a pretext for his illegal preventative detention. He charged that the conditions of his confinement were not appropriate for someone not accused of a crime, and that the warrant for his detention was procured by fraud.

Al-Kidd used the Attorney General’s own statement to the media “announcing several steps that we are taking to enhance our ability to protect the United States from the threat of terrorist aliens” as a basis for his claim against Ashcroft. Making clear his intention to use pretexts, Ashcroft proclaimed his “strategy to prevent terrorist attacks by taking suspected terrorists off the street” through “aggressive detention of lawbreakers and material witnesses,” “vital to preventing, disrupting or delaying new attacks.”

Al-Kidd also cited testimony by former FBI director Robert Mueller that identified his arrest “en route to Saudi Arabia” as one of five “major successes” in the

FBI’s efforts toward “identifying and dismantling terrorist networks.”

After the district judge denied Ashcroft immunity for authorizing the misuse of the material witness statute, the Attorney General appealed to the Ninth Circuit. Over the opposition of Obama administration attorneys, the panel affirmed that ruling by a vote of 2-1. The decision drew on democratic principles from the foundation of Anglo-American jurisprudence.

“Almost two and a half centuries ago, William Blackstone, considered by many to be the preeminent pre-Revolutionary War authority on the common law, wrote:

To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole kingdom. But confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to gaol, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten; is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.

“The Fourth Amendment was written and ratified, in part, to deny the government of our then-new nation such an engine of potential tyranny. And yet, if the facts alleged in al-Kidd’s complaint are actually true, the government has recently exercised such a ‘dangerous engine of arbitrary government’ against a significant number of its citizens, and given good reason for disfavored minorities (whoever they may be from time to time) to fear the application of such arbitrary power to them.

“We are confident that, in light of the experience of the American colonists with the abuses of the British Crown, the Framers of our Constitution would have disapproved of the arrest, detention, and harsh confinement of a United States citizen as a ‘material witness’ under the circumstances, and for the immediate purpose alleged, in al-Kidd’s complaint. Sadly, however, even now, more than 217 years after the ratification of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, some confidently assert that the government has the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end, in sometimes primitive conditions, not because there is evidence that they have committed a crime, but merely because the government wishes to investigate them for possible wrongdoing, or to prevent them from having contact with others in the outside world. We find this to be repugnant to the Constitution, and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.”

The Obama administration asked the Supreme Court to accept the case in order to block suits against Ashcroft and all other government figures implicated in the crimes of the Bush administration. In doing so, the White House asserts the very right that the Ninth Circuit court ruled unconstitutional—“that the government has the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end…to prevent them from having contact with others.” It does so because it fully intends to exercise these powers in its own persecution of the population.

READ FULL STORY HERE

The Imperial Anatomy of Al-Qaeda. The CIA’s Drug-Running Terrorists and the “Arc of Crisis” Part I

noliesradio — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 03:30:04 +0000

READ FULL STORY HERE

GORDON DUFF: IS ISRAEL RUNNING THE TALIBAN?

noliesradio — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 04:54:38 +0000

veteranstoday.com September 3, 2010 posted by Gordon Duff · 12 Comments

ANOTHER OF THE ENDLESS INEXPLICABLE TERRORIST ATTACKS IN PAKISTAN

TODAY’S SUICIDE BOMBING IN QUETTA, PAKISTAN LEAVES A TRAIL TO TEL AVIV

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

Quetta, Baluchistan, September 3, 2003 (Veterans Today) Today, 43 Pakistanis were killed in a terror attack, killed for supporting Palestinians in Gaza. The signs had been there, the Wikileaks attempt to put responsibility for the Taliban on Veterans Today editor General Hamid Gul. This was debunked in a heartbeat. This attack was vicious and clearly the work of Israel. This was a terror attack meant as a message to the people of the world telling them that if they rally in support of those imprisoned in Gaza, they will be murdered.

Is it a gift for the Jewish people of Israel, another revenge attack, seemingly in response to the shooting of 4 Israeli Jews in Hebron, an attack curiously timed to disrupt peace talks between Jewish and Muslim Palestinians in Washington?

This is far from the first time Israel has been caught. The PKK, the Kurdish terrorist group, communists, who have been attacking Turkey from their mountain “caves” in Iraq for over 40 years have long been trained, funded and even recruited by Israel’s Mossad. Now the partnership between India and Israel, helped along, not only by the CIA, the Kazrai brothers “corporation” and MI -6 is becoming difficult to ignore.

With continual terror attacks a daily part of life in Pakistan, several in Lahore this week, there is no ignoring the real culprits. Nearly every contracting firm the United States uses in, not only Afghanistan but Pakistan as well, is filled to the brim with Israeli operatives. Working with them is the massive CIA assisted drug cartel and its worldwide network of private airlines for shipping heroin and cash and a dozen nations that take part.

SUSPECTED DRUG RUNWAY IN BALOCHISTAN, SOUTH OF KANDAHAR

All of this is only window dressing for the real show. In 2003, Israel got America to destroy Iraq, well, and itself also. Iraq was suicide for America. It wasn’t until 2007 that America had discovered its own corpse.

The war in Afghanistan is destroying, not only that country but Pakistan as well. Israel will not allow an Islamic nuclear power to threaten their control over Asia. The real target has always been control of the Suez Canal and the real prize, India. What appears to America to be an economic powerhouse is a deeply divided and trouble nation beset by enemies and ready to be turned into a surrogate military power and then stripped to the bones.

This is what happened to the United States.

Pakistan is important. For years, the “CIA” and other intelligence organizations have been in Baluchistan sneaking in and out of Iran blowing things up. How much of that is CIA and how much is Mossad, nobody knows for sure. This is another terrorist organization, called the “Jundallah.” Like the PKK in Turkey and the Tehrik-i-Taliban, the terrorist group making life in Pakistan a living hell, the Jundallah get all the money, weapons, training, transportation and maybe more, much more, they need to fight covert wars against the targets of Tel Aviv.

Baluchistan also has several small airports where heroin can be loaded and flown out. American contracting firms control those facilities and have for years. Narcotics are delivered there from Afghanistan and leave on aircraft meant to supply America’s “black ops” against, well, whoever it is that Israel is angry at.

For Americans, the real question, if Israel is funding terrorist organizations attacking, not only Iran but America’s NATO partner Turkey and longtime ally Pakistan, facts long in evidence everywhere but in the American press, are there also terrorist attacks against American forces and America itself being planned? Have any been carried out and if so, how many?

Does Israel gain when America marches to war against her perceived enemies? Is it a long declared policy to do anything necessary, not actually to enhance Israel’s survival, never really in question at all, not really ever actually, but their dominance?

What was obvious today is that the terror attack in Pakistan had nothing to do with Taliban of any kind. It had only one goal, to punish the people of Pakistan, ethnic Pushtu’s, not the ruling Punjabi’s, for supporting the Palestinian cause and supporting a two-state solution during the current peace initiative sponsored by President Obama. We know Israel goes after anyone who stands up for Palestine but killing dozens of civilians at a rally in Quetta, Baluchistan is an escalation, even for Israel.

No, this isn’t an escalation in violence, it isn’t even close to the biggest body count Israel has run up.

Perhaps the worst part of it is that nobody will say a word about this. Pakistan is broke, even by American standards. They survive off American foreign aid, money they continue to receive as long as they never say a word about Israel of publicly attribute the wave of terrorism they have been subjected to where the real blame belongs. I have seen the head of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the current Director General of the ISI, hint at Osama bin Laden being dead. I have interviewed him about it personally.

I was sworn to keep the discussion private and confidential. I will keep my word.

Pakistan is being held hostage. Mrs. Clinton continually chastises them about failing to find long dead Osama bin Laden, the imaginary planner of 9/11. Former ISI Director General Hamid Gul, now retired and known for his outspoken honesty, places the blame for 9/11 exactly where it belongs, where he placed on the day it happened. With the Israeli lobby in control of Washington and Washington’s money in control of Pakistan, this won’t be the last terror attack.

The next time anyone anywhere tries to aid Palestinians or to get the truth about Israel’s apartheid policies and ethnic cleansing past the corporte controlled press, expect another suicide bombing. Look at the way the press handled Israeli murder and piracy with the Freedom Flotilla? Less than 5% of Americans know that Israel was caught back in 1967 knowingly attacking an American ship, the USS Liberty. It wasn’t the first Israeli terror attack on Americans and there have been dozens since. You will never read a word about them.

With another 9/11 anniversary coming up, Palestine peace talks going on and Israel doing everthing in its power to force America to attack Iran, security forces throughout the United States are on high alert for Islamic terrorists.

Everyone ‘in the know” understand that the warning is really for Israeli terrorists. Will the United States Air Force be there if needed, unlike during 9/11? Will terrorists all show up with fresh student visas courtesty of the State Department like during 9/11?

Are we past the time when America is willing to look the other way when a thousand strange coincidences bring about that “perfect storm,” exactly when and where needed, a “storm” to eclipse 9/11 in horror, enough to send a war weary people, long lied to, no longer trusting their government, down the road to war for Israel again?

Four dead Israelis in Hebron was a clue. The 43 dead in Quetta is another. The imaginary Amsterdam hijackers were meant to be one also. More will come with each day, more clues, more planted news stories, more staging, more preparing the minds to expect what so many of us know is coming.

Who do you think recruits terror cells? Who has been doing it forever? Who can travel freely, use passports of any nation and has endless money? You think there really is an Al Qaeda?

Why does everything Al Quade do only help Israel?

Is Al Qaeda another Mossad front?

READ FULL STORY HERE

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.

Civil Rights Groups Challenge Targeted Killing By U.S.

noliesradio — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:25:40 +0000

ACLU & CCR

August 31, 2010 uruknet.info

Press release from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) today filed a lawsuit challenging the government’s asserted authority to carry out “targeted killings” of U.S. citizens located far from any armed conflict zone.

The authority contemplated by the Obama administration is far broader than what the Constitution and international law allow, the groups charge.

Outside of armed conflict, both the Constitution and international law prohibit targeted killing except as a last resort to protect against concrete, specific, and imminent threats of death or serious physical injury. An extrajudicial killing policy under which names are added to CIA and military “kill lists” through a secret executive process and stay there for months at a time is plainly not limited to imminent threats.

“The United States cannot simply execute people, including its own citizens, anywhere in the world based on its own say-so,” said Vince Warren, Executive Director of CCR. “The law prohibits the government from killing without trial or conviction other than in the face of an imminent threat that leaves no time for deliberation or due process. That the government adds people to kill lists after a bureaucratic process and leaves them on the lists for months at a time flies in the face of the Constitution and international law.”

The groups charge that targeting individuals for execution who are suspected of terrorism but have not been convicted or even charged – without oversight, judicial process or disclosed standards for placement on kill lists – also poses the risk that the government will erroneously target the wrong people. In recent years, the U.S. government has detained many men as terrorists, only for courts or the government itself to discover later that the evidence was wrong or unreliable.

According to today’s legal complaint, the government has not disclosed the standards it uses for authorizing the premeditated and deliberate killing of U.S. citizens located far from any battlefield. The groups argue that the American people are entitled to know the standards being used for these life and death decisions.

“A program that authorizes killing U.S. citizens, without judicial oversight, due process or disclosed standards is unconstitutional, unlawful and un-American,” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. “We don’t sentence people to prison on the basis of secret criteria, and we certainly shouldn’t sentence them to death that way. It is not enough for the executive branch to say ‘trust us’ – we have seen that backfire in the past and we should learn from those mistakes.”

CCR and the ACLU were retained by Nasser Al-Aulaqi to bring a lawsuit in connection with the government’s decision to authorize the targeted killing of his son, U.S. citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi, whom the CIA and Defense Department have targeted for death. The complaint asks a court to rule that using lethal force far from any battlefield and without judicial process is illegal in all but the narrowest circumstances and to prohibit the government from carrying out targeted killings except in compliance with these standards. It also asks the court to order the government to disclose the standards it uses to place U.S. citizens on government kill lists.

Today’s lawsuit was filed against the CIA, Defense Department and the president in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Attorneys on the case are Jameel Jaffer, Ben Wizner and Jonathan Manes of the ACLU; Pardiss Kebriaei, Maria LaHood and Bill Quigley of CCR; and Arthur B. Spitzer of the ACLU of the Nation’s Capital. Co-counsel in Yemen is Mohammed Allawo of the Allawo Law Firm and the National Organization for Defending Human Rights (HOOD).

For more information on the case, including fact sheets and legal papers, visit: www.aclu.org/targetedkillings and www.ccrjustice.org/targetedkillings.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change. Visit www.ccrjustice.org.

The ACLU is our nation’s guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.

Visit www.aclu.org.

CONTACT:
Rachel Myers, ACLU, (212) 549-2689; media@aclu.org
Jen Nessel, CCR, (212) 614-6449; jnessel@ccrjustice.org
Shonna Carter, Riptide Communications, (212) 260-5000
ACLU press line, (212) 549-2666

READ FULL STORY HERE

Vietnam, Star Wars and 9/11 — Lt. Col. Bob Bowman_on Guns & Butter

noliesradio — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:22:37 +0000

This Show was broadcast by No Lies Radio on August 30, 2010.
It is now archived — Use Player

Coming up today and every Monday at 7:00 pm Pacific * 10:00 pm Eastern * 02:00 GMT
Will be archived here after the broadcast by Tuesday.

GUNS AND BUTTER with Bonnie Faulkner
Vietnam, Star Wars and 9/11 — Lt. Col. Bob Bowman
Dr. Bowman discusses his US Air Force experiences in Vietnam in 1969-70; as Director of Advanced Space Programs Development in the Ford and Carter administrations (Star Wars); the 1982 Defense Guidance Document; his public opposition to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) better know as Star Wars during the Ronald Reagan administration; his take on the events of September 11, 2001; and wars of aggression.

New Videos from Deep Politics Conference

noliesradio — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 00:40:14 +0000

READ FULL STORY HERE

Israeli dissident writer Israel Shamir_on The Kevin Barrett Show

noliesradio — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 04:20:54 +0000

This Show was broadcast by No Lies Radio on August 10, 2010.
It is now archived — Use Player

Coming up Tuesday at 9:00 am Pacific – 12:00 Noon Eastern – 16:00 GMT
Will be archived here after the broadcast by Tuesday evening.

“THE KEVIN BARRETT SHOW”
Israeli dissident writer Israel Shamir joins me Tuesday.

Email your questions or comments now.

Israel Shamir is an internationally acclaimed radical spiritual and political thinker, Internet columnist and writer. He is the author of three books, Galilee Flowers, Cabbala of Power and recently published Masters of Discourse available in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Norwegian, Swedish, Italian, Hungarian etc. His recent article Turkey is the Key offers a visionary proposal for an Eastern Union to balance the EU.

I first met Israel Shamir when he kindly endorsed the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth, then re-encountered him when he unkindly dissed me for dissing Chomsky — and got lots of responses from readers. (He apparently didn’t understand that I had published my email exchanges with Chomsky not because I dislike Chomsky’s position on 9/11, but because Chomsky was acting in extremely bad faith in our email dialogue and I saw no other way to call him on it.)

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the conversation with Israel Shamir, one of the most stimulating political writers of our time.

Check out Kevin’s new book: Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters.

Webster Tarpley: Obama Preparing to Bomb Iran _ on The Kevin Barrett Show

noliesradio — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 04:24:28 +0000

This Show was broadcast by No Lies Radio on August 3, 2010.
It is now archived — Use Player

Coming up Tuesday at 9:00 am Pacific – 12:00 Noon Eastern – 16:00 GMT
Will be archived here after the broadcast by Tuesday evening.

“THE KEVIN BARRETT SHOW”

Webster Tarpley, author of 9/11 Synthetic Terror
and Obama: The Unauthorized Biography joins me Tuesday.

Email your questions or comments now.

Webster Tarpley, author of 9/11 Synthetic Terror and Obama: The Unauthorized Biography, Surviving the Cataclysm, and much more will discuss his critically important new article Obama Is Preparing to Bomb Iran.

Tarpley isn’t the only one warning that the neocons (read Zionist dual-citizen fanatics) are back in the saddle and about to lead the US off a cliff.

Here are some other important recent articles on the same topic:

The Real Aim of Israel’s Bomb Iran Campaign
By Gareth Porter

July 30, 2010 “Information Clearing House” — Reuel Marc Gerecht’s screed justifying an Israeli bombing attack on Iran coincides with the opening of the new Israel lobby campaign marked by the introduction of House Resolution 1553 expressing full support for such an Israeli attack.

What is important to understand about this campaign is that the aim of Gerecht and of the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu is to support an attack by Israel so that the United States can be drawn into direct, full-scale war with Iran.

That has long been the Israeli strategy for Iran, because Israel cannot fight a war with Iran without full U.S. involvement. Israel needs to know that the United States will finish the war that Israel wants to start… (full article here)

Two Resolutions, One World War
By Ruqayyah Shamseddine

“Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.” – George Orwell

On July 22nd a House Resolution was proposed by 47 US Representatives – led by Rep. Louis Buller Gohmert, Republican Representative from Texas’s 1st congressional district; House Resolution 1553… (full article here)

Check out Kevin’s new book: Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters.

Money Laundering and the Global Drug Trade Fueled by Capitalist Elites

noliesradio — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 02:26:19 +0000

READ FULL STORY HERE

Breaking the Siege against Gaza: We must End the Apartheid and Establish an Independent Palestine State

noliesradio — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 05:11:35 +0000

READ FULL STORY HERE

en.wikipedia.org
Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad (pronounced [ma hadir bin mo hamat]; born 10 July 1925) was the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia. He held the post for 22 years from 1981 to 2003, making him Malaysia’s longest-serving Prime Minister, and one of the longest-serving leaders in Asia. Mahathir’s political career spanned almost 40 years, from his election as a Malaysian federal Member of Parliament in 1964, until his resignation as Prime Minister in 2003.

As Prime Minister, he was credited with engineering Malaysia’s rapid modernisation. During his term in office, he was considered by some as one of Asia’s most influential leaders. Mahathir was also widely known as an outspoken critic of Western-style globalization.

SEE FULL BIO HERE