http://www.countercurrents.org:80/nawi300609.htm
Israel's Man Of Conscience
By Ezra Nawi
30 June, 2009
The Nation
My name is Ezra Nawi. I am a Jewish citizen of Israel.
I will be sentenced on the first of July after being found guilty of assaulting two police officers in 2007 while struggling against the demolition of a Palestinian house in Um El Hir, located in the southern part of the West Bank.
Of course the policemen who accused me of assaulting them are lying. Indeed, lying has become common within the Israeli police force, military and among the Jewish settlers.
After close to 140,000 letters were sent to Israeli officials in support of my activities in the occupied West Bank, the Ministry of Justice responded that I "provoke local residents."
This response reflects the culture of deceit that has taken over all official discourse relating to the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
After all, was I the one who poisoned and destroyed Palestinian water wells?
Was I the one who beat young Palestinian children?
Did I hit the elderly?
Did I poison the Palestinian residents' sheep?
Did I demolish homes and destroy tractors?
Did I block roads and restrict movement?
Was I the one who prevented people from connecting their homes to running water and electricity?
Did I forbid Palestinians from building homes?
Over the past eight years, I have seen with my own two eyes hundreds of abuses such as these and exposed them to the public--therefore I am considered a provocateur. I can only say that I am proud to be a provoker.
Because I am a provoker, the police together with their allies have threatened me, beaten me and arrested me on numerous occasions. And when I continued to "provoke" them, they did not hesitate to out me as a gay man; indeed, they spread rumors among the Palestinians with whom I work that I have AIDS.
One of the reasons I have been singled out has to do with who I am. It is difficult to explain, but as a Mizrahi Jew (descended from Jewish communities in the Arab and Muslim world), a gay man and a plumber, I do not belong to the elite of Israeli society and do not fit the stereotype of the Israeli peacenik--namely, an intellectual Jew of Ashkenazi decent. Actually, the police officers who constantly arrest me and I are part of the same social strata. I was programmed like them, have a similar accent, know their jargon and our historical background is comparable. And yet, in their eyes I am on and for the other side, the Palestinian side.
This simple fact seems to disturb them so much that they have to vilify me; that is the only way their worldview will continue making sense. I threaten them precisely because I undermine the categories and stereotypes through which they understand the world.
But the policemen are only actors on this stage. The military, civil administration and the judicial system are all working with the police, and all of them together follow the commands of their masters, the Jewish settlers.
This unholy alliance is extremely dangerous, because for them the end--gaining full control of the Land of Israel--justifies the means. In order to advance this end they dehumanize the Palestinians; and because the Palestinians in their eyes are not human, everything is permitted. They can steal their land, demolish their homes, steal their water, imprison them for no reason and at times even kill them. In Hebrew we say damam mutar, taking their blood is permissible.
It is important to keep in mind, however, that the evil I confront every day in the West Bank could not have been carried out without the Israeli court system. Judge Eilata Ziskind not only mistakenly found me guilty but she instructed the court to invite a translator for the sentencing, as if I do not speak Hebrew; in her mind I, a Mizrahi Jew, am a Palestinian Arab--and Arabs are, almost by definition, guilty. My case is merely part of a pattern. All the crimes committed by the state and its proxies in the territories over the past four decades were made kosher by the Israeli courts. Therefore, the courts are just as much to blame for the ongoing cruelty.
Because I am a provoker the state subjects me to continuing harassment, and yet I have remained persistent. What strengthens me and gives me energy is the widespread and constant support I have always received from political allies. When I was beaten by settlers, when my car was stolen, when I was arrested, I never felt alone. I know that thousands of people, both in Israel and abroad, support what we in Ta'ayush (Jewish-Arab Partnership) are doing against the occupation.
"Ezra" in Hebrew means help, and I know that in times of trouble I can rely on my friends for help.
The author is going to prison--for peacefully resisting settler and army violence against West Bank Palestinians and the illegal expropriation of their land.
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
CIA Torture
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22941.htm
The Central Intelligence Agency crucified a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to a report published in The New Yorker magazine.
“A forensic examiner found that he (the prisoner) had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs,” the magazine’s Jane Mayer writes in the magazine’s June 22nd issue. “Military pathologists classified the case a homicide.” The date of the murder was not given.
The Central Intelligence Agency crucified a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to a report published in The New Yorker magazine.
“A forensic examiner found that he (the prisoner) had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs,” the magazine’s Jane Mayer writes in the magazine’s June 22nd issue. “Military pathologists classified the case a homicide.” The date of the murder was not given.
Otto Reich, Honduras, Army General Romeo Vasquez, Air Force General Luis Javier Prince Suazo, Policarpo Paz Garcia
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2009/06/coup-fears-honduras
Posted by Kristin Bricker - June 25, 2009 at 9:35 pm Civil society organizations and UN General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto have warned of a possible coup attempt by the Honduran military. D'Escoto's spokesperson said that the Assembly President “clearly and strongly condemns the attempted coup d’etat that is currently unfolding against the democratically elected Government of President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras.” Fears of a coup stem from a military deployment around the Presidential Palace and the Toncontín airport on Thursday.
The military and President Zelaya have been at odds over the President's initiative to hold a popular consultation on June 28 to decide if November's presidential elections should include a referendum where citizens would vote on whether or not Honduras should write a new constitution.
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http://soaw.org/presente/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=215&Itemid=74#Honduras
....... During our visit to Honduras the previous week, we were also blessed by the invaluable help of Bertha Oliva, director of the Committee of Family Members of the Disappeared of Honduras (COFADEH). Bertha is the consummate expression of passion for justice that knows no limits. Her unending fuel is her love for her companion Tomás, who disappeared from her arms and into the hands of the Honduran military some 26 years ago. She was left tied, gagged and pregnant. The same determination that led her to break free of her bonds and deliver her child clandestinely, has led her to open every door and turn over every rock in searching for the disappeared and bringing those responsible for their disappearance to justice. Spending the week with Bertha, we realized that this kind of commitment has its consequences. One is that you can only sit in corner tables at restaurants, in order to see who might be following you. Not only did Bertha set up every meeting for us, but she personally drove us to and fro. The only problem with this was that Bertha only drives forward. If we needed to back up, I had to take the wheel. It was a filling metaphor for a woman who knows no going backwards.
It was Bertha who led us straight to the President, the Defense Minister, the Chancellor, as well as to each of the presidential candidates for the upcoming November elections. Through these visits we found a fascinating political process to be unfolding in Honduras, far from the glare of the international spotlight such as that shining on El Salvador. Without much fanfare, President Manuel Zelaya, or “Mel” as he is known to the nation, has broken every mold and turned around every expectation that made him the hand-picked “safe” candidate of the U.S. embassy four years ago. Rejected by fellow Honduran members of the elite when he asked for their help in shaping a new country, he turned instead to progressive governments in South America and to social movements in his own country. There, he found willing allies, but ones that pushed him into unexpected places and led him to make surprising decisions.
One of these decisions was Zelaya´s bold expression of solidarity with Bolivia. When President Evo Morales ousted the U.S. ambassador from Bolivia because of his ties to separatist movements in his country, Zelaya showed his support by refusing to seat the newly assigned U.S. ambassador to Honduras. In a country that has been almost ruled from the top floor of the U.S. embassy for decades, this was shocking.
Another bold step is his call for a constitutional assembly with popular participation as the only solution to creating a viable democracy. We were invited to attend one of a series of fascinating day-long gatherings between the president, his cabinet, and all the major social movements in the country: campesinos, union leaders, indigenous communities, human rights and ecology activists, and so on. For 6 straight hours we took part in what was definitely one of the most fascinating political meeting I have experienced in my long years in Latin America. Serious issues were passionately debated between the president and the social movements, such as whether to keep open the U.S. Palmerola air base, how to achieve wide-spread land reform, and whether to continue to be a part of CAFTA. The issue of the SOA was raised by the groups assigned to look at security issues. The formal recommendation of the social movements to the president was that Honduras withdraw their troops, a point that received a loud round of applause.
Honduras was a country in which every one of our pre-conceptions was broken. On one of our last evenings we gathered with friends, among them a gentleman whose compassionate spirit was evident. We soon found out that he was none other than - an SOA graduate! The son of a working class family, he entered the Honduran officer corps half-heartedly when he was unable to enter the seminary, and was eventually sent to the SOA which was then located in Panama. He returned to Honduras, in the midst of years of brutal repression, where he was ordered time and again to capture and disappear “subversives”: students, union activists, campesino leaders, etc. He obeyed - but in his own way. He rounded up the person he was assigned to capture, then took them to the Nicaraguan border and said: “now, go and disappear”. Sometimes he first took him to his house to eat a home cooked meal before sending them off, or helped them to find a passport that they had stashed in a safe house. Eventually he was caught and exiled for years, then cut off from his military pension.
This same commitment to justice and compassion in spite of potentially difficult consequences was what propelled Monseñor Oscar Romero to speak out weekly in his radio masses from the cathedral of San Salvador, denouncing the brutal repression taking place. Under the orders of an SOA graduate, Romero was murdered while saying mass. The new president of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes, has said that he will dedicate his presidency to Romero and to his fervent commitment to the poor. Romero was aware that he might be killed, and said that if this happened, he would rise up in the Salvadoran people. In our conversations with Luis and Cristy and Alicia and Salvador, it seems like this might already be happening.
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http://soaw.org/presente/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=221&Itemid=74
Tuesday, 07 July 2009
Greetings from the quiet of the curfew here in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The curfew has just begun, and the normal rattle of traffic outside this one-star hotel in the heart of the city is silenced.........
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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/zela-j30.shtml
Zelaya has vowed to return to power, and the coup has been condemned by the US, the European Union, the OAS, the United Nations and the leaders of Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Colombia and other countries allied with the Zelaya regime, who met Sunday night in Managua.
Chavez has, justifiably, cast the coup as an overt threat to his regime. He has charged the US with complicity, alleging involvement by Otto Reich, a long-time anti-Castro operative and favorite of anti-Castro exiles in Miami. Reich played a key role as a Reagan administration State Department official in the Iran-Contra conspiracy, in which Reagan authorized secret funding for the anti-Sandinista Contras, in violation of the Boland amendment which had been passed by Congress banning US aid to the Contra death squads.
Reich was one of a number of Iran-Contra veterans who were appointed to government posts in the administration of George W. Bush, serving as assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs.
The US used southern Honduras as the base of operations for its proxy war in the 1980s against the left nationalist, Cuban-allied regime in neighboring Nicaragua......
.....Otto Reich was also implicated in the 2002 coup attempt. He met with Venezuelan opposition figures in the run-up to the attempted ouster of Chavez.
Reich is currently a board member of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, better known as the School of the Americas, located in Fort Benning, Georgia. Among the tens of thousands of Latin American military officers—and death squad leaders—who have been trained at the School of the Americas are two of the leaders of Sunday’s coup in Honduras, Army General Romeo Vasquez and Air Force General Luis Javier Prince Suazo.
Another graduate of the School of the Americas was Policarpo Paz Garcia, who ruled Honduras in 1980-82. Paz Garcia launched Battalion 3-16, one of the most feared death squads in Latin America........
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http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22955.htm
But the realities of governing in a country as poor as Honduras--more than 60 percent of its population live in poverty, more than 50 percent in extreme poverty--tends to reinforce a left-wing slant. Perhaps it was the imperious and imperial behavior of George W. Bush's ambassador to Honduras, described by Zelaya as "barbarous." Or maybe it was the fact that the Central American Free Trade Agreement, rather than delivering promised development, worsened his country's trade deficit with the United States while driving low wages even lower, as Honduras competed with its equally impoverished neighbors for investment. Or perhaps it was the US Food and Drug Administration's unilateral ban of Honduran cantaloupes because they were supposedly tainted with salmonella, though the FDA offered no proof of the charge, a move Zelaya called "unjust."
Whatever the reason, Zelaya shifted course, and over the past two years he has adopted a progressive agenda. As a solution to the disastrous "war on drugs," which has turned Central America into a well-traversed trans-shipment corridor for narcotraficantes--profitable for some, deadly for many--he has proposed the legalization of some narcotics. Earlier this year at the Summit of the Americas, he took the lead in pushing Barack Obama to normalize relations with Cuba. And he has steered his country into both the Bolivarian Alternative to the Americas and Petrocaribe, two regional economic alliances backed by Venezuela meant to wean Latin America off its extreme dependence on the US market.
This left turn is less ideological than pragmatic. Honduras is so broke it "can't even build a road without getting a loan from the World Bank," Zelaya once complained. But that money comes in "dribbles, held up years by paperwork" and often accompanied by onerous terms. In contrast, he said, Petrocaribe financing for infrastructure investment came all at once, at extremely low interest, with no conditions, which helped free up other scarce funds for social services. Through Petrocaribe, Venezuela also provides Honduras with 20,000 barrels of crude oil per day, also on very generous terms.
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http://ins.onlinedemocracy.ca/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8093
.....Paz and other analysts who talked to IPS said the families that
exercise the greatest power in Honduras are Jewish or of Arab
descent, and are involved in economic sectors like the
"maquiladoras" (export assembly plants), energy, telecoms, tourism,
banking and finance, the media, the cement industry and trade and
commerce......
...... Investor Miguel FacussÇ Barjum, his son-in-law Fredy Nasser, energy
magnate Schucry Kafie, and banker and industrialist Jaime Rosenthal
are considered the most powerful men in Honduras. Another
influential businessman is the Cuban-born JosÇ Lamas.
Nasser and Kafie control the country's thermal energy industry,
and Nasser's business interests include concessions to operate the
country's main airports, as well as shares in telephone companies
in Guatemala.
Influential businessmen in the media, whose influence has grown
since the 1990s, are Rafael Ferrari; Carlos Flores FacussÇ, a
former president (1998-2002) and the nephew of Miguel FacussÇ; and
Jorge Canahuati Larach........
...... A presidential adviser who asked to remain anonymous for security
reasons told IPS that "these groups are insatiable, they make one
request after another. Two months ago, in a meeting with President
Manuel Zelaya, they told him that in the 1980s, the most important
political decisions were put to consultation in the military
barracks, but that now they were here, the businesspeople and the
media.
"You are only temporary, while we are permanent, they said. We want
to be consulted about decisions, we want contracts and to
participate in the public tenders, we want to express our opinions
on some appointments of public officials, and we want official
advertising contracts, they added," according to the source.
Since then, the Zelaya administration, which took office in January
2006, has had friction with some of the country's most powerful
business groups, because the cabinet includes members of the Jewish
business community headed by Rosenthal, which is at loggerheads
with the country's most influential families of Arab origin.
Rosenthal, who has run unsuccessfully for the presidency four
times, belongs to the governing Liberal Party and has interests in
areas like the media, the cement industry, beef exports, banks,
insurance and telecoms. He played a key role in Zelaya's campaign.
His son, Yani Rosenthal, is now minister of the presidency, in
charge of coordinating all the ministries and the most important
portfolios of public administration projects and credits.
Given Zelaya's marked differences with some power groups, who is
he governing with?
With the Rosenthal family and another business sector not linked
to the traditional structures, who intend, together with the
president, "to set a distance between themselves and those who have
exploited this country for years," said the presidential adviser
who spoke with IPS.
This group is apparently led by the president's chief of staff,
Roberto Bab£n, who has interests in the timber industry. His camp
includes business leaders involved in the tourist industry,
biodiesel manufacturing -- which has strong backing from the
present administration -- and the thermal energy industry.
Unconfirmed reports have also pointed to links between the
government and members of the Guatemalan business community, who
allegedly contributed substantially to the president's election
campaign........
...... Two months ago, Marvin Ponce, a lawmaker with the leftist
Democratic Unification party, stated that there were legislators
who had gained their seats with drug-trafficking money, although
he did not dare name names.
A former mayor from a town in Honduras told IPS that at least five
mayors in the western provinces of Cop†n, Lempira and Ocotepeque
had financed their campaigns with drug money. But "if I reveal
their names, they'll kill me the next day," he said.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reported that around
100 tons of cocaine move through Honduras annually, while domestic
consumption levels have soared in the last few years........
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http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22956.htm
..........Nevertheless, this is far from what President Zelaya attempted to do in Honduras the past Sunday and which the Honduran political/military elites disliked so much. President Zelaya intended to perform a non-binding public consultation, about the conformation of an elected National Constituent Assembly. To do this, he invoked article 5 of the Honduran “Civil Participation Act” of 2006. According to this act, all public functionaries can perform non-binding public consultations to inquire what the population thinks about policy measures. This act was approved by the National Congress and it was not contested by the Supreme Court of Justice, when it was published in the Official Paper of 2006. That is, until the president of the republic employed it in a manner that was not amicable to the interests of the members of these institutions.
Furthermore, the Honduran Constitution says nothing against the conformation of an elected National Constituent Assembly, with the mandate to draw up a completely new constitution, which the Honduran public would need to approve. Such a popular participatory process would bypass the current liberal democratic one specified in article 373 of the current constitution, in which the National Congress has to approve with 2/3 of the votes, any reform to the 1982 Constitution, excluding reforms to articles 239 and 374. This means that a perfectly legal National Constituent Assembly would have a greater mandate and fewer limitations than the National Congress, because such a National Constituent Assembly would not be reforming the Constitution, but re-writing it. The National Constituent Assembly’s mandate would come directly from the Honduran people, who would have to approve the new draft for a constitution, unlike constitutional amendments that only need 2/3 of the votes in Congress. This popular constitution would be more democratic and it would contrast with the current 1982 Constitution, which was the product of a context characterized by counter-insurgency policies supported by the US-government, civil façade military governments and undemocratic policies. In opposition to other legal systems in the Central American region that (directly or indirectly) participated in the civil wars of the 1980s, the Honduran one has not been deeply affected by peace agreements and a subsequent reformation of the role played by the Armed Forces.
Recalling these observations, we can once again take a look at the widespread assumption that Zelaya was ousted as president after he tried to carry out a non-binding referendum to extend his term in office.
The poll was certainly non-binding, and therefore also not subject to prohibition. However it was not a referendum, as such public consultations are generally understood. Even if it had been, the objective was not to extend Zelaya’s term in office. In this sense, it is important to point out that Zelaya’s term concludes in January 2010. In line with article 239 of the Honduran Constitution of 1982, Zelaya is not participating in the presidential elections of November 2009, meaning that he could have not been reelected. Moreover, it is completely uncertain what the probable National Constituent Assembly would have suggested concerning matters of presidential periods and re-elections. These suggestions would have to be approved by all Hondurans and this would have happened at a time when Zelaya would have concluded his term. Likewise, even if the Honduran public had decided that earlier presidents could become presidential candidates again, this disposition would form a part of a completely new constitution. Therefore, it cannot be regarded as an amendment to the 1982 Constitution and it would not be in violation of articles 5, 239 and 374. The National Constituent Assembly, with a mandate from the people, would derogate the previous constitution before approving the new one. The people, not president Zelaya, who by that time would be ex-president Zelaya, would decide.
It is evident that the opposition had no legal case against President Zelaya. All they had was speculation about perfectly legal scenarios which they strongly disliked. Otherwise, they could have followed a legal procedure sheltered in article 205 nr. 22 of the 1982 Constitution, which states that public officials that are suspected to violate the law are subject to impeachment by the National Congress. As a result they helplessly unleashed a violent and barbaric preemptive strike, which has threatened civility, democracy and stability in the region.
It is fundamental that media channels do not fall into omissions that can delay the return of democracy to Honduras and can weaken the condemnation issued by strong institutions, like the United States government. It is also important that individuals are informed, so that they can have a critical attitude to media reports. Honduras needs democracy back now, and international society can play an important role in achieving this by not engaging in irresponsible oversimplifications.
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http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22957.htm
Roberto Micheletti, convened a rally where he stood side by side with the military general that led the violent coup
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http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22985.htm
A good summery and analysis of most of the arguments about Iranian elections.
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http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23000.htm
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http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/9/in_rare_us_broadcast_ousted_honduran
JUAN GONZALEZ: Mr. President, some people have speculated there were former members of the Bush Administration that were waging a campaign against you here in the United States. Otto Reich, a former administration official in charge of Latin American affairs had been making allegations about corruption in your country, specifically related to the government-owned telephone company, HONDUTEL. Do you think this had any impact in terms of how the current administration is regarding your presidency?
MANUAL ZELAYA:[translated] The bad guys always join together. But there are more of us good people and we’re also united and we will win out over them. So don’t worry about that. I need to tell you I have to leave for Costa Rica and I am grateful for your interview, and I will continue to support you. The only system I believe in is democracy. It is the political system that gives political rights to the citizenry. Human rights guarantee our freedoms, but the political system we must support is democracy. If we allowed armies, drug, trafficking elites or economic elites or international mafia, even the transnational corporations to impose governments or presidents on us by force, we will be losing five decades of democratic reform in America. President Obama has a firm position and I hope it will remain so until we resolve this problem so it will serve as an example. So that a fractious group of military men never again break into the home of a president and without trying him first, without taking into court but rather capturing him and then wanting to try him. This should not happen.
He did not answer the question?
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http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/9/751548/-US-aid-to-Honduras-cut;-racist-FM-removed
US aid to Honduras cut; racist FM removed Update
by litho
Share this on Twitter - US aid to Honduras cut; racist FM removed Update Thu Jul 09, 2009 at 05:06:45 AM PDT
According to the rightwing Honduran daily La Prensa, the US embassy in Tegucigalpa yesterday announced a suspension of aid that could amount to nearly $200 million. La Prensa quotes heavily from what they say is a communiqué from the embassy, which I can't find on the embassy's website. Here's a back translation from La Prensa's reporting:
Posted by Kristin Bricker - June 25, 2009 at 9:35 pm Civil society organizations and UN General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto have warned of a possible coup attempt by the Honduran military. D'Escoto's spokesperson said that the Assembly President “clearly and strongly condemns the attempted coup d’etat that is currently unfolding against the democratically elected Government of President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras.” Fears of a coup stem from a military deployment around the Presidential Palace and the Toncontín airport on Thursday.
The military and President Zelaya have been at odds over the President's initiative to hold a popular consultation on June 28 to decide if November's presidential elections should include a referendum where citizens would vote on whether or not Honduras should write a new constitution.
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http://soaw.org/presente/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=215&Itemid=74#Honduras
....... During our visit to Honduras the previous week, we were also blessed by the invaluable help of Bertha Oliva, director of the Committee of Family Members of the Disappeared of Honduras (COFADEH). Bertha is the consummate expression of passion for justice that knows no limits. Her unending fuel is her love for her companion Tomás, who disappeared from her arms and into the hands of the Honduran military some 26 years ago. She was left tied, gagged and pregnant. The same determination that led her to break free of her bonds and deliver her child clandestinely, has led her to open every door and turn over every rock in searching for the disappeared and bringing those responsible for their disappearance to justice. Spending the week with Bertha, we realized that this kind of commitment has its consequences. One is that you can only sit in corner tables at restaurants, in order to see who might be following you. Not only did Bertha set up every meeting for us, but she personally drove us to and fro. The only problem with this was that Bertha only drives forward. If we needed to back up, I had to take the wheel. It was a filling metaphor for a woman who knows no going backwards.
It was Bertha who led us straight to the President, the Defense Minister, the Chancellor, as well as to each of the presidential candidates for the upcoming November elections. Through these visits we found a fascinating political process to be unfolding in Honduras, far from the glare of the international spotlight such as that shining on El Salvador. Without much fanfare, President Manuel Zelaya, or “Mel” as he is known to the nation, has broken every mold and turned around every expectation that made him the hand-picked “safe” candidate of the U.S. embassy four years ago. Rejected by fellow Honduran members of the elite when he asked for their help in shaping a new country, he turned instead to progressive governments in South America and to social movements in his own country. There, he found willing allies, but ones that pushed him into unexpected places and led him to make surprising decisions.
One of these decisions was Zelaya´s bold expression of solidarity with Bolivia. When President Evo Morales ousted the U.S. ambassador from Bolivia because of his ties to separatist movements in his country, Zelaya showed his support by refusing to seat the newly assigned U.S. ambassador to Honduras. In a country that has been almost ruled from the top floor of the U.S. embassy for decades, this was shocking.
Another bold step is his call for a constitutional assembly with popular participation as the only solution to creating a viable democracy. We were invited to attend one of a series of fascinating day-long gatherings between the president, his cabinet, and all the major social movements in the country: campesinos, union leaders, indigenous communities, human rights and ecology activists, and so on. For 6 straight hours we took part in what was definitely one of the most fascinating political meeting I have experienced in my long years in Latin America. Serious issues were passionately debated between the president and the social movements, such as whether to keep open the U.S. Palmerola air base, how to achieve wide-spread land reform, and whether to continue to be a part of CAFTA. The issue of the SOA was raised by the groups assigned to look at security issues. The formal recommendation of the social movements to the president was that Honduras withdraw their troops, a point that received a loud round of applause.
Honduras was a country in which every one of our pre-conceptions was broken. On one of our last evenings we gathered with friends, among them a gentleman whose compassionate spirit was evident. We soon found out that he was none other than - an SOA graduate! The son of a working class family, he entered the Honduran officer corps half-heartedly when he was unable to enter the seminary, and was eventually sent to the SOA which was then located in Panama. He returned to Honduras, in the midst of years of brutal repression, where he was ordered time and again to capture and disappear “subversives”: students, union activists, campesino leaders, etc. He obeyed - but in his own way. He rounded up the person he was assigned to capture, then took them to the Nicaraguan border and said: “now, go and disappear”. Sometimes he first took him to his house to eat a home cooked meal before sending them off, or helped them to find a passport that they had stashed in a safe house. Eventually he was caught and exiled for years, then cut off from his military pension.
This same commitment to justice and compassion in spite of potentially difficult consequences was what propelled Monseñor Oscar Romero to speak out weekly in his radio masses from the cathedral of San Salvador, denouncing the brutal repression taking place. Under the orders of an SOA graduate, Romero was murdered while saying mass. The new president of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes, has said that he will dedicate his presidency to Romero and to his fervent commitment to the poor. Romero was aware that he might be killed, and said that if this happened, he would rise up in the Salvadoran people. In our conversations with Luis and Cristy and Alicia and Salvador, it seems like this might already be happening.
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http://soaw.org/presente/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=221&Itemid=74
Tuesday, 07 July 2009
Greetings from the quiet of the curfew here in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The curfew has just begun, and the normal rattle of traffic outside this one-star hotel in the heart of the city is silenced.........
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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/zela-j30.shtml
Zelaya has vowed to return to power, and the coup has been condemned by the US, the European Union, the OAS, the United Nations and the leaders of Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Colombia and other countries allied with the Zelaya regime, who met Sunday night in Managua.
Chavez has, justifiably, cast the coup as an overt threat to his regime. He has charged the US with complicity, alleging involvement by Otto Reich, a long-time anti-Castro operative and favorite of anti-Castro exiles in Miami. Reich played a key role as a Reagan administration State Department official in the Iran-Contra conspiracy, in which Reagan authorized secret funding for the anti-Sandinista Contras, in violation of the Boland amendment which had been passed by Congress banning US aid to the Contra death squads.
Reich was one of a number of Iran-Contra veterans who were appointed to government posts in the administration of George W. Bush, serving as assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs.
The US used southern Honduras as the base of operations for its proxy war in the 1980s against the left nationalist, Cuban-allied regime in neighboring Nicaragua......
.....Otto Reich was also implicated in the 2002 coup attempt. He met with Venezuelan opposition figures in the run-up to the attempted ouster of Chavez.
Reich is currently a board member of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, better known as the School of the Americas, located in Fort Benning, Georgia. Among the tens of thousands of Latin American military officers—and death squad leaders—who have been trained at the School of the Americas are two of the leaders of Sunday’s coup in Honduras, Army General Romeo Vasquez and Air Force General Luis Javier Prince Suazo.
Another graduate of the School of the Americas was Policarpo Paz Garcia, who ruled Honduras in 1980-82. Paz Garcia launched Battalion 3-16, one of the most feared death squads in Latin America........
==============================================================================
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22955.htm
But the realities of governing in a country as poor as Honduras--more than 60 percent of its population live in poverty, more than 50 percent in extreme poverty--tends to reinforce a left-wing slant. Perhaps it was the imperious and imperial behavior of George W. Bush's ambassador to Honduras, described by Zelaya as "barbarous." Or maybe it was the fact that the Central American Free Trade Agreement, rather than delivering promised development, worsened his country's trade deficit with the United States while driving low wages even lower, as Honduras competed with its equally impoverished neighbors for investment. Or perhaps it was the US Food and Drug Administration's unilateral ban of Honduran cantaloupes because they were supposedly tainted with salmonella, though the FDA offered no proof of the charge, a move Zelaya called "unjust."
Whatever the reason, Zelaya shifted course, and over the past two years he has adopted a progressive agenda. As a solution to the disastrous "war on drugs," which has turned Central America into a well-traversed trans-shipment corridor for narcotraficantes--profitable for some, deadly for many--he has proposed the legalization of some narcotics. Earlier this year at the Summit of the Americas, he took the lead in pushing Barack Obama to normalize relations with Cuba. And he has steered his country into both the Bolivarian Alternative to the Americas and Petrocaribe, two regional economic alliances backed by Venezuela meant to wean Latin America off its extreme dependence on the US market.
This left turn is less ideological than pragmatic. Honduras is so broke it "can't even build a road without getting a loan from the World Bank," Zelaya once complained. But that money comes in "dribbles, held up years by paperwork" and often accompanied by onerous terms. In contrast, he said, Petrocaribe financing for infrastructure investment came all at once, at extremely low interest, with no conditions, which helped free up other scarce funds for social services. Through Petrocaribe, Venezuela also provides Honduras with 20,000 barrels of crude oil per day, also on very generous terms.
=====================================================================================
http://ins.onlinedemocracy.ca/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8093
.....Paz and other analysts who talked to IPS said the families that
exercise the greatest power in Honduras are Jewish or of Arab
descent, and are involved in economic sectors like the
"maquiladoras" (export assembly plants), energy, telecoms, tourism,
banking and finance, the media, the cement industry and trade and
commerce......
...... Investor Miguel FacussÇ Barjum, his son-in-law Fredy Nasser, energy
magnate Schucry Kafie, and banker and industrialist Jaime Rosenthal
are considered the most powerful men in Honduras. Another
influential businessman is the Cuban-born JosÇ Lamas.
Nasser and Kafie control the country's thermal energy industry,
and Nasser's business interests include concessions to operate the
country's main airports, as well as shares in telephone companies
in Guatemala.
Influential businessmen in the media, whose influence has grown
since the 1990s, are Rafael Ferrari; Carlos Flores FacussÇ, a
former president (1998-2002) and the nephew of Miguel FacussÇ; and
Jorge Canahuati Larach........
...... A presidential adviser who asked to remain anonymous for security
reasons told IPS that "these groups are insatiable, they make one
request after another. Two months ago, in a meeting with President
Manuel Zelaya, they told him that in the 1980s, the most important
political decisions were put to consultation in the military
barracks, but that now they were here, the businesspeople and the
media.
"You are only temporary, while we are permanent, they said. We want
to be consulted about decisions, we want contracts and to
participate in the public tenders, we want to express our opinions
on some appointments of public officials, and we want official
advertising contracts, they added," according to the source.
Since then, the Zelaya administration, which took office in January
2006, has had friction with some of the country's most powerful
business groups, because the cabinet includes members of the Jewish
business community headed by Rosenthal, which is at loggerheads
with the country's most influential families of Arab origin.
Rosenthal, who has run unsuccessfully for the presidency four
times, belongs to the governing Liberal Party and has interests in
areas like the media, the cement industry, beef exports, banks,
insurance and telecoms. He played a key role in Zelaya's campaign.
His son, Yani Rosenthal, is now minister of the presidency, in
charge of coordinating all the ministries and the most important
portfolios of public administration projects and credits.
Given Zelaya's marked differences with some power groups, who is
he governing with?
With the Rosenthal family and another business sector not linked
to the traditional structures, who intend, together with the
president, "to set a distance between themselves and those who have
exploited this country for years," said the presidential adviser
who spoke with IPS.
This group is apparently led by the president's chief of staff,
Roberto Bab£n, who has interests in the timber industry. His camp
includes business leaders involved in the tourist industry,
biodiesel manufacturing -- which has strong backing from the
present administration -- and the thermal energy industry.
Unconfirmed reports have also pointed to links between the
government and members of the Guatemalan business community, who
allegedly contributed substantially to the president's election
campaign........
...... Two months ago, Marvin Ponce, a lawmaker with the leftist
Democratic Unification party, stated that there were legislators
who had gained their seats with drug-trafficking money, although
he did not dare name names.
A former mayor from a town in Honduras told IPS that at least five
mayors in the western provinces of Cop†n, Lempira and Ocotepeque
had financed their campaigns with drug money. But "if I reveal
their names, they'll kill me the next day," he said.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reported that around
100 tons of cocaine move through Honduras annually, while domestic
consumption levels have soared in the last few years........
=============================================================================
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22956.htm
..........Nevertheless, this is far from what President Zelaya attempted to do in Honduras the past Sunday and which the Honduran political/military elites disliked so much. President Zelaya intended to perform a non-binding public consultation, about the conformation of an elected National Constituent Assembly. To do this, he invoked article 5 of the Honduran “Civil Participation Act” of 2006. According to this act, all public functionaries can perform non-binding public consultations to inquire what the population thinks about policy measures. This act was approved by the National Congress and it was not contested by the Supreme Court of Justice, when it was published in the Official Paper of 2006. That is, until the president of the republic employed it in a manner that was not amicable to the interests of the members of these institutions.
Furthermore, the Honduran Constitution says nothing against the conformation of an elected National Constituent Assembly, with the mandate to draw up a completely new constitution, which the Honduran public would need to approve. Such a popular participatory process would bypass the current liberal democratic one specified in article 373 of the current constitution, in which the National Congress has to approve with 2/3 of the votes, any reform to the 1982 Constitution, excluding reforms to articles 239 and 374. This means that a perfectly legal National Constituent Assembly would have a greater mandate and fewer limitations than the National Congress, because such a National Constituent Assembly would not be reforming the Constitution, but re-writing it. The National Constituent Assembly’s mandate would come directly from the Honduran people, who would have to approve the new draft for a constitution, unlike constitutional amendments that only need 2/3 of the votes in Congress. This popular constitution would be more democratic and it would contrast with the current 1982 Constitution, which was the product of a context characterized by counter-insurgency policies supported by the US-government, civil façade military governments and undemocratic policies. In opposition to other legal systems in the Central American region that (directly or indirectly) participated in the civil wars of the 1980s, the Honduran one has not been deeply affected by peace agreements and a subsequent reformation of the role played by the Armed Forces.
Recalling these observations, we can once again take a look at the widespread assumption that Zelaya was ousted as president after he tried to carry out a non-binding referendum to extend his term in office.
The poll was certainly non-binding, and therefore also not subject to prohibition. However it was not a referendum, as such public consultations are generally understood. Even if it had been, the objective was not to extend Zelaya’s term in office. In this sense, it is important to point out that Zelaya’s term concludes in January 2010. In line with article 239 of the Honduran Constitution of 1982, Zelaya is not participating in the presidential elections of November 2009, meaning that he could have not been reelected. Moreover, it is completely uncertain what the probable National Constituent Assembly would have suggested concerning matters of presidential periods and re-elections. These suggestions would have to be approved by all Hondurans and this would have happened at a time when Zelaya would have concluded his term. Likewise, even if the Honduran public had decided that earlier presidents could become presidential candidates again, this disposition would form a part of a completely new constitution. Therefore, it cannot be regarded as an amendment to the 1982 Constitution and it would not be in violation of articles 5, 239 and 374. The National Constituent Assembly, with a mandate from the people, would derogate the previous constitution before approving the new one. The people, not president Zelaya, who by that time would be ex-president Zelaya, would decide.
It is evident that the opposition had no legal case against President Zelaya. All they had was speculation about perfectly legal scenarios which they strongly disliked. Otherwise, they could have followed a legal procedure sheltered in article 205 nr. 22 of the 1982 Constitution, which states that public officials that are suspected to violate the law are subject to impeachment by the National Congress. As a result they helplessly unleashed a violent and barbaric preemptive strike, which has threatened civility, democracy and stability in the region.
It is fundamental that media channels do not fall into omissions that can delay the return of democracy to Honduras and can weaken the condemnation issued by strong institutions, like the United States government. It is also important that individuals are informed, so that they can have a critical attitude to media reports. Honduras needs democracy back now, and international society can play an important role in achieving this by not engaging in irresponsible oversimplifications.
===================================================================================
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22957.htm
Roberto Micheletti, convened a rally where he stood side by side with the military general that led the violent coup===================================================================================
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22985.htm
A good summery and analysis of most of the arguments about Iranian elections.
==============================================================
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23000.htm
=============================================================
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/9/in_rare_us_broadcast_ousted_honduran
JUAN GONZALEZ: Mr. President, some people have speculated there were former members of the Bush Administration that were waging a campaign against you here in the United States. Otto Reich, a former administration official in charge of Latin American affairs had been making allegations about corruption in your country, specifically related to the government-owned telephone company, HONDUTEL. Do you think this had any impact in terms of how the current administration is regarding your presidency?
MANUAL ZELAYA:[translated] The bad guys always join together. But there are more of us good people and we’re also united and we will win out over them. So don’t worry about that. I need to tell you I have to leave for Costa Rica and I am grateful for your interview, and I will continue to support you. The only system I believe in is democracy. It is the political system that gives political rights to the citizenry. Human rights guarantee our freedoms, but the political system we must support is democracy. If we allowed armies, drug, trafficking elites or economic elites or international mafia, even the transnational corporations to impose governments or presidents on us by force, we will be losing five decades of democratic reform in America. President Obama has a firm position and I hope it will remain so until we resolve this problem so it will serve as an example. So that a fractious group of military men never again break into the home of a president and without trying him first, without taking into court but rather capturing him and then wanting to try him. This should not happen.
He did not answer the question?
=========================================================
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/9/751548/-US-aid-to-Honduras-cut;-racist-FM-removed
US aid to Honduras cut; racist FM removed Update
by litho
Share this on Twitter - US aid to Honduras cut; racist FM removed Update Thu Jul 09, 2009 at 05:06:45 AM PDT
According to the rightwing Honduran daily La Prensa, the US embassy in Tegucigalpa yesterday announced a suspension of aid that could amount to nearly $200 million. La Prensa quotes heavily from what they say is a communiqué from the embassy, which I can't find on the embassy's website. Here's a back translation from La Prensa's reporting:
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Iraq War Blair Brown
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22933.htm
MOST DAMNING CONCLUSIONS:
Flawed US plans were rubberstamped by Blair
Brown blocked vital funding for five months
It took mass rioting in Basra to make him pay up
Chaos lost us the battle for Iraqi hearts & minds
MOST DAMNING CONCLUSIONS:
Flawed US plans were rubberstamped by Blair
Brown blocked vital funding for five months
It took mass rioting in Basra to make him pay up
Chaos lost us the battle for Iraqi hearts & minds
Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan,
http://www.daily.pk/politics/politicalnews/10321-is-us-trying-to-save-agent-mehsud.html
.......The US has in the past shown no interest in striking Baitullah Mehsud’s insurgent militia which calls itself Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. The U.S. carefully avoided targeting TTP with its Predator and Reaper drones run by the CIA.
Statements from captured TTP commanders and weapons recovered from them have confirmed Pakistan Army’s belief that the Americans and Indians are training, funding and supplying weapons to the TTP terrorists.
“This is what the Indians tried to do before the Sri Lankan (army) got to Prabhakaran. His capture would have uncovered Indian intelligence links with the LTTE. They tried and failed to rescue him, so they had him executed before the army got to him”, says a senior intelligence official on condition of anonymity.
“The Americans don’t want Baitullah Mehsud to be captured alive either, and they cannot eliminate him with an air-strike anymore since Pakistan Army is advancing towards him already. They will either take him out before he is captured, or he will mysteriously disappear only to re-emerge later at a different location. This announcement has nothing to do with Osama or Mullah Omar. They have been saying Osama is in Pakistan for years. Why haven’t they acted before?”
The Pakistan Army must capture Baitullah Mehsud alive. But before that, they have to ensure they block Baitullah Mehsud’s supply lines from Afghanistan – with aggression if necessary – and ensure he does not disappear towards the Afghan border where there is a getaway crew waiting for him. Ahmed Quraishi
.......The US has in the past shown no interest in striking Baitullah Mehsud’s insurgent militia which calls itself Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. The U.S. carefully avoided targeting TTP with its Predator and Reaper drones run by the CIA.
Statements from captured TTP commanders and weapons recovered from them have confirmed Pakistan Army’s belief that the Americans and Indians are training, funding and supplying weapons to the TTP terrorists.
“This is what the Indians tried to do before the Sri Lankan (army) got to Prabhakaran. His capture would have uncovered Indian intelligence links with the LTTE. They tried and failed to rescue him, so they had him executed before the army got to him”, says a senior intelligence official on condition of anonymity.
“The Americans don’t want Baitullah Mehsud to be captured alive either, and they cannot eliminate him with an air-strike anymore since Pakistan Army is advancing towards him already. They will either take him out before he is captured, or he will mysteriously disappear only to re-emerge later at a different location. This announcement has nothing to do with Osama or Mullah Omar. They have been saying Osama is in Pakistan for years. Why haven’t they acted before?”
The Pakistan Army must capture Baitullah Mehsud alive. But before that, they have to ensure they block Baitullah Mehsud’s supply lines from Afghanistan – with aggression if necessary – and ensure he does not disappear towards the Afghan border where there is a getaway crew waiting for him. Ahmed Quraishi
Mousavi, James "Ace" Lyons , Bob Baer
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22903.htm
Mousavi, prime minister for most of the 1980s, personally selected his point man for the Beirut terror campaign, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-pur, and dispatched him to Damascus as Iran's ambassador, according to former CIA and military officials.
The ambassador in turn hosted several meetings of the cell that would carry out the Beirut attacks, which were overheard by the National Security Agency.
"We had a tap on the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon," retired Navy Admiral James "Ace" Lyons related by telephone Monday. In 1983 Lyons was deputy chief of Naval Operations, and deeply involved in the events in Lebanon.
"The Iranian ambassador received instructions from the foreign minister to have various groups target U.S. personnel in Lebanon, but in particular to carry out a 'spectacular action' against the Marines," said Lyons.
"He was prime minister," Lyons said of Mousavi, "so he didn't get down to the details at the lowest levels. "But he was in a principal position and had to be aware of what was going on."
Lyons, sometimes called "the father" of the Navy SEALs' Red Cell counter-terror unit, also fingered Mousavi for the 1988 truck bombing of the U.S. Navy's Fleet Center in Naples, Italy, that killed five persons, including the first Navy woman to die in a terrorist attack.
Bob Baer agrees that Mousawi, who has been celebrated in the West for sparking street demonstrations against the Teheran regime since he lost the elections, was directing the overall 1980s terror campaign.
But Baer, a former CIA Middle East field officer whose exploits were dramatized in the George Clooney movie "Syriana," places Mousavi even closer to the Beirut bombings.
"He dealt directly with Imad Mughniyah," who ran the Beirut terrorist campaign and was "the man largely held responsible for both attacks," Baer wrote in TIME over the weekend.
"When Mousavi was Prime Minister, he oversaw an office that ran operatives abroad, from Lebanon to Kuwait to Iraq," Baer continued.
"This was the heyday of [Ayatollah] Khomeini's theocratic vision, when Iran thought it really could export its revolution across the Middle East, providing money and arms to anyone who claimed he could upend the old order."
Baer added: "Mousavi was not only swept up into this delusion but also actively pursued it."
Retired Adm. Lyons maintained that he could have destroyed the terrorists at a hideout U.S. intelligence had pinpointed, but he was outmaneuvered by others in the cabinet of President Ronald Reagan.
"I was going to take them apart," Lyons said, "but the secretary of defense," Caspar Weinberger, "sabotaged it."
Mousavi, prime minister for most of the 1980s, personally selected his point man for the Beirut terror campaign, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-pur, and dispatched him to Damascus as Iran's ambassador, according to former CIA and military officials.
The ambassador in turn hosted several meetings of the cell that would carry out the Beirut attacks, which were overheard by the National Security Agency.
"We had a tap on the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon," retired Navy Admiral James "Ace" Lyons related by telephone Monday. In 1983 Lyons was deputy chief of Naval Operations, and deeply involved in the events in Lebanon.
"The Iranian ambassador received instructions from the foreign minister to have various groups target U.S. personnel in Lebanon, but in particular to carry out a 'spectacular action' against the Marines," said Lyons.
"He was prime minister," Lyons said of Mousavi, "so he didn't get down to the details at the lowest levels. "But he was in a principal position and had to be aware of what was going on."
Lyons, sometimes called "the father" of the Navy SEALs' Red Cell counter-terror unit, also fingered Mousavi for the 1988 truck bombing of the U.S. Navy's Fleet Center in Naples, Italy, that killed five persons, including the first Navy woman to die in a terrorist attack.
Bob Baer agrees that Mousawi, who has been celebrated in the West for sparking street demonstrations against the Teheran regime since he lost the elections, was directing the overall 1980s terror campaign.
But Baer, a former CIA Middle East field officer whose exploits were dramatized in the George Clooney movie "Syriana," places Mousavi even closer to the Beirut bombings.
"He dealt directly with Imad Mughniyah," who ran the Beirut terrorist campaign and was "the man largely held responsible for both attacks," Baer wrote in TIME over the weekend.
"When Mousavi was Prime Minister, he oversaw an office that ran operatives abroad, from Lebanon to Kuwait to Iraq," Baer continued.
"This was the heyday of [Ayatollah] Khomeini's theocratic vision, when Iran thought it really could export its revolution across the Middle East, providing money and arms to anyone who claimed he could upend the old order."
Baer added: "Mousavi was not only swept up into this delusion but also actively pursued it."
Retired Adm. Lyons maintained that he could have destroyed the terrorists at a hideout U.S. intelligence had pinpointed, but he was outmaneuvered by others in the cabinet of President Ronald Reagan.
"I was going to take them apart," Lyons said, "but the secretary of defense," Caspar Weinberger, "sabotaged it."
US Military Bases
http://www.countercurrents.org:80/lendman250609.htm
Citing data from DOD's 2007 Base Structure Report (BSR), she states:
"Officially, over 190,000 troops and 115,000 civilian employees are massed in 909 military facilities in 46 countries and territories. There, the US military owns or rents 795,000 acres of land, and 26,000 buildings and structures valued at $146 billion."
However, the numbers are misleading as they exclude the massive base and troop presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, former Soviet republics, and Warsaw Pact countries as well as unknown numbers of secret facilities in numerous other nations. They consist of three types:
-- Main Operating Bases (MOBs) like the Iraq Balad Air Base housing 30,000 troops, 10,000 contractors, and covering 16 square miles plus another 12-square mile "security perimeter." MOBs are large and permanent, have extensive infrastructure, command and control headquarters, accommodations for families in non-war zones, hospitals, schools, recreational facilities, and nearly anything available in a typical US city.
-- Forward Operation Sites (FOSs) that are also major installations but are smaller than MOBs, and
-- Cooperative Security Locations (CLSs) that are small, austere, called 'lily pads," - to preposition weapons, munitions, and modest numbers of troops.
Citing data from DOD's 2007 Base Structure Report (BSR), she states:
"Officially, over 190,000 troops and 115,000 civilian employees are massed in 909 military facilities in 46 countries and territories. There, the US military owns or rents 795,000 acres of land, and 26,000 buildings and structures valued at $146 billion."
However, the numbers are misleading as they exclude the massive base and troop presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, former Soviet republics, and Warsaw Pact countries as well as unknown numbers of secret facilities in numerous other nations. They consist of three types:
-- Main Operating Bases (MOBs) like the Iraq Balad Air Base housing 30,000 troops, 10,000 contractors, and covering 16 square miles plus another 12-square mile "security perimeter." MOBs are large and permanent, have extensive infrastructure, command and control headquarters, accommodations for families in non-war zones, hospitals, schools, recreational facilities, and nearly anything available in a typical US city.
-- Forward Operation Sites (FOSs) that are also major installations but are smaller than MOBs, and
-- Cooperative Security Locations (CLSs) that are small, austere, called 'lily pads," - to preposition weapons, munitions, and modest numbers of troops.
Saturday, 27 June 2009
MPs' Second Jobs
Nick Raynsford Labour
Among the highest earners is Nick Raynsford, the former housing minister, who collected £148,000 from six private-sector jobs last year, mostly connected to housing
John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP
and John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP, who receives more than £200,000 a year from his computer software company.
John Bercow Labour party chairman.
John Bercow, the new Speaker of the House of Commons, was paid £40,000 by a health care firm that runs a number of special needs schools after he wrote a government report that led to an increase in special needs funding.
Paul Keetch, the Liberal Democrat MP for Hereford,
charges £48,000 through a company he owns for around 36 days’ work a year advising an insurance broker and a tent supplier; the fee works out at £1,300 a day.
John Thurso, the Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, earns £7,500 a year for helping to organise the International Wine and Spirit Competition. The work takes 10 hours.
Mr Hague,
who earned around £230,000 last year from after dinner speeches, advice to private companies and writing books, is to step down from several posts by the autumn.
Oliver Letwin, the Tory party’s policy chief
Other senior Tories who are resigning from their outside positions include Oliver Letwin, the party’s policy chief, who earns a £60,000 salary for working eight hours a week at NM Rothschild, the investment bank,
David Willetts, the shadow skills secretary,
who is paid £80,000 a year to advise a pension company.
Mr Milburn,
51, is expected to be shown to be one of Labour’s highest earners. He is known to earn at least £115,000 a year from five outside employers.
Among the highest earners is Nick Raynsford, the former housing minister, who collected £148,000 from six private-sector jobs last year, mostly connected to housing
John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP
and John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP, who receives more than £200,000 a year from his computer software company.
John Bercow Labour party chairman.
John Bercow, the new Speaker of the House of Commons, was paid £40,000 by a health care firm that runs a number of special needs schools after he wrote a government report that led to an increase in special needs funding.
Paul Keetch, the Liberal Democrat MP for Hereford,
charges £48,000 through a company he owns for around 36 days’ work a year advising an insurance broker and a tent supplier; the fee works out at £1,300 a day.
John Thurso, the Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, earns £7,500 a year for helping to organise the International Wine and Spirit Competition. The work takes 10 hours.
Mr Hague,
who earned around £230,000 last year from after dinner speeches, advice to private companies and writing books, is to step down from several posts by the autumn.
Oliver Letwin, the Tory party’s policy chief
Other senior Tories who are resigning from their outside positions include Oliver Letwin, the party’s policy chief, who earns a £60,000 salary for working eight hours a week at NM Rothschild, the investment bank,
David Willetts, the shadow skills secretary,
who is paid £80,000 a year to advise a pension company.
Mr Milburn,
51, is expected to be shown to be one of Labour’s highest earners. He is known to earn at least £115,000 a year from five outside employers.
Albanian Agim Ceku Kosovo
http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=55486&s2=27
Paramilitary Thug With Long History With Top U.S. Democrats Arrested for 'War Crimes'
Jeremy Scahill
June 25, 2009
Agim Ceku commanded "ethnic cleansing" operations in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, then headed an organization labeled "terrorist" by a senior US official. But top Dems made him their man in Kosovo.
By Jeremy Scahill
UPDATE: After international intervention, Ceku was reportedly ordered released on Thursday.
A US-trained paramilitary figure from the Balkans with a lengthy history with leading Clinton-era Democrats, including some now in the Obama administration, has been arrested in Europe on an Interpol warrant for war crimes. Agim Ceku, an Albanian from Kosovo, is a former Croatian Army General who was trained by the private US security firm Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI) during the Clinton Administration. Ceku, backed by the US, would go on to become the "prime minister" of Kosovo despite the fact that he was responsible for some of the worst acts of "ethnic cleansing" in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and was the leader of a paramilitary organization with drug trade ties, which Clinton’s top envoy to Kosovo called a "terrorist" organization.
Ceku was detained in Bulgaria on the basis of an Interpol warrant issued by Serbia as he crossed the border from Macedonia on Tuesday. Serbia demanded his extradition on war crimes charges stemming from his role as the military commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1999.....
.....Ceku Used US Training for 'Ethnic Cleansing’ Campaign
Ten years ago, as Ceku—backed by the US— rose to power in Kosovo, I investigated Ceku’s "brutal past:"
A past the US knows well because it was influential in making Ceku one of the top "ethnic cleansers" in the Balkans, alongside Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. Ceku refined his brutality as a general in the US-backed Croatian Army during the Balkan war and was trained by Military Professional Resources Inc., a private paramilitary firm founded in 1987 and based in Alexandria, Virginia with former high-ranking US generals and NATO officials on its board. These officers include the former Commanders in Chief of the US Army in Europe and US Central Command, the Supreme Allied Commander-Atlantic and the former US Representative to the NATO Military Committee. In 1994, armed with a contract authorized by the Clinton Administration, MPRI officially began to train Croatian forces......
Paramilitary Thug With Long History With Top U.S. Democrats Arrested for 'War Crimes'
Jeremy Scahill
June 25, 2009
Agim Ceku commanded "ethnic cleansing" operations in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, then headed an organization labeled "terrorist" by a senior US official. But top Dems made him their man in Kosovo.
By Jeremy Scahill
UPDATE: After international intervention, Ceku was reportedly ordered released on Thursday.
A US-trained paramilitary figure from the Balkans with a lengthy history with leading Clinton-era Democrats, including some now in the Obama administration, has been arrested in Europe on an Interpol warrant for war crimes. Agim Ceku, an Albanian from Kosovo, is a former Croatian Army General who was trained by the private US security firm Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI) during the Clinton Administration. Ceku, backed by the US, would go on to become the "prime minister" of Kosovo despite the fact that he was responsible for some of the worst acts of "ethnic cleansing" in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and was the leader of a paramilitary organization with drug trade ties, which Clinton’s top envoy to Kosovo called a "terrorist" organization.
Ceku was detained in Bulgaria on the basis of an Interpol warrant issued by Serbia as he crossed the border from Macedonia on Tuesday. Serbia demanded his extradition on war crimes charges stemming from his role as the military commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1999.....
.....Ceku Used US Training for 'Ethnic Cleansing’ Campaign
Ten years ago, as Ceku—backed by the US— rose to power in Kosovo, I investigated Ceku’s "brutal past:"
A past the US knows well because it was influential in making Ceku one of the top "ethnic cleansers" in the Balkans, alongside Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. Ceku refined his brutality as a general in the US-backed Croatian Army during the Balkan war and was trained by Military Professional Resources Inc., a private paramilitary firm founded in 1987 and based in Alexandria, Virginia with former high-ranking US generals and NATO officials on its board. These officers include the former Commanders in Chief of the US Army in Europe and US Central Command, the Supreme Allied Commander-Atlantic and the former US Representative to the NATO Military Committee. In 1994, armed with a contract authorized by the Clinton Administration, MPRI officially began to train Croatian forces......
National Security Strategy Cyber Security Strategy
http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page19778
The report covers the different ‘domains’ in which security challenges must be addressed, and identifies cyber space as one increasingly important domain in which individual, commercial and state security can be threatened, whether by other states, or terrorist or criminal networks. We are therefore publishing, alongside the overall strategy update, the UK’s first national Cyber Security Strategy, outlining improvements to government structures, additional funding, measures to enhance our ability to detect attack, better risk assessments, programmes to develop cyber security industrial capabilities and workforce skills, and support and advice for individual citizens.
The Cabinet Committee on National Security, International Relations and Development oversees delivery of the National Security Strategy. It takes advice from the expert National Security Forum. Parliamentary scrutiny is provided by the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, which will start work this summer. The strategy is a comprehensive and transparent account of the risks the UK faces and the action we are taking to tackle them, and provides a basis for Parliamentary and wider public debate on our national security priorities.
The report covers the different ‘domains’ in which security challenges must be addressed, and identifies cyber space as one increasingly important domain in which individual, commercial and state security can be threatened, whether by other states, or terrorist or criminal networks. We are therefore publishing, alongside the overall strategy update, the UK’s first national Cyber Security Strategy, outlining improvements to government structures, additional funding, measures to enhance our ability to detect attack, better risk assessments, programmes to develop cyber security industrial capabilities and workforce skills, and support and advice for individual citizens.
The Cabinet Committee on National Security, International Relations and Development oversees delivery of the National Security Strategy. It takes advice from the expert National Security Forum. Parliamentary scrutiny is provided by the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, which will start work this summer. The strategy is a comprehensive and transparent account of the risks the UK faces and the action we are taking to tackle them, and provides a basis for Parliamentary and wider public debate on our national security priorities.
Iraq Memo Bush Blair WMDs
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/blai-j26.shtml
A confidential memo obtained by the Observer, detailing a meeting between President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, confirms their determination to press ahead with the invasion of Iraq in 2003 without any evidence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and without United Nations approval.
The five-page memo, written by Blair’s foreign policy adviser Sir David Manning, is dated January 31, 2003, some two months before the invasion began. It records the thinking of Bush and Blair as it became increasingly obvious that United Nations weapons inspectors would not find the advanced weaponry, including a nuclear capability, that both leaders were using to justify military action. .....
...... Manning’s memo was copied to Sir Jeremy Greenstock, British ambassador to the UN, Jonathan Powell, Blair’s chief of staff, Admiral Lord Boyce, the chief of defence staff, and Sir Christopher Meyer, the British ambassador to Washington ........
.....A Dutch government’s inquiry into the Netherlands’ support for the war will look at all MI5 and MI6 intelligence that was shared with its intelligence services. That inquiry is due to report in November, and this could mean that information about the US and British role will be published ahead of Chilcott’s report next year.
A confidential memo obtained by the Observer, detailing a meeting between President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, confirms their determination to press ahead with the invasion of Iraq in 2003 without any evidence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and without United Nations approval.
The five-page memo, written by Blair’s foreign policy adviser Sir David Manning, is dated January 31, 2003, some two months before the invasion began. It records the thinking of Bush and Blair as it became increasingly obvious that United Nations weapons inspectors would not find the advanced weaponry, including a nuclear capability, that both leaders were using to justify military action. .....
...... Manning’s memo was copied to Sir Jeremy Greenstock, British ambassador to the UN, Jonathan Powell, Blair’s chief of staff, Admiral Lord Boyce, the chief of defence staff, and Sir Christopher Meyer, the British ambassador to Washington ........
.....A Dutch government’s inquiry into the Netherlands’ support for the war will look at all MI5 and MI6 intelligence that was shared with its intelligence services. That inquiry is due to report in November, and this could mean that information about the US and British role will be published ahead of Chilcott’s report next year.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,632827,00.html#ref=nlint
Former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has reportedly taken a job as a consultant for the Nabucco pipeline project, which will deliver natural gas from the Caspian region to Europe. His expertise at smoothing ruffled diplomatic feathers will come in handy.
Former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has reportedly taken a job as a consultant for the Nabucco pipeline project, which will deliver natural gas from the Caspian region to Europe. His expertise at smoothing ruffled diplomatic feathers will come in handy.
Internet “Deep Packet Inspection: The End of the Internet as We Know It.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/6/23/deep_packet_inspection_telecoms_aided_iran
JOSH SILVER: Well, yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Iranian government had secured this system from a German and Finnish company that will look through everything, both land line telephones, mobile telephones, email, websites, looking for keywords and actually monitoring the entire traffic going through one chokepoint in Iran. It’s been disputed by the European company, but the validity of the report seems solid.
What’s scary about this is that this technology that monitors everything that goes through the internet is something that works, it’s readily available, and there’s no legislation in the United States that prevents the US government from employing it. And that’s what’s really the cautionary tale here.
JOSH SILVER: Well, yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Iranian government had secured this system from a German and Finnish company that will look through everything, both land line telephones, mobile telephones, email, websites, looking for keywords and actually monitoring the entire traffic going through one chokepoint in Iran. It’s been disputed by the European company, but the validity of the report seems solid.
What’s scary about this is that this technology that monitors everything that goes through the internet is something that works, it’s readily available, and there’s no legislation in the United States that prevents the US government from employing it. And that’s what’s really the cautionary tale here.
September 11, 2001
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/saud-j26.shtml
The Obama administration has intervened to quash a civil suit filed against Saudi Arabia by survivors and family members of victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The suit seeks to hold the Saudi royal family liable, charging that it provided financial and other support to Al Qaeda and was thereby complicit in the hijack bombings that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York and Washington DC.
The Obama administration has intervened to quash a civil suit filed against Saudi Arabia by survivors and family members of victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The suit seeks to hold the Saudi royal family liable, charging that it provided financial and other support to Al Qaeda and was thereby complicit in the hijack bombings that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York and Washington DC.
Nixon Israel Nukes
http://www.kansascity.com/437/story/1276898.html
Inside the Nixon administration four decades ago, American officials weighed options to pressure Israel to declare that it had a nuclear weapons program.
U.S. officials concluded Israel was "actively working to improve its capability to produce nuclear weapons on short notice."
In an unsigned National Security Council memo, prepared sometime between April 1969 and March 1970, officials worried that the program might make elusive peace with the Arabs even harder to attain.
Inside the Nixon administration four decades ago, American officials weighed options to pressure Israel to declare that it had a nuclear weapons program.
U.S. officials concluded Israel was "actively working to improve its capability to produce nuclear weapons on short notice."
In an unsigned National Security Council memo, prepared sometime between April 1969 and March 1970, officials worried that the program might make elusive peace with the Arabs even harder to attain.
Friday, 26 June 2009
Torture
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brunitedstatescanadara/617.php?nid=&id=&pnt=617&lb=
Majorities opposed forcing the detainee to take stressful positions (56%), using threatening dogs (64%), exposing the detainee to extreme heat and cold (66%), making the detainee go naked (71%), holding the detainee's head under water (78%), punching or kicking the detainee (80%), and applying electric shocks (81%).
Majorities opposed forcing the detainee to take stressful positions (56%), using threatening dogs (64%), exposing the detainee to extreme heat and cold (66%), making the detainee go naked (71%), holding the detainee's head under water (78%), punching or kicking the detainee (80%), and applying electric shocks (81%).
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Layla
http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=55419&s2=24
One of these exceptions comes from an email I received from an Arab-American, who prefers to remain anonymous. I am publishing his/her mail with his/her consent.
I think this person is one of the very few who understood...I hope you will read that mail slowly and let it sink in, because it holds many important insights and truths.
Dear Layla,
I happened upon your website by accident and ever since, I have been hooked...
Thank you for the depth of your analysis and the clarity of your vision. I live in the United States...I can tell you that what thrills me the most about your prose is the fact that you have no illusion about the "Good Cop" in that tired and despicable vicious cycle we are pitted in, namely, having to listen to the "Good Cop" apologizing for the actions of the "Bad Cop" while at the same time, both take a break and drink coffee together. The false dichotomy of bleeding heart "Liberals" and security minded "Conservatives" is the favorite currency of political dialogue in the United States. They play the game like husbands and wives have done for thousands of years. One punishes and the other tells you to please moderate your naughty behavior and stop being stubborn, while accusing the other of being too harsh. The game is so crude that I wonder whether they really care if we believe what they claim or not. Crude as it has been all along, it has lost any effect it ever had, thanks to the war on Iraq.
Ever since the Soviet Union collapsed, the USA felt no more the need to play a smart game or don a pretty disguise in pursuit of its ugly policy. Propaganda and its actors are no more the pretty faces, the pleasant cartoons, the creative ads selling exotic goods, the claimed lush lifestyle, the claimed beacon of democracy, or in the case of the Media, the clever cover of diversity. The old propaganda has died and in its place has risen and taken shape a ghost-like apparition : Instead of striving to appear diverse, now their only hope is that listeners believe them to be "appearing diverse"; instead of striving to convince you that they are spreading democracy, they are now desperately hoping that you at least believe that they are appearing to be on the side of democracy; Instead of making a case to you that they are on the side of human rights around the world, now their best hope is that you do not laugh when they try to appear to be on the side of human rights around the world; instead of claiming to be fighting drugs, they now strive to confirm the "appearance" of fighting drugs. This is Neo-propaganda, a propaganda that wears a sign that says, " I am propaganda, do not believe me." This is how clownish the situation is: the same old tired stale joke told by a clown who expects you to smile at his joke, not because you like them, but because you feel pity for him. It is as weird as seeing an old man playing "Hide and Seek" and loving it.
The "beauty" of propaganda in what was a bi-polar World has completely been discarded and replaced with one-liners and clichés told by the incredulous. If you appear to appear honest, you are a bad faker leaves an effect no better than that of movies played by bad actors who do not believe what they are playing and it shows on their faces. At no time did this situation become so porn-like clear than in the selling of the invasion of Iraq and …of course… the war on terrorism.
I have been in the United States for more than 20 years and have seen how "funny" their salesmanship was, how crude their pitch was, and how delusional these people were, no matter what creed they adhere to or what walk of life they belong to. Smart replaced intelligent and clichés replaced analysis and smirks replaced apparent seriousness. You should see how they are now trying to sell us "Iran the Normal Country" and force feed us the "need to talk to Iran".
The crudeness and "laughability" of their claims on Iraq are matched only by the crudeness of their claims that Iran is a "great nation that must be talked to, not fight against" and in between the two, one can but feel dizzy at the whopping 180-degree reversal of politics. These people are no longer trying to impress you or brainwash you. They do not even aspire to fool some people sometime; they just want to convince some people that they appear convincing…sometime.
Remember, more than any other politics around the World, American politics live through a heavy dose of propaganda about who Americans are and what their mission in life is. The Intravenous serum of propaganda has been severed for good with the war on Iraq. Nothing will replace it neither now, nor in the future. This is the direct result of the belief of "Winner Takes All." A little modesty could have saved the day; millions of lives and the image of decency, shredded or intact, wrong or right, the Americans have of themselves. Out are the days of "we are basically good people;" in are the days of crude and frightful awakening.
One of these exceptions comes from an email I received from an Arab-American, who prefers to remain anonymous. I am publishing his/her mail with his/her consent.
I think this person is one of the very few who understood...I hope you will read that mail slowly and let it sink in, because it holds many important insights and truths.
Dear Layla,
I happened upon your website by accident and ever since, I have been hooked...
Thank you for the depth of your analysis and the clarity of your vision. I live in the United States...I can tell you that what thrills me the most about your prose is the fact that you have no illusion about the "Good Cop" in that tired and despicable vicious cycle we are pitted in, namely, having to listen to the "Good Cop" apologizing for the actions of the "Bad Cop" while at the same time, both take a break and drink coffee together. The false dichotomy of bleeding heart "Liberals" and security minded "Conservatives" is the favorite currency of political dialogue in the United States. They play the game like husbands and wives have done for thousands of years. One punishes and the other tells you to please moderate your naughty behavior and stop being stubborn, while accusing the other of being too harsh. The game is so crude that I wonder whether they really care if we believe what they claim or not. Crude as it has been all along, it has lost any effect it ever had, thanks to the war on Iraq.
Ever since the Soviet Union collapsed, the USA felt no more the need to play a smart game or don a pretty disguise in pursuit of its ugly policy. Propaganda and its actors are no more the pretty faces, the pleasant cartoons, the creative ads selling exotic goods, the claimed lush lifestyle, the claimed beacon of democracy, or in the case of the Media, the clever cover of diversity. The old propaganda has died and in its place has risen and taken shape a ghost-like apparition : Instead of striving to appear diverse, now their only hope is that listeners believe them to be "appearing diverse"; instead of striving to convince you that they are spreading democracy, they are now desperately hoping that you at least believe that they are appearing to be on the side of democracy; Instead of making a case to you that they are on the side of human rights around the world, now their best hope is that you do not laugh when they try to appear to be on the side of human rights around the world; instead of claiming to be fighting drugs, they now strive to confirm the "appearance" of fighting drugs. This is Neo-propaganda, a propaganda that wears a sign that says, " I am propaganda, do not believe me." This is how clownish the situation is: the same old tired stale joke told by a clown who expects you to smile at his joke, not because you like them, but because you feel pity for him. It is as weird as seeing an old man playing "Hide and Seek" and loving it.
The "beauty" of propaganda in what was a bi-polar World has completely been discarded and replaced with one-liners and clichés told by the incredulous. If you appear to appear honest, you are a bad faker leaves an effect no better than that of movies played by bad actors who do not believe what they are playing and it shows on their faces. At no time did this situation become so porn-like clear than in the selling of the invasion of Iraq and …of course… the war on terrorism.
I have been in the United States for more than 20 years and have seen how "funny" their salesmanship was, how crude their pitch was, and how delusional these people were, no matter what creed they adhere to or what walk of life they belong to. Smart replaced intelligent and clichés replaced analysis and smirks replaced apparent seriousness. You should see how they are now trying to sell us "Iran the Normal Country" and force feed us the "need to talk to Iran".
The crudeness and "laughability" of their claims on Iraq are matched only by the crudeness of their claims that Iran is a "great nation that must be talked to, not fight against" and in between the two, one can but feel dizzy at the whopping 180-degree reversal of politics. These people are no longer trying to impress you or brainwash you. They do not even aspire to fool some people sometime; they just want to convince some people that they appear convincing…sometime.
Remember, more than any other politics around the World, American politics live through a heavy dose of propaganda about who Americans are and what their mission in life is. The Intravenous serum of propaganda has been severed for good with the war on Iraq. Nothing will replace it neither now, nor in the future. This is the direct result of the belief of "Winner Takes All." A little modesty could have saved the day; millions of lives and the image of decency, shredded or intact, wrong or right, the Americans have of themselves. Out are the days of "we are basically good people;" in are the days of crude and frightful awakening.
Yoram Blachar
http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=55406&s2=24
Tuesday June 23, 2009
700 doctors from 43 countries sent a letter of protest to the Word Medical Association (WMA), which is considered the WMA’s governing body, demanding the removal of the newly appointed president, an Israeli doctor, for ignoring the participation of medical staff in the torture of Palestinian prisoners, the Guardian reported.
The Israeli doctor, Yoram Blachar, has been the head of the Israeli Medical Association since 1995, and became the head of the WMA of November of last year.
The physicians, who signed the protest letter, are senior professors and physicians from England, Europe and the United States.
They stated that Blachar had failed to respond to charges that a number of Israeli doctors are involved in the torture of Palestinian detainees during interrogation in Israeli prisons.
In 1996, the Amnesty International reported that doctors, working with the Israeli security services, are taking part in torturing Palestinian detainees, mistreating and humiliating them in a manner that violates medical ethics.
Tuesday June 23, 2009
700 doctors from 43 countries sent a letter of protest to the Word Medical Association (WMA), which is considered the WMA’s governing body, demanding the removal of the newly appointed president, an Israeli doctor, for ignoring the participation of medical staff in the torture of Palestinian prisoners, the Guardian reported.
The Israeli doctor, Yoram Blachar, has been the head of the Israeli Medical Association since 1995, and became the head of the WMA of November of last year.
The physicians, who signed the protest letter, are senior professors and physicians from England, Europe and the United States.
They stated that Blachar had failed to respond to charges that a number of Israeli doctors are involved in the torture of Palestinian detainees during interrogation in Israeli prisons.
In 1996, the Amnesty International reported that doctors, working with the Israeli security services, are taking part in torturing Palestinian detainees, mistreating and humiliating them in a manner that violates medical ethics.
Feds
http://www.examiner.com/x-6495-US-Intelligence-Examiner~y2009m5d22-Federal-Reserve-Inspector-General-hedges-on-trillions-missing-in-Congressional-hearing
The Inspector General of the Federal Reserve in the video below acknowledges that trillions of dollars cannot be accounted for. The astonishing five-minute clip is taken from a Congressional hearing where Federal Reserve Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman is questioned by Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida on May 6th about huge amounts of money for which the Federal Reserve is responsible.
The Inspector General avoids answering almost every question asked by the Congressman. In fact, she appears in this video clip to know less about the finances of the Federal Reserve than Congressman Grayson.
Among the many important questions raised, Grayson requests information on the Bloomberg report that many trillion of dollars in credit have been extended by the Federal Reserve. When the Inspector General avoids answering, Grayson states, "If you're not responsible for investigating that, who is?" Once again, she avoids the question stating, "We've not gotten to a specific level of detail to really be in a position to respond to your question."
At another point, Coleman answers a further question with, "We are not in a position to say whether there are losses." Yet if the Inspector General of the Federal Reserve cannot account for trillions of dollars extended, who can? Grayson holds his composure very well throughout the questioning. He concludes, "I have to tell you honestly, I am shocked to find out that nobody at the Federal Reserve, including the Inspector General, is keeping track of [the unaccounted for trillions]."
The Inspector General of the Federal Reserve in the video below acknowledges that trillions of dollars cannot be accounted for. The astonishing five-minute clip is taken from a Congressional hearing where Federal Reserve Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman is questioned by Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida on May 6th about huge amounts of money for which the Federal Reserve is responsible.
The Inspector General avoids answering almost every question asked by the Congressman. In fact, she appears in this video clip to know less about the finances of the Federal Reserve than Congressman Grayson.
Among the many important questions raised, Grayson requests information on the Bloomberg report that many trillion of dollars in credit have been extended by the Federal Reserve. When the Inspector General avoids answering, Grayson states, "If you're not responsible for investigating that, who is?" Once again, she avoids the question stating, "We've not gotten to a specific level of detail to really be in a position to respond to your question."
At another point, Coleman answers a further question with, "We are not in a position to say whether there are losses." Yet if the Inspector General of the Federal Reserve cannot account for trillions of dollars extended, who can? Grayson holds his composure very well throughout the questioning. He concludes, "I have to tell you honestly, I am shocked to find out that nobody at the Federal Reserve, including the Inspector General, is keeping track of [the unaccounted for trillions]."
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Sen. Lindsey Graham
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22898.htm
Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the dimmest bulbs in the weak-wattage Republican ranks, called for US intervention in Iran. Graham was an architect of the Iraq fiasco. Let’s air assault the warlike senator into downtown Tehran.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the dimmest bulbs in the weak-wattage Republican ranks, called for US intervention in Iran. Graham was an architect of the Iraq fiasco. Let’s air assault the warlike senator into downtown Tehran.
John McCain
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22898.htm
US senators, led by John McCain, blasted Iran for not respecting human rights. That’s pretty rich after they just voted to bar the public release of ghastly torture photos from US prisons in Iraq, want secret US prisons kept open, and champion torture.
US senators, led by John McCain, blasted Iran for not respecting human rights. That’s pretty rich after they just voted to bar the public release of ghastly torture photos from US prisons in Iraq, want secret US prisons kept open, and champion torture.
Robert Dreyfuss
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/drey-j22.shtml
In its coverage of the recent political upheavals in Iran, the position of the Nation magazine, the self-styled voice of progressive politics, has become increasingly indistinguishable from that of the US political establishment.
Robert Dreyfuss, the magazine’s principal correspondent on the Iranian events—and on “politics and national security” generally—has parroted the unverified charge of a stolen election and characterized the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as well as his supporters, as a “virtual fascist movement.”
In a June 17 column entitled: “Battle Lines in Iran,” Dreyfuss, who had just returned from covering the election in Tehran, speculated on the trajectory of the Iranian “showdown.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/prop-j24.shtml
At the time, Dreyfuss was a member of the fascistic organization led by Lyndon LaRouche, serving as “Middle East intelligence director” for its magazine Executive Intelligence Review.
This is the man that the Nation relies upon as its chief commentator on “politics and national security” and who it sent to Iran to cover the election. He has echoed the line promoted by the New York Times, declaring himself in favor of a “color revolution” in Iran.
A comparison of what he wrote then and what he writes today only makes it all the more urgent that the Nation explain why such an individual is one of its editors.
This arises particularly in relation to one of Dreyfuss’s principal sources during his recent trip to Iran, Ibrahim Yazdi, Iran’s former foreign minister and a so-called “dissident.” An article published by the Nation on June 13 entitled “Iran’s Ex-Foreign Minister Yazdi: It’s A Coup,” consisted largely of an interview with this man, who said the election was rigged and illegitimate.
In his book Hostage to Khomeini, however Dreyfuss said that Yazdi was part of a “coterie of experienced, Western-trained intelligence agents.”
He claimed that Yazdi’s “directions from Washington and London came via the ‘professors,’ men such as Professor Richard Cottam of the University of Pittsburgh,” whom he described as a former “field officer for the CIA attached to the US embassy in Tehran.”
Dreyfuss wrote: “Yazdi’s wife once described Cottam as ‘a very close friend of my husband, the one person who knows more about him than even I do.’”
Elsewhere in the book, Dreyfuss refers to Yazdi as “Mossad-tainted.”
The question is: which Dreyfuss are we to believe—the one who exposed Yazdi as an intelligence agent for the US, Britain and Israel, or the one who now quotes him at length as an advocate of “democracy” and “reform”?
Dreyfuss has never publicly repudiated what he wrote in 1981. Was he lying then, or is he lying now? The Nation is obliged to answer. Its readership deserves to know what Dreyfuss is doing at the magazine.
In its coverage of the recent political upheavals in Iran, the position of the Nation magazine, the self-styled voice of progressive politics, has become increasingly indistinguishable from that of the US political establishment.
Robert Dreyfuss, the magazine’s principal correspondent on the Iranian events—and on “politics and national security” generally—has parroted the unverified charge of a stolen election and characterized the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as well as his supporters, as a “virtual fascist movement.”
In a June 17 column entitled: “Battle Lines in Iran,” Dreyfuss, who had just returned from covering the election in Tehran, speculated on the trajectory of the Iranian “showdown.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/prop-j24.shtml
At the time, Dreyfuss was a member of the fascistic organization led by Lyndon LaRouche, serving as “Middle East intelligence director” for its magazine Executive Intelligence Review.
This is the man that the Nation relies upon as its chief commentator on “politics and national security” and who it sent to Iran to cover the election. He has echoed the line promoted by the New York Times, declaring himself in favor of a “color revolution” in Iran.
A comparison of what he wrote then and what he writes today only makes it all the more urgent that the Nation explain why such an individual is one of its editors.
This arises particularly in relation to one of Dreyfuss’s principal sources during his recent trip to Iran, Ibrahim Yazdi, Iran’s former foreign minister and a so-called “dissident.” An article published by the Nation on June 13 entitled “Iran’s Ex-Foreign Minister Yazdi: It’s A Coup,” consisted largely of an interview with this man, who said the election was rigged and illegitimate.
In his book Hostage to Khomeini, however Dreyfuss said that Yazdi was part of a “coterie of experienced, Western-trained intelligence agents.”
He claimed that Yazdi’s “directions from Washington and London came via the ‘professors,’ men such as Professor Richard Cottam of the University of Pittsburgh,” whom he described as a former “field officer for the CIA attached to the US embassy in Tehran.”
Dreyfuss wrote: “Yazdi’s wife once described Cottam as ‘a very close friend of my husband, the one person who knows more about him than even I do.’”
Elsewhere in the book, Dreyfuss refers to Yazdi as “Mossad-tainted.”
The question is: which Dreyfuss are we to believe—the one who exposed Yazdi as an intelligence agent for the US, Britain and Israel, or the one who now quotes him at length as an advocate of “democracy” and “reform”?
Dreyfuss has never publicly repudiated what he wrote in 1981. Was he lying then, or is he lying now? The Nation is obliged to answer. Its readership deserves to know what Dreyfuss is doing at the magazine.
‘Velvet’ or ‘colourful’ revolutions Iran
http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/Iran_election_Reformists/2009/06/11/224025.html
This was written a day before the elections in Iran by Kenneth R. Timmerman (a journalist, political writer, and conservative Republican activist who in 2000 was a candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senator from Maryland), and Timmerman is executive director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, an organization that works to support democratic movements in Iran. Timmerman authored Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson. He has also written on the spread of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. (according to Wikipedia.
....And then, there’s the talk of a “green revolution” in Tehran, named for the omnipresent green scarves and banners that fill the air at Mousavi campaign events.
The National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars during the past decade promoting “color” revolutions in places such as Ukraine and Serbia, training political workers in modern communications and organizational techniques.
Some of that money appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.....
http://www.countercurrents.org/roberts220609.htm
A number of commentators have expressed their idealistic belief in the purity of Mousavi, Montazeri, and the westernized youth of Terhan. The CIA destabilization plan, announced two years ago (see below) has somehow not contaminated unfolding events.
The claim is made that Ahmadinejad stole the election, because the outcome was declared too soon after the polls closed for all the votes to have been counted. However, Mousavi declared his victory several hours before the polls closed. This is classic CIA destabilization designed to discredit a contrary outcome. It forces an early declaration of the vote. The longer the time interval between the preemptive declaration of victory and the announcement of the vote tally, the longer Mousavi has to create the impression that the authorities are using the time to fix the vote. It is amazing that people don’t see through this trick..........
........Commentators are "explaining" the Iran elections based on their own illusions, delusions, emotions, and vested interests. Whether or not the poll results predicting Ahmadinejad's win are sound, there is, so far, no evidence beyond surmise that the election was stolen. However, there are credible reports that the CIA has been working for two years to destabilize the Iranian government.
On May 23, 2007, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito reported on ABC News: “The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell ABC News.”
On May 27, 2007, the London Telegraph independently reported: “Mr. Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.”
A few days previously, the Telegraph reported on May 16, 2007, that Bush administration neocon warmonger John Bolton told the Telegraph that a US military attack on Iran would “be a ‘last option’ after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed.”
On June 29, 2008, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker: “Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.”
The protests in Tehran no doubt have many sincere participants. The protests also have the hallmarks of the CIA orchestrated protests in Georgia and Ukraine.
It requires total blindness not to see this...........
http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/20090621_battle_for_the_islamic_republic/
” ‘Velvet’ or ‘colourful’ revolutions ... are methods of exchanging power for social unrest. Colourful and ‘velvet’ revolutions occurred in post-communist societies of central and Eastern Europe and central Asia. Colourful revolutions have always been initiated during an election and its methods are as follows:
“1. Complete despair in the attitude of people when they are certain to lose an election ...
“2. Choosing one particular colour which is selected solely for the Western media to identify (for their readers or viewers).” Mousavi used green as his campaign colour and his supporters still wear this colour on wristbands, scarves and bandannas.
“3. Announcing that there has been advance cheating before an election and repeating it non-stop afterwards ... allowing exaggeration by the Western media, especially in the US.
“4. Writing letters to officials in the government, claiming vote-rigging in the election. It’s interesting to note that in all such ‘colourful’ projects – for example, in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan—the Western-backed movements have warned of fraud before elections by writing to the incumbent governments. In Islamic Iran, these letters had already been written to the Supreme Leader.”
Another leaflet maintained that a study—which Khamenei’s advisers have obviously undertaken, however inaccurately—demonstrated that vote-rigging will be alleged on the very day of the election and that victory will be claimed by the opposition hours before the counting is finished and before their own defeat is announced. The results, says the document, will therefore already have a “background” of fraud. “In the final stages ... supporters gather in front of the regime’s official offices, holding colourful banners and protesting against vote-rigging.” This part of the demonstration, the leaflet says, “is run by the foreign media who are the opposition movement’s supporters so that they make good pictures and mislead the international community”.
All this shows a unique and obsessive concern among the Supreme Leader’s disciples about just how popular Mousavi’s post-election campaign has become. Even the cutting of SMS and mobile communications—and in a sophisticated society such as Iran, this must have cost millions of dollars—did not prevent the calling of rallies which always assembled at the same moment and at the same place.
What we are now seeing is a regime which is far more worried than the Supreme Leader suggested when he threatened the opposition so baldly on Friday. Having refused any serious political dialogue with Mousavi and his opposition comrades—a few district recounts will produce no real change in the result—the Iranian regime, led by a Supreme Leader who is frightened and a president who speaks like a child, is now involved in the battle for control of the streets of Iran. It is a conflict which will need the kind of miracle in which Khamenei and Ahmadinejad both believe to avoid violence.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22898.htm
Highlighting the complexity of this crisis, Meir Dagan, the head of Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, reportedly voiced his hope that Iran’s embattled president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would remain in office. On the surface, that sounds absurd, since Ahmadinejad is Israel’s Great Satan.
But, according to Dagan, if Ahmadinejad’s supposedly "moderate" rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, came to power, it would be harder for Israel to keep up its propaganda war against Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Besides, added the Mossad chief, the devil you know is better.
Meanwhile, we have been watching an intensifying western propaganda campaign against Iran, mounted by the US and British governments. What we hear is commentary and analysis that comes from bitterly anti-regime Iranian exiles, "experts" with an ax to grind, and US pro-Israel neocons yearning for war with Iran.
In viewing the Muslim world, Westerners keep listening to those who tell them what they want to hear, rather than the facts. We are at it again in Iran.....
....n viewing the Muslim world, Westerners keep listening to those who tell them what they want to hear, rather than the facts. We are at it again in Iran.
President Barack Obama’s properly stated he would refrain from being seen to "meddle" in Iran’s internal affairs in spite of calls by hard-line Republicans for American action – whatever that might be. Obama did the right thing by apologizing for the US/British coup that overthrew Iran’s democratic Mossadegh government in 1953.
But that was not the whole story. Washington has been attempting to overthrow Iran’s Islamic government since the 1979 revolution and continues to do so in spite of pledges of neutrality in the current crisis.
The US has laid economic siege to Iran for 30 years, blocking desperately needed foreign investment, preventing technology transfers, and disrupting Iranian trade. In recent years, the US Congress voted $120 million for anti-regime media broadcasts into Iran, and $60-75 million funding opposition parties, violent underground Marxists like the Mujahidin-i-Khalq, and restive ethnic groups like Azeris, Kurds, and Arabs under the so-called "Iran Democracy Program."
The arm of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, remains withered from a bomb planted by the US-backed Mujahidin-i-Khalq, who were once on the US terrorist list.
Pakistani intelligence sources put CIA’s recent spending on "black operations" to subvert Iran’s government at $400 million.......
....While the majority of protests we see in Tehran are genuine and spontaneous, Western intelligence agencies and media are playing a key role in sustaining the uprising and providing communications, including the newest electronic method, via Twitter. These are covert techniques developed by the US during recent revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia that brought pro-US governments to power.
The Tehran government made things worse by limiting foreign news reports and arresting prominent politicians. Its leadership is increasingly – and dangerously – split over how to handle the protests.
We also hear lot of hypocrisy from Western capitals. Washington, Ottawa, London and Paris piously accused Iran of improper electoral procedures while utterly ignoring the total lack of democracy in their authoritarian Mideast allies such as Egypt, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia, that never hold elections and throw political opponents into prison and torture them. Compared to them, Iran, for all its faults, is almost a model of democratic governance.
The US, France and Saudi Arabia just cooperated to rig Lebanon’s recent elections, dishing out millions in bribe money to ensure victory of the pro-US faction. France’s President Nicholas Sarkozy had the chutzpah to rebuke Iran for improper election procedures after returning from the funeral of Gabon’s dictator, Omar Bongo, who had ruled for 41 years and supplied France with cheap oil.
When Hamas won a fair and square democratic election in Gaza, the US and Israel swiftly moved to mount a coup against the new Palestinian government......
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=98844§ionid=351020101
The ousted Shah of Iran Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi's son urges Israel to support post-election riots in Iran to bring down the government of Tehran.
Reza Pahlavi told Maariv that Israel should back up recently sparked riots in Iran following the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the next president of the country.
The very existence of the ruling government in Iran could lead to a nuclear Holocaust, the former crown prince said but warned against an Israeli attack on the country.
Under the accusation that Iran poses an 'existential threat' to Israel, Tel Aviv, the Middle East's sole possessor of nuclear warheads, has repeatedly threatened Tehran with a military attack over its nuclear work.
Reza Pahlavi said that any military attack against Tehran could prompt the Iranians to stand by the government instead and therefore it would shatter hopes of any resumption of ties between Iran and Israel.
This was written a day before the elections in Iran by Kenneth R. Timmerman (a journalist, political writer, and conservative Republican activist who in 2000 was a candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senator from Maryland), and Timmerman is executive director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, an organization that works to support democratic movements in Iran. Timmerman authored Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson. He has also written on the spread of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. (according to Wikipedia.
....And then, there’s the talk of a “green revolution” in Tehran, named for the omnipresent green scarves and banners that fill the air at Mousavi campaign events.
The National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars during the past decade promoting “color” revolutions in places such as Ukraine and Serbia, training political workers in modern communications and organizational techniques.
Some of that money appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.....
http://www.countercurrents.org/roberts220609.htm
A number of commentators have expressed their idealistic belief in the purity of Mousavi, Montazeri, and the westernized youth of Terhan. The CIA destabilization plan, announced two years ago (see below) has somehow not contaminated unfolding events.
The claim is made that Ahmadinejad stole the election, because the outcome was declared too soon after the polls closed for all the votes to have been counted. However, Mousavi declared his victory several hours before the polls closed. This is classic CIA destabilization designed to discredit a contrary outcome. It forces an early declaration of the vote. The longer the time interval between the preemptive declaration of victory and the announcement of the vote tally, the longer Mousavi has to create the impression that the authorities are using the time to fix the vote. It is amazing that people don’t see through this trick..........
........Commentators are "explaining" the Iran elections based on their own illusions, delusions, emotions, and vested interests. Whether or not the poll results predicting Ahmadinejad's win are sound, there is, so far, no evidence beyond surmise that the election was stolen. However, there are credible reports that the CIA has been working for two years to destabilize the Iranian government.
On May 23, 2007, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito reported on ABC News: “The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell ABC News.”
On May 27, 2007, the London Telegraph independently reported: “Mr. Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.”
A few days previously, the Telegraph reported on May 16, 2007, that Bush administration neocon warmonger John Bolton told the Telegraph that a US military attack on Iran would “be a ‘last option’ after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed.”
On June 29, 2008, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker: “Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.”
The protests in Tehran no doubt have many sincere participants. The protests also have the hallmarks of the CIA orchestrated protests in Georgia and Ukraine.
It requires total blindness not to see this...........
http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/20090621_battle_for_the_islamic_republic/
” ‘Velvet’ or ‘colourful’ revolutions ... are methods of exchanging power for social unrest. Colourful and ‘velvet’ revolutions occurred in post-communist societies of central and Eastern Europe and central Asia. Colourful revolutions have always been initiated during an election and its methods are as follows:
“1. Complete despair in the attitude of people when they are certain to lose an election ...
“2. Choosing one particular colour which is selected solely for the Western media to identify (for their readers or viewers).” Mousavi used green as his campaign colour and his supporters still wear this colour on wristbands, scarves and bandannas.
“3. Announcing that there has been advance cheating before an election and repeating it non-stop afterwards ... allowing exaggeration by the Western media, especially in the US.
“4. Writing letters to officials in the government, claiming vote-rigging in the election. It’s interesting to note that in all such ‘colourful’ projects – for example, in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan—the Western-backed movements have warned of fraud before elections by writing to the incumbent governments. In Islamic Iran, these letters had already been written to the Supreme Leader.”
Another leaflet maintained that a study—which Khamenei’s advisers have obviously undertaken, however inaccurately—demonstrated that vote-rigging will be alleged on the very day of the election and that victory will be claimed by the opposition hours before the counting is finished and before their own defeat is announced. The results, says the document, will therefore already have a “background” of fraud. “In the final stages ... supporters gather in front of the regime’s official offices, holding colourful banners and protesting against vote-rigging.” This part of the demonstration, the leaflet says, “is run by the foreign media who are the opposition movement’s supporters so that they make good pictures and mislead the international community”.
All this shows a unique and obsessive concern among the Supreme Leader’s disciples about just how popular Mousavi’s post-election campaign has become. Even the cutting of SMS and mobile communications—and in a sophisticated society such as Iran, this must have cost millions of dollars—did not prevent the calling of rallies which always assembled at the same moment and at the same place.
What we are now seeing is a regime which is far more worried than the Supreme Leader suggested when he threatened the opposition so baldly on Friday. Having refused any serious political dialogue with Mousavi and his opposition comrades—a few district recounts will produce no real change in the result—the Iranian regime, led by a Supreme Leader who is frightened and a president who speaks like a child, is now involved in the battle for control of the streets of Iran. It is a conflict which will need the kind of miracle in which Khamenei and Ahmadinejad both believe to avoid violence.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22898.htm
Highlighting the complexity of this crisis, Meir Dagan, the head of Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, reportedly voiced his hope that Iran’s embattled president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would remain in office. On the surface, that sounds absurd, since Ahmadinejad is Israel’s Great Satan.
But, according to Dagan, if Ahmadinejad’s supposedly "moderate" rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, came to power, it would be harder for Israel to keep up its propaganda war against Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Besides, added the Mossad chief, the devil you know is better.
Meanwhile, we have been watching an intensifying western propaganda campaign against Iran, mounted by the US and British governments. What we hear is commentary and analysis that comes from bitterly anti-regime Iranian exiles, "experts" with an ax to grind, and US pro-Israel neocons yearning for war with Iran.
In viewing the Muslim world, Westerners keep listening to those who tell them what they want to hear, rather than the facts. We are at it again in Iran.....
....n viewing the Muslim world, Westerners keep listening to those who tell them what they want to hear, rather than the facts. We are at it again in Iran.
President Barack Obama’s properly stated he would refrain from being seen to "meddle" in Iran’s internal affairs in spite of calls by hard-line Republicans for American action – whatever that might be. Obama did the right thing by apologizing for the US/British coup that overthrew Iran’s democratic Mossadegh government in 1953.
But that was not the whole story. Washington has been attempting to overthrow Iran’s Islamic government since the 1979 revolution and continues to do so in spite of pledges of neutrality in the current crisis.
The US has laid economic siege to Iran for 30 years, blocking desperately needed foreign investment, preventing technology transfers, and disrupting Iranian trade. In recent years, the US Congress voted $120 million for anti-regime media broadcasts into Iran, and $60-75 million funding opposition parties, violent underground Marxists like the Mujahidin-i-Khalq, and restive ethnic groups like Azeris, Kurds, and Arabs under the so-called "Iran Democracy Program."
The arm of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, remains withered from a bomb planted by the US-backed Mujahidin-i-Khalq, who were once on the US terrorist list.
Pakistani intelligence sources put CIA’s recent spending on "black operations" to subvert Iran’s government at $400 million.......
....While the majority of protests we see in Tehran are genuine and spontaneous, Western intelligence agencies and media are playing a key role in sustaining the uprising and providing communications, including the newest electronic method, via Twitter. These are covert techniques developed by the US during recent revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia that brought pro-US governments to power.
The Tehran government made things worse by limiting foreign news reports and arresting prominent politicians. Its leadership is increasingly – and dangerously – split over how to handle the protests.
We also hear lot of hypocrisy from Western capitals. Washington, Ottawa, London and Paris piously accused Iran of improper electoral procedures while utterly ignoring the total lack of democracy in their authoritarian Mideast allies such as Egypt, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia, that never hold elections and throw political opponents into prison and torture them. Compared to them, Iran, for all its faults, is almost a model of democratic governance.
The US, France and Saudi Arabia just cooperated to rig Lebanon’s recent elections, dishing out millions in bribe money to ensure victory of the pro-US faction. France’s President Nicholas Sarkozy had the chutzpah to rebuke Iran for improper election procedures after returning from the funeral of Gabon’s dictator, Omar Bongo, who had ruled for 41 years and supplied France with cheap oil.
When Hamas won a fair and square democratic election in Gaza, the US and Israel swiftly moved to mount a coup against the new Palestinian government......
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=98844§ionid=351020101
The ousted Shah of Iran Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi's son urges Israel to support post-election riots in Iran to bring down the government of Tehran.
Reza Pahlavi told Maariv that Israel should back up recently sparked riots in Iran following the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the next president of the country.
The very existence of the ruling government in Iran could lead to a nuclear Holocaust, the former crown prince said but warned against an Israeli attack on the country.
Under the accusation that Iran poses an 'existential threat' to Israel, Tel Aviv, the Middle East's sole possessor of nuclear warheads, has repeatedly threatened Tehran with a military attack over its nuclear work.
Reza Pahlavi said that any military attack against Tehran could prompt the Iranians to stand by the government instead and therefore it would shatter hopes of any resumption of ties between Iran and Israel.
Friday, 19 June 2009
Israel PR war
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1244371097449&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
So what can Israel do to win its global PR war, a war for truth?
One of Judaism's greatest traits is that, while the rest of world talks, it acts. The government of Israel has beefed up media relations and lobbying efforts to Western countries. It makes a special effort to reach Christians through its Tourism Ministry and the Knesset's Christian Allies Caucus.
Religious Israeli organizations do a first-rate job in taking their case to gentiles. And a host of secular entities, most of them nonprofits, are second to none in telling the truth about Israel and exposing its enemies' lies.
But it is not enough. What else can be done? How can Israel be a more effective light that draws the nations to her?
First, recruit the world of commerce. Independent, for-profit media companies must present the broad canvas of Israeli news. Expanded investments in Israeli technologies will yield medical breakthroughs, unleash alternative energy sources and provide water and food for the world's population.
Second, aim directly to inform the potential "grassroot" supporters of the Jewish state. Bring Israel to them and they will come to Israel, both as tourists and supporters of the state.
Yes, methods include the Internet and its social networking tools. Still, there is nothing more effective than firsthand encounters.
So. Sponsor events. Send invitations to others instead of seeking invitations from others.
Deploy first-class conventions and shows and fairs, events hosted on civic platforms around the world. Get endorsements from influential people to market these events. Use them to showcase Israel, not defame it.
Begin these tours where demographic support is strong. Respect religious sensibilities. But use secular venues so that people from different backgrounds will feel comfortable and welcome. Participants with a variety of interests - business, social, political and religious - will enhance grassroot support for Israel and her people.
Most importantly, seek wisdom from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Listen for the whisper of His counsel. He alone is God of all the nations. Under the banner of His leadership, Israel will win.
So what can Israel do to win its global PR war, a war for truth?
One of Judaism's greatest traits is that, while the rest of world talks, it acts. The government of Israel has beefed up media relations and lobbying efforts to Western countries. It makes a special effort to reach Christians through its Tourism Ministry and the Knesset's Christian Allies Caucus.
Religious Israeli organizations do a first-rate job in taking their case to gentiles. And a host of secular entities, most of them nonprofits, are second to none in telling the truth about Israel and exposing its enemies' lies.
But it is not enough. What else can be done? How can Israel be a more effective light that draws the nations to her?
First, recruit the world of commerce. Independent, for-profit media companies must present the broad canvas of Israeli news. Expanded investments in Israeli technologies will yield medical breakthroughs, unleash alternative energy sources and provide water and food for the world's population.
Second, aim directly to inform the potential "grassroot" supporters of the Jewish state. Bring Israel to them and they will come to Israel, both as tourists and supporters of the state.
Yes, methods include the Internet and its social networking tools. Still, there is nothing more effective than firsthand encounters.
So. Sponsor events. Send invitations to others instead of seeking invitations from others.
Deploy first-class conventions and shows and fairs, events hosted on civic platforms around the world. Get endorsements from influential people to market these events. Use them to showcase Israel, not defame it.
Begin these tours where demographic support is strong. Respect religious sensibilities. But use secular venues so that people from different backgrounds will feel comfortable and welcome. Participants with a variety of interests - business, social, political and religious - will enhance grassroot support for Israel and her people.
Most importantly, seek wisdom from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Listen for the whisper of His counsel. He alone is God of all the nations. Under the banner of His leadership, Israel will win.
Bush Loyalists
In May, the U.S. economy lost 345,000 nonfarm jobs, pushing the unemployment rate from 8.9% to 9.4%. According to official statistics, 14.5 million Americans are now looking for work and, as a recent headline at Time.com put it, "The jobs aren't coming back anytime soon." In fact, a team of economists at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank recently reported that "the level of labor market slack could be higher by the end of 2009 than at any other time in the post-World War Two period."
The news, however, is not altogether grim. While times are especially tough for teenagers (22.7% jobless rate) and blacks (14.9% jobless rate), one group is doing remarkably well. I'm talking about former members of the Bush administration who are taking up prestigious academic posts, inking lucrative book deals, signing up with speakers bureaus, joining big-time law firms and top public relations agencies, and grabbing spots on corporate boards of directors. While their high-priced wars, ruinous economic policies, and shredding of economic safety nets have proved disastrous for so many, for them the economic outlook remains bright and jobs are seemingly plentiful. In fact, many of them have performed the eye-opening feat of securing two or more potentially lucrative revenue streams at once during these tough financial times.
The news, however, is not altogether grim. While times are especially tough for teenagers (22.7% jobless rate) and blacks (14.9% jobless rate), one group is doing remarkably well. I'm talking about former members of the Bush administration who are taking up prestigious academic posts, inking lucrative book deals, signing up with speakers bureaus, joining big-time law firms and top public relations agencies, and grabbing spots on corporate boards of directors. While their high-priced wars, ruinous economic policies, and shredding of economic safety nets have proved disastrous for so many, for them the economic outlook remains bright and jobs are seemingly plentiful. In fact, many of them have performed the eye-opening feat of securing two or more potentially lucrative revenue streams at once during these tough financial times.
Birds Dinosaurs
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090610_dinosaur
“For one thing, birds are found earlier in the fossil record than the dinosaurs they are supposed to have descended from,” Ruben said. “That’s a pretty serious problem, and there are other inconsistencies with the bird-from-dinosaur theories.
“For one thing, birds are found earlier in the fossil record than the dinosaurs they are supposed to have descended from,” Ruben said. “That’s a pretty serious problem, and there are other inconsistencies with the bird-from-dinosaur theories.
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Solar Project Germany
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,630699,00.html#ref=nlint
aND
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,630948,00.html#ref=nlint
A German-led consortium wants to fund an international solar-energy plan to the tune of €400 billion. The idea is to gather solar heat in North Africa and send the electricity to Europe. If it works, it would be the largest green-energy project in the world.
An ambitious German-led project to supply Europe with solar energy from the deserts of North Africa will start with a meeting on July 13, an executive from the German insurance giant Munich Re told the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Tuesday. The project involves a consortium of about 20 firms -- including Siemens, Deutsche Bank, and energy companies like RWE -- and will cost €400 billion ($555.3 billion), according to Munich Re board member Torsten Jeworrek.
Jeworrek said the initiative aimed to "present concrete plans in two to three years' time," and start the flow of energy to Europe within a decade. Munich Re will lead the project, and the meeting in July will formally establish the group.
The consortium plans to fund a project called Desertec, which envisions relatively low-tech solar thermal power -- using mirrors in the desert to heat up water, which drives turbines in a local power plant -- rather than an array of high-tech photovoltaic cells.
aND
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,630948,00.html#ref=nlint
A German-led consortium wants to fund an international solar-energy plan to the tune of €400 billion. The idea is to gather solar heat in North Africa and send the electricity to Europe. If it works, it would be the largest green-energy project in the world.
An ambitious German-led project to supply Europe with solar energy from the deserts of North Africa will start with a meeting on July 13, an executive from the German insurance giant Munich Re told the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Tuesday. The project involves a consortium of about 20 firms -- including Siemens, Deutsche Bank, and energy companies like RWE -- and will cost €400 billion ($555.3 billion), according to Munich Re board member Torsten Jeworrek.
Jeworrek said the initiative aimed to "present concrete plans in two to three years' time," and start the flow of energy to Europe within a decade. Munich Re will lead the project, and the meeting in July will formally establish the group.
The consortium plans to fund a project called Desertec, which envisions relatively low-tech solar thermal power -- using mirrors in the desert to heat up water, which drives turbines in a local power plant -- rather than an array of high-tech photovoltaic cells.
EU NeoNazi Parties
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/hung-j17.shtml
In Hungary, the neo-fascist Jobbik party won nearly 15 percent of the vote and three of Hungary’s 22 seats in the European Parliament. In other Eastern European states, as well as in England and the Netherlands, ultra-right parties also increased their share of the vote. In Romania, the Great Romania Party (PRM) received 7 percent of the vote, and in neighboring Bulgaria, the extreme right-wing National Union Attack party won 12 percent and two seats in the European Parliament. In Slovakia, the equally right-wing Slovak National Party (SNS), which has participated in a government coalition with the Social Democrats since 2006, received just 5.5 percent—i.e. just over the five percent hurdle necessary for representation in the European parliament.
In Hungary, the neo-fascist Jobbik party won nearly 15 percent of the vote and three of Hungary’s 22 seats in the European Parliament. In other Eastern European states, as well as in England and the Netherlands, ultra-right parties also increased their share of the vote. In Romania, the Great Romania Party (PRM) received 7 percent of the vote, and in neighboring Bulgaria, the extreme right-wing National Union Attack party won 12 percent and two seats in the European Parliament. In Slovakia, the equally right-wing Slovak National Party (SNS), which has participated in a government coalition with the Social Democrats since 2006, received just 5.5 percent—i.e. just over the five percent hurdle necessary for representation in the European parliament.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Lebanon Election US Interference
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/articles/39/Lebanon_s_elections_Return_to_the_status_quo.html
The U.S. administration is reportedly disappointed that their ‘Team’ did not achieve a stronger victory. Just before the voting, the Obama administration allowed Jeffrey Feltman, Deputy Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, in clear violation of Lebanon voting laws, which required no campaigning after midnight on Friday, to blitz the media through carefully timed interviews with pro-Majority An-Nahar and al-Hayat newspapers, with his personal calls for the Lebanese to have enough intelligence to vote as Feltman saw fit.
Many Lebanese resented the additional interference in which Feltman announced: "The election's outcome will naturally affect the world's stance towards the new Lebanese government and the manner in which the United States and Congress deal with Lebanon. I believe the Lebanese are smart enough to understand that there will be an effect.”
Feltman attacked the head of the Free Patriotic Movement MP General Michel Aoun, lecturing Lebanese voters: "one of your politicians is proposing that Christians shouldn't depend on the United States. I hope the Lebanese had accurately listened to the president's [Barack Obama] speech that specifically pointed to the widest Christian religious minority in Lebanon, the Maronites. The president spoke about the need for respecting all peoples in the region including minorities…I hope the Lebanese would ask themselves: do we want to be on the side of the international community and close to the stances that president Obama made? I hope they would say, yes."
The U.S. administration is reportedly disappointed that their ‘Team’ did not achieve a stronger victory. Just before the voting, the Obama administration allowed Jeffrey Feltman, Deputy Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, in clear violation of Lebanon voting laws, which required no campaigning after midnight on Friday, to blitz the media through carefully timed interviews with pro-Majority An-Nahar and al-Hayat newspapers, with his personal calls for the Lebanese to have enough intelligence to vote as Feltman saw fit.
Many Lebanese resented the additional interference in which Feltman announced: "The election's outcome will naturally affect the world's stance towards the new Lebanese government and the manner in which the United States and Congress deal with Lebanon. I believe the Lebanese are smart enough to understand that there will be an effect.”
Feltman attacked the head of the Free Patriotic Movement MP General Michel Aoun, lecturing Lebanese voters: "one of your politicians is proposing that Christians shouldn't depend on the United States. I hope the Lebanese had accurately listened to the president's [Barack Obama] speech that specifically pointed to the widest Christian religious minority in Lebanon, the Maronites. The president spoke about the need for respecting all peoples in the region including minorities…I hope the Lebanese would ask themselves: do we want to be on the side of the international community and close to the stances that president Obama made? I hope they would say, yes."
Monday, 15 June 2009
John Yoo
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/12/MND5186KL8.DTL
A prisoner who says he was tortured while being held for nearly four years as a suspected terrorist can sue former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo for coming up with the legal theories that justified his alleged treatment, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Friday.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White's decision marks the first time a government lawyer has been held potentially responsible for the abuse of detainees.
"Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct," White said in refusing to dismiss Jose Padilla's lawsuit against Yoo.
If Padilla, now serving a 17-year prison sentence on terrorism charges, can prove his allegations, he can show that Yoo "set in motion a series of events that resulted in the deprivation of Padilla's constitutional rights," White said.........
A prisoner who says he was tortured while being held for nearly four years as a suspected terrorist can sue former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo for coming up with the legal theories that justified his alleged treatment, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Friday.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White's decision marks the first time a government lawyer has been held potentially responsible for the abuse of detainees.
"Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct," White said in refusing to dismiss Jose Padilla's lawsuit against Yoo.
If Padilla, now serving a 17-year prison sentence on terrorism charges, can prove his allegations, he can show that Yoo "set in motion a series of events that resulted in the deprivation of Padilla's constitutional rights," White said.........
Abuse at British embassy in Iraq
http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=55088&s2=14
June 12, 2009
An investigation into abuse by private staff at the British embassy in Baghdad was "fundamentally flawed", according to Human Rights Watch.
The London director of the group, Tom Porteous, told the House of Commons foreign affairs committee that there needed to be a "proper investigation" into the allegations, and that if found guilty those responsible should face sanction.
The initial investigation was conducted by the company, Kellogg Brown and Root, itself, rather than by the UK government.
But Porteous said the Foreign Office has responsibility for the behaviour of its contractors, and should conduct its own inquiry.
He said the investigation also had procedural shortcomings, such as the failure to interview key personnel.
He also accused KBR of allowing those under investigation free access to the complainants.
Porteous added that whilst no disciplinary measures were taken against KBR staff, those that complained were dismissed.
He said that there had since been further allegations of sexual harassment made against the same individuals, "no doubt a consequence of the impunity that stemmed from this investigation".
"Those staff who have been the victim of this abuse and those who have been dismissed need to be compensated," he said.
Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK also slammed the government for its attitude towards private military contractors.
Allen said proposals to allow companies to sign codes of conduct voluntarily was "absolutely insufficient", as well as being "extraordinarily weak".
"When you understand how much of what is happening in parts of the world has been contracted out, it is untenable that they not be accountable," she said.
June 12, 2009
An investigation into abuse by private staff at the British embassy in Baghdad was "fundamentally flawed", according to Human Rights Watch.
The London director of the group, Tom Porteous, told the House of Commons foreign affairs committee that there needed to be a "proper investigation" into the allegations, and that if found guilty those responsible should face sanction.
The initial investigation was conducted by the company, Kellogg Brown and Root, itself, rather than by the UK government.
But Porteous said the Foreign Office has responsibility for the behaviour of its contractors, and should conduct its own inquiry.
He said the investigation also had procedural shortcomings, such as the failure to interview key personnel.
He also accused KBR of allowing those under investigation free access to the complainants.
Porteous added that whilst no disciplinary measures were taken against KBR staff, those that complained were dismissed.
He said that there had since been further allegations of sexual harassment made against the same individuals, "no doubt a consequence of the impunity that stemmed from this investigation".
"Those staff who have been the victim of this abuse and those who have been dismissed need to be compensated," he said.
Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK also slammed the government for its attitude towards private military contractors.
Allen said proposals to allow companies to sign codes of conduct voluntarily was "absolutely insufficient", as well as being "extraordinarily weak".
"When you understand how much of what is happening in parts of the world has been contracted out, it is untenable that they not be accountable," she said.
French military base in Abu Dhabi
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/base-j15.shtml
The inauguration of a French military base in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), on May 26, demonstrates that French capitalism is eager to achieve its interests in the Persian Gulf and has ambitions to be a global player.
Called Peace Camp, France’s first permanent military base in the UAE, which is historically closer to Great Britain and the US, is only 150 miles from the coast of Iran. It is also close to the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world’s oil supply passes. It represents a toehold for French imperialism in a region militarily dominated particularly by the US........
...............The Peace Camp base, France’s first overseas base in 50 years following the end of the colonial era, represents a significant shift in French foreign policy. France has to now had its military bases concentrated in its former colonies in Africa. Of over 12,000 French troops deployed around the world, over half are deployed in Africa, with the largest contingent (2,800 troops) in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. France has 3,000 deployed troops in Afghanistan.
The inauguration of a French military base in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), on May 26, demonstrates that French capitalism is eager to achieve its interests in the Persian Gulf and has ambitions to be a global player.
Called Peace Camp, France’s first permanent military base in the UAE, which is historically closer to Great Britain and the US, is only 150 miles from the coast of Iran. It is also close to the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world’s oil supply passes. It represents a toehold for French imperialism in a region militarily dominated particularly by the US........
...............The Peace Camp base, France’s first overseas base in 50 years following the end of the colonial era, represents a significant shift in French foreign policy. France has to now had its military bases concentrated in its former colonies in Africa. Of over 12,000 French troops deployed around the world, over half are deployed in Africa, with the largest contingent (2,800 troops) in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. France has 3,000 deployed troops in Afghanistan.
Thursday, 11 June 2009
Example Stock Market Mergers
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n10/lanc01_.html
This is partly a question of accounting. In the stock market, all money is not created equal. The price of a share is determined by what people think it’s worth – obviously. But what people think it’s worth is in turn decided by what they think the company’s prospects are. Take the example of companies A and B mentioned above. Both of them make widgets. Company A is a fast-growing internet-based firm, eWidget, which is promising to take over the world market in widgets by riding the new trend for firms and customers to order their widgets online. Last year its earnings were £200 million. The company’s pitch to the stock market runs something like this: the global market for widgets is £1 trillion. In time, say ten years, it is clear that 30 per cent of widgets will be ordered over the internet. Our ambition is to win 10 per cent of that market. (The trick is to keep these projected and made-up figures sounding sensible and achievable: don’t claim that the net will be all the market, and that you’ll get all of that business. State a huge number for the total market, and claim to be after a sensible fraction of it.) So your sensible and achievable goal is for eWidget to have 10 per cent of 30 per cent of £1 trillion, in other words £30 billion a year. Wow! It’s clear that eWidget has a big, big future, and if you get in on it now by buying a piece of the company – i.e. by buying shares – you will, in time, make out like a bandit. As a result, eWidget’s shares trade at a high price in relation to the company’s present earnings: at the already mentioned market capitalisation of £10 billion, that means the shares cost 50 times the company’s earnings. The P/E ratio, as it’s called, is 50/1. That is high, and it can only be justified by steeply rising future growth.
Company B is Goodwidget Ltd. This is a well-run old firm with members of the original founding family still in charge. It has grown at 10 per cent a year for decades, and its business model is the same one it had during those years, one of steady incremental growth through the old-fashioned method of making a better widget than its competitors. The stock market takes one look at its figures and reacts with a colossal, neck-ricking yawn. There is no glamorous upside here and no reason to believe in any growth beyond the kind that Goodwidget has proved it can achieve. Thus, although Goodwidget actually sells more widgets and makes more money than eWidget – it made £500 million last year – because it seems to have less potential for growth, its shares are, in terms of their earnings, cheaper. The shares are priced at ten times their earnings, giving the company a market capitalisation of £5 billion. Goodwidget, despite earning more than twice as much as eWidget, is worth only half as much on the stock market. All money is not created equal. The money earned by Goodwidget is worth much less than the money earned by eWidget. This is one of those points of stock-market logic which seems surreal, nonsensical and wholly counterintuitive to civilians, but which to market participants is as familiar as beans on toast. (An example: when AOL took over Time Warner, the old media company supplied 70 per cent of the profit-stream, but ended up with 45 per cent of the merged firm, because AOL’s market cap was so much bigger. How successfully did that play out? Well, at the time of the merger, the new combined company’s market capitalisation was $350 billion. Today it’s $28.8 billion. That’s $321.2 billion in value gone with the wind. I say again, for anti-capitalists, merger = fiesta.)
Now let’s consider what happens if eWidget takes over Goodwidget. They bid £5 billion for the old-school company, and their offer is accepted. (In practice, by the way, they would offer more than that, since the whole point of takeovers is that the buyer sees more value in the target company than the market does: he sees a way of making more money than is already being made. But let’s keep this example simple.) The new company is worth £10 billion plus £5 billion, yes? No – and this, from the stock market’s point of view, is the beautiful part. Goodwidget’s £500 million of earnings are now added to the total revenue of eWidget, so the merged firm is earning £700 million a year. Remember that eWidget is valued at 50 times its earnings (so that £700 million of earnings implies a market capitalisation of £35 billion), which means that eWidget shares are about to more than treble in price. That in turn completely justifies the confidence of the shareholders who bought a piece of this exciting, sexy, go-go 21st-century widget-maker. The successful takeover has magically sent the share-price rocketing; the company has grown. It isn’t what’s known as ‘organic’ growth, of course, the kind which comes from selling more of your stuff to more people, but so what? Although most takeovers and mergers end by destroying value, the market loves them anyway.
This is partly a question of accounting. In the stock market, all money is not created equal. The price of a share is determined by what people think it’s worth – obviously. But what people think it’s worth is in turn decided by what they think the company’s prospects are. Take the example of companies A and B mentioned above. Both of them make widgets. Company A is a fast-growing internet-based firm, eWidget, which is promising to take over the world market in widgets by riding the new trend for firms and customers to order their widgets online. Last year its earnings were £200 million. The company’s pitch to the stock market runs something like this: the global market for widgets is £1 trillion. In time, say ten years, it is clear that 30 per cent of widgets will be ordered over the internet. Our ambition is to win 10 per cent of that market. (The trick is to keep these projected and made-up figures sounding sensible and achievable: don’t claim that the net will be all the market, and that you’ll get all of that business. State a huge number for the total market, and claim to be after a sensible fraction of it.) So your sensible and achievable goal is for eWidget to have 10 per cent of 30 per cent of £1 trillion, in other words £30 billion a year. Wow! It’s clear that eWidget has a big, big future, and if you get in on it now by buying a piece of the company – i.e. by buying shares – you will, in time, make out like a bandit. As a result, eWidget’s shares trade at a high price in relation to the company’s present earnings: at the already mentioned market capitalisation of £10 billion, that means the shares cost 50 times the company’s earnings. The P/E ratio, as it’s called, is 50/1. That is high, and it can only be justified by steeply rising future growth.
Company B is Goodwidget Ltd. This is a well-run old firm with members of the original founding family still in charge. It has grown at 10 per cent a year for decades, and its business model is the same one it had during those years, one of steady incremental growth through the old-fashioned method of making a better widget than its competitors. The stock market takes one look at its figures and reacts with a colossal, neck-ricking yawn. There is no glamorous upside here and no reason to believe in any growth beyond the kind that Goodwidget has proved it can achieve. Thus, although Goodwidget actually sells more widgets and makes more money than eWidget – it made £500 million last year – because it seems to have less potential for growth, its shares are, in terms of their earnings, cheaper. The shares are priced at ten times their earnings, giving the company a market capitalisation of £5 billion. Goodwidget, despite earning more than twice as much as eWidget, is worth only half as much on the stock market. All money is not created equal. The money earned by Goodwidget is worth much less than the money earned by eWidget. This is one of those points of stock-market logic which seems surreal, nonsensical and wholly counterintuitive to civilians, but which to market participants is as familiar as beans on toast. (An example: when AOL took over Time Warner, the old media company supplied 70 per cent of the profit-stream, but ended up with 45 per cent of the merged firm, because AOL’s market cap was so much bigger. How successfully did that play out? Well, at the time of the merger, the new combined company’s market capitalisation was $350 billion. Today it’s $28.8 billion. That’s $321.2 billion in value gone with the wind. I say again, for anti-capitalists, merger = fiesta.)
Now let’s consider what happens if eWidget takes over Goodwidget. They bid £5 billion for the old-school company, and their offer is accepted. (In practice, by the way, they would offer more than that, since the whole point of takeovers is that the buyer sees more value in the target company than the market does: he sees a way of making more money than is already being made. But let’s keep this example simple.) The new company is worth £10 billion plus £5 billion, yes? No – and this, from the stock market’s point of view, is the beautiful part. Goodwidget’s £500 million of earnings are now added to the total revenue of eWidget, so the merged firm is earning £700 million a year. Remember that eWidget is valued at 50 times its earnings (so that £700 million of earnings implies a market capitalisation of £35 billion), which means that eWidget shares are about to more than treble in price. That in turn completely justifies the confidence of the shareholders who bought a piece of this exciting, sexy, go-go 21st-century widget-maker. The successful takeover has magically sent the share-price rocketing; the company has grown. It isn’t what’s known as ‘organic’ growth, of course, the kind which comes from selling more of your stuff to more people, but so what? Although most takeovers and mergers end by destroying value, the market loves them anyway.
UK India Ireland History
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22800.htm
There will probably never be a full account of the robbery this country organised, but there are a few snapshots. In his book Capitalism and Colonial Production, Hamza Alavi estimates that the resource flow from India to Britain between 1793 and 1803 was in the order of £2m a year, the equivalent of many billions today. The economic drain from India, he notes, "has not only been a major factor in India's impoverishment … it has also been a very significant factor in the industrial revolution in Britain". As Ralph Davis observes in The Industrial Revolution and British Overseas Trade, from the 1760s onwards India's wealth "bought the national debt back from the Dutch and others … leaving Britain nearly free from overseas indebtedness when it came to face the great French wars from 1793".....
...Colonial plunder permitted the British state to balance its resource deficits as well. For some 200 years a river of food flowed into this country from such places as Ireland, India and the Caribbean. In The Blood Never Dried, John Newsinger reveals that in 1748 Jamaica alone sent 17,400 tons of sugar to Britain; by 1815 this had risen to 73,800. It was all produced by stolen labour.
Just as grain was sucked out of Ireland at the height of its great famine, so Britain continued to drain India of food during its catastrophic hungers. In Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis shows that between 1876 and 1877 wheat exports to the UK from India doubled as subsistence there collapsed, and several million died of starvation. In the North-Western provinces famine was wholly engineered by British policy, as good harvests were exported to offset poor English production in 1876 and 1877.....
.....Its role in British colonisation was not a passive one. The bankruptcy, and subsequent British takeover, of Egypt in 1882 was hastened by a loan from Rothschild's bank whose execution, Newsinger records, amounted to "fraud on a massive scale". Jardine Matheson, once the biggest narco-trafficking outfit in history (it dominated the Chinese opium trade), later formed a major investment bank, Jardine Fleming. It was taken over by JP Morgan Chase in 2000.....
There will probably never be a full account of the robbery this country organised, but there are a few snapshots. In his book Capitalism and Colonial Production, Hamza Alavi estimates that the resource flow from India to Britain between 1793 and 1803 was in the order of £2m a year, the equivalent of many billions today. The economic drain from India, he notes, "has not only been a major factor in India's impoverishment … it has also been a very significant factor in the industrial revolution in Britain". As Ralph Davis observes in The Industrial Revolution and British Overseas Trade, from the 1760s onwards India's wealth "bought the national debt back from the Dutch and others … leaving Britain nearly free from overseas indebtedness when it came to face the great French wars from 1793".....
...Colonial plunder permitted the British state to balance its resource deficits as well. For some 200 years a river of food flowed into this country from such places as Ireland, India and the Caribbean. In The Blood Never Dried, John Newsinger reveals that in 1748 Jamaica alone sent 17,400 tons of sugar to Britain; by 1815 this had risen to 73,800. It was all produced by stolen labour.
Just as grain was sucked out of Ireland at the height of its great famine, so Britain continued to drain India of food during its catastrophic hungers. In Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis shows that between 1876 and 1877 wheat exports to the UK from India doubled as subsistence there collapsed, and several million died of starvation. In the North-Western provinces famine was wholly engineered by British policy, as good harvests were exported to offset poor English production in 1876 and 1877.....
.....Its role in British colonisation was not a passive one. The bankruptcy, and subsequent British takeover, of Egypt in 1882 was hastened by a loan from Rothschild's bank whose execution, Newsinger records, amounted to "fraud on a massive scale". Jardine Matheson, once the biggest narco-trafficking outfit in history (it dominated the Chinese opium trade), later formed a major investment bank, Jardine Fleming. It was taken over by JP Morgan Chase in 2000.....
Cuba Housing May Day Finance Democracy Socialism
In Cuba, 85 percent of the population owns their own homes, mortgage-free. They have unrestricted access to high quality health care and a guarantee of a free public education through the university level. Teachers and community organizations have pivotal roles in determining educational priorities and curricula, ensuring the accessibility and relevance of the educational system. Every Cuban is guaranteed a basic income, and a job if they can work. One could go on about the percentage of female medical doctors (62 percent) or universal literacy (99.4 percent) or the number of incarcerated juveniles (zero), but in the US, such basic values have nothing to do with democracy or freedom. “Freedom” is reserved for markets and capital flow.
But in Havana, May Day is not “Labor Day.” It is both an act of defiance and a celebration of the survival of Cuban socialism. The 2009 May Day march was more than a million strong – ten percent of the entire population of the island marches - with unionists and community organizations from across the island massed for the festive occasion. The teachers union led off the march this year, with their block-wide banner, “Education is a Labor of Infinite Love,” followed by a three-hour jubilant parade of teachers, doctors, construction workers, dancers and artists, taxi drivers, students, and even scientists and engineers marching past the official reviewing stand. Their hand-made signs declare “We Are A Free Country” and “We Defend Our Socialism,” and of course hundreds of portraits of Che.
One sign in particular caught my eye, and seemed to explain the key role of Larry Summers in the debate over “freedom” and “democracy” in Cuba.
Somewhat poorly translated, the sign reads: “In capitalism in crisis, they impose unemployment on thousands and they close industries. How the working class suffers! Under socialism it is completely different. They create factories and industries, They provide jobs and guarantee work for those affected. We want socialism! Long live Fidel!”
But it is also a country without health insurance companies, home mortgages, or a usurious banking industry, and not accidentally, a country without unemployment or homelessness. It is a place where laid off sugar cane workers can go to school at state expense to become social workers or organic farmers, where masses of people from all strata of society participate in decisions about the economy and social development. Cubans do not depend on stock market gambles to provide for their retirement (at age 55) nor do they lose health insurance if they quit their jobs.
But in Havana, May Day is not “Labor Day.” It is both an act of defiance and a celebration of the survival of Cuban socialism. The 2009 May Day march was more than a million strong – ten percent of the entire population of the island marches - with unionists and community organizations from across the island massed for the festive occasion. The teachers union led off the march this year, with their block-wide banner, “Education is a Labor of Infinite Love,” followed by a three-hour jubilant parade of teachers, doctors, construction workers, dancers and artists, taxi drivers, students, and even scientists and engineers marching past the official reviewing stand. Their hand-made signs declare “We Are A Free Country” and “We Defend Our Socialism,” and of course hundreds of portraits of Che.
One sign in particular caught my eye, and seemed to explain the key role of Larry Summers in the debate over “freedom” and “democracy” in Cuba.
Somewhat poorly translated, the sign reads: “In capitalism in crisis, they impose unemployment on thousands and they close industries. How the working class suffers! Under socialism it is completely different. They create factories and industries, They provide jobs and guarantee work for those affected. We want socialism! Long live Fidel!”
But it is also a country without health insurance companies, home mortgages, or a usurious banking industry, and not accidentally, a country without unemployment or homelessness. It is a place where laid off sugar cane workers can go to school at state expense to become social workers or organic farmers, where masses of people from all strata of society participate in decisions about the economy and social development. Cubans do not depend on stock market gambles to provide for their retirement (at age 55) nor do they lose health insurance if they quit their jobs.
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