Unspeakable grief and horror
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Know them by their fruit:
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Unspeakable grief and horror
Know them by their fruit: |
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Why are the Burma troops defending these elite?
Ever ask yourself what really happened at 9/11?
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Guardian — George Monbiot October 2, 2007
Western interests in Burma contribute to the oppression of its people.
... Explaining his company's decision to pull out of the country, the CEO of Reebok noted that "it's impossible to conduct business in Burma without supporting this regime. In fact, the junta's core funding derives from foreign investment and trade".
As the junta either controls or takes a cut from most of the economy, and as almost half the tax foreign business generates is used to buy arms, any company working in Burma is helping to oppress the people.
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The travel firms Asean Explorer and Pettitts, which take British tourists round the country in defiance of Aung San Suu Kyi's pleas, both refused to comment when I rang them, then slammed down the phone.
Aquatic, a British company that provides services for gas and oil firms, was more polite, but still refused to talk.
The tourism companies Audley Travel and Andrew Brock Travel Ltd promised to phone me back but failed to do so.
But aside from invoking the Chinese bogeyman, each of the others I talked to produced a different justification.
The spokeswoman for Orient Express, a travel company that runs a cruiser on the Irrawaddy river and a hotel in Rangoon, told me that "tourism can be a catalyst for change".
Given that tourism has continued throughout the junta's rule, I asked how effective that catalyst has been.
"There has been very slow progress, but we feel it has helped."
The Ultimate Travel Company explained that: "We feel we just like to offer the people who travel with us a choice. If people want to travel, they can. And really I'd prefer not to enter into a debate about it."
Rolls-Royce, which overhauls engines for Myanmar Airways, a company owned by the state, told me that it operates "in line with UK export licences ... As long as we are meeting government requirements, that's what we work to. I'm not getting into a debate on this issue. We're doing this to ensure passenger safety."
William Garvey, the boss of the furniture company that bears his name and that works mostly in Burmese teak, admitted that he buys timber "that comes from Rangoon, through government channels".
But if he stopped, "a highly likely consequence is that the rate of felling would increase dramatically ... Whatever you may think about the Burmese government, they are still using a sustainable system for extracting teak."
Aren't human rights a component of sustainability? "In the strict sense, no."
The managing director of Britannic Garden Furniture, which makes its benches from Burmese teak and supplies the royal parks and the Tower of London, told me: "I know it's no excuse to say we don't buy it directly ... You try and get teak from other sources. But it's rubbish ... The government has given us no directive not to trade with Burma."
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... Gary Player has made much of his ethical credentials. Next month he will host the Nelson Mandela Invitational golf tournament, whose purpose is "to make a difference in the lives of children"
Golf, to most of us, looks like a harmless, if mysterious, activity, but in Burma it is a powerful symbol of oppression.
Some of the country's courses have been built on land seized from peasant farmers, who were evicted without compensation.
Golf is the sport of the generals, who conduct much of their business on the links.
Player's website shows him [ Gary Player ], in 2002, launching the "grand opening" of the golf course he designed, which turned "a 650-acre rice paddy into The Pride of Myanmar. The golfer's paradise that stands in Myanmar today is said to be living proof that miracles do happen."
I asked his company the following questions.
Who owned the land on which the course was constructed?
How many people were evicted in order to build it?
Was forced labour used in its construction?
As Player's company is based in Florida, did the design of this course break US sanctions?
His media spokesman told me: "The Gary Player Group has decided not to comment on any questions regarding Myanmar-Burma."
It seems to me that there is a strong case for asking Nelson Mandela to remove his name from Mr Player's tournament.
If, like me, you have been shaking your head over the crushing of the protests, wondering what on earth you can do, I suggest you get on the phone to these companies, demanding, politely that they cut their ties.
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I sense that it wouldn't take much more pressure to persuade them to pull out.
By itself, this won't bring down the regime.
But it will cut its sources of income, and allow us to focus on confronting the reality of Chinese investment, rather than the excuse. |
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Know anything about FEMA camps?
No!
That is what the Western elite have planned for you if you get uppity
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BBC — Monday, 1 October 2007
Burmese monks 'to be sent away'
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Thousands of monks detained in Burma's main city of Rangoon will be sent to prisons in the far north of the country, sources have told the BBC.
About 4,000 monks have been rounded up in the past week as the military government has tried to stamp out pro-democracy protests.
They are being held at a disused race course and a technical college.
Sources from a government-sponsored militia said they would soon be moved away from Rangoon.
The monks have been disrobed and shackled, the sources told BBC radio's Burmese service.
There are reports that the monks are refusing to eat.
The country has seen almost two weeks of sustained popular unrest, in the most serious challenge to the military leadership for more than two decades.
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The authorities said 10 people were killed as the protests were dispersed, though diplomats and activists say the number of dead was many times higher.
The banned opposition broadcaster Democratic Voice of Burma has issued a picture which they say shows the body of a monk floating near the mouth of the Rangoon river.
Last week several monasteries were raided, and there were reports of monks being beaten and killed.
With many monks behind bars, the demonstrations have now died down.
On Monday, the centre of Rangoon was almost back to normal, a reporter, who cannot be identified for security reasons, told the BBC.
Most shops and temples have reopened and people appear to be getting on with their lives.
But there seemed to be a group of soldiers around every corner, and very few monks about, the reporter said.
This is notable in a city where monks can usually be spotted going in and out of temples, shopping at street stalls and chatting in tea shops.
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The atmosphere in Rangoon is tense, the reporter said. Local people are well aware that the monks have been locked away and are afraid that they will be next.
The crackdown, in which unarmed protesters were beaten, tear-gassed, and shot at, has attracted condemnation from abroad, and even from Burma's neighbours in the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean).
Envoy still waiting
As well as preventing the demonstrations, the military junta has tried to block news of the unrest filtering out.
Troops are stopping young men on the streets and in cars, searching for cameras that may be used to smuggle out images.
Most internet links are still down and mobile phone networks disrupted.
Official media has been warning Burmese people against co-operating with or using foreign news outlets.
A TV message on Monday referred to the BBC, Voice of America and Radio Free Asia as "assassins on air".
UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari was set to meet Burma's military leader General Than Shwe on Tuesday, officials said.
On Saturday, when Mr Gambari travelled to the new capital Naypidaw, he was allowed to meet only more junior members of the government.
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On Sunday, Mr Gambari held talks with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon — the first foreigner to be permitted to do so for 10 months. |
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Ahhh!
If only the BBC, VOA and RFA told you the truth about what your governments were really doing.
Not to mention FOX, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, PBS, ClearChannel!
Did I mention FOX, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, PBS, ClearChannel?
HA! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Don't forget those FEMA camps!
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But there is nothing to laugh about
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Why are the Burma troops defending these elite?
Ever ask yourself what really happened at 9/11?
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110,000 people gather to protest the lies and spin of the Japanese governmentProtest Kaihin Park in Ginowan City, Okinawa, Japan
The Japanese signs read: 'Let's validate historical facts fairly.'
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Now if we could only get such honesty in US and UK history.
You know, the history about the events never mentioned.
Will the people here protest for truth?
Will we show some passion for real news and not constant propaganda that engulfs not only the fiction programs we escape into, but even the fiction we call news, on our television?
Real news and not constant spin and lies on the radio?
Real news and not constant nothing in our newspapers and magazines?
No!
We are so stupid in our two countries we think we have the truth!
When was the last time you had a thought about the horrors your police and military...
Kewe — TheWE.cc
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BBC — Saturday, 29 September 2007
Huge Japan protest over textbook
More than 100,000 people in Japan have rallied against changes to school books detailing Japanese military involvement in mass suicides during World War II.
The protest, in Okinawa, was against moves to modify and tone down passages that say the army ordered Okinawans to kill themselves rather than surrender.
Okinawa's governor told crowds they could not ignore army involvement.
Some conservatives in Japan have in recent years questioned accounts of the country's brutal wartime past.
Saturday's rally was the biggest staged on the southern island since it was returned to Japan by the United States in 1972, according to the Kyodo News agency.
Grenades
When US soldiers invaded Okinawa at the end of World War II, more than 200,000 people died.
Hundreds of them were Japanese civilians who killed themselves.
The textbooks, intended for use in high schools next year, currently say that as the Americans prepared to invade, the Japanese army handed out grenades to Okinawa residents and ordered them to kill themselves.
Many survivors insist the military told people to commit suicide, partly due to fears over what they might tell the invaders and because being taken prisoner was considered shameful.
The governor of Okinawa, Hirokazu Nakaima, told crowds the episode should not be forgotten.
"We cannot bury the fact that the Japanese military was involved in the mass suicide, taking into account of the general background and testimonies that hand grenades were delivered," he said.
Japan's Kyodo news agency said Saturday's rally was the biggest staged on the southern island since it was returned to Japan by the United States in 1972. |
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HA! Ha!
We'd rather bury ourselves in Ken Burns' reality
OH! That feels good!
So good!
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The Japanese signs read: 'Let's validate historical facts fairly.'
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Atomic bomb’s peculiar disease Hiroshima, Nagasaki — George Weller report |
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Why do Burmese soldiers and police shoot their own people?
Do you think soldiers and police will not shoot you if your protesting gets close to usurping the criminal elite of the US and UK
How the elite controls — all paid for by your funding
More police
More military
To swallow you, overwhelm you — engulfing, overflowing and enclosing
Coming to your town and city
If not already
Kewe — TheWE.cc
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Nine people killed as troops fired bulletsDeath rate could be many multiples of that number
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Damage caused by Burma troops on rampage
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Photo: AFP/BBC |
Nine people killed as troops fired bulletsDeath rate could be many multiples of that number
|
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Why do Burmese soldiers and police shoot their own people?
Do you think soldiers and police will not shoot you if your protesting gets close to usurping the criminal elite of the US and UK
How the elite controls — all paid for by your funding
More police
More military
To swallow you, overwhelm you — engulfing, overflowing and enclosing
Coming to your town and city
If not already
Kewe — TheWE.cc
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Police Brutality & Harassment Sweeps America & UK
An epidemic of violence and harassment is sweeping the two Western countries.
Police, trained that the general public are the enemy, now understand they can engage in outright brutality without recourse.
Taser deaths are skyrocketing because the police have been ordered to use "pain compliance", otherwise known as torture, to subdue and oppress the citizenry.
To view the videos on police brutality, click here
PRISON PLANET.com Copyright © 2002-2007 Alex Jones All rights reserved. |
U.S. troops backed by helicopters killed the man, injuring his wife
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US largest war funding request ever for 2008
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Weeps for father killed by the USU.S. troops backed by helicopters killed his father, injuring his mother
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US largest war funding request ever for 2008
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Iraqi Resistance Report
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. http://www.freearabvoice.org
Wednesday, 26 September 2007.
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In a dispatch posted at 11:07am Baghdad time Wednesday morning, the Aswat al-trebuchet ms, arial'Iraq news agency, which was set up by Reuters and the U.N. Development Agency, reported that a bomb exploded by a puppet police patrol north of al-Khalidiyah, 80km west of Baghdad on Wednesday morning.
Aswat al-'Iraq reported an official source in the al-Khalidiyah puppet police as saying that the bomb went off in the al-Jazirah area two kilometers north of al-Khalidiya. The blast killed one puppet policeman and wounded a second.
Afterwards puppet policemen closed off the area and arrested three men as "suspects."
Baghdad.
Sectarian murder spree continues: seven bodies recovered in previous 24 hours.
In a dispatch posted at 11:09pm Baghdad time Wednesday night, the Aswat al-'Iraq news agency, which was set up by Reuters and the U.N. Development Agency, reported that the Iraqi puppet police recovered the bodies of seven more victims of sectarian murder in various parts of Baghdad on Wednesday.
Aswat al-'Iraq reported a source in the puppet "Interior Ministry" as saying that the victims had been shot to death.
Two car bombs explode in al-Bayya' district minutes before sunset Wednesday, killing six.
In a dispatch posted at 8:38pm Baghdad time Wednesday night, the Aswat al-'Iraq news agency, which was set up by Reuters and the U.N. Development Agency, reported that at least one car bomb exploded in a market in the al-Bayya' section of Baghdad before sunset on Wednesday.
Aswat al-'Iraq reported an eyewitness as saying that the explosives-laden car was parked by the side of 20 Street in the al-Bayya' area of southern Baghdad at about 6:40 pm local time. The blast destroyed storefronts and the facades of several houses.
In a dispatch posted at 10:28pm Wednesday night, Aswat al-'Iraq reported that the there were in fact two car bombs involved in the attack and that 32 people had been killed and 28 more wounded, some of them severely, in the twin bombing.
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A source in the puppet "Interior Ministry" said that two explosives-laden cars that had been parked on 20 Street near a popular marked in al-Bayya' blew up simultaneously shortly before sunset.
US acknowledges death of American soldier in eastern Baghdad Tuesday.
In a dispatch posted at 5:23pm Makkah time Wednesday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that the US military admitted that one more of its soldiers had been killed in a light arms attack that took place in eastern Baghdad on Tuesday.
Mafkarat al-Islam reported the American statement as saying that the detachment to which the dead US soldier belonged was on a mission to remove bombs from the side of roads in the area when the deadly attack took place.
US admits two more American soldiers killed in occupied Iraq.
In a dispatch posted at 10:35am Baghdad time Wednesday morning, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that the US military admitted that two more of its occupation troops had been killed.
The AMSI reported an American statement as saying that an explosion went off in Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad. That blast killed one American.
AMSI reported a second US statement as admitting that a US soldier who had been wounded in a Resistance attack in Salah ad-Din Province had died. |
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Seven people killed in US airstike, Mussayab
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Salah ad-Din Province.
Ash-Sharuqat.
Two puppet policemen among casualties of twin car bomb explosions in ash-Sharuqat midday Wednesday.
In a dispatch posted at 2:pm Baghdad time Wednesday morning, the Aswat al-'Iraq news agency, which was set up by Reuters and the U.N. Development Agency, reported that two car bombs exploded one after the other in the town of ash-Shuraqat, about 250km north of Baghdad, at midday Wednesday.
Aswat al-'Iraq reported an official source in the local puppet police force who asked to remain anonymous as saying that two puppet policemen died in the attacks in which five other people were also killed. Five people were wounded in the twin car bombing.
Diyala Province.
Al-Mada’in.
Iraqi Resistance mounts offensive against puppet "Lion Brigades" in al-Mada’in, killing 15 of them midday Wednesday.
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In a dispatch posted at 8:08pm Baghdad time Wednesday evening, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that Iraqi Resistance fighters assaulted all the checkpoints manned by the puppet "Lion Brigades" in the city of al-Mada’in, 25km southeast of Baghdad, killing 15 of the members of the notorious sectarian puppet force.
The AMSI reported eyewitnesses as saying that the Resistance men mounted their local offensive at midday Wednesday, targeting all the checkpoints manned by the puppet "Iraqi Interior Ministry Lion Brigade" troops.
The "Lion Brigades" are believed responsible for acts of sectarian mass murder in the city of al-Mada’in.
Babil Province.
Al-Musayyib.
US raiders kill family of nine and religious leader in al-Musayyib area at dawn Wednesday.
In a dispatch posted on its Arabic website at 4:23pm Wednesday afternoon Beijing time, the Xinhua News Agency reported that US forces carried out an airborne landing in the village of Bahbahan in the Jurf as-Sakhr area near al-Musayyib, about 70km south of Baghdad at dawn on Wednesday.
Xinhua reported a source in the al-Musayyib puppet police as saying that after the American raid, the police found the bodies of nine people, all members of one family who had been killed when an American helicopter gunship blasted their home.
The source said that the US troops also raided the Nawwaf al-Wakka' Mosque in the Jurf as-Sakhr area.
There the Americans killed the Imam, Shayh Hasan Muhammad al-Jannabi, the source said without offering any further details.
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The source added, however, that the Americans also demolished another house during their raid, but since that building was vacant at the time, there were no casualties.
Xinhua indicated that as of the time of reporting the Americans had made no official statement regarding the raids.
At-Ta’mim Province.
Al-Huwayjah.
Bomb kills puppet policeman on patrol in al-Huwayjah Wednesday evening.
In a dispatch posted at 10:42pm Baghdad time Wednesday night, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that a bomb exploded by a puppet police patrol in the city of al-Huwyajah, about 200km north of Baghdad on Wednesday evening.
The AMSI reported a source in the puppet police who asked to remain anonymous as saying that the blast killed one officer in the puppet police and wounded three more of them when it went off on the main road in al-Huwayjah.
Ninwa Province.
Al-Mawsil.
Three vehicle bombs leave four people reported dead in al-Mawsil Wednesday.
In a dispatch posted at 8:27pm Baghdad time Wednesday night, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that two explosives-laden cars and one truck bomb exploded in the city of al-Mawsil on Wednesday.
The AMSI reported sources in the Ninwa Province puppet police as saying that four people were killed and 50 more wounded in the three vehicle bomb attacks.
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Sinjar.
Armed attackers kill man in al-Khalis car park Monday morning.
In a dispatch posted at 11:43am Baghdad time Wednesday morning, the Aswat al-'Iraq news agency, which was set up by Reuters and the U.N. Development Agency, reported that a car bomb exploded in the village of Umm adh-Dhiban, 18km west of Sinjar, west of al-Mawsil in northwestern Iraq, on Wednesday morning.
Aswat al-'Iraq reported Dr. Kifah Muhammad of Sinjar General Hospital as saying that the explosion killed 10 people and wounded another nine, all of them civilians. Four of the injured people are in serious condition.
Sources of report — click here
http://www.freearabvoice.org/ — click here |
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US largest war funding request ever for 2008
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Police Brutality & Harassment Sweeps America & UK
An epidemic of violence and harassment is sweeping the two Western countries.
Police, trained that the general public are the enemy, now understand they can engage in outright brutality without recourse.
Taser deaths are skyrocketing because the police have been ordered to use "pain compliance", otherwise known as torture, to subdue and oppress the citizenry.
To view the videos on police brutality, click here
PRISON PLANET.com Copyright © 2002-2007 Alex Jones All rights reserved. |
Unemployment can be eliminated if our present governments are changed
Where Democrat, Republican, Conservative, New Labour, where none of these hold power
Only then can we establish youth corps where people can work to tackle the environment
Only then can we set up priorities where people of all ages can clean up the mess
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The thin ozone belt in the stratosphere protects human, animal and plant life from ultraviolet rays sent from sun
Most UVA, UVB, and UVC rays are converted by contact with the stratosphere ozone belt
Humans will not be able to step outside without huge special clothing screening all the body if the thin level of stratosphere ozone ceases to renew
All animal life will die if not kept indoors and never allowed outside
Most plant life will not be able to grow
All plants that provide food that humans and animals eat will not be able to grow
Stratosphere ozone renews from the Sun's rays, provided that the stratosphere warms sufficiently
Ozone holes are caused by the stratosphere remaining extremely cold
Increasingly long wave emissions reflecting from Earth are being stopped by global warming chemicals forming a barrier in the troposphere
One of these chemicals is carbon dioxide CO2
Stratosphere ozone is also destroyed by chemicals seeping outwards from Earth through the troposphere.
A major ozone destroying chemical is methyl bromide |
Published on Friday, September 21, 2007 by Inter Press Service
The Chemical That Must Not Be Named
Delegates from 191 nations are on the verge of an agreement under the Montreal Protocol for faster elimination of ozone-depleting chemicals, but the United States insists it must continue to use the banned pesticide methyl bromide.
by Stephen Leahy
‘It’s a black mark on this meeting. It is the chemical that must not be named,’ said David Doniger, climate policy director at the Natural Resources Defence Council, a U.S. environmental group.
'There is a powerful lobby group of strawberry and vegetable growers in Washington,’ Doniger told IPS.
Methyl bromide is a highly toxic fumigant pesticide which is injected into soil to sterilise it before planting crops.
It is also used as a post-harvest decontaminate of products and storage areas.
Although it is highly effective in eradicating pests such as nematodes, weeds, insects and rodents, it depletes the ozone layer and poses a danger to human health.
While alternatives exist for more than 93 percent of the applications of methyl bromide, some countries such as the U.S., Japan and Israel claimed that because of regulatory restrictions, availability, cost and local conditions, they had little choice but to continue its use as a pest control.
And so despite the ban, the Montreal Protocol allows ‘critical use exemptions’ for countries to continue to use banned substances for a short period of time until they can find a substitute.
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In 2006, the United States received an exemption to use 8,000 tonnes of methyl bromide, compared to 5,000 tonnes for the rest of the developed world combined.
At the 19th Meeting of the Parties here in Montreal, the committee reporting on methyl bromide use reported ‘excellent progress’ in the continuing phase-out of the chemical and that not many applications for critical use exemptions had been received.
The notable exception continues to be the U.S., which has applied for 6,500 tonnes for 2008 and 5,000 tonnes for 2009, even as the rest of the developed world has dropped significantly to just 1,900 and 1,400 tonnes, respectively.
The delegate from Switzerland expressed concern that some countries were asking for large amounts and that 40 percent of the stocks were not being used for critical uses.
The United States maintains a large inventory of methyl bromide in excess of 8,000 tonnes, but the U.S. representative said these would be used up by 2009.
Emissions of methyl bromide have an immediate impact on the ozone layer, noted Janos Mate of Greenpeace International.
‘Scientists think it has three to 10 times the impact of other chemicals,’ Mate told IPS
The ozone layer will be at its ‘most delicate’ over next few decades before it begins to significantly recover.
Climate change is slowing this recovery, and the impacts are not fully understood, he said.
The ozone layer is the part of the atmosphere 25 kilometres up that acts as a shield protecting life on Earth from damaging ultraviolet rays, which can cause sunburns, skin cancer and cataracts.
The rays can also harm marine life.
In the past two years, ozone holes larger than Europe have opened over the Antarctic and Southern Ocean.
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The World Metrological Organisation reported this week that the hole is back and bigger than ever.
And it could grow larger as spring returns to the southern hemisphere.
Climate change appears to playing a role in the formation of these holes.
Paradoxically, as the Earth warms at the surface, in the polar regions the upper atmosphere is getting colder, creating just the right conditions for chemicals like chlorine and bromine to destroy ozone.
Last year, researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder discovered that winds circling high above the far northern hemisphere have a much greater impact on upper stratospheric ozone levels than previously thought.
Those winds appear to be increasing with climate change, translating into less ozone in the upper stratosphere.
Meantime, the U.S. growers lobby group is upset that the U.S. delegation isn’t pushing for higher volumes of methyl bromide, claiming that they could get far higher amounts under the Protocol’s rules because economically viable alternatives are not yet available.
‘It’s time to inject some common sense into this process,’ said Charles Hall of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association in a statement.
U.S. growers have never understood that methyl bromide is destroying the ozone layer, said Doniger.
Italy, Greece and Spain have nearly eliminated their use in agriculture, he added.
‘We’re all suffering with a thinner ozone layer just to benefit a few U.S. companies,’ said Mate.
© 2007 IPS - Inter Press Service |
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The ozone hole as seen over the Antarctic is caused by a lack of ozone in the stratosphere over the Antarctic area
The lack of ozone in the stratosphere over the Antarctic is caused by the temperature over the Antarctic becoming very low
Normal low Austral winter temperatures are intensified by heat waves being prevented from reaching the stratosphere from Earth by global warming chemicals in the troposphere.
This causes extreme low temperatures in the stratosphere over the Antarctic
The lack of ozone over the Antarctic is also due to the thin band of ozone in the stratosphere not replenishing sufficiently due to ozone destroying chemicals seeping from Earth.
The thin ozone belt in the stratosphere protects human, animal and plant life from ultraviolet rays sent from sun
Most UVA, UVB, and UVC rays are converted by contact with the stratosphere ozone belt
Humans will not be able to step outside without huge special clothing screening all the body if the thin level of stratosphere ozone ceases to renew
All animal life will die if not kept indoors and never allowed outside
Most plant life will not be able to grow
All plants that provide food that humans and animals eat will not be able to grow
|
|
Stratosphere ozone renews from the Sun's rays, provided that the stratosphere warms sufficiently
Ozone holes are caused by the stratosphere remaining extremely cold
Increasingly long wave emissions reflecting from Earth are being stopped by global warming chemicals forming a barrier in the troposphere
One of these chemicals is carbon dioxide CO2
Stratosphere ozone is also destroyed by chemicals seeping outwards from Earth through the troposphere.
A major ozone destroying chemical is methyl bromide |
UVC in the 10 to 290 nanometer band UVB, 290 to 320 nanometers UVA, 320 to 400 nanometers |
Published on Monday, September 24, 2007 by the Long Island, NY Newsday
Activist Silenced for Fear of Surveillance
by Rocco Parascandola
Jennifer Flynn is not a rabble-rouser. She’s not an aspiring suicide bomber. She doesn’t advocate the overthrow of the government. Instead, she pushes for funding and better treatment for people with HIV and AIDS.
Better keep an eye on her.
Wait! Somebody already did.
On the day before a rally by the New York City AIDS Housing Network at the 2004 Republican National Convention — a rally by an organization Flynn co-founded, and a rally that the NYPD had approved — she experienced something straight out of a spy novel.
While visiting her family in Hillside, N.J., Flynn spotted a car with a New York license plate parked outside the house. When she left to head back to her Brooklyn home that evening, the car followed hers. Shortly after leaving Hillside, two more vehicles, also with New York plates, seemed to be tailing her, too.
Trying to assure herself she wasn’t nuts, Flynn tested her hunch — changing lanes, making turns, pulling over and parking. The drivers in those three vehicles mimicked her actions.
At one point, she recalled, she slowed down and one of the other vehicles ended up alongside her car. She looked over to see several men in the vehicle. She gestured toward them. The men “threw up their arms as if to say, ‘We’re only doing what we’re told,’” she remembers.
On the New Jersey side of the Goethals Bridge, her followers pulled away. But later, when Flynn pulled up in front of her Flatbush home, she spotted another car, with two men inside, both with laptops. At 4 a.m., they were still there.
Is Flynn paranoid? Well, she is now. She did, however, jot down the license plate number of one of the vehicles in Jersey — a blue sport utility vehicle. When a reporter asked for the number, Flynn couldn’t find it. Recently, it was found in a file kept by Christopher Dunn, the civil liberties lawyer she called that day in a panic.
The license plate number traces back to a company — Pequot Inc. — and a post office box at an address far from the five boroughs. Registering unmarked cars to post office boxes outside the city or to shell companies is a common practice of law enforcement agencies to shield undercover investigators.
The NYPD, however, says it didn’t follow Flynn that evening. And the department’s Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence David Cohen has said no federal agency was involved in preconvention surveillance.
So who was following Flynn? And what, exactly, did they hope to learn about a woman the NYPD knew well, as it had been in regular communication with her about her organization’s rally?
The answer — well, part of it — is a 99-mile road trip from NYPD headquarters: uptown, into the Bronx, and onto I-87. A quick switch onto the Saw Mill River Parkway, then the Taconic Parkway. Fifty more miles to go, past the leaves turning color and the country club golf courses. After that, it’s the winding roads of tony Millbrook, with its horse farms and vineyards.
At last, we’re in Amenia, population 1,115. It’s so far from the city its dry cleaners actually clean horse blankets.
The street named on the license-plate printout exists, though the address doesn’t. An auto-shop worker on the block suggests checking with the post office. When Postmaster Bonnie Colgan and an assistant are shown the printout, they stop dead in their tracks.
There’s a Pequot Capital Management in midtown and a Pequot Construction in the Bronx. But no Pequot Inc. in Amenia.
“That’s not a real company,” the assistant says. “The people who used that box, they’re from New York. They used to come here and get the mail, but not anymore.”
Colgan is tempted to elaborate, but doesn’t.
“I can’t because of the sensitive nature of the issue,” she says.
Back in the city, Flynn takes a seat at a Starbucks near City Hall and shakes her head. She still feels as passionately about what she does as she did three years ago. But she concedes the experience has taken its toll.
“I feel like I’ve stepped back, in a way,” she says. “I feel I’m not as vocal as I was. I’m still going to sign a petition. I’m still going to organize a rally. I do it. But now I’m deathly afraid.”
Flynn, 35, may one day learn who was following her. Activists have decried police tactics at the GOP convention — 1,806 arrests, protesters hemmed in with orange netting, people arrested and held for hours and hours in a West Side pier warehouse. The New York Civil Liberties Union, which represents seven plaintiffs suing the city over their arrests, is pushing for the release of raw NYPD intelligence reports detailing police surveillance of activists and protest groups.
Flynn says the damage is done. She sees it in the attitudes of other activists. There’s less desire. More trepidation.
“When you use scare tactics, you really are curbing our right to dissent against the government,” she said. “The only thing this is serving to do is squash public dissent. By going after the organizers of a rally, you really are sending a message — ‘Don’t hold a rally.’”
Common Dreams © 1997-2007 | ||||||
October 12, 2005
Using War as an Excuse for More War
by Diana Johnstone
Srebrenica Revisited
L ast summer, almost the entire political spectrum in the Western world joined in a chorus of self-flagellation on the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. The dominant theme was "nostra culpa": "we" let it happen, "we" didn't want to know about it, and "we" mustn't let it happen again.
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Dear reader, who are "we" in this case? How in the world could "we" (you and I) have known or done anything about this at the time? And in fact, how much do "we" really know about it now? We know what we read in the newspapers or see on television. But how precise and accurate is that information? How do we know now that we are much better informed than we were before the event?
Such questions are virtually taboo. Srebrenica has become a sacred symbol of collective guilt, and to raise the slightest question is to be instantly condemned as an apologist for frightful crimes, or as a "holocaust denier".
A left that retains any capacity for critical thinking should regard the lavish public breast-beating over "Srebrenica" (the quotation marks indicate the symbol rather than the actual event) with a certain skepticism. If mainstream media commentators and politicians are so extraordinarily moved by "Srebrenica", this is because it has become an incantation to justify whatever future foreign war the U.S. government and media decide to sell under the label of "humanitarian intervention".
The Uses of a Massacre
Aside from the probable future use of "Srebrenica", there is the way it has already been used. Indeed, it was perhaps being used even before it happened.
From the U.N. Secretary General's 1999 Report on Srebrenica, it emerges that the idea of a "Srebrenica massacre" was already in the air at a September 1993 meeting in Sarajevo between Bosnian Muslim president Alija Izetbegovic and members of his Muslim party from Srebrenica. On the agenda was a Serb proposal to exchange Srebrenica and Zepa for some territories around Sarajevo as part of a peace settlement.
Intervention only possible if 5,000 people are to be killed
"The delegation opposed the idea, and the subject was not discussed further. Some surviving members of the Srebrenica delegation have stated that President Izetbegovic also told them he had learned that a NATO intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina was possible, but could only occur if the Serbs were to break into Srebrenica, killing at least 5,000 of its people." (1)
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Izetbegovic later denied this, but he is outnumbered by witnesses. It is clear that Izetbegovic's constant strategy was to portray his Muslim side in the bloody civil war as pure helpless victims, in order to bring U.S. military power in on his side. On his death bed, he readily admitted as much to his ardent admirer Bernard Kouchner, in the presence of U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke. Kouchner reminded Izetbegovic of a conversation he had had with French President Mitterrand in which he "spoke of the existence of 'extermination camps' in Bosnia."
"You repeated that in front of the journalists. That provoked considerable emotion throughout the world. [...] They were horrible places, but people were not systematically exterminated. Did you know that?
Yes. I thought that my revelations could precipitate bombings. I saw the reaction of the French and the others — I was mistaken. [...] Yes, I tried, but the assertion was false. There were no extermination camps whatever the horror of those places." (2)
Like the Bosnian Serbs, the Muslims also herded their adversaries into "horrible" camps at the start of the civil war, on the way to expulsion.
High-powered U.S. public relations experts in the Washington-based Ruder Finn agency
Unlike the Bosnian Serbs, the Bosnian Muslims enjoyed the services of high-powered U.S. public relations experts in the Washington-based Ruder Finn agency who knew how to "spin" the Bosnian conflict in order to equate the Serbs with the Nazis — the quickest and easiest way to win public opinion over to the Muslim side.
The news media and political figures were showered with press releases and other materials exaggerating Serb atrocities, whereas Muslim atrocities (such as the decapitations of Serb prisoners, fully documented) remained confidential. To the public, this was a one-sided conflict between a Serbian "fascist aggressor" and innocent victims, all unarmed civilians.
The general public did not know that Srebrenica, described as a "safe area", was not in fact simply a haven for refugees, but also a Muslim military base.
The general public did not know what Lord Owen knew and recounted in his important 1995 book, Balkan Odyssey (p.143), namely that in April 1993, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was extremely anxious to prevent Bosnian Serb forces from overrunning Srebrenica.
Serb Milosevic and Muslim Izetbegovic aware Srebrenica takeover favorable to Muslim cause, disastrous for Serbs
"On 16 April I spoke on the telephone to President Milosevic about my anxiety that, despite repeated assurances from Dr. Karadzic that he had no intention of taking Srebrenica, the Bosnian Serb army was now proceeding to do just that.
The pocket was greatly reduced in size.
I had rarely heard Milosevic so exasperated, but also so worried: he feared that if the Bosnian Serb troops entered Srebrenica there would be a bloodbath because of the tremendous bad blood that existed between the two armies.
The Bosnian Serbs held the young Muslim commander in Srebrenica, Naser Oric, responsible for a massacre near Bratunac in December 1992 in which many Serb civilians had been killed.
Milosevic believed it would be a great mistake for the Bosnian Serbs to take Srebrenica and promised to tell Karadzic so."
Thus, many months before the July 1995 "Srebrenica massacre", both Izetbegovic and Milosevic were aware of the possibility and of its potential impact — favorable to the Muslim cause, and disastrous for the Serbs.
A few other indisputable facts should not be overlooked:
Shortly before the Bosnian Serb attack on Srebrenica, the Muslim troops stationed in that enclave carried out murderous attacks on nearby Serb villages. These attacks were certain to incite Serb commanders to retaliate against the Srebrenica garrison.
Sacrificing them to the 'interests' of the State
Meanwhile, the Muslim high command in Sarajevo ordered the Srebrenica commanders, Oric and his lieutenants, to withdraw from Srebrenica, leaving thousands of his soldiers without commanders, without orders, and in total confusion when the foreseeable Serb attack occurred. Surviving Srebrenica Muslim officials have bitterly accused the Izetbegovic government of deliberately sacrificing them to the interests of his State.
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According to the most thorough study of Srebrenica events, by Cees Wiebes for the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation report, the Bosnian Serb forces set out in July 1995 to reduce the area held by Bosnian Muslim forces on the outskirts of Srebrenica, and only decided to capture the town itself when they unexpectedly found it undefended.
Town deliberately left undefended?
"The VRS [Republika Srpska Army] advance went so well that the evening of July 9 saw an important 'turning point' [...] The Bosnian Serbs decided that they would no longer confine themselves to the southern part of the enclave, but would extend the operation and take the town of Srebrenica itself.
Karadzic was informed that the results achieved now put the Drina Corps in a position to take the town; he had expressed his satisfaction with this and had agreed to a continuation of the operation to disarm the 'Muslim terrorist gangs' and to achieve a full demilitarization of the enclave.
In this order, issued by Major General Zdravko Tolimir, it was also stated that Karadzic had determined that the safety of UNPROFOR soldiers and of the population should be ensured.
Orders to this effect were to be provided to all participating units. [...] The orders made no mention of a forced relocation of the population. [...] A final instruction, also of significance, was that the population and prisoners of war should be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention. On July 11 all of Srebrenica fell into the hands of the Bosnian Serbs."
In testimony to a French parliamentary commission inquiry into Srebrenica, General Philippe Morillon, the UNPROFOR officer who first called international attention to the Srebrenica enclave, stated his belief that Bosnian Serb forces had fallen into a "trap" when they decided to capture Srebrenica.
Subsequently, on February 12, 2004, testifying at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, General Morillon stressed that the Muslim commander in Srebrenica, Naser Oric, "engaged in attacks during Orthodox holidays and destroyed villages, massacring all the inhabitants. This created a degree of hatred that was quite extraordinary in the region, and this prompted the region of Bratunac in particular — that is the entire Serb population — to rebel against the very idea that through humanitarian aid one might help the population that was present there."
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Asked by the ICTY prosecutor how Oric treated his Serb prisoners, General Morillon, who knew him well, replied that:
"Naser Oric was a warlord who reigned by terror in his area and over the population itself. I think that he realized that these were the rules of this horrific war, that he could not allow himself to take prisoners. According to my recollection, he didn't even look for an excuse. It was simply a statement: One can't be bothered with prisoners."
Morillon recounted how:
"the Serbs took me to a village to show me the evacuation of the bodies of the inhabitants that had been thrown into a hole, a village close to Bratunac. And this made me understand the degree to which this infernal situation of blood and vengeance [...] led to a situation when I personally feared that the worst would happen if the Serbs of Bosnia managed to enter the enclaves and Srebrenica."
"I feared that the Serbs, the local Serbs, the Serbs of Bratunac, these militiamen, they wanted to take their revenge for everything that they attributed to Naser Oric. It wasn't just Naser Oric that they wanted to revenge, take their revenge on, they wanted to revenge their dead on Orthodox Christmas."
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In short, Srebrenica, whose Serb population had been chased out by Muslim troops at the start of the civil war in 1992, was both a gathering point for civilian Muslim refugees and a Muslim army base. The enclave lived from international humanitarian aid. The Muslim military did not allow civilians to leave, since their presence was what ensured the arrival of humanitarian aid provisions which the military controlled.
When the Bosnian Serb forces captured the town on July 11, 2005, civilians were clamoring to leave the enclave, understandably enough, since there was virtually no normal economic life there.
Much has been made of the fact that Serb forces separated the population, providing buses for women, children and the infirm to take them to Tuzla, while detaining the men.
In light of all that preceded, the reason for this separation is obvious: the Bosnian Serbs were looking for the perpetrators of raids on Serb villages, in order to take revenge.
However, only a relatively small number of Muslim men were detained at that point, and some of them are known to have survived and eventually been released in exchange for Serb prisoners.
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When the Serb forces entered the town from the south, thousands of Muslim soldiers, in disarray because of the absence of commanding officers, fled northwards, through wild wooded hills toward Tuzla.
It is clear enough that they fled because they feared exactly what everyone aware of the situation dreaded: that Serb soldiers would take vengeance on the men they considered guilty of murdering Serb civilians and prisoners.
Thousands of those men did in fact reach Tuzla, and were quietly redeployed. This was confirmed by international observers.
However, Muslim authorities never provided information about these men, preferring to let them be counted among the missing, that is, among the massacred.
Another large, unspecified number of these men were ambushed and killed as they fled in scenes of terrible panic. This was, then, a "massacre", such as occurs in war when fleeing troops are ambushed by superior forces.
Counting the victims
So we come to the question of numbers. The question is difficult, both because of the uncertainty that surrounds it, and because merely pointing to this uncertainty is instantly denounced as "revisionism" and lack of respect for the victims.
This reproach is not logical. Victims are victims, whether few or many, and respect is not in proportion to their numbers.
The question of numbers is complex and has been dealt with in detail by others, recently by an independent international Srebrenica research group which will soon publish its findings in book form. (3)
Suffice it here to note the following:
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1. The sacralization of the estimated number of victims —
In many if not most disasters, initial estimates of casualties tend to be inflated, for various reasons, such as multiple reports of the same missing person, and are subsequently corrected downwards.
This was the case for the World Trade Center disaster, where initial estimates of up to 10,000 victims were finally brought down to less than 3000, and there are many other examples.
In the case of Srebrenica, the figure of 8,000 originated with September 1995 announcements by the International Committee of the Red Cross that it was seeking information about some 3,000 men reportedly detained as well as about some 5,000 who had fled to central Bosnia.
Neither the Bosnian Serbs nor the Muslims were ever forthcoming with whatever information they had, and the "8,000" figure has tended ever since to be repeated as an established total of "Muslim men and boys executed by Serb forces".
It can be noted that this was always an estimate, the sum of two separate groups, the smaller one of prisoners (whose execution would be a clear war crime) and the larger one of retreating troops (whose "massacre" as they fled would be the usual tragic consequence of bitter civil war).
Anyone familiar with the workings of journalism knows that there is a sort of professional inertia which leads reporters to repeat whatever figure they find in previous reports, without verification, and with a marked preference for big numbers. This inertia is all the greater when no truly authoritative figures ever emerge.
The number of bodies exhumed.
Despite unprecedented efforts over the past ten years to recover bodies from the area around Srebrenica, less than 3,000 have been exhumed, and these include soldiers and others — Serb as well as Muslim — who died in the vicious combats that took place during three years of war. Only a fraction have been identified.
2. The political desire for the largest possible number —
Aside from the journalistic inertia mentioned above, the retention of the unproven high figure of massacre victims in the case of Srebrenica is clearly the result of political will on the part of two governments: the Bosnian Muslim government of Alija Izetbegovic and, more importantly, the government of the United States.
More importantly, the government of the United States
From the moment that Madeleine Albright brandished satellite photos of what she claimed was evidence of Serb massacres committed at Srebrenica (evidence that was both secret, as the photos were shown in closed session to the Security Council, and circumstantial, as they showed changes in terrain which might indicate massacres, not the alleged massacres themselves), the U.S. used "Srebrenica" for two clear purposes:
To draw attention away from the U.S.-backed Croatian offensive which drove the Serb population out of the Krajina which, as much as Srebrenica, was supposed to be protected by the United Nations;
To implicate Bosnian Serb leaders in "genocide" in order to disqualify them from negotiating the future of Bosnia-Herzegovina. (The U.S. preferred to replace them at Dayton by Milosevic, whose eagerness to end the war could be exploited to get concessions the Bosnian Serbs might refuse.)
Exploitation of "Srebrenica" then helped set the stage for the Kosovo war of 1999:
By blaming the United Nations (whose failure to defend Srebrenica was in reality the inevitable result of the unwillingness of the United States to give full support to U.N. ground forces), NATO emerged as the only agent capable of effective "humanitarian intervention".
By falsely identifying Milosevic with the Bosnian Serb leadership and by exploiting the notion that Srebrenica killings were part of a vast Serb plan of "genocide" carried out against non-Serbs for purely racist reasons, Madeleine Albright was able to advocate the NATO war against Yugoslavia as necessary to prevent "another Srebrenica" in Kosovo, where the situation was altogether different.
To use "Srebrenica" as an effective instrument in the restructuring of former Yugoslavia, notably by replacing recalcitrant Serb leaders by more pliable politicians, the crime needed to be as big as possible: not a mere war crime (such as the United States itself commits on a serial basis, from Vietnam to Panama to Iraq), but "genocide": "the worst atrocity in Europe since the Holocaust".
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That arouses the Hitler image, which is always good for the image of the United States as saviour from across the seas, and implies a plan decided at the highest levels, rather than the brutal behavior of enraged soldiers (or paramilitaries, the probable culprits in this case) out of control.
But what plan for genocide includes offering safe passage to women and children?
And if this was all part of a Serb plot to eliminate Muslims, what about all the Muslims living peacefully in Serbia itself, including thousands of refugees who fled there from Bosnia?
Or the Muslims in the neighboring enclave of Zepa, who were unharmed when the Serbs captured that town a few days after capturing Srebrenica?
To get around these common sense obstacles, the ICTY prosecution came up with a sociologist who provided an "expert" opinion: the Srebrenica Muslims lived in a patriarchal society, therefore killing the men was enough to ensure that there would be no more Muslims in Srebrenica.
This amounts to shrinking the concept of "genocide" to fit the circumstances.
It was on basis of this definition that in August 2001 the Tribunal found Bosnian Serb General Radislav Krstic guilty of "complicity in genocide".
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Although he neither ordered, participated in or was even aware of any executions, the judges ruled that he took part in what the ICTY calls a "joint criminal enterprise" simply by capturing Srebrenica, since he must have been aware that genocide was "a natural and foreseeable consequence".
This is the ruling that established "genocide" as the official description of events at Srebrenica.
Why such relentless determination to establish Srebrenica as "genocide"?
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A December 27, 2003, Associated Press dispatch provided an explanation by U.S. jurist Michael Scharf, one of the designers of the ICTY who has also coached the judges for the trial of Saddam Hussein:
On a practical level, if the court determines Srebrenica does not fit the legal definition of genocide, it would be very difficult to make the charge stick against Milosevic, said Michael Scharf, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
"And it is crucial that he be convicted of genocide," Scharf said. If Milosevic can't be convicted, "then who can you convict of genocide in the modern age?" he asked. |
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CNN — October 25, 1996
War crimes tribunal jeopardized by witness tampering
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Robert Reid, a United Nations war crimes investigator testified that authorities in Sarajevo had forced Dragan Opacic, known as witness "L," to give false evidence against Dusan Tadic, a Bosnian Serb accused of committing atrocities against Muslims and Croats early in the Bosnian conflict.
The U.N.'s Reid told the U.N. criminal tribunal for former Yugoslavia that Opacic, convicted by a Bosnian court of "serious crimes," had been trained by Bosnian military police to go to the Hague court and lie, or be killed.
Opacic appeared for the prosecution in mid-August and, in closed session, said he had been a guard at the Serb-run Trnopolje camp where he saw Tadic commit atrocities.
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Since then, prosecutors said they had had doubts about Opacic's testimony.
"L" was one of 30 witnesses testifying on the first of 33 counts against Tadic.
In a meeting Friday, Opacic told Reid how he had been trained by Bosnian military police in Sarajevo for up to seven hours a day on what to say in court against Tadic.
"Opacic said he had been told that if he refused, he would be executed.
By that, I understood, murdered," Reid said, declining to speculate as to why the Bosnian authorities might want to send a "false witness" to the trial.
Tadic, 41, is accused of visiting three camps in northwest Bosnia — Trnopolje, Omarska and Keraterm — to kill, torture and rape non-Serbs as part of an "ethnic cleansing" campaign in the region in 1992.
He denies the charges.
Defense lawyer Michail Wladimiroff told reporters earlier that he had been convinced all along that Opacic had made up his story about being at Trnopolje.
"Right from the start it was clear that "L's' testimony didn't ring true," he said.
After Reid's brief testimony, Tadic himself took the stand.
Smartly dressed in a blue suit and tie and speaking through an interpreter, the accused took the oath and answered questions on his background from British defense attorney Stephen Kaye.
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Raised to ignore ethnic differences
He said that as a child growing up in the mainly-Muslim village of Kozarac, he had no Serb friends and had been brought up to ignore ethnic differences.
He told the court that Emir Karabasic, a Muslim from Kozarac whom he is accused of beating to death at Omarska, was "like a brother to me."
"We were always at each other's side," he added.
The tribunal, set up by the U.N. Security Council in 1993, has indicted 75 suspected war criminals.
It has seven in its custody, but the rest, including former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his army commander Gen. Ratko Mladic, remain at liberty.
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Prosecutor Grant Niemann said that after reviewing Opacic's testimony, he was dropping a charge relating to Trnopolje.
"Over the past couple of weeks we have been investigating this witness and ... can no longer support (him) as a witness of truth," Niemann told presiding judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald. |
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October 12, 2005
Using War as an Excuse for More War
by Diana Johnstone
The legal definition of genocide could also come into play in an Iraqi war-crimes tribunal, which has vowed to follow international legal precedent.
It is striking that from the very start, the effort of the United States and of the Tribunal in The Hague — which it mainly finances, staffs and controls — has been to establish what it calls "command responsibility" for Serb crimes rather than individual guilt of actual perpetrators. The aim is not to identify and punish men who violated the Geneva conventions by executing prisoners, but rather to pin the supreme crime on the top Serb leadership.
The office of the ICTY prosecutor has chosen to rely heavily on a single confessed participant in the Srebrenica massacre.
This person is one Drazen Erdemovic, a petty criminal of Croatian nationality who was hospitalized in Serbia in March 1996 after a near-fatal brawl in a bar in Novi Sad.
Quite possibly in order to escape further threats from his personal enemies, Erdemovic confessed to Western news media to having taken part in mass murder in Bosnia. He was arrested by Serb authorites who then, at his request, turned him over to the Hague Tribunal.
From then on, the prosecution has used Erdemovic repeatedly as its star witness, using the U.S. procedure of "plea bargaining" by which a confessed criminal gets off lightly by incriminating somebody else the prosecution wants to convict.
He has told his story to the judges at his own brief trial, where he was exempted from cross examination thanks to his guilty plea, as well as at a hearing incriminating Karadzic and Mladic (in the absence of any legal defense) and at various trials whenever "Srebrenica" comes up.
His story goes like this:
Srebrenica Revisited
After briefly serving in the Bosnian Muslim army, Erdemovic joined an international mercenary militia unit that seems to have been employed by the Bosnian Serb command for sabotage operations on enemy territory.
On July 16, 1995, his unit of eight men executed between 1,000 and 1,200 Muslim men near the village of Pilice, some 40 kilometers north of Srebrenica.
From around 10:30 in the morning to 3 o'clock in the afternoon, these eight mercenaries emptied bus load after bus load of prisoners and lined them up to be shot by groups of ten.
Now in fact, it seems that a serious crime was indeed committed in Pilice.
Subsequent forensic investigators exhumed 153 bodies.
One hundred and fifty-three executions of prisoners of war is a serious crime, and there is material evidence that this crime was committed.
But 1,200?
According to the manner of execution described by Erdemovic, it would have taken 20 hours to murder so many victims.
Yet the judges have never questioned this elementary arithmetical discrepancy, and Erdemovic's word has consistently been accepted as gospel truth by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. (4)
Why this insistence on an implausibly higher number than can be supported by material evidence?
Obviously, the Tribunal wants to keep the figures as high as possible in order to sustain the charge of "genocide".
The charge of "genocide" is what sharply distinguishes the indictment of Serbs from indictments of Croats or Muslims for similar crimes committed during the Yugoslav disintegration wars. |
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CNN — November 29, 1996
Bosnian war crimes participant sentenced
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The International War Crimes Tribunal on Friday sentenced a Bosnian Croat, who admitted to taking part in the massacre of 1,200 unarmed Bosnian Muslims last year, to 10 years in prison.
It is the first sentence passed by the tribunal for ethnic massacres relating to the Balkan war and also the first international war crimes sentence since the post-World War II tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo.
Drazen Erdemovic, a 25-year-old Bosnian Croat soldier, pleaded guilty in May for taking part in the massacre, organized by the Bosnian Serb army at a farm in Pilica, about 40 miles (70 km) north of Srebenica, in July 1995.
Prosecutors have described the massacre as one of the worst in Bosnia's bloody 43-month war.
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The court announced its decision at a 45-minute hearing. Presiding judge, Claude Jorda of France, told Erdemovic he should serve the 10-year term, minus time already served since his transfer to The Hague at the end of March.
In reaching its decision, the three-judge panel had taken into account Erdemovic's age, low military rank, remorse "and the cooperation he has provided" investigators, Jorda said.
The judge added that Erdemovic was not considered a threat to the public.
Erdemovic, who has been in tribunal custody since March 31, sat impassively throughout hearing and was consoled by his lawyer before being led out of court by two U.N. guards.
He will likely serve his sentence in Norway, Finland or Italy, which have volunteered to take prisoners sentenced by the U.N. court.
Prosecutors had sought leniency in Erdemovic's sentencing, recommending a sentence of no more than 10 years.
Erdemovic's attorney, Jovan Babic, had demanded an acquittal, arguing that Erdemovic had no choice but to participate in the mass killings of unarmed civilians because he faced being shot by his own firing squad if he didn't carry out orders.
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'It destroyed me'
In pre-sentencing hearings, Erdemovic told the court he cannot remember exactly how many people he executed, but it could have been as many as 100.
He said his commanding officer in a Bosnian Serb army execution squad repeatedly ordered him to shoot groups of 10 Muslims, many blindfolded and with their hands bound behind their backs.
"It destroyed me. It killed me. I simply thought that my life was worthless after that," said Erdemovic, describing the July 16, 1995, massacre.
Prosecutor Mark Harmon called for leniency because of the significant assistance Erdemovic has given in detailing to the tribunal the extent of ethnic slaughters in the Balkans.
"His testimony exposed the lies of Bosnian Serb political and military leaders that the killings of civilians from Srebrenica was nothing but Muslim propaganda," Harmon said.
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Erdemovic, a rank- and-file soldier, has never denied his role at the Pilica farm massacre and has repeatedly expressed sorrow at taking part. He was never accused of planning it.
He also testified at public hearings in July against deposed Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his former military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic.
Both men have been indicted for genocide for allegedly planning and overseeing the attack on Srebrenica and subsequent slaughter of more than 6,000 Muslims. But both men remain at large in Serb-controlled areas of Bosnia. |
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October 12, 2005
Using War as an Excuse for More War
by Diana Johnstone
In August 2000 after not quite four and a half years in jail, the self-confessed mass murderer Erdemovic was freed, given a new identity, residence in an unspecified Western country and a "job", so to speak, as occasional paid and "protected" witness for the ICTY.
In contrast, General Krstic was sentenced to 35 years in prison and will be eligible for parole in 20 years.
Clearly, the purpose of the "genocide" charge is not to punish the perpetrators but to incriminate the Bosnian Serb, and the Yugoslav Serb, chain of command right up to the top.
Srebrenica As Myth
The transformation of Srebrenica into myth was illustrated last July by an article in the Italian leftist daily Liberazione (close to the "Communist Refoundation" party) reporting on a semi-documentary film entitled "Srebrenica, luci dall'oblio" ("Srebrenica, lights from oblivion"). The title suggests that the film-makers have rescued from oblivion a tragically neglected event, when in fact, rarely in the history of warfare has a massacre been the focus of so much attention.
Here we have the usual self-flagellation:
Srebrenica Revisited "...what happened in Srebrenica: the massacre of 9,000 civilians, in the most total silence/absence on the part of the world institutions [responsible for] peace..."
The author accepts without question the term "genocide" and raises the figure of victims to new heights.
"Around 9,000 men between the ages of 14 and 70 were transported by truck to nearby centers where they were massacred and buried in mass graves..."
This was "the greatest mass genocide committed since the days of Nazism until today"...
What is the point of this exaggeration, this dramatization?
Why is Srebrenica so much more terrible than the war that ravaged Vietnam, [Three million plus people dead, unknown amount of injuries — TheWE.cc] with countless massacres and devastation of the countryside by deadly chemicals, or the cold-blooded massacre of surrendering Iraqis at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991?
But that is a genuinely forgotten massacre — not only forgotten, but never even recognized in the first place, and the "international community" has not sent teams of forensic scientists to find and identify the victims of U.S. weapons.
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In all probability the film-makers, aspiring artists and "genocide experts" who consider "Srebrenica" suitable material for touching the emotions of the public believe that they are serving the interests of peace and humanity.
But I would suggest quite the contrary.
The misrepresentation of "Bosnia" as scene of a deliberate "genocide" against Muslims, rather than a civil war with atrocities on all sides, contributes to a spirit of "conflict of civilizations".
It has helped recruit volunteers for Islamic terrorist groups.
The political exploitation of Srebrenica has turned the Bosnian war into a morality pantomimew between pure good and pure evil, a version of events which the Serbs can never really accept and the Muslims have no desire to give up.
This stands in the way of unbiased investigation and serious historical analysis. Reconciliation is in fact ruled out by the moralistic insistence that a stark distinction must be made between "aggressor" and "victim".
Where an overwhelmingly superior military power deliberately launched an aggressive war
This stark difference exists between NATO and Yugoslavia, or between the U.S. and Iraq, where an overwhelmingly superior military power deliberately launched an aggressive war against a sovereign country that neither attacked nor threatened it.
But the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina was not of that nature.
The war there was the result of an extraordinarily complex legal situation (an unsettled small Federal Republic constitutionally composed of three "nationalities": Serb, Muslim and Croat, itself part of a disintegrating larger Federal Republic) exacerbated by myriad local power plays and the incoherent intervention of Great Powers.
Moreover, this occurred in a region where memories of extremely bloody civil war during World War II were still very much alive.
To a large extent, the fighting that broke loose in 1992 was a resumption of the vicious cycle of massacres and vengeance that devastated Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1941-44, when the Nazi occupation broke up Yugoslavia and attached Bosnia-Herzegovina to Greater Croatia, which proceeded to eliminate Serbs.
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Today it is an unquestioned dogma that recalling atrocities is a "duty of memory" to the victims, something that must be endlessly repeated, lest we forget.
But is this really so obvious?
The insistence on past atrocities may simply prepare the next wave, which is what has already happened in the Balkans, and more than once. Because in reality, the dead victims cannot profit from such memories. But the memory of victimhood is a moral and political capital of great value for the heirs of victimhood and especially for their self-appointed champions.
And in the case of Bosnia, it promises to bring considerable financial gain. If Milosevic, as former president of Serbia, can be convicted of genocide, then the Bosnian Muslims hope to win billions of dollars in reparations that will keep Serbia on its knees for the foreseeable future.
* * *
The obsessive reference to "Srebrenica" has a negative effect far beyond the Balkans.
The "Srebrenica massacre" is part of a dominant culture discourse that goes like this:
We people in the advanced democracies have reached a new moral plateau, from which we are both able and have a duty both to judge others and to impose our "values" when necessary. The others, on a lower moral plateau, must be watched carefully, because unlike us, they may commit "genocide".
It is remarkable how "genocide" has become fashionable, with more and more "genocide experts" in universities, as if studying genocide made sense as a separate academic discipline. What would all these people do without genocide? I wonder what is behind the contemporary fascination with genocide and serial killers, and I doubt that it is a sign of a healthy social psychology.
In the world today, few people, including Bosnian Muslims, are threatened by "genocide" in the sense of a deliberate Hitler-style project to exterminate a population — which is how most people understand the term.
But millions of people are threatened, not by genocidal maniacs, but by genocidal conditions of life: poverty, disease, inadequate water, global climate change.
The Srebrenica mourning cult offers nothing positive in regard to these genocidal conditions. Worse, it is instrumentalized openly to justify what is perhaps the worst of all the genocidal conditions: war.
The subliminal message in the official Srebrenica discourse is that because "we" let that happen, "we" mustn't let "it" happen again, ergo, the United States should preventively bomb potential perpetrators of "genocide".
Whatever happened in Srebrenica could have best been prevented, not by U.S. or NATO bombing, but by preventing civil war from breaking out in Bosnia Herzegovina to begin with.
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This prevention was possible if the "international community", meaning the NATO powers, Europe and the United States, had firmly insisted that the Yugoslav crisis of 1990 should be settled by negotiations.
But first of all, Germany opposed this, by bullying the European Union into immediate recognition of the secession of Slovenia and Croatia from Yugoslavia, without negotiation.
All informed persons knew that this threatened the existence of Bosnia Herzegovina.
After the U.S. ambassador encouraged him to hold out for more
The European Union proposed a cantonization plan for Bosnia Herzegovina, not very different from the present arrangement, which was accepted by leaders of the Bosnian Muslim, Serb and Croat communities. But shortly thereafter, Muslim president Alija Izetbegovic reneged, after the U.S. ambassador encouraged him to hold out for more.
Throughout the subsequent fighting, the U.S. put obstacles in the way of every European peace plan. [6]
These years of obstruction enabled the United States to take control of the eventual peace settlement in Dayton, in November 1995.
This rejection of compromise, which plunged Bosnia-Herzegovina into fratricidal war, was supported at the time by a chorus of humanitarians — not least politicians safely ensconced in the European Parliament who voted for "urgent resolutions" about situations of which they were totally ignorant — claiming that Bosnia must be a centralized State for the sake of "multiculturalism".
These were the same humanitarians who applauded the breakup of multicultural Yugoslavia — which in fact created the crisis in Bosnia.
Clearly, whoever executes unarmed prisoners commits a very serious crime whether in Bosnia or anywhere else.
But when all is said and done, it is an illusion to think that condemning perpetrators of a massacre in Bosnia will ensure that the next civil war somewhere in the world will be carried out in a more chivalrous manner.
War is a life and death matter, and inevitably leads people to commit acts they would never commit in peacetime.
The notion that war can be made "clean", played according to rules, should not be the main focus of international law or of peace movements. War first of all needs to be prevented, not policed.
The false interpretation of "Srebrenica" as part of an ongoing Serb project of "genocide" was used to incite the NATO war against Yugoslavia, which devastated a country and left behind a cauldron of hatred and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
The United States is currently engaged in a far more murderous and destructive war in Iraq.
In this context, the Western lamentations that inflate the Srebrenic massacre into "the greatest mass genocide since Nazi times" are a diversion from the real existing genocide, which is not the work of some racist maniac, but the ongoing imposition of a radically unjust socio-economic world order euphemistically called "globalization".
Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, Nato, and Western Delusions published by Monthly Review Press.
NOTES
1. Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 53/35 (1998), Section IV, paragraph C.115.
2. Bernard Kouchner, "Les Guerriers de la Paix", Grasset, Paris, 2004, pp. 372-375.
3. "Srebrenica: The Politics of War Crimes", by George Bogdanich, Tim Fenton, Philip Hammond, Edward S. Herman, Michael Mandel, Jonathan Rooper and George Szamuely. See http://www.srebrenica-report.com/politics.htm.
4. Germinal Civikov, "Kalaschnikow und Einzelfeuer: Der Fall Drazen Erdemovic", Freitag, 16 September 2005.
5. Davide Turrini "Il genocidio jugoslavo rivive sullo schermo", Liberazione, 12 July 2005.
6. See David Owen, Balkan Odyssey, Victor Gollancz, London, 1995. Lord Owen, who, as co-chairman of the steering committee of the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia, attempted from August 1992 to June 1995 to negotiate a peace settlement in Bosnia-Herzegovina, concludes (Indigo paperback, p.400): "From the spring of 1993 to the summer of 1995, in my judgement, the effect of US policy, despite its being called 'containment', was to prolong the war of the Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina."
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Using war for more war — Srebrenica The Serial Lying — lies of omission and lies that... ...Propaganda lies played a very important role in forwarding conflict |
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Outside World — Burma — Burma — Outside World — Outside World — Burma
Moment of reflection
How the elite controls
More police
Coming to your town and city
More police!
More police!
More police!
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BBC — Tuesday, 13 June 2006
Burma: Orwellian state, with teashops
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The BBC's Kate McGeown has just returned from Burma, where she talked to people about life under its repressive military regime.
As I stepped down from the plane onto Burmese soil, my head full of warnings about spies watching my every move, I was pleasantly surprised to find friendly faces rushing to greet me.
"Thank you so much for coming," said an elderly man, smiling through betel-stained teeth.
Where was the Orwellian nightmare I had been warned about? Where were the police ready to cart me off to jail because they had found out I was a journalist?
The sun was shining, the people were open and friendly... it seemed like any other Asian country.
I found it hard not to wonder what all the fuss was about.
But it did not take long to find evidence of Burma's darker side.
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Gossip
Barely 20 minutes along the main highway from the airport, I saw a road leading off to the right that was completely shut off by heavily-armed police.
The tight security was not surprising, given that the road led to the home of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose term of house arrest had been extended just days before my arrival.
Local people never mention Ms Suu Kyi by name — they just call her The Lady, a term of deference towards a woman whom many Burmese, probably the vast majority, believe is the rightful leader of their nation.
Despite spending more than 10 of the last 17 years as a prisoner, she remains the main symbol of resistance against the military regime that has ruled Burma for four decades, and which often uses fear and intimidation to keep people in line.
Against this backdrop, Burma's 50 million citizens carry on with their daily lives as best they can.
Down the road from Aung San Suu Kyi's house, the people of Rangoon queue for the city's crowded buses, huddle in shops with working generators during the frequent power cuts or play their own version of the Thai national lottery.
Then they do what all Burmese do, and stop in one of the many teashops to gossip about the weather and the football.
But that does not mean that their anger at the military regime has disappeared. If you talk to someone about their life, any veneer of contentment will usually evaporate.
One day, as we drove past a peaceful rural scene of villagers ploughing paddy fields with their oxen, I asked my taxi driver for his views on the political situation.
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He had been singing a song to himself, but his face suddenly turned red and angry, and he said: "I hate the people who rule this country. My hatred of the government knows no bounds."
In fact he got so upset that we had to stop the car so he could calm down.
Another man became equally animated when I asked him about the secret military informants who lurk around ever corner.
"They're like a virus — a disease ripping this country apart," he said. "They are everywhere, and they see everything we do.
"So many of my friends have been caught and jailed over the years — some for doing hardly anything. So many lives have been ruined."
Speaking out
It is hardly surprising that emotions run so high.
I was only in Burma for a short time, but I quickly found out how uncomfortable it is to be under surveillance — albeit by a somewhat amateur spy.
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On my first day, a man walked into the lobby of my hotel and pretended to read a newspaper near where I was sitting.
He did not turn the page for 20 minutes, but the real giveaway was that the paper — a week-old copy of The Straits Times — was upside-down.
Despite the obvious personal risks of talking to a foreigner, many Burmese people were still willing to put aside their fears and share their lives with me.
They told me about their healthcare system, their schools, their views on the government and the extraordinary decision to move the country's capital to what was, until a few years ago, a rural backwater.
One day a tour guide showing me round one of the Burma's many pagodas turned to me and whispered: "Please let other people know what it's like for us here. We need the outside world to understand." |
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Outside World — Burma — Burma — Outside World — Outside World — Burma
But when the Outside World is gone —
Who will the elite have to fear?
More police
Coming to your town and city
More police!
More police!
More police!
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Photo: AP/BBC |
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BBC — Sunday, 23 September 2007
Nuns in Burma anti-junta rallies
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About 2,000 Burmese monks have been joined by nuns for the first time on the seventh day of protests calling for an end to the military government.
Up to 150 nuns dressed all in white joined the march from the revered Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon.
It came a day after the Buddhist monks were greeted by Burma's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
She emerged from the home where she has been under house arrest since 2003 as the monks were let through a roadblock.
The leaders of the demonstrations have vowed to continue until the collapse of the military government.
They have urged the Burmese people to hold prayer vigils in their doorways for 15 minutes at 2000 (1530 GMT) on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
The protests began last month when the government doubled fuel prices.
But they have taken on new momentum in the past week since the religious order became more widely involved.
In what appeared to be an unprecedented move on Saturday, guards allowed the monks to walk past the home of Ms Suu Kyi, who has spent 11 of the last 18 years in detention.
In 1990 her party won national elections, but these were annulled by the army and she was never allowed to take office.
Witnesses said Ms Suu Kyi walked out with two other women and cried as she watched the monks and prayed with them but did not speak.
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Also on Saturday in Rangoon, at least 2,000 monks were watched by plain clothes security officials as they took to the streets.
In Mandalay, a monastic centre of Buddhist learning, up to 10,000 monks held a rally.
Protests also took place across Burma in the five townships of Chauk, Shwebo, Mongwa, Taung Dwin Gyi and Ye Nan Chaung.
There were no reports of any violence on Saturday.
On Friday, the Alliance of All Burmese Buddhist Monks branded Burma's military rulers "the enemy of the people" and pledged to "wipe the military dictatorship from the land".
The protests have turned into the largest public show of opposition to the Burmese authorities since the uprising of 1988. | |||||||
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Outside World — Burma — Burma — Outside World — Outside World — Burma
But when the Outside World is gone —
Who will the elite have to fear?
More police
Coming to your town and city
More police!
More police!
More police!
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BBC — Saturday, 22 September 2007
On the run in Burma By Andrew Harding
BBC News, Rangoon
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Buddhist monks may be able to protest in the streets of Burma, but other pro-democracy activists risk being labelled as "terrorists" and arrested by the authorities. Activist Nilar Thein has been on the run for one month.
Rangoon is looking shabbier than usual these days.
It is a damp, stagnant city trapped in a snaking curve of the Irawaddy river.
Ancient buses rattle past gloomy warehouses and bright pagodas. Grand colonial buildings green with moss back onto dark courtyards reeking of sewage and decay.
The generals who rule Burma moved out of the city last year, having built themselves a brand new — and spectacularly pointless — capital nine hours drive to the north. Thousands of frustrated civil servants were forced to follow them, almost overnight.
Since then, the authorities seem to have stopped paying for Rangoon's upkeep. And the trees now loom low over the avenues, patting the heads of passing cars.
Pro-democracy 'terrorists'
Today, somewhere in this city of nearly five million people, a Burmese woman called Nilar Thein is on the run.
She is 35, with a broad, open face, dark shoulder-length hair, and a reputation for extreme stubbornness.
She has been hiding for a month now — moving every couple of days to a new house — hunted by a huge force of security officials, plain-clothed policemen, informers and hired thugs.
Nilar is number five on a long list of "terrorists" — the generals' title for almost anyone who dares to challenge them.
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They have already arrested her husband, Jimmy, and more than 100 other pro-democracy activists.
No-one knows where they are being held, or what will happen to them.
The authorities stopped allowing the Red Cross to visit their jails, and more than 1,000 political prisoners, a couple of years ago.
Used as bait
Nilar and Jimmy lived in a small second floor apartment in the north of Rangoon.
Not too far from the house where Burma's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is still being kept under house arrest.
Their apartment is now guarded by plain-clothed policemen.
Two at the door.
Two outside.
Two across the road.
They are waiting to see if Nilar will come back for something rather precious — her five-month-old daughter, Nay Kyi, or Sunshine.
Nilar took the child with her at first.
But Sunshine's cries were in danger of giving them both away.
Now Jimmy's elderly mother is looking after her.
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One night recently, Nilar sneaked back close enough to hear her baby crying through an open window.
"They are using her as bait," she said.
"I should be breast feeding her. But I cannot give in."
She is, a friend told me admiringly, a stubborn woman.
88 Student Generation
Nilar and Jimmy are members of what is known as the 88 Student Generation, a reference to the last major uprising against the military here back in 1988.
They have both spent time in jail already. Nilar nine years, Jimmy 16.
They both thought hard about whether to have a child at all, given their particular "lifestyles".
And now Rangoon is swirling with rumours that Jimmy's dead — tortured and killed in prison.
The rumours are probably not true.
Maybe they have been spread deliberately, to get Nilar to give up.
More likely they are just a product of the silence that festers here, in the absence of any independent news.
The newspapers in Rangoon are all tightly controlled.
No pictures about monks demonstrating this week.
Instead there are photos of the generals giving lavish gifts to monasteries.
Inside are venomous editorials — styled, it seems, on the North Korean model — lashing out at traitors within, and devious foreign enemies.
Sense of paranoia
I read the papers over breakfast, then stepped out of the hotel wrapped in a cloud of paranoia.
Surely the authorities have spotted the foreign journalist.
Why is that man watching me from the cafe over the road?
Did this taxi driver just happen to be driving past at the right time?
There is good reason to be wary. On the phone, diplomats and activists here talk carefully — no names, no details. Rangoon slang.
In the past few weeks, hundreds of mobile phones have been cut off by the authorities.
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The police write down the number plates of cars on certain roads. Informers watch every street corner. E-mail is restricted too - Yahoo and Gmail accounts are often blocked.
Well, half blocked.
For all the security and the fear, this is not a competently-run country. And it is not China.
Hotels and internet cafes use dozens of proxy servers to bypass the government's crude attempts to police the internet.
Public protests
And that is why footage of the latest protests here — of the thugs beating up demonstrators and of hundreds of monks marching through Rangoon — is leaking out to the world.
The protests seem to have caught everyone by surprise. Certainly, almost no-one expected them to gain such momentum.
They were triggered by the government's unannounced, overnight decision to slash fuel subsidies.
Isolated in their new capital, the generals either did not know or care what impact this would have.
Suddenly millions of people could not afford the bus home, or to school.
So, how will the thieves react to this extraordinarily public humiliation?
Will they crack down like in 1988, or sit back and wait for fear to do its job?
There are 400,000 monks in Burma.
The fact is that so far, most have not taken to the streets.
Sitting quietly in his monastery, an older monk explained to me that everyone is born afraid here — and the army will never run out of bullets.
Hoping for change
Something has changed this week in Burma.
Perhaps something profound.
But there is a lot of wishful thinking going on too.
It is so tempting to imagine a velvet revolution.
Nilar Thein and Jimmy reunited with their baby daughter.
Aung San Suu Kyi walking calmly out of prison, her uncompromising stance finally vindicated after years of isolation.
But the odds are still not good.
The generals have their own version of reality — their surreal capital, their shiny new constitution.
Their plans for carefully supervised elections later in the year.
Somewhere in the backstreets of Rangoon, Nilar Thein is sitting alone and alert, waiting for the wrong sort of knock at the door.
Hope is keeping her going.
But in Burma, hope hurts. |
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Outside World — Burma — Burma — Outside World — Outside World — Burma
But when the Outside World is gone —
Who will the elite have to fear?
More police
Coming to your town and city
More police!
More police!
More police!
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The recent revelations regarding the "I'm-not-gay-I-simply-engage-in-same-sex-encounters-in-puplic-restrooms" wing of the Republican Party are instructive in understanding the rightist's worldview and its effect on our times.
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Covert sex in a public bathroom stall is an apt metaphor for how contemporary conservatism limits and restricts the possibilities of human life.
In the same way that a closet-case gay conservative stunts the possibilities of his love life, the conservative mindset limits the scope of a culture's possibilities.
Accordingly, economic life must be ruled by ruthless, unregulated competition, and the nation's meaning can only be found in war.
Hence, under the Bush Junta, we are told, as far as international relations go, that the nation has few options other than its present policy of predatory capitalism and "wide-stance" militarism.
Regarding perma-fools such as these, Ernest Becker wrote:
"Once you base your whole life striving on a desperate lie, and try to implement that lie, you instrument your own undoing."
Accordingly, the republic is dead; it's ghost howls online only in pixelated protests such as this one.
This grim reality will remain, until we rise up and repudiate the false narratives that have created and continue to comprise these tragic times. |
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www.counterpunch.org By KATHLEEN CHRISTISON former CIA analyst July 17, 2006
Atrocities in the Promised Land
The Brutality of the State of Israel
US paid for Israeli bulldozers demolish a building in
the West Bank city of Nablus July 20, 2006.
Michel Warschawski writes of an “Israeli madness” and “insane brutality,” a “putrefaction” of civilized society, that have set Israel on a suicidal course.
He foresees the end of the Zionist enterprise; Israel is a “gang of hoodlums,” he says, a state “that makes a mockery of legality and of civil morality.
“A state run in contempt of justice loses the strength to survive.”
As Warschawski notes bitterly, Israel no longer knows any moral boundaries — if it ever did.
Those who continue to support Israel, who make excuses for it as it descends into corruption, have lost their moral compass.
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US Democrats and Republicans Have Enough Votes To End The Palestine Israel conflict
[If They Choose To Do So]
US Democrats and Republicans simply have to block passage of any bill that would continue to fund the Israel government.
This requires not 67 or 60 US Senate votes, or even 51, but just 41 — the number of US senators needed to maintain a filibuster and prevent a bill from coming up for a vote.
In other words, the US Democrats and Republicans have more than enough votes to end the Palestine conflict — if they choose to do so.
The US Democratic and Republican leadership may believe — rightly or wrongly — that such a strategy would entail unacceptable political costs, especially with the high level funding from AIPAC and other Israel backed monetary support.
But that's very different from being unable to affect policy.
To insist that the US Congress cannot stop the Palestine conflict obscures the actual choices facing the US people — by confusing "can't" with "won't. |
US taxpayer money to Israel's military — Israel nuclear and chemical weapons
Though it is a state secret, Israel’s development of chemical and biological weapons has been known and analyzed for decades —
The typhoid poisoning of Palestinian wells and water supplies in 1948. (3,4)
The conversion of F-16s into nerve gas ‘crop dusters’ in 1998. (5)
Israel has always demonstrated a strong interest in developing CBW agents and methods for their dispersal.
Links with US CBW and medical research centers
In 1992 an El Al 747 flying nerve gas ingredients from the US to Israel crashed into an Amsterdam apartment building. (6)
According to Salman Abu-Sitta, president of the Palestine Land Society, the respected Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad followed up the crash with an in-depth investigation of the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), Israel’s CBW complex in Nes Ziona.
The paper reportedly found "strong links" with several US CBW and medical research centers:
"Close cooperation between IIBR and the British-American biological warfare programme."
"Extensive collaboration on BW research with Germany and Holland." (7)
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US Democrats and Republicans Have Enough Votes To End The Palestine Israel conflict
[If They Choose To Do So]
US Democrats and Republicans simply have to block passage of any bill that would continue to fund the Israel government.
This requires not 67 or 60 US Senate votes, or even 51, but just 41 — the number of US senators needed to maintain a filibuster and prevent a bill from coming up for a vote.
In other words, the US Democrats and Republicans have more than enough votes to end the Palestine conflict — if they choose to do so.
The US Democratic and Republican leadership may believe — rightly or wrongly — that such a strategy would entail unacceptable political costs, especially with the high level funding from AIPAC and other Israel backed monetary support.
But that's very different from being unable to affect policy.
To insist that the US Congress cannot stop the Palestine conflict obscures the actual choices facing the US people — by confusing "can't" with "won't. |
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Israel, chemical weapons and phosphorous bombs New and unknown deadly weapons used by Israeli forces Undetectable poison-needle gun for 'clean' assassinations |
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The Blackwater Fiasco
By Robert Scheer, 09/19/07
Please, please, I tell myself, leave Orwell out of it.
Find some other, fresher way to explain why "Operation Iraqi Freedom" is dependent upon killer mercenaries.
Or why the "democratically elected government" of "liberated" Iraq does not explicitly have the legal power to expel Blackwater USA from its land or hold any of the 50,000 private contractor troops that the U.S. government has brought to Iraq accountable for their deadly actions.
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Were there even the faintest trace of Iraqi independence rising from the ashes of this failed American imperialist venture, Blackwater would have to fold its tents and go, if only in the interest of keeping up appearances.
After all, the Iraqi Interior Ministry claimed that the Blackwater thugs guarding a U.S. State Department convoy through the streets of Baghdad fired "randomly at citizens" in a crowded square on Sunday, killing 11 people and wounding 13 others.
So the Iraqi government has ordered Blackwater to leave the country after what a government spokesman called a "flagrant assault ... on Iraqi citizens."
But who told those Iraqi officials that they have the power to control anything regarding the 182,000 privately contracted personnel working for the U.S. in Iraq?
Don't they know about Order 17, which former American proconsul Paul Bremer put in place to grant contractors, including his own Blackwater bodyguards, immunity from Iraqi prosecution? Nothing has changed since the supposed transfer of power from the Coalition Provisional Authority, which Bremer once headed, to the Iraqi government holed up in the Green Zone and guarded by Blackwater and other "private" soldiers.
They are "private" in the same fictional sense that our uniformed military is a "volunteer" force, since both are lured by the dollars offered by the same paymaster, the U.S. government.
Contractors earn substantially more, despite $20,000 to $150,000 signing bonuses and an all-time-high average annual cost of $100,000 per person for the uniformed military.
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All of this was designed by the neocon hawks in the Pentagon to pursue their dreams of empire while avoiding a conscripted army, which would have millions howling in the street by now in protest.
Instead, we have checkbook imperialism.
The U.S. government purchases whatever army it needs, which has led to the dependence upon private contract firms like Blackwater USA, with its $300-million-plus contract to protect U.S. State Department personnel in Iraq.
That is why the latest Blackwater incident, which Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki branded a "crime," is so difficult to deal with.
Iraqis are clearly demanding to rid their country of Blackwater and other contractors, and on Tuesday the Iraqi government said it would be scrutinizing the status of all private security firms working in the country.
But the White House hopes the outrage will once again blow over.
As the Associated Press reported on Monday: "The U.S. clearly hoped the Iraqis would be satisfied with an investigation, a finding of responsibility and compensation to the victim's families — and not insist on expelling a company that the Americans cannot operate here without."
Or, as Ambassador Ryan Crocker testified to the U.S. Senate last week: "There is simply no way at all that the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security could ever have enough full-time personnel to staff the security function in Iraq. There is no alternative except through contracts."
Consider the irony of that last statement — that the U.S. experiment in building democracy in Iraq is dependent upon the same garrisons of foreign mercenaries that drove the founders of our own country to launch the American Revolution.
As George Washington warned in his farewell address, once the American government enters into these "foreign entanglements," we lose the Republic, because public accountability is sacrificed to the necessities of war for empire.
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Despite the fact that Blackwater USA gets almost all of its revenue from the U.S. government — much of it in no-bid contracts aided, no doubt, by the lavish contributions to the Republican Party made by company founder Erik Prince and his billionaire parents — its operations remain largely beyond public scrutiny.
Blackwater and others in this international security racket operate as independent states of their own, subject neither to the rules of Iraq nor the ones that the U.S. government applies to its own uniformed forces.
"We are not simply a 'private security company,' " Blackwater boasts on its corporate website.
"We are a professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations firm ... We have become the most responsive, cost-effective means of affecting the strategic balance in support of security and peace, and freedom and democracy everywhere."
Yeah, so who elected you guys to run the world? |
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Democrats Have Enough Votes To End The War Now
[If They Choose To Do So]
Democrats simply have to block passage of any bill that would continue to fund the war.
This requires not 67 or 60 Senate votes, or even 51, but just 41 — the number of senators needed to maintain a filibuster and prevent a bill from coming up for a vote.
In other words, the Democrats have more than enough votes to end the Iraq War — if they choose to do so.
The Democratic leadership may believe — rightly or wrongly — that such a strategy would entail unacceptable political costs.
But that's very different from being unable to affect policy.
To insist, as many media outlets have, that the Constitution makes it impossible for Congress to stop the war obscures the actual choices facing the nation — by confusing "can't" with "won't. |
"No Four-Star General Arrives At His Post By Displeasing Officers And Politicians Above Him, To Say Nothing Of His Commander In Chief"
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GET THE MESSAGE!
RUN!
DO NOT WALK TO THE NEAREST EXIT!
Protesters burned the U.S. flag as they denounced the behavior of U.S. soldiers and called for the Iraq (quisling) government to intervene
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SPEAK HIS IS HOW BUSH BRINGS THE TROOPS HOME: |
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US Democrats and Republicans Have Enough Votes To End The Palestine Israel conflict
[If They Choose To Do So]
US Democrats and Republicans simply have to block passage of any bill that would continue to fund the Israel government.
This requires not 67 or 60 US Senate votes, or even 51, but just 41 — the number of US senators needed to maintain a filibuster and prevent a bill from coming up for a vote.
In other words, the US Democrats and Republicans have more than enough votes to end the Palestine conflict — if they choose to do so.
The US Democratic and Republican leadership may believe — rightly or wrongly — that such a strategy would entail unacceptable political costs, especially with the high level funding from AIPAC and other Israel backed monetary support.
But that's very different from being unable to affect policy.
To insist that the US Congress cannot stop the Palestine conflict obscures the actual choices facing the US people — by confusing "can't" with "won't. |
August 8, 2007
No Wonder He Didn't Condemn Torture During His 2004 Campaign
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Why Did Senator John Kerry Stand Idly By? |
N aïve Americans who think they live in a free society should watch the video filmed by students at a John Kerry speech September 17, Constitution Day, at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
At the conclusion of Kerry's speech, Andrew Meyer, a 21-year old journalism student was selected by Senator Kerry to ask a question.
Meyer held up a copy of BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast's book, Armed Madhouse, and asked if Kerry was aware that Palast's investigations determined that Kerry had actually won the election.
Why, Meyer asked, had Kerry conceded the election so quickly when there were so many obvious examples of vote fraud?
Why, Meyer, went on to ask, was Kerry refusing to consider Bush's impeachment when Bush was about to initiate another act of military aggression, this time against Iran?
At this point the public's protectors-the police-decided that Meyer had said too much.
They grabbed Meyer and began dragging him off.
Meyer said repeatedly, "I have done nothing wrong," which under our laws he had not.
He threatened no one and assaulted no one.
But the police decided that Meyer, an American citizen, had no right to free speech and no constitutional protection.
They threw him to the floor and tasered him right in front of Senator Kerry and the large student audience, who captured on video the unquestionable act of police brutality.
Meyer was carted off and jailed on a phony charge of "disrupting a public event."
Why did Kerry just stand there while the student was being tortured ?
The question we should all ask is why did a United States Senator just stand there while Gestapo goons violated the constitutional rights of a student participating in a public event, brutalized him in full view of everyone, and then took him off to jail on phony charges?
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Kerry's meekness not only in the face of electoral fraud, not only in the face of Bush's wars that are crimes under the Nuremberg standard, but also in the face of police goons trampling the constitutional rights of American citizens makes it completely clear that he was not fit to be president, and he is not fit to be a US senator.
Usually when police violate constitutional rights and commit acts of police brutality they do it when they believe no one is watching, not in front of a large audience.
Clearly, the police have become more audacious in their abuse of rights and citizens.
What explains the new fearlessness of police to violate rights and brutalize citizens without cause?
The answer is that police, most of whom have authoritarian personalities, have seen that constitutional rights are no longer protected.
President Bush does not protect our constitutional rights.
Neither does Vice President Cheney, nor the Attorney General, nor the US Congress.
Just as Kerry allowed Meyer's rights to be tasered out of him, Congress has enabled Bush to strip people, including American citizens, of constitutional protection and incarcerate them without presenting evidence.
How long before Kerry himself or some other senator will be dragged from his podium and tasered?
How long before Kerry himself or some other senator will be dragged from his podium and tasered?
The Bush Republicans with complicit Democrats have essentially brought government accountability to an end in the US.
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The US government has 80,000 people, including ordinary American citizens, on its "no-fly list."
No one knows why they are on the list, and no one on the list can find out how to get off it.
An unaccountable act by the Bush administration put them there.
Airport Security harasses and abuses people who do not fit any known definition of terrorist.
Nalini Ghuman, a British-born citizen and music professor at Mills College in California was met on her return from a trip to England by armed guards at the airplane door and escorted away.
A Gestapo goon squad tore up her US visa, defaced her British passport, body searched her, and told her she could leave immediately for England or be sent to a detention center.
Professor Ghuman, an Oxford University graduate with a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, says she feels like the character in Kafka's book, The Trial.
"I don't know why it's happened, what I'm accused of. There's no opportunity to defend myself. One is just completely powerless."
Over one year later there is still no answer.
The Bush Republicans and their Democratic toadies have, in the name of "security," made all of us powerless.
While Senator John Kerry and his Democratic colleagues stand silently, the Bush administration has stolen our country from us and turned us into subjects.
*The video of Andrew's Mayer's arrest may be found at
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?filmID=601 Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions |
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Andrew Meyer: 9/11 Truther
Red Dirt Report Wednesday September 19, 2007 The most famous man on the Internet this week, University of Florida student Andrew Meyer, is, according to a friend speaking on "The Alex Jones Show," a 9/11 truther. He's more than that, he's an honest-to-goodness truthseeker who is unafraid to speak truth to power, as the tired old bumper sticker says. Anyway, the friend said Meyer, who was Tasered by campus police while questioning US Sen. John Kerry, was trying to ask Kerry if he was a member of the Yale secret society Skull & Bones, wants to be a journalist and wants to know the truth. But when Meyer had the gall to be direct and to demand his right to ask some questions regarding the rigged '04 election, the cops act like bulls in front of a matador waving a red cape. This incident is a total outrage! Meyer did nothing illegal. He was assaulted by the police and sent to jail for daring to confront a sitting U.S. senator. It's totally unbelievable. Sure, he may be a prankster, but according to Meyer's website, www.theandrewmeyer.com , he is a bold individual with a sense of humor and a love of pop culture. He's also an informed young man and any and all charges should be dropped. In the meantime, it's time to ban Tasers at the University of Florida, particularly when you have cops with gangland tattoos attacking students for using their first amendment rights. Those cops should be fired for infringing on Meyer's right to speak. Time to end this "like sheep to slaughter" mentality It's time to end this "like sheep to slaughter" mentality that is so rife here in America. It's time to stand up to corrupt "authority figures" who think they can wield their power over us and use torture devices to make us comply. Ed and Elaine Brown Hold National Press Conference
New Hampshire Couple Vows to Fight Feds to the Death Randy Weaver: "I'd rather die on my feet right here than die on my knees under this de facto government" Excerpts RUSSELL GOLDMAN ABC June 18, 2007 Calling the federal agents surrounding his fortified compound "guns for hire," a New Hampshire man convicted of tax evasion vowed today that he and his wife would fight U.S. marshals to the death if they tried to capture them. "Do not under any circumstances make any attempt on this land. We will not accept any tomfoolery by any criminal element, be it federal, state or local," said Ed Brown in a press conference from the stoop of his concrete-clad home in Plainfield, N.H. "We either walk out of here free or we die." Brown and his wife, Elaine, were sentenced in absentia in April to serve 63 months in prison for failing to pay more than $1 million in income tax. The couple, however, insists that there is no law that requires citizens to pay income tax. "There is no law. We looked and looked," Brown told the press. Brown and his supporters, including Randy Weaver, leader of the 1992 standoff with ATF agents at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, told the press that the government has unlawfully tricked people into believing they have to pay income tax, knowing full well that such a law would be unconstitutional. "We will defend it to the death. This is 1776 all over again. You cannot tax someone's labor because that is slavery," Brown said. |
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Carrying a pistol in his waistband, Brown also insisted that he could not receive a fair trial in a federal court because "the court system falls under freemasonry."
"There [are] no longer any lawful courts. The Freemasons have taken over our nation. … [Freemasons want] to take over our nation and all nations on the planet," Brown said.
Weaver, whose son was killed by federal agents and who later received a $100,000 settlement from the government, said he was there to support the Browns.
"I'd rather die on my feet right here than die on my knees under this de facto government," he said. "Bring it on."
Despite months of surveillance and reports of agents hiding in the woods of the couple's 110-acre compound, U.S. marshals said this morning that the Brown's Plainfield, N.H., home was not surrounded by their officers.
U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier made an effort to starkly contrast the actions of the Marshals with those of the ATF agents who besieged Ruby Ridge in 1992. In addition to Weaver's son, one federal agent was killed in that incident.
"There is no standoff and the house is not surrounded." Monier told ABC News.com. "We have no intention of assaulting the house or engaging in a violent confrontation."
Monier said he believed Weaver would attend the press conference the Browns are hosting this afternoon. He said Weaver and others — some of whom are believed to have brought the couple weapons — have been freely allowed to enter Brown's property.
"There is no reason to block Weaver. People are free to exercise their First Amendment rights," Monier said. "We are not setting up roadblocks or surrounding the house."
In April, Ed and Elaine Brown were sentenced in absentia to 63 months in prison for failing to pay more than $1 million in taxes.
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Since failing to appear in court the couple has remained within the concrete-fortified walls of their rural New Hampshire home.
Monier said the Marshals have been communicating with the couple in an effort to get them to turn themselves over the federal authorities without having to resort to the use of force.
"We know they have weapons and we do not want to see this escalate," he said.
Last week agents cut off the home's telephone, Internet and power access.
Monier said the couple most likely had generators — possibly solar or wind powered — but that eventually the Browns would become uncomfortable enough in their isolation that they would be forced to surrender.
"They probably have generators but those will soon need fuel and need people to fix them. We want to continue to encourage them, and make it uncomfortable enough for them that they'll give up."
Brown said he and his wife had enough supplies to wait out the government no matter how long it lasted. He said the couple did not use air conditioning and could chop down trees from firewood.
Last week, Danny Riley a friend of the Browns was arrested near their home by federal agents while walking the couple's dog.
The Marshals claim they were engaged in routine surveillance of the property, but the Browns believe Riley thwarted a potential raid.
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Steve Watson/Prison Planet.com Thursday, June 14, 2007 The Browns situation has today been covered in the national press by CBS and AP, who have again described the Brown home as a "fortified concrete compound". Does the Brown home look like a fortified compound to you? They also describe the Browns as "holed up" despite the fact that their home has no security gates or fences of any kind and is completely open to anyone who wishes to just walk in at any time. U.S. Marshal Steve Monier acknowledged Wednesday that waiting out the Browns could take months, but he said time was on authorities' side. He said he hoped prison would seem like an agreeable option for the Browns after a summer without air conditioning and possibly a winter without heat, the report states. "We have seized their phone and Internet service, and two days ago, we cut their power," Monier said. "It's a continuing effort to move them along to understand they need to do the right thing, and this is to surrender to us." Monier has said there are no federal agents in Plainfield or surveillance teams in camouflage watching the fortified home at 401 Center of Town Road, despite it being proved that agents were lurking in the trees when they were discovered by dog walker Danny Riley who states that he was shot at and tasered and now describes himself as a "nervous wreck". Riley says that he is still being threatened for revealing that the FBI are involved in the case. The report as well as another Union Leader piece state that the US marshals office was swamped with callers last week expressing support for the Browns after "a website" (i.e. Prisonplanet.com) urged readers to make a stand. Click here (mp3) to listen to Randy Weaver and Elaine Brown on the Alex Jones Show. PRISON PLANET.com Copyright © 2002-2007 Alex Jones All rights reserved. |
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Speculation Mounts That Browns Were Infiltrated, Tricked
Tax protesters arrested, but "did not surrender" according to reports, leading many to guess Ed and Elaine were taken by surprise and violently subdued before they could resist
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet Friday, October 5, 2007 Speculation is rife that the Browns were infiltrated and tricked before being violently subdued as authorities refuse to provide any details behind their arrest beside the fact that they did not peacefully surrender. Observers were both saddened and confused about the announcement of the arrest of tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown last night. Though none of us wanted to witness another Waco, we were all well aware of the fact that the Browns have stated on numerous occasions that they would not be arrested without a fight and would rather die than go to jail. This prompted many to question how U.S. Marshals were able to seize the Browns with apparently little response, leading some to conclude that Ed and Elaine were tricked by one or more supporters whom they had taken into their confidence. Posts on messageboards overnight feared that the Browns had been taken by surprise, violently subdued and probably shocked numerous times with Taser weapons before they even had a chance to resist. The rumor mill is in high gear because officials have refused to provide any information regarding the details of the arrests, though a news conference is scheduled for 10am today. All we know at this point is that the Browns were taken into custody after being seized by U.S. Marshals on their property at around 7:45pm last night. Neighbors reported large convoys of SUV's approaching the property before the arrests. "Grobe, a former patient of Elaine Brown, who used to run a dental practice, says he noticed "an unusual amount of traffic all of a sudden'' passing by the house last night. He said he saw 30 to 40 cars passing by, but had no idea if it was authorities," states an AP report. "Neither he nor neighbor Robert Carpenter said they heard anything unusual. Carpenter said there were no marked cruisers, but a lot of large SUVs. He said he called the Plainfield Police and they called back and said what was going on." "We had no indication that the Browns intended to voluntarily surrender, so we had to move forward with an operation that promised the safest possible outcome. That day was today," U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier said in a written statement. Though the arrests occurred "without incident" and no one was injured, Monier admitted that the Browns "did not surrender," meaning they were likely violently subdued against their will. If an informant was used to facilitate the arrest, it would not be the first time such tactics have been employed. In June, Ed Brown outed what he claimed was a Fed who had tried to provoke the Browns into making outlandish statements and rash decisions as part of "psychological operations" on behalf of authorities. This came shortly after an aborted raid on the Brown's property during which supporter Danny Riley was arrested and later authorities attempted to coerce Riley into becoming an informant against the Browns. Marshals also threatened Riley with 15 years in jail unless he lied to the media and told them that the botched raid was not an attempted siege. Click here (mp3) to listen to Randy Weaver and Elaine Brown on the Alex Jones Show. PRISON PLANET.com Copyright © 2002-2007 Alex Jones All rights reserved. |
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Threatened with death threats if they proceed, Luke Radowski and fellow 9/11 truth activists demand answers on collapse of towers
Giuliani, how do you sleep at night?
Steve Watson Infowars.net Wednesday, February 21, 2007 An intrepid group of Infowars reporters confronted Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani at a fundraiser he was attending in New York today to demand answers to unanswered questions surrounding the collapse of the three World Trade Center buildings on 9/11.
One activist, the relative of a firefighter killed in the collapses, asked the former NYC mayor, for an explanation as why no steel framed building in history has ever collapsed from fire damage except for on 9/11 and why people in the buildings including rescuers were not given warnings they were going to collapse when he was.
She then asked Giuliani "How do you sleep at night?"
Watch the video here
Previously Giuliani has previously admitted in interviews that he was given prior warning that the twin towers were going to collapse, something no one could possibly have known was going to happen. Yet firefighters and police were not given the same warnings.
INFOWARS.net Copyright © 2002-2007 Alex Jones All rights reserved. |
US soldiers sent to Iraq committing suicide John Kerry's 1971 Speech Against the Vietnam War Before the United States Senate US war veterans are twice as likely to commit suicide than ordinary civilians |
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US Democrats and Republicans Have Enough Votes To End The Palestine Israel conflict
[If They Choose To Do So]
US Democrats and Republicans simply have to block passage of any bill that would continue to fund the Israel government.
This requires not 67 or 60 US Senate votes, or even 51, but just 41 — the number of US senators needed to maintain a filibuster and prevent a bill from coming up for a vote.
In other words, the US Democrats and Republicans have more than enough votes to end the Palestine conflict — if they choose to do so.
The US Democratic and Republican leadership may believe — rightly or wrongly — that such a strategy would entail unacceptable political costs, especially with the high level funding from AIPAC and other Israel backed monetary support.
But that's very different from being unable to affect policy.
To insist that the US Congress cannot stop the Palestine conflict obscures the actual choices facing the US people — by confusing "can't" with "won't. |
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Land stolen
In 1948 and subsequent years, millions of Palestinians have been forced to flee their homes by the Israel army, police and new Jewish settlers, after the State of Israel stole their land with the economic and military backing of Europe and the US
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Land stolen
US Israel checkpoint Bethlehem
In 1948 and subsequent years, millions of Palestinians have been forced to flee their homes by the Israel army, police and new Jewish settlers, after the State of Israel stole their land with the economic and military backing of Europe and the US
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Being choked by US paid Israel soldier on way to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque
Land stolen
US Israel checkpoint Bethlehem
In 1948 and subsequent years, millions of Palestinians have been forced to flee their homes by the Israel army, police and new Jewish settlers, after the State of Israel stole their land with the economic and military backing of Europe and the US
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Israel, chemical weapons and phosphorous bombs New and unknown deadly weapons used by Israeli forces Undetectable poison-needle gun for 'clean' assassinations |
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A reflection on the psychological state of Israel, and the people of the United States of America, which funds from its taxpayer money Israel's military, Israel's nuclear and chemical weapons, and Israel's government.
Spasm in legs and hands, semi-consciousness, hyperventilation
"On June 10th, 2004, the two clinics in Al-Zawiya treated 130 patients for gas inhalation. The patients were children, women, old people and young men.
"Dr. Abu Madi related that there was a high number of cases of [tetany], spasm in legs and hands, connected to the nervous system.
"Pupils were dilated...Other symptoms included shock, semi-consciousness, hyperventilation, irritation and sweating." (1)
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Thus reads a report by medical units serving the West Bank village of Al-Zawiya, where nonviolent resistance to Israel’s impending wall has been extraordinarily resolute.
According to the medical report (procured by the International Middle East Media Center — IMEMC):
"The gas used against the protestors is not tear gas but possibly a nerve gas."
Something different
The following day, Israel’s ‘Peace Bloc’, Gush Shalom, began a press release with the following quote from Al-Zawiya:
"What the army used here yesterday was not tear gas. We know what tear gas is, what it feels like.
"That was something totally different….
"When we were still a long way off from where the bulldozers were working, they started shooting things like this one:"
(holding up a dark green metal tube with the inscription "Hand and rifle grenade no.400" — in English)
"Black smoke came out. Anyone who breathed it lost consciousness immediately, more than a hundred people.
"They remained unconscious for nearly 24 hours. One is still unconscious, at Rapidiya Hospital in Nablus.
"They had high fever and their muscles became rigid. Some needed urgent blood transfusion. Now, is this a way of dispersing a demonstration, or is it chemical warfare?" (2)
Chemical and biological weapons for decades
The incident in Al-Zawiya appears to be the tenth attack by Israeli soldiers using an "unknown gas" against Palestinian civilians since early 2001.
We have photographs of the canisters.
We have film of victims suffering in the hospital.
We have interviews with Palestinian and European doctors who have treated the victims.
And we presumably have hundreds, perhaps thousands, of survivors.
But we know nothing of their fate. Despite the evidence, we have not inquired.Al-Jazeerah July 12, 2004 By James BrooksFor footnote details click here |
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Reuters July 1, 2004 By Bassam Massoud
— Israeli forces shot dead a 9-year-old Palestinian boy playing soccer in a Gaza refugee camp on Thursday as tanks rolled in to search for tunnels used by militants, witnesses said.
"We were playing soccer when Israeli tanks ... started firing inside the camp and toward us," said Bashir Abu Jlidan, 18, a resident of Rafah refugee camp.
He said Omar Zara'an, 9, fell to the ground bleeding. Doctors at Rafah hospital pronounced the boy dead after trying to revive him.
Rafah residents said 15 Israeli tanks and other armored vehicles backed by helicopters rumbled into Rafah's Brazil neighborhood while firing machine guns. |
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| Mother of 15-year-old Palestinian Ishaq Abu Taleb cries over his body prior to his funeral in Gaza City. Ishaq Abu Talib was killed in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun when Israeli troops opened fire. Youths were stone throwing in protest of the building of the wall on the only land they have left. Israel sought assurances that the US would veto any action proposed by the Security Council over the World Court ruling against its separation barrier. |
| Younger brother looks on, as Ishaq Abu Talib lays wrapped in a green islamic flag during his funeral in Gaza City, Sunday, July 4, 2004. Abu Talib was shot Saturday evening while throwing stones at Israeli troops on the edge of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip. |
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Israel US War Crime
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But then on thinking a little deeper it became clear that the closed shops and the empty streets were the only means by which the people of Ramallah could say they did not want to acknowledge the presence of the Secretary, or allow her in any way to participate in the life of the city.
It was their way of turning their backs on American policy in this region, too closely allied with Israel's.
The people of Ramallah have precious little except the vibrancy of their always lively streets, and in protest that vibrancy was put behind locked doors to preserve it from the woman of America who had come smiling to gloat over their poverty.
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| Fleeing Lebanese Speak of Indiscriminate Bombing ADDABBAOUSIYEH (northern Lebanese border) — People fleeing the bombing of Lebanon say the Israelis are targeting civilian neighbourhoods and vital infrastructure.
"Everything is being bombed," a teacher from the United States who was on vacation in Beirut told IPS. "It's terror. We've literally been terrorised."
Abud Aziz, a 31-year-old Lebanese pastry chef from Beirut crossed the border into Syria carrying his suitcase and looking for food and water. There had been no water or electricity in Beirut since Saturday, he said.
"Yesterday I saw two hospitals bombed," he told IPS. "Nobody who remains in Beirut can be safe. No way."
A 25-year-old construction worker named Hamed also said he saw warplanes bomb a hospital in Beirut.
"I saw them bomb a hospital yesterday," he told IPS. "I left just hours ago. They are bombing everything — houses, casinos, fuel stations and so many bridges."
"The warplanes bombed the Palestinian camps in Tripoli," a Danish woman who was vacationing in Tripoli in Lebanon said, "They are attacking up and down the coast, and the port in Tripoli was also attacked."
Her 14-year-old daughter Barihan al-Jassim said, "Somebody should stop this madness. How is it possible for a country to be bombed like this and nobody stops them from doing it?" Dahr Jamail, Inter Press Service, July 17, 2006 |
| June 5, 1967: Israel war paid for by US money using US weapons.
Resulting in the continuing enslavement of the Palestinian people.
Continuing occupation of Arab Lands, and the continuation of the policy to subjugate muslims The Day the 1967 Israeli War of Aggression Started.
The World on June 5, 1967 (right): Crying.
The World on June 5, 2006 (left): Doesn't Know How to Cry Anymore
All funded by the US taxpayer.
Inch by inch, kilometer by kilometre, what remains of Palestinian land continues to be taken.
US paid Israel troops shot dead a Palestinian belonging to President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement during an attack on Nablus.
The Israel military, including weapons: tanks, missiles, warplanes, artillery, shells, are all funded by the US taxpayer.
More than Fifteen million US dollars is given by US taxpayers to Israel each day for their military use.
Funding by the US Taxpayer for the enslavement of the Palestinian people continues to increase, estimated now considerably more than the previous 4 billion US dollars per year. |
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Israel US War Crime
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Their eyes are on the international community, their only hope is that the world will see their plight and help them 
