Top US Lawyer And UNICEF Data Reveal Afghan Genocide

By Dr Gideon Polya (Source: Countercurrents via Informationclearinghouse)

The United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 with the ostensible excuse of the Afghan Government’s “protection” of the asserted Al Qaeda culprits of the 9/11 atrocity that killed 3,000 people. In the light of as many as 6.6 million post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan as of February 2008 (see below), it is important to consider the major problems with this Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite version of events as summarized below:

1. The US has a long history of “questionable” excuses for war e.g. the explosion of the Maine (the Spanish-American War), the sinking of the US arms-carrying Lusitania (entry into World War 1), the Pearl Harbor attack with now recognized US foreknowledge (entry into World War 2), North Koreans provoked into invading their own country (the Korean War), the fictitious Gulf of Tonkin incident (the Vietnam War; recently similarly but unsuccessfully attempted in the Persian Gulf as an “excuse” to attack Iran) and the extraordinary 1,000 post-9/11 lies told by Bush Administration figures, most notoriously about non-existent Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (the Iraq War; post-invasion excess deaths now about 1.5-2 million).

2. The US supported and funded Al Qaeda and the Taliban from the late 1970s to the early 1990s associated with its anti-Soviet policies (see William Blum’s “Rogue State”).

3. Oil- and hegemony-related plans for the invasion of Afghanistan were all ready to go before 9/11.

4. No Afghans were involved in the 9/11 attack according to the “official 9/11 story” of the egregiously dishonest Bush Administration.

5. Even the right-wing, neo-Bush-ite Democrat Al Gore in his recent book “The Assault on Reason” (Chapter 6, National Insecurity, pp178-179) condemns the Bush Administration for effective passive complicity in the 9/11 atrocity i.e. they let it happen, just as a fore-warned US Administration permitted the Pearl Harbor attack to happen in 1941: “Their behaviour, in my opinion, was reckless, but the explanation for it lies in hubris, not in some bizarre conspiracy theory …These affirmative and repeated refusals to listen to clear warnings [prior to 9/11] constitute behaviour that goes beyond simple negligence. At a minimum, it represents a reckless disregard for the safety of the American people.”

6. However, further to point #5, the extremely eminent former 7-year President of Italy, law professor, senator for life and long-term Western intelligence intimate Francesco Cossiga recently (November 2007) told one of Italy's top newspapers that (a) the US CIA and Israeli Mossad committed the 9/11 outrage in order to further US and Zionist aims and that (b) major Western intelligence agencies are well aware of this (for details and documentation see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18569/26/).

As of February 2008, analysis of UNICEF data (see UNICEF statistics on Occupied Afghanistan: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/afghanistan_statistics.html) allows the following estimate of 3.3-6.6 million post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that should not have happened) in Occupied Afghanistan:

1. annual under-5 infant deaths 370,000.

2. post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 2.3 million (90% avoidable).

3. post-invasion avoidable under-5 infant deaths 2.1 million.

4. post-invasion non-violent excess deaths 3.2 million (2.3 million /0.7 = 3.3 million; for impoverished, worst case Third world countries the under-5 infant deaths are about 0.7 of total non-violent excess deaths (see A Layperson’s Guide to counting Iraq deaths: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/5872/26/ ).

5. post-invasion violent deaths about 3.3 million (assuming roughly 1 violent death for every non-violent avoidable death i.e. roughly as in US-occupied Occupied Iraq where the ratio of violent deaths to non-violent excess deaths is 0.8-1.2 million to 0.7-0.8 million; see Continued Australian and US Coalition war crimes in Occupied Iraq: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/2008/01/rudd-australia-report-card-1-continued.html).

6. upper estimate of non-violent plus violent post-invasion excess deaths 3.3 million + 3.3 million = 6.6 million excess deaths.

For detailed documentation of the above see “Australian complicity in continuing Afghan genocide”: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/ . A major cause of the carnage is revealed by WHO (see: http://www.who.int/en/ ) – the “total annual per capita medical expenditure” permitted by the Occupiers in Occupied Afghanistan is a mere $19 – as compared to as compared to $2,560 (the UK), $3,123 (Australia) and $6,096 (the US). This is in gross contravention of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm) which unequivocally demands that the Occupier must provide life-sustaining food and medical requisites to its Conquered Subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”. Compounding this is the appalling reality of 4 million Afghan refugees.

What is happening in Afghanistan is an Afghan Holocaust. One sees that post-invasion under-5 infant deaths in Occupied Afghanistan (2.3 million) vastly exceeds the number of Jewish children murdered by the Nazis in World War 2 (1.5 million). The upper estimate of post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan (6.6 million out of an average 2001-2008 Afghan population of about 25 million) exceeds the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis in World War 2 ( 5.6 million out of 8.2 million Jews in German-occupied Europe in the period 1941-1945) (see: Gilbert, M. (1969), Jewish History Atlas (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London) and Gilbert, M. (1982), Atlas of the Holocaust (Michael Joseph, London)).

Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html) states “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

From the data summarized above, it is apparent that the Afghan Holocaust is also an Afghan Genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention.

Outstanding US Law academic Professor Ali Khan of the Washburn University School of Law, Topeka, Kansas has also described what is going on in Afghanistan as genocide i.e. an Afghan Genocide (see “NATO Genocide in Afghanistan”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/19831/42/ ).

The key legal verdict of Professor Khan is as follows: “The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (entered into force, 1951) is binding on all states including the 26 member states of NATO. The Genocide Convention is jus cogens, the law from which no derogation is allowed. It provides no exceptions for any nation or any organization of nations, such as the United Nations or NATO, to commit genocide. Nor does the Convention allow any exceptions to genocide "whether committed in time of peace or in time of war." Even traditional self-defense - let alone preemptive self-defense, a deceptive name for aggression – cannot be invoked to justify or excuse the crime of genocide.”

Professor Khan proceeds to analyse the campaign of extermination of the Indigenous Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan in relation to International law. He states that in relation to Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention “In murdering the Taliban, NATO armed forces systematically practice on a continual basis the crime of genocide that consists of three constituent elements - act, intent to destroy, and religious group.” His detailed analysis can be succinctly summarized as follows:

1. “The Genocidal Act” is prohibited as defined in the Genocide Convention as “a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” – but is is clearly occurring on a huge scale as indicated by the above data.

2. “The Genocidal Intent” is expressed in the Genocide Convention as “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”- but is clearly present in the statements of the NATO leaders. The “Intent” is also apparent from the sustained, resolute conduct of this horrendously bloody war for over 6 years.

3. “The Genocidal targeting of a Religious Group” is clearly prohibited by the Genocide Convention by “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” – but is clearly being carried out with the accompaniment of immense Islamophobic propaganda in the West.

Professor Khan concludes: “It may, therefore, be safely concluded that NATO combat troops and NATO commanders are engaged in murdering the Taliban, a protected group under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to physically and mentally destroy the group in whole or in part. This is the crime of genocide.”

As an agnostic humanist I certainly don’t care for the Taliban beliefs – but what agnostic humanists (such as myself) or people of other philosophic persuasions think about the religious beliefs and interpretations of the Taliban is beside the point from the perspective of the UN Genocide Convention.

And while I strongly object to human rights violations by the Taliban (especially in relation to women and application of their extreme interpretations of Sharia Law) one has to objectively give credit to the Taliban for (a) bringing Peace through victory in the middle 1990s and (b) for destroying 95% of the Afghan opium production in 2001 (as well of course banning the vastly more deadly use of alcohol and for prohibiting Afghan Government employees from the even more deadly practice of smoking tobacco in 1997). Smoking, alcohol and illicit drugs kill about 7 million people annually, the breakdown being 5 million (tobacco), 1.8 million (alcohol) and 0.2 million (from illicit drugs, about half opiate drug-related).

It can be estimated that 0.6 million people have died world-wide due to opiates in the last 6 years, about 0.5 million of these deaths being due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 5% of world market share (2001) to 93% (2007) (see UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, World Drug Report 2007: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/world_drug_report.html ).

The 0.5 million global US-NATO-linked opiate drug-related deaths plus 6.6 million post-invasion Afghan excess deaths bring an upper estimate of the carnage due to the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan to 7.1 million deaths. If we include excess deaths associated with UK-US actions against Iraq in the period 1990-2008 (about 4 million) then the gruesome carnage of the Bush I plus Bush II Asian Wars now totals about 11 million excess deaths (and this ignores the impact of the Bush Wars through oil price rises and other factors on Third World avoidable deaths).

Occupied Afghanistan is the New Auschwitz of the US and its complicit allies (including former Axis countries Germany and Japan who have on US instigation joined the US-NATO Afghan Genocide) (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/7616/26/ ).

Those Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite politicians, military and Mainstream media executives complicit in the Afghan Genocide should be arraigned before the International Criminal Court (see: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/ ).

In his 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/arts-pinter081205.htm ), UK playwright Harold Pinter urged the arraignment of Bush and Blair before the International Criminal Court for war crimes and stated “How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought.”

Eleven million? More than enough, I would have thought.

Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).

Scott Ritter: U.S. heading to war in Iran

The Cleveland Jewish Weekly reports:

U.S. heading to war in Iran, says former inspector

BY: MARILYN H. KARFELD Senior Staff Reporter

The former chief United Nations weapons inspector and a retired Middle East diplomat recently warned that America was heading straight toward imminent war with Iran.

And while both talked about wrong-headed U.S. policy in Iraq and Iran, they also criticized Israel for its role.

Scott Ritter, UN weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, and Edward Peck, onetime chief of mission in Baghdad and former ambassador to Mauritania, spoke recently at a forum sponsored by Cleveland Peace Action Now and Trinity Cathedral. Before the event, this reporter and a journalist from The Plain Dealer talked to Ritter and Peck.

The White House is using outright fabrications and exaggerations to persuade the American public that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program, Ritter and Peck claimed. The ultimate goal, they said, is overthrow of Iran’s Islamic theocracy.

Just as he did with Iraq, President Bush is falsely positioning Iran as a threat to U.S. national security and a leading sponsor of terrorism, contended Ritter, a 12-year Marine veteran who spent four years in Israel as lead liaison between the UN and the Jewish state on the issues of Iraq and nuclear weapons.

By demonizing Iran and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bush is repeating the failed policy used against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, said Ritter, 46, who resigned under pressure from his UN post in 1998. Ritter claimed he was punished for criticizing the White House’s handling of Saddam Hussein. Allegations that he spied for Israel were ultimately dropped following an FBI investigation.

There is an 80% chance of war with Iran, probably in March or April, insisted the impassioned Ritter, who was last in Iran in September 2005. A second window of opportunity for an air assault opens in October or November, he added.

Ritter has been making this prediction of war with Iran for at least three years. Internet research turned up a similar forecast he made in April 2005, insisting an aerial attack on Iran was likely that June.

Israel, according to his 2006 book, is largely responsible for the coming military action. The Jewish Daily Forward reported that in Ritter’s Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plan for Regime Change, the antiwar activist writes: “Let there be no doubt. If there is an American war with Iran, it is a war that was made in Israel and nowhere else.”

The Bush Administration, with the help of the Israeli government and the pro-Israel “Lobby,” has exploited the American public’s fear of a nuclear-armed Iran, Ritter writes in his book, according to the Forward.

The current U.S. military buildup will peak this spring, and Ritter told the CJN that America would begin a 30-day limited, but massive, air strike against Iran. Neither Congress nor the corporate-controlled media will check the president’s power, Ritter maintained.

Iran will retaliate with missiles launched at Israel, Ritter predicted. The Islamist state will also shut down oil production by blocking the route out of the Persian Gulf through the Straits of Hormuz. And Iran will unleash Shia Muslims in southern Iraq to target American forces there, Ritter asserted.

“Now we have a major conflict. We’re caught in a spiral of events out of our control. After 30 days, the military will be putting Marines in Hormuz, soldiers in Iran. Israel, especially, stands to lose.”

In 2002, Ritter similarly talked about the likelihood of America launching a war against Iraq, despite the fact that UN inspectors repeatedly said Saddam Hussein no longer had weapons of mass destruction.

At the Cleveland Peace Action event, Peck and Ritter talked about the quagmire in Iraq and the lessons we failed to learn there and apply to Iran. Much of what Ahmadenijad is accused of saying he has never said, Ritter insisted. Furthermore, Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wields the only power to wage war and build nuclear weapons, not Ahmadenijad.

Sanctions against Iran are “a holding pattern, while revving up for war,” claimed Peck. “They are a guarantee of armed conflict.” He advocated diplomatic negotiation instead.

When Congress appropriates $77 million to finance dissident groups to overthrow the Iranian regime, “that’s an act of war,” Peck continued. People in the Middle East “are afraid of us. They do not see us as bringers of truth, justice and harmony.”

Forcing democracy on Middle Eastern countries is not possible, Peck warned. “Democracy is experiential. Iraqis know nothing about it. It’s something you grow up with.” The West pushes democracy and then hypocritically punishes the Palestinians for choosing Hamas in democratic elections, added Peck, who observed the balloting in the West Bank.

He criticized Israel for occupying the West Bank and for “doing terrible things” there. “One person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter,” he said, alluding to suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians.

Most of those audience members who took the microphone to ask questions bashed Israel for its occupation and brutalization of the Palestinian people. Several blamed Israel for all conflict in the Middle East.

Pursuing its inhumane policy toward the Palestinian people will not bring Israel peace, Peck said. “Israel’s security will be derived from good relations with its neighbors. The future of Israel is at stake.”

How likely is a US attack on Iran before the presidential election?

Some Western observers have recently speculated that recent NIE notwithstanding, a US attack on Iran was still possible. The Deputy Head of Iran's Armed Forces General Headquarters, Gholam-Ali Rashid, has even reportedly stated that such an attack before the end of 2008 was "probable". So how likely is such an attack?

There can be no doubt that the publication of the NIE has resulted in a dramatic loss of momentum towards war and the, unlike what happened before the war with Iraq, the Neocons will not be able to "sell" the war to the American public, at least not without some helpful "Persian Gulf of Tonkin" pretext. Furthermore, the Administrations efforts at the Annapolis Conference and during Bush's trip to the Middle-East have totally failed to produce any type of regional support for the war, quite to the countrary: Bush was told in no uncertain terms that nobody in the Middle-East (besides Israel, of course) wanted a war with Iran. Even the laughable incident of the Iranian patrol boats "threatening" USN destroyers failed to elicit anything but amused giggles from the public, and denials for the Pentagon. In many ways the possibility of an aggression against Iran appears very remote. But it is really?

All these arguments assume that the US public opinion would be an important factor in the Administration's decision-making process on Iran, but that is not at all how Neocons think. Listen to this excellent interview of Jim Lobe by Scott Horton: Neocons never cared about the public - their entire modus operandi relies on the influence they can have on the US elites. Is there any reason at all to suspect that the Neocons have suffered a loss of influence on the latter?

Sure, some high-visibility figures have been removed, the Pentagon is now run by Gates rather than Rumsfeld, and the old 'Anglo' guard has scored some significant points against the 'Jewish' Neocons. But that is hardly enough to tip the balance.

Every single presidential candidate of some real weight is still firmly under Neocon control. I would argue that for all their empty words about ending the war in Iraq, Hillary and Obama are trying to "out McCain" McCain's rabid militarism and warmongering. As I have already predicted a while ago, no matter what happens in between now and the presidential election, a true American Fascist will occupy the White House next year. Anyone doubting this just needs to take a closer look at the list of advisors to the presidential candidates to realize that no "change" will happen anytime soon or, if it does, it will only be a change for the worse.

AIPAC, JINSA & Co. leaders and the rest of the Israel Lobby can sleep well at night - their control of the US Nomenklatura remains unchallenged and they need not worry about who will sit in the White House next year.

Like a bull trying to nab a red piece of cloth, rather than the matador holding it, the old Anglo guard has only battled against the puppets, the executioners but has been generally unable or unwilling to go after the behind-the-scenes puppeteers who have always been pulling the strings of the "visible" Neocons. This is a profoundly mistaken tactic, as it is not Perle, Wolfowitz or Feith who are pulling the strings of Hillary and Obama today, but the people who interests Perle, Wolfowitz and Feith have so faithfully been promoting during the past several decades.

The Turks have an expression to designate the real powers behind the Turkish government; they call it the "Deep Government". The Neocons are also run by their own "deep government" as is, in fact, the rest of the US political establishment. That "deep government" has very little at stake in the upcoming presidential election.

In contrast, there are people who might not sleep that well and who are probably in some anguish over what the future will bring them: all those inside the government who actually are guilty of the numerous crimes committed under this Administration: obstruction of justice, perjury, civil rights violations, war crimes, crimes against humanity, Geneva Convention violations, violations of international law, torture, treason, espionage, etc. The list is long and well known, no need to fully repeat it here. These are the people who have no political future anyway and who are therefore expandable. Even better - they can be the puppets which will take the fall for the puppet masters: jail enough "visible" Neocons and the US "deep government" will never be challenged for its criminal activities.

It is likely that most Neocons understand that while an Obama or a Hillary Administration will never allow anything contrary to the interests of Israel to happen, they will not extend the same cover to retired Neocons, not when they have become useless to their puppeteers and not when they are out of power. While the most crafty ones (Perle) will probably quietly slip away, others will probably held accountable for their misdeeds (Feith). It is therefore in their interest to try to remain in power, safely tucked away in a McCain administration.

Whereas McCain is obviously a senile and generally pathetic candidate ("bomb, bomb bomb, bomb, bomb Iran"), both Obama and Hillary have plenty of charm and even more brains (not to mention loads of corporate money). Both of them appeal to large segments of the US population and it is hard to imagine McCain winning only because he would be running against a Black man or a woman (or both). To win, McCain would need to do the only thing he knows how to do better than Obama or Hillary: rally Americans around the flag. What better opportunity to do this could there be than a war with Iran?

A war with Iran is a win-win situation for both the "visible" Neocons and the "deep government" ones. For the former, it is possibly the only way to remain in power (and, possibly, out of jail) while for the latter it is a last chance to use a group of people who will soon becomes useless anyway. If the war goes well, they will all be happy, and if it does not (which it won't), the "visible Neocons" will take the fall for the "deep government".

For all these reasons, it is very premature to dismiss the likelihood of an aggression against Iran, not before the Election, and not after. For all the recent tactical successes which the Anglos had against the Neocons, there is nothing to indicate that their power inside the US establishment has substantially weakened. If anything, the unwavering support of Speaker Pelosi for the Israel lobby shows that Congress will "know what to do" when required by the Lobby. As for the US corporate media it will, no doubt, do what it does best: make an outstanding job of packaging and delivering to its audience whatever propaganda the government (whether "deep" or not) wants it to feed the public.

The war is very much "on the table", and it will remain there as long as the US "deep government" remains in power.

Ahmadinejad to meet Mubarak in Cairo next month

Al Manar TV reports that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accepted an invitation from Cairo to visit Egypt sometime over the next month. This mark the first time an Iranian president will visit Egypt since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The invitation was extended to Ahmadinejad through the Iranian speaker of parliament, Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, who held talks in Cairo over the weekend with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The Iranian student news agency ISNA reported on Monday that Ahmadinejad plans to visit all Arab states, including Egypt.

The announcement about Ahmadinejad's planned visit, as well as the recent trips made by other Iranian officials, demonstrates a change in platform for Egypt. Signs of Egypt's interest in establishing ties with Iran were evident in the meetings Iran's Parliament Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel had with Egyptian academics and the political elite.

As he was leaving Egypt, Haddad-Adel made clear Iran's desire to improve relations with Cairo: "Our meetings with senior officials in Egypt were held in a friendly atmosphere. We are ready for additional cooperation between the two countries."

In addition to Haddad-Adel, Iran's nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani also made a recent visit to Cairo, on behalf of Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khameini. Larijani met with high-level Egyptian personalities, as well as diplomats and representatives from the country's professional unions.
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Commentary: This is an interesting development for sure. If Mubarak is so openly defying the Imperial policy of isolating Iran it can only be as a sign of frustration with the embarrassing position in which the idiotic Israeli policy towards Gaza has put him. It is unlikely that anything of substance will result from this visit or, for that matter, from any other contacts between Iran and Egypt: the Iranians understand perfectly that Mubarak is an Imperial puppet and a thug and they will never do anything which could help him in any way. They might, however, dangle some political carrot in front of Mubarak's nose in order to further stress the already strained relations between Cairo and Washington (not to mention Jerusalem). Mubarak will probably try to use the threat of a possible rapprochement with Tehran as a way to put pressure on Washington and to get the USA to be at least more aware of Egypt's difficult position as the weakest link in the Imperial noose around the Middle-East. Mubarak's efforts will be, I believe, utterly futile. Washington has a single overwhelming priority in the Middle-East: to comply with whatever policies the Israel Lobby demands. Thus Mubarak will not achieve anything with his new 'sunshine policy' towards Iran and he will only make things worse for himself. As a man stuck in quicksand, every move Mubarak now makes only hastens his inevitable downfall - which is the best thing the Palestinians can hope for at the present time.

Non-Zionist Jews blast Israel’s chief rabbi for racist remarks

From Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank

Neturei Karta, an international society representing non-Zionist Orthodox Jews, has blasted recent remarks by Yoni Metzger, Israel’s Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, in which the rabbi called for the deportation of the people of Gaza to the Egyptian Sinai desert.

In a statement circulated to the press earlier this week, Neturei Karta called Metzger’s remarks “vicious and provocative.”

“Yona Metger is not an authentic rabbi, despite the fact that he carries the title of ‘Chief Rabbi.’ Chief rabbis of the Zionist state only carry legitimacy in the eyes of the Zionist Jews. His status as a rabbi is not unlike the leadership of Theodor Herzl, who also wore a beard.”

The group reasserted its ideological stand that the Zionist state of Israel lacked religious and moral legitimacy from the Orthodox Jewish perspective.

“The state of Israel is an illegitimate rogue regime whose very existence is leading the world to World War III. Palestinians have an inherent right, guaranteed under international and moral law, to return to their land in historic Palestine and to establish their independent state in the entire Holy Land, which was forcefully taken from them by the Zionists. Indeed, many Gazans are refugees who were expelled from other areas of Palestine by the Zionists ever since 1948.”

The statement lashed out at the rabbinic establishment in Israel, describing state-paid rabbis as “stooges of Zionism.”

“ Chief rabbis of the Zionist state, whether Metger or anyone else, are merely very well-paid stooges of the Zionists and serve their Zionist masters without regard for the welfare of the Jewish people, the Palestinians, or any other nation in the world.”

The statement went on: “Chief rabbis, and other rabbis, who support the existence of the Zionist state, are wicked emissaries of Evil. Such ‘rabbis’ promote hatred and war, and use their coercive powers to demand subservience of Jews to the Zionist enterprise. This description of such people has been the long-standing position of authentic rabbis for the last century.”

The statement stressed that advocates of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, whether Metzger or others, don’t represent the Jewish religion.

“Yona Metzger, like all Zionist rabbis, expresses feelings of cruelty and inhumanity which originates in his loyalty to the cult of Zionism, is perfectly prepared to sacrifice Jewish lives on the altar of his idolatry, the state of ‘Israel.’ Any moral person would much prefer to see the Zionist warmongers, including Metger, removed from the Holy Land. Metger and all Zionist rabbis don’t represent the Jewish religion.”

Neturei Karta, which means “Guardians of the City, urgently appealed to the leaders of the world, especially the great powers, to stop supporting the Zionist regime.

“Many nations believe that supporting Zionism shows friendship to the Jewish people. This is incorrect! True friendship to the Jewish people can be demonstrated by saving all the peoples of the Middle East, including Jews, from the bloodthirsty machinations of the dangerous state of ‘Israel’ and by dismantling the Zionist regime entirely.”

In an interview with the British Jewish weekly last week, the Jewish News, Metzger was quoted as saying that Palestinians could have a nice country in Sinai.

“Take all the poor people from Gaza to move them to a wonderful new modern country with trains, buses and cars, like in Arizona. This will be a solution for the poor people; they will have a nice country, and we, the Jews, shall have our country and we shall live in peace.”

Metzger also reportedly said that he would discuss the “matter” with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, adding that he thought the idea would find popularity among Israelis.

Neturei Karta is a Haredi Orthodox Jewish group with thousands of adherents all over the world. It was created in 1935, mainly as a reaction to the emergence of Zionism among European Jewry.

The group opposes Zionism and calls for the peaceful dismantling of the state of Israel in the belief that Jews are forbidden to have their own state until the coming of the Messiah. Moreover, Neturei Karta views Israel’s violent and often criminal behavior vis-à-vis the Palestinians, e.g. systematic persecution, ethnic cleansing, house demolition and land theft, as decidedly incompatible with the moral teachings and ideals of Judaism.

Iran Launches Research Rocket, Space Center

Iran Daily reports that on Monday Iran launched a research rocket and unveiled its first major space center, in the presence of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The president said the launch of the first space research center would be a great step toward serving mankind and mark Iran’s progress, IRNA reported.

“We witness today that Iran has taken its first step in space very firmly, precisely and with awareness. We need to have an active and effective presence in space,“ Ahmadinejad said in a speech. “Building and firing a satellite is a big and precious achievement.“

The country’s first space center comprises of the Omid (Hope), Iran’s first homemade research satellite designed and built by Iranian experts. The rocket marks the orbit for the launch of Omid.

Iran has been pursuing a nascent space program in the last few years and an Iranian satellite was put into orbit by a Russian rocket in October 2005.

The space center has been designed to send the Islamic Republic’s first homemade research satellite into orbit in the near future.

State television showed images of a large rocket strongly resembling Iran’s longer range missile Shahab-3 waiting to be fired on a mobile launcher.

The television did not disclose where the space station was situated, but ISNA news agency said it was in a desert area in northern Semnan province.

The Russian-launched satellite Sina-1 was Iran’s first--and so far only--probe to be launched into space, and was described by the Iranian press as pursuing research and telecommunications. Iran has said it plans to build and launch several more satellites over the next three years.

The achievement was widely appreciated in the western media. Reuters quoted London-based defense analyst Paul Beaver that Iran was making technological progress: “I think it is yet another indication that Iran’s technology is moving very quickly up the scale,“ he said. BBC’s Jon Leyne in Tehran says it is a highly symbolic moment for the launch, on the 29th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

Patriotic music was aired on TV as it reported the story. Minister of Science, Research and Technology Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi said the inauguration of Iran’s domestic aerospace center was a strong backup of the country’s Islamic system. Speaking on the sidelines of the center’s inauguration ceremony, the minister referred to the event as another “scientific breakthrough for Iranian scientists“. Zahedi referred to the center’s establishment as an ’honor’ for Iranians in the field of technology.

US 'OK'd trespassing into Iran, Syria'

PRESS TV reports that the US military forces in Iraq had been authorized to cross into Iranian and Syrian borders 'in pursuit of gunmen', a report reveals.

A classified 2005 document which has been made public by an independent website said the US forces had been given permission to chase what it called terrorists and former members of Saddam Hussein's government into Iran and Syria.

According to Wikileaks, US officials say the document, which contains rules of engagement for the American division that was based in Baghdad and central Iraq in 2005, appears to be authentic.

The American military command in Baghdad harshly criticized the website's decision to post the document, describing it irresponsible.

"While we will not comment on whether this is, in fact, an official document, we do consider the deliberate release of what Wikileaks believes to be a classified document is irresponsible and, if valid, could put US military personnel at risk," said Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, a spokesman for the command.

Wikileaks which encourages posting leaked information says its goal in disclosing secret documents is to reveal 'unethical behavior' by governments and corporations.

Read the full document (in PDF format) here.
Read New York Times original article here.

Egypt Closes Rafah Border

Al-Manar TV reports:

Egyptian and Hamas security forces closed the border between Gaza and Egypt on Sunday, nearly two weeks after resistance fighters blew open the frontier amid as Israeli occupation blockade, a security source and witnesses said. "Security forces have starting closing the border," an Egyptian security source said. "No more Palestinians are being allowed in."

One gate remained open to allow Palestinians to return to Gaza and Egyptians to return home. Other than people returning home, no pedestrians or vehicles were being allowed to cross. Hundreds of thousands of people have streamed across the border since Palestinian fighters blew open and bulldozed large sections of the barrier wall on January 22 after a near week-long Israeli occupation lockdown of the territory.

On Saturday, Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, who had returned from talks in Cairo, said his movement would close the border in cooperation with the Egyptian authorities, adding that Cairo has promised to ease the plight of the Palestinians in the Strip by opening the Rafah crossing.

During the talks Hamas officials asked that Egypt provide the Strip with the essential supplies it currently receives through the occupied territories. The Hamas officials made it clear during their talks with Omer Suleiman, Egypt's chief of intelligence, they did not expect this supply line to be humanitarian assistance but commercial deliveries for which they would pay. Hamas sources said the Egyptians did not reject the proposal and promised to consider the option.

However, senior Fatah officials in Ramallah said that Egypt would be hard put to accept the Hamas proposal because of the opposition of the Palestinian Authority and the United States.

Hamas Prime Minister in the Strip Ismail Haniyeh said Saturday that economic ties with Egypt must be strengthened to break free from Israel. "Since the day we were elected [Palestinian national elections February 2006] we have said that we want to progress toward breaking our economic ties with Israel," he said. He stressed that "Egypt is in a much better position [than Israel] to meet the needs of the Gaza Strip."

The Strangulation of Gaza

by SAREE MAKDISI

The people of Gaza were able to enjoy a few days of freedom last week, after demolition charges brought down the iron wall separating the impoverished Palestinian territory from Egypt, allowing hundreds of thousands to burst out of the virtual prison into which Gaza has been transformed over the past few years--the terminal stage of four decades of Israeli occupation--and to shop for desperately needed supplies in Egyptian border towns.

Gaza's doors are slowly closing again, however. Under mounting pressure from the United States and Israel, Egypt has dispatched additional border guards armed with water cannons and electric cattle prods to try to regain control. It has already cut off the flow of supplies crossing the Suez Canal to its own border towns. For now, in effect, Suez is the new border: even if Palestinians could get out of Gaza in search of new supplies, they would have to cross the desolate expanses of the Sinai Desert and cross the canal, on the other side of which they would find the regular Egyptian army (barred from most of Sinai as a condition of the 1979 Camp David treaty with Israel) waiting for them.

Now that Gaza's fleeting taste of freedom is beginning to fade, the grim reality facing the territory's 1.5 million people is once again looming large. "After feeling imprisoned for so long, it has been a psychological relief for Gazans to know that there is a way out," said John Ging, the local director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). "But it does not resolve their crisis by any stretch of the imagination."

Indeed, all the frenzied shopping in Egyptian border towns brought into Gaza a mere fraction of the food that UN and other relief agencies have been blocked by Israel from delivering to the people who depend on them for their very survival. As long as the border with Egypt is even partially open, Israel refuses to open its own borders with Gaza to anything other than the bare minimum of industrial fuel to keep the territory's one power plant operating at a subsistence level, and a few trucks of other supplies a day.

UNRWA has almost depleted the stocks of emergency food aid it had previously built up in Gaza. Only thirty-two truckloads of goods have been allowed to enter Gaza since Israel imposed its total closure on January 18; 250 trucks were entering every day before last June, and even that was insufficient to meet the population's needs.

On January 30 UNRWA warned that unless something changes, the daily ration that it will distribute on the 31st to 860,000 destitute refugees in Gaza will lack a protein component: the canned meat that is the only source of protein in the food parcels--which even under the best of circumstances contributes less than two-thirds of minimum daily nourishment--is being held up by Israel, and the stock of those cans inside Gaza has been exhausted. The World Food Program, which feeds another 340,000 people in Gaza, has brought in nine trucks of food aid in the past two weeks; in the seven months before that, it had been bringing in fifteen trucks a day.

Gazans have been ground into poverty by years of methodical Israeli restrictions and closures; 80 percent of the population now depends on food aid for day-to-day subsistence. With the aid, they were receiving "enough to survive, not to live," as the International Red Cross put it. Without it, they will die.

All this is supposed to be in response to Palestinian militant groups' firing of crude homemade rockets into Israel, which rarely cause any actual damage. There can be no excuse for firing rockets at civilian targets, but Israel was squeezing Gaza long before the first of those primitive projectiles was cobbled together. The first fatal rocket attack took place four years ago; Israel has been occupying Gaza for four decades.

The current squeeze on Gaza began in 1991. It was tightened with the institutionalization of the Israeli occupation enabled by the Oslo Accords of 1993. It was tightened further with the intensification of the occupation in response to the second intifada in 2000. It was tightened further still when Israel redeployed its settlers and troops from inside Gaza in 2005 and transformed the territory into what John Dugard, the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories, referred to as a prison, the key to which, Dugard said, Israel had "thrown away." It was tightened to the point of strangulation following the Hamas electoral victory in 2006, when Israel began restricting supplies of food and other resources into Gaza. It was tightened beyond the point of strangulation following the deposition of the Hamas-led government in June 2007. And now this.

When Israel limited commercial shipments of food--but not humanitarian relief--into Gaza in 2006, a senior government adviser, Dov Weisglass, explained that "the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet but not to make them die of hunger."

Israel's "diet" was taking its toll even before last week. The World Food Program warned last November that less than half of Gaza's food-import needs were being met. Basics including wheat grain, vegetable oil, dairy products and baby milk were in short supply. Few families can afford meat. Anemia rates rocketed to almost 80 percent. UNRWA noted at about the same time that "we are seeing evidence of the stunting of children, their growth is slowing, because our ration is only 61 percent of what people should have and that has to be supplemented."

By further restricting the supply of food to an already malnourished population, Israel has clearly decided to take its "diet" a step further. If the people of Gaza remain cut off from the food aid on which their survival now depends, they will face starvation.

They are now essentially out of food; the water system is faltering (almost half the population now lacks access to safe water supplies); the sewage system has broken down and is discharging raw waste into streets and the sea; the power supply is intermittent at best; hospitals lack heat and spare parts for diagnostic machines, ventilators, incubators; dozens of lifesaving medicines are no longer available. Slowly but surely, Gaza is dying.

Patients are dying unnecessarily: cancer patients cut off from chemotherapy regimens, kidney patients cut off from dialysis treatments, premature babies cut off from blood-clotting medications. In the past few weeks, many more Palestinian parents have watched the lives of their sick children ebb slowly, quietly and (as far as the global media are concerned) invisibly away in Gaza's besieged hospitals than Israelis have been hurt--let alone actually killed--by the erratic firing of primitive homemade rockets from Gaza, about which we have heard so much. (According to the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, these rockets have killed thirteen Israelis in the past four years, while Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the occupied territories in the past two years alone, almost half of them civilians, including some 200 children.)

Israel's squeeze is expressly intended to punish the entire population for the firing of those rockets by militants, which ordinary civilians are powerless to stop. "We will not allow them to lead a pleasant life," said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert when Israel cut off fuel supplies on January 18, thereby plunging Gaza into darkness. "As far as I am concerned, all of Gaza's residents can walk and have no fuel for their cars."

Olmert's views and, more important, his policies were reaffirmed and given the legal sanction of Israel's High Court. In what human rights organizations referred to as a "devastating" decision, on January 30 the court ruled in favor of the government's plan to further restrict supplies of fuel and electricity to Gaza. "The decision means that Israel may deliberately deprive civilians in Gaza of fuel and electricity supplies," pointed out Sari Bashi, of the Gisha human rights organization in Israel. "During wartime, the civilian population is the first and central victim of the fighting, even when efforts are made to minimize the damage," the court said. In other words, harm to the civilian population is an inevitable effect of war and therefore legally permissible.

That may be the view of Israel's highest legal authority, but it is not how the matter is viewed by international law, which strictly regulates the way civilian populations are to be treated in time of war. "The parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants in order to spare the civilian population and civilian property," the International Red Cross points out, invoking the Geneva Conventions and other founding documents of international humanitarian law. "Neither the civilian population as a whole nor individual civilians may be attacked."

Moreover, no matter what Israel's High Court says, what is happening in Gaza is not a war in the conventional sense: Gaza is not a state at war with the state of Israel. It is a territory militarily occupied by Israel. Even after its 2005 redeployment, Israel did not release its hold on Gaza; it continues to control all access to the territory, as well as its airspace, territorial waters and even its population registry. Over and above all the routine prohibitions on attacks on the civilian population and other forms of collective punishment that hold true in case of war, in other words, international law also holds Israel responsible for the welfare of the Gaza population. Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) specifically demands, for example, that, "to the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate."

Israel's methodical actions make it clear that it is systematically grinding down and now actually starving people for whose welfare it is legally accountable simply because it regards Gaza's 1.5 million men, women and children as a surplus population it would, quite simply, like to get rid of one way or the other: a sentiment made quite clear when Israel's chief Ashkenazi rabbi proposed, shortly after the current crisis began, that the entire Palestinian population of Gaza should just be removed and transferred to the Egyptian desert. "They will have a nice country, and we shall have our country and we shall live in peace," he said, without eliciting even a murmur of protest in Israel.

The overwhelming majority of Gazans are refugees or the descendants of refugees who were expelled from their homes when Palestine was destroyed and Israel was created in 1948. Like all Palestinian refugees, those of Gaza have a moral and legal right to return to the homeland from which they were expelled. Israel blocks their return for the same reason it expelled them in the first place, because their presence would undermine its already tenuous claim to Jewishness (this is the nature of the so-called "demographic problem" about which Israeli politicians openly complain). As long as the refugees live, what Israel regards as the mortal threat of their right of return lives on. But if they would somehow just go away...

"Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and--some would say--encouragement of the international community," the commissioner-general of UNRWA warned recently.

The question now is whether the world will simply sit and watch, now that this unprecedented threshold is actually being crossed.

Having taken matters into their hands and destroyed the wall cutting them off from the outside world, it is most unlikely that the people of Gaza will simply submit to that fate. A hermetic closure ultimately depends not merely on Israel's whims but on Egypt's willingness--or ability--to cut off the Palestinians of Gaza and watch them starve. For all the US and Israeli pressure on Egypt, and for all the steps Egypt is now taking, it seems most unlikely that it would let things go that far. Not intervening to save fellow Arabs from the Israeli occupation is one thing; actually participating in their repression is quite another. The Egyptian government would have to answer not only to the people of Palestine but to its own people, and indeed to all Arabs.

Working together, Hamas and the people of Gaza have forced Egypt's hand and made much more visible than ever before the role it had been playing all along in the Israeli occupation and strangulation of Gaza; now that its role in assisting Israel has been revealed, it will be difficult for Egypt to go back to the status quo. Gazans have thrown Israel's plans into disarray, because Israel's leaders could do little more than watch with pursed lips as the people of Gaza burst out of their prison. And they have placed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the government of Ramallah in a corner: they will have to choose between defending their people's rights and needs or confirming once and for all--as indeed they are doing--that the PA is there to serve Israel's interests, not those of the Palestinians. In which case they too will one day be called to account.

Saree Makdisi, professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA, is the author of Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation (Norton).

(source: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080218/makdisi)

From Stalingrad to Winograd

by Uri Avnery

FOR SOME days, the country looked like the Place de la Concorde in 1793. The entire public sat expectantly facing the guillotine, waiting for the tumbril to bring the marquis, for the marquis to lie down, for the blade to fall on his neck and for a soldier to hold up the bloody, severed head for the amusement of the spectators.

All eyes were fixed on the raised blade of the Winograd commission. The judge sat down before the cameras and read out the report. But the blade did not come down. No reserve soldier raised the bloody, severed head. The head remained in its place. Ehud Olmert is no marquis, and his head remains firmly on his shoulders.

From one end of the country to the other, a deep sigh of disappointment. The reporters and commentators sprang from their seats, like the knitting hags of the Paris square whose marquis has escaped.

The Winograd commission has failed, the commentators exclaimed in outrage. To the many failures of the war, the failure of the commission must now be added.


EVERY EXPERIENCED politician knows the axiom: He who chooses the members of a commission determines its conclusions in advance.

That is almost self-evident. After all, the members of the commission are only human. Human beings have attitudes and opinions. These are known in advance to the person who appoints them. He can appoint the members at will. If he appoints tycoons, he can reasonably expect that they will not decide to raise the taxes on the rich. If he appoints leftists instead, the recommendations will be quite different.

Therefore, when the proposed Law of Commissions of Inquiry was debated, we decided that the members of an "official" commission of inquiry should not be appointed by the government, but by the President of the Supreme Court. I was a member of the Knesset at the time and took an active part in the debate. I proposed that not only would the Chief Justice appoint the commission members, but that he - and not the government - would decide on the setting up of an inquiry in the first place. (This was rejected.)

That happened seven years before the young Ehud Olmert was first elected to the Knesset. But he understands the law perfectly. When, after Lebanon War II, the appointment of an "official" commission of inquiry was proposed, he objected strenuously. He insisted on a government-appointed inquiry commission. While the members of an official commission are appointed by the Chief Justice, the members of a government commission are appointed by the government itself.

Vive la petite difference.

The appointment of the Winograd commission was greeted by many doubts. But these evaporated completely when the interim report was released last April. It was harsh and uncompromising. It contained very negative remarks about Olmert.

So the public relaxed. The difference between the two kinds of commission was forgotten. The Winograd commission behaved exactly like an "official" commission, took decisions like one and spoke like one. It raised the guillotine blade, and everybody waited for it to fall on Olmert's neck.

And then it became clear that le petite difference was a very substantial difference indeed. The commission appointed by Olmert has now issued a final report that is favorable to Olmert all along the line, especially about the accusation that Olmert had decided on the last-minute "ground operation" and sent soldiers to their deaths to save his personal prestige.

The commission did not lay any personal blame on any politician or general. Here it could base itself on a decision of the Supreme Court, which had expressly forbidden the commission to condemn anyone personally.

How come? When the Knesset adopted the Commission of Inquiry Law, we paid much attention to Article 15. It prohibits condemning anyone without giving them a fair opportunity to defend themself. Such a person must be warned in advance and invited to appoint a lawyer, to cross-examine witnesses and to summon witnesses of their own.

That is a long process, and a commission of inquiry is generally in a hurry to finish its report before the subject of its investigation is forgotten. For example, the commission of inquiry that was set up after the Yom Kippur war, under Judge Agranat, just disregarded the article altogether and decided to dismiss the Chief of Staff, the Commander of the Southern Front and other generals, without giving them any advance warning at all.

The Winograd commission took another path: when the army authorities petitioned the Supreme Court and demanded that the commission respect Article 15, the commission just promised that they would not blame anybody personally.

The commission could, of course, have described Olmert's part in the war in such scathing terms as to force him to resign. It did not do so. On the contrary, it concluded that his decisions were reasonable.

The blade did not fall, Olmert was bruised, but still standing.


AFTER THE 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre, the "official" commission of inquiry chaired by Judge Kahan published an exemplary report which exposed all the facts. But these could have led it to much harsher conclusions than it did actually reach. Instead of finding that Ariel Sharon and his minions were guilty of "indirect responsibility" for the massacre, it could have decided that they bore direct responsibility. The facts supported such a conclusion. Why did they not do so, and only dismissed Sharon and some officers? I assume that they shrunk back for fear of causing severe damage to the State of Israel.

Now I could write much the same about the Winograd commission. The facts exposed by it justify more extreme conclusions. What held them back? One can guess: the five commission members, all pillars of the establishment - 2 generals, 2 leading academics, 1 judge - did not want to topple Olmert, the No. 1 establishment person. Perhaps they feared that his place would be taken by somebody much worse - a worry shared by many others in the country.

As prominent establishment figures, the commission members also shrunk back from touching on two basic questions concerning Lebanon War II: (a) Why it was started at all, and (b) What had caused the shocking deterioration of the army.


IN ITS two reports, the commission asserted that the decision to start the war was taken in a hasty and irresponsible manner. The stated war aims were quite unattainable. But the commission did not say what had caused Olmert & Co. - the government of Israel - to make such a decision.

We now know for sure that plans for the war had been prepared a long time before. These were rehearsed only a month before the war and changes were made according to the results. In the end, these plans were not implemented at all. But it is clear that the government and the army had long been thinking about attacking Hizbullah.

For six years, the Northern border had been completely quiet. Hizbullah did deploy rockets (as it is doing now) but showed then (as now) no inclination to attack Israel.

The cross-border incursion in which two Israeli soldiers were captured was an exception. The action was intended to provide negotiating chips for the release of Hizbullah prisoners held in Israel (and perhaps to demonstrate solidarity with Hamas, which had just captured another Israeli soldier in a similar incursion.) Hassan Nasrallah later admitted that this was a grave mistake and would not have been done if he had imagined that it would cause a war. (Olmert, on his part, has not admitted to any mistake.)

As I said right at the beginning, this incident was a pretext for the war, not the reason for it. If so, what was the real reason? The desire of the civilian Olmert for military glory? The dream of the Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz, to prove that the Air Force could win a war alone, by a massive bombardment of the civilian population? The illusion that Hizbullah could be eliminated by one big strike?

When Judge Winograd tried to explain why a part of the report must be kept secret, the words he used attracted no attention: "The security of the state and its foreign relations". Foreign relations? What foreign relations? Relations with whom? There is only one reasonable answer: relations with the United States.

That could be the crux of the matter: Olmert fulfilled an American wish. President Bush wanted to install his protégé, Fouad Siniora, as ruler in Beirut. For that end, Hizbullah, the main Lebanese opposition force, had to be eliminated. Also, Bush wanted to effect a regime change in Syria, one of the main obstacles to American ambitions in the region.

I believe that this is the missing link in Winograd's chain. Olmert could have argued: "I was only obeying orders". But that, of course, is unspeakable.


THE OTHER black hole in the report concerns the Israeli army. The report criticizes it murderously. Never before has the army leadership been described in such a way - as a bunch of people without character, talent or competence; generals who are ready to send soldiers to their death in an operation they believe to be condemned to failure, just because they do not dare to stand up to their superiors; generals who do not demand a clear definition of the objectives before going into battle; Generals who do not recognize the fateful faults of their army, and who are themselves responsible - they and their predecessors - for these very faults.

All this is being said now. What has not been said is: how did we get such a leadership? What has caused these faults?

The answers can be summed up in two words: the occupation.

In the last few years I have written dozens of articles about the disastrous effects of the occupation on the army. One cannot employ a whole army for decades as a colonial police force for crushing the resistance of an occupied population, without changing its character. Soldiers who run after stone-throwing children in the alleys of the Qasbah, who hammer at night on the doors of civilians, who use bulldozers to destroy people's homes, and all this for year after year - such soldiers are not competent to fight a modern war.

Worse: such a colonial army does not attract the best and the brightest. These now go into high-tech and science. The brutal work of the army against civilians and guerrilla fighters disgusts people of conscience and sensitivity, the very ones who are the backbone of a good officers' corps. It blunts the senses of those who remain, or sends them home from the occupied territories traumatized.

In the 40 years of occupation, the Israeli army has lost the kind of officers that led it in the 1948 and 1967 wars, people like Yitzhak Sadeh, Yigal Allon, Yitzhak Rabin, Ezer Weitzman, Matti Peled, Haim Bar-Lev and David Elazar, to mention just a few. Their place has been taken by a mediocre, faceless group, gray but arrogant technicians, people of shallow thinking, colonialist and extreme right-wing attitudes, with an ever increasing percentage of knitted kippa-wearers.

That is the group the report speaks of - but without saying so. It is an occupation army in which a negative natural selection process operates - everyone who does not feel comfortable in this milieu just leaves. As in any army, the atmosphere prevailing at the top - good or bad - trickles down the ranks to the meanest soldier.

This is not an army of Stalingrad fighters defending their country - this is an army of Winograd fighters. An army which no genius can to "repair", as demanded by the commission. Because all the faults stem from the original sin: the occupation.

(source: http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1201998041/)

Statement of Bishop Artemije on Kosovo

Bishop Artemije issued the statement prior to his visit to Washington

(source: PRNewswire-USNewswire)

Following today's publication of a Washington Times commentary written by former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, former UN Ambassador John Bolton and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman urging the Bush Administration to withhold recognition of a unilateral declaration of Kosovo independence, His Grace, Bishop Artemije of Ras and Prizren issued the following statement prior to his visit to Washington to meet with Administration and Congressional officials and policymakers:

As I begin my latest mission to Washington, my country is being subjected to heightened threats from the government of the United States with respect to the future of the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija. Having just returned from Berlin and consultations with Members of the Bundestag, the Administration, and think tanks, NGOs, and media, it is clear that America's European allies are increasingly concerned about the consequences of the course Washington is trying to impose on them. The U.S. response has been to step up the pressure.

For example, the press in Slovenia, currently chairing the European Union, recently revealed American officials' diktat to supposedly independent countries. In an account confirmed by Slovenian official sources, we hear American diplomats commanding the timing of a planned unilateral declaration of independence by the Albanian Muslim administration in Pristina and its recognition by the U.S. and some other governments. Even exposed is the shameful intention to trigger the crisis on the Lord's Day to thwart Russia in convening an emergency session of the Security Council.

Threats have already been issued that after an independence declaration and recognition, force would be used to shut down so-called "parallel structures" in Serbian enclaves -- in reality the legitimate institutions of our state -- including the Mitrovica office of the Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija. Such actions, with expected attacks on Serbian citizens, would constitute a direct assault on the Serbian state and the Serbian nation. While it would be inappropriate to disclose Serbia's specific response, we will defend our territory and our people as would any other democratic country. Russia and other friendly countries are prepared to assist us.

Should Washington and its followers make good on their current threats to recognize Kosovo, Serbia would never accept it. Not only Russia but many other countries, especially those outside of Europe, would reject recognition. Kosovo would never become a member of the United Nations. We would regard the international presence in Kosovo, including the mission now being considered by the EU, as an occupation force. We Serbs have suffered many occupations in the past and triumphed over them. If necessary we would survive this one as well. Despite any intensification of the terror to which we Christians have been subjected since 1999, my flock in Kosovo has no intention of leaving their homes.

I do not welcome having to direct these critical words at the United States. Serbs have always regarded America as a friend and continue to do so. Americans and Serbs were allies in both World Wars. We are not the ones who are pursuing a confrontation today. But it is impossible for America to profess friendship with Serbia while demanding the amputation of the most precious part of our homeland.

Despite the mistakes made so far, I am convinced that there is still a chance reason will prevail and the disastrous path laid before us will be averted. Today three highly respected former U.S. officials published a thoughtful and constructive analysis of the looming injury to American national interests:

"We believe that an imposed settlement of the Kosovo question and seeking to partition Serbia's sovereign territory without its consent is not in the interest of the United States. The blithe assumption of American policy -- that the mere passage of nine years of relative quiet would be enough to lull Serbia and Russia into reversing their positions on a conflict that goes back centuries -- has proven to be naive in the extreme. We believe that American policy on Kosovo must be reexamined without delay, and we urge the Bush Administration to make it clear that pending the results of such reexamination it would withhold recognition of a Kosovo independence declaration and discourage Kosovo's Albanians from taking that step."

Secretary Lawrence Eagleburger, Ambassador John Bolton, and Assistant Secretary Peter Rodman conclude: "As with thorny questions elsewhere, viable and enduring settlements should result from negotiation and compromise. Such an outcome has been undermined by an American promise to the Kosovo Albanians that their demands will be satisfied if they remain adamant and no agreement is reached with Belgrade." I believe that negotiations must continue until a mutually acceptable solution can be found to allow us and our Albanian neighbors to live together in peace. Honest talks, without ultimatums or guaranteed results for either side, with no outcome barred from discussion, can still bear fruit. I ask all Americans of good will to ask their leaders in Washington to choose this path.


For more information, please visit the American Council for Kosovo's Web site at http://www.savekosovo.org.

The American Council for Kosovo is an activity of Squire Sanders Public Advocacy, LLC, and Global Strategic Communications Group, which are registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as agents for the Serbian National Council of Kosovo and Metohija, under the spiritual guidance of His Grace, Bishop ARTEMIJE of Ras and Prizren. Additional information with respect to this matter is on file with the Foreign Agents Registration Unit of the Department of Justice in Washington DC.

The Evolution of Evil: Plutocracy Controls Politics

By Joel Hirschhorn (see his interview with the Saker here)
www.delusionaldemocracy.com
www.foavc.org

Perhaps a global political apocalypse has already arrived.

Activists and dissidents should understand that evil forces and tyrannical governments have evolved. Just as human knowledge and science expand, so do the strategies and instruments used by rulers, elites and plutocrats. By learning from history and using new technology they have smarter tools of tyranny. The best ones prevent uprisings, revolutions and political reforms. Rather than violently destroy rebellious movements, they let them survive as marginalized and ineffective efforts that divert and sap the energy of nonconformist and rebellious thinkers. Real revolution remains an energy-draining dream, as evil forces thrive.

Most corrupt and legally sanctioned forms of tyranny hide in plain sight as democracies with free elections. The toughest lesson is that ALL elections are distractions. Nothing conceals tyranny better than elections. Few Americans accept that their government has become a two-party plutocracy run by a rich and powerful ruling class. The steady erosion of the rule of law is masked by everyday consumer freedoms. Because people want to be happy and hopeful, we have an epidemic of denial, especially in the present presidential campaign. But to believe that any change-selling politician or shift in party control will overturn the ruling class is the epitome of self-delusion and false hope. In the end, such wishful thinking perpetuates plutocracy. Proof is that plutocracy has flourished despite repeated change agents, promises of reform and partisan shifts.

The tools of real rebellion are weak. Activists and dissidents look back and see successful rebellions and revolutions and think that when today's victims of tyranny experience enough pain and see enough political stink they too will revolt. This is wrong. They think that the Internet spreads information and inspiration to the masses, motivating them to revolt. This is wrong. They await catastrophic economic or environmental collapse to spur rebellion. This too is wrong.

Why are these beliefs wrong? Power elites have an arsenal of weapons to control and manipulate social, political and economic systems globally: corruption of public officials that make elections a sham; corporate mainstream media that turn news into propaganda; manipulation of financial markets that create fear for the public and profits for the privileged; false free trade globalization that destroys the middle class; rising economic inequality that keep the masses time-poor and financially insecure; intense marketing of pharmaceuticals that keep people passive; and addictive consumerism, entertainment and gambling that keep people distracted and pacified.

The biggest challenge for dissidents and rebels is to avoid feel-good therapeutic activism having virtually no chance of removing evil and tyranny. Idealism without practicality tactics without lofty goals, and symbolic protests pose no threat to power elites. Anger and outrage require great strategic thinking from leaders seeking revolution, not mere change. And social entrepreneurs that use business and management skills to tackle genuine social problems do nothing to achieve political reforms. To the extent they achieve results they end up removing interest in overthrowing political establishments that have allowed the problems to fester.

What is the new tool of tyranny? Technological connectivity achieved through advanced communications and computer systems, especially the rise of wireless connectivity. The global message to the masses is simple: Buy electronic products to stay plugged in. Connectivity may give pleasure, but it gives even more power to elites, rulers and plutocrats. It allows them to coordinate their efforts through invisible cabals, to closely monitor everything that ordinary people and dissidents do, and to cooperatively and clandestinely adjust social, financial and political systems to maintain stability and dominance.

In this dystopian world all systems are integrated to serve upper class elites and the corporate state, not ordinary people. When ordinary people spend their money to be more shackled to connectivity products, they become unwitting victims of largely invisible governmental and corporate oppressive forces. They are oblivious that their technological seduction exacerbates their political and economic exploitation. Though some 70 percent believe the country is on the wrong track, they fail to see the deeper causes of the trend. And if Americans were really happy and content with their consumer culture, then why are they stuffing themselves with so many antidepressants, sleeping pills and totally unhealthy foods? In truth, the vast majority of people are in denial about the rotten system they are trapped in (aka The Matrix). They are manipulated to keep hope alive through voting, despite the inability of past elections to stop the slide into economic serfdom.

Increasingly, the little-discussed phenomenon of economic apartheid ensures that elites live their lavish lives safely in physically separated ways. Concurrently, economic inequality rises, as the rich extract unusually high fractions of global wealth. When the rich get richer, the powerful get stronger. Does some economic prosperity trickles down to the poorest people? Perversely, the middle class is moved into the lower class. In this new physics of evil, wealth transfer is not from the rich to the poor, but from the middle class in wealthier countries to the poor in developing nations, where a few new billionaires join the global plutocracy.

Some data on economic inequality: The after-tax income of the top 1 percent of Americans rose 228 percent from 1979 through 2005, while middle class income remained flat over the last 4 decades. The richest 0.01 percent of earners made 5.1 percent of all income in 2005, up more than 300 percent from just 1.2 percent in 1960. Bad economic times like the present just exacerbate inequality. Even as most Wall Street companies lost billions in the sub-prime mortgage debacle after they had already made billions, they gave obscene bonuses to their employees: the average topped $180,000 for 2007, tripling the $61,000 in 2002. Scholars used to predict that high levels of economic inequality like we have today would lead to rebellion. But there are now insufficient tools and paths for rebellion, because the plutocracy has eliminated them. Instead, citizens are offered elections whose outcomes can be controlled and subverted by the ruling class.

The New World Order is getting what it wants: a stable two-class system, with the lower class serving the elitist upper class. The paradox is that along with rising economic inequality and apartheid is mounting consumerism and materialism that is used to pacify, distract and control the masses. That's where easy credit and cheap products from low-wage nations are critical. The poor can have cell phones, 24-7 Internet access and increasingly cars, while the bejeweled upper class travel in private jets and yachts, vacation on private islands, and have several gated mansions maintained by servants and guarded by private police. We have a technologically advanced form of medieval society. It is working in the US and China and most other places. Elections just mask economic tyranny and slavery.

The ruling class knows how to maintain stability. Keep the masses distracted, fearful, brainwashed, insecure, and dependent on government and business sectors for survival. Train people to see themselves as relatively free consumers. Maintain the myth that ordinary people can become wealthy and join the ruling class, which theoretically is not impossible, but of no statistical significance for the masses.

There are no easy paths to restore power to the people. But here are three strategies worth considering. First, the real power of the masses is as consumers, not as voters, workers, activists, or Internet users. Weakened unions, globalization, technology, and illegal immigration have sapped the power of workers. National economies, especially the US, depend on consumers. Suspensions in discretionary consumer spending used as a political weapon could force reforms. But curbing personal spending and saving money has become a rare form of civil disobedience. Consumers buy stuff when they want it, not when they can afford it. Rulers have replaced chains with debt and no political leader in a very long time has championed economic rebellion.

Second, because they are more a tool of tyranny than rebellion, the masses should stop giving credibility and legitimacy to faux democracies by boycotting elections. Plutocrats cleverly equate patriotism and good citizenship with voting while at the same time ensuring that no genuine change agents can succeed even if elected. All election results can be subverted by the forces of corruption. Those promising change, like Barack Obama, do not pose a lethal threat to forces of evil and corruption. Sadly, refusing to vote in corrupt political systems is another worthy but unpopular form of civil disobedience. The compulsion to vote is a political narcotic that sustains democratic tyranny.

Third, people must seek forms of direct democracy that give them political power. National ballot measures and initiatives are needed to make laws, impose spending mandates and recall elected officials. A most important tool is constitutional conventions outside the control of status quo preservationists to obtain systemic reforms that governments will never provide, as explained for the US at www.foavc.org. No greater example of ruling class power exists than the absence of massive public demands for using what the Founders gave Americans in Article V: the convention option to circumvent and fix the federal government that - amazingly - has never been used, and that no presidential candidate has supported, including constitutional champion Ron Raul.

Joel Hirschhorn is the author of two popular books; latest is Delusional Democracy. Worked for the U.S. Congress, the National Governors Association; was a professor at the Univesity of Wisconsin, Madison; ran an environmental consulting company. A founder of Friends of the Article V Convention