Monday, December 7, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Hezbollah manifesto and Hassan Nasrallah press conference
Dear friends,
I have received the full translation of the recently adopted Hezbollah Manifesto and a transcript of the subsequent press conference by Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. These are long documents and rather than posting them here I have made them available for download at this location:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/htordymwmqw/hizballahmanifesto.zip
Both documents are included in the zipped file.
These are important documents for the future of the Middle-East, in particular at a time when the Obama Administration is executing a major military escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan and when the USraelian Empire is poised to strike at Iran. I encourage you to read these documents.
The Saker
I have received the full translation of the recently adopted Hezbollah Manifesto and a transcript of the subsequent press conference by Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. These are long documents and rather than posting them here I have made them available for download at this location:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/htordymwmqw/hizballahmanifesto.zip
Both documents are included in the zipped file.
These are important documents for the future of the Middle-East, in particular at a time when the Obama Administration is executing a major military escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan and when the USraelian Empire is poised to strike at Iran. I encourage you to read these documents.
The Saker
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Gilad Atzmon: "Ethics and morality are far more crucial than some UN decision"
It is a huge pleasure for me to share with you the transcript of a Q&A by email which I did recently with Gilad Atzmon. I first discovered Gilad the jazz musician years ago when I myself was still playing jazz guitar (btw - I recently reviewed his latest album here), and only later did I learn of his political activism. Having since read as much of his writings as I could find, I now consider him to be one of the most intelligent, well-informed and insightful political activists ever. What I most love and respect in Gilad are his absolute commitment to the truth and his equally forceful determination to speak that truth to power; I can only begin to imagine the vitriolic hatred which Gilad elicits from the Zionist crazies which he relentlessly denounces.
I am deeply grateful to Gilad for taking the time for this Q&A even though he is very busy.
The Saker
-------
VS: Two leading intellectuals have recently made strong arguments for the so-called "right to exist" of Israel. Norman Finkestein's argument is simple, yet powerful. He says the international community, via the UN General Assembly and the World Court, has already decided what the solution of the conflict should be: two states in the 1967 borders, side by side, with refugees either back or compensated. He points to the fact that all the countries in the world agree on that except the Israel, the USA, and some small south Pacific Islands. He does not claim that this is the best solution, but he says that this is the only doable one. He therefore dismisses the "One State" solution as unachievable.
GA: In general, I am trying to avoid any discussion to do with discourse resolution. I avoid it for a few reasons. I do not live in the region and it is not down to me to decide for the Palestinian what country, political setting or resolution they should follow. However, I may use the opportunity to suggest that the Two State Solution doesn't address the Palestinian cause. It is impractical for the Israelis will never let refugees into their shtetle state. But most importantly, the right of return or the right to live on your land is not a subject to international community decisions or laws. It is actually a moral right. And as far as I am concerned as an individual, ethics and morality are far more crucial than some UN decisions that are made by Zionised politicians and corrupted diplomats.
VS: Shlomo Sand has recently stated that "even the child born of a rape has the right to live. Yes, 1948 was a rape, and that rape gave birth to Israel, but that is now a reality which cannot be dismissed".
GA: It is hard to avoid the fact that the "rape child" is living on a "stolen land', It is impossible to deny the fact that the "child" is now more than sixty years old and yet, he is still driven by murderous zeal. The "child"’ is yet to come to term with his original sin. In fact the "rape child" has transformed into a rapist father and then grandfather.
VS: I notice two fundamental features of these arguments. Both Finkestein and Sand fundamentally accept the authority of the United Nations to create a Jewish state in Palestine and both Finkestein and Sand seem to believe that the fundamental nature of that state has no bearing on the topic of the legitimacy of its existence. However, the creation of a state - any state - in Palestine without the consultation of the local people seems to me to violate the principle of the right of self determination.
GA: You are absolutely right. However, I am not that fascinated about the "right of self determination" for this right was exploited by the Jewish national project for more than a century, For some reason the national Jew believes that he is entitled to self determine himself on the expense of others.
VS: The principle of international law which states that no territory can legitimately be acquired by war would indicate that only the 1948 borders of Israel would have a legal basis and even here this basis would be tenuous because these borders were eventually agreed to with Arab neighbors and not with any body representing the Palestinians.
GA: Were they? After 60 years of Israeli barbarism and total failure of international community and of the international law to support the Palestinian, I just do not hold my breath any more. I believe that Palestinian will liberate themselves. Israel is living on borrowed time. I would invest my intellectual effort supporting Palestinian resistance.
VS: The other thing which bothers me is that in discussing the solution to the Middle-East conflict (somewhat of a misnomer), neither Finkestein nor Sand look at the nature of the self-declared "Jewish state". They seem to be talking about a state like Belgium or Spain. But Israel is qualitatively different. It is the last openly racist state on the planet, it is built on a mythology which many (such as Garaudy or Sands) have debunked.
GA: It is not just racist, it is also nationalist and expansionist, murderous and most concerning, democratic. Every Israeli is basically liable to the crimes committed by his state.
VS: Israel is also the Ueber-terrorist state of the planet which is conducing a slow-motion genocide against the Palestinians and it is a state which has comprehensively rejected any kind of abidance by the rules of international law or even basic civilized behavior. Whether looked at from a legal or a moral point of view, the existence of a racist state like Israel is a monstrosity, a disgrace for all of mankind. So even if a child born of a rape has the right to exist, does that still mean that when this child turns into an adult self-worshiping mass-murderer it's existence is still a "right"? It is obvious that the only people who have a right to decide what solution is, or is not, acceptable to this conflict are the Palestinians themselves. But without prejudging of what they might decide, what is your opinion of the arguments presented by Finkelstein and Sand and what do you make of the so-called "right to exist" issue?
GA: I assume that everyone in the region has the right to decide. However, the Israelis have lost the battle. They cannot dictate a solution. I would agree that every nation should enjoy the right to exist. However this right cannot be celebrated on the expense of other nations or people.
VS: you say that "the Israelis have lost the battle". Why? Are they not being successful in their slow-motion genocide of the Palestinians?
GA: Indeed, the Israelis do realize that implementing genocidal measures is counter effective. Israel does realize that its Hasbara project is falling apart due to its unacceptable tactics. Some of its ministers and military official are under real threat of being arrested. If anything, the Palestinian movement and the Hamas included bought a lot of legitimacy during and after operation Cast Lead.
VS: The USA under Obama supports Israel as much as Bush did, even though the rhetoric is somewhat different.
GA: I am not so sure about it.. Monitoring Israeli press and other sources I get a different impression. Israel seems to be rather hesitant with Obama administration. However, Obama is irrelevant to the topic. He was elected by the American people to lead their nation rather than to liberate the Palestinian people. Palestinian people will liberate themselves, with Obama or without him. If Obama manage to pull out American soldiers from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan this would be a major step forward.
VS: To make things worse, Israel is now openly threatening Iran with war. And you yourself admit that these polices do have the support of a majority the Israeli public opinion. Where do you see the signs of the defeat of Israel and what kind of scenario do you envision for this defeat to become indisputable?
GA: I see the wall as an Israeli acknowledgment that Israel is a fearful entity. Israel accepts that time is running out. This itself leads to total panic. They do not have any long term solution within their disposal.
VS: speaking of the Israeli public opinion I want to ask you a simple question: what is wrong with them?!
GA: Let me say it clearly, something is wrong, what is it? I do not know. I spend much of my energy exposing the symptoms. What is the disease exactly, I do not know for sure but I guess that it is something between supremacy, chosenness and self loving.
VS: Surely the Israelis are "people like everybody else",
GA: In fact it is not that clear. The Zionists indoctrination may as well make them into a very dangerous collective, far more dangerous than anything we are familiar with.
VS: Yet they clearly support genocide, gross human rights violations, systematic violations of the laws of war, a racist ideology ("Jewish state"). What are the roots of all this evil?
GA: It must have something to do with their secular interpretation of the Bible and endorsement of the Holocaust religion as their main precept.
VS: How can people who emigrated to Israel from all over the world and who were presumably educated in very diverse circumstances all come together and unite a racist, self-worshiping and utterly inhuman ideology?!
GA: You probably hit the nail here, once you are a Zionist it doesn’t matter where you come from. You become a vengeance driven possessed human being. You do not even have to be Jewish. As we know, many of the Russian new immigrants to Israel were very quick to endorse the most militant right wing Ideas in spite of the fact that many of them were not Jewish at all.
VS: Rabbi Yeshaiahu Karelitz once said that "the secular-Jewish cart is empty" and Shlomo Sand, who quotes him, also agrees with him. Do you agree with that?
GA: For sure, but the secular and nationalist do manage to fill the empty box with a lot of phantasmic and imaginary content. As you probably know I insist that Jewish Marxist and Jewish anti Zionism are not different categorically from Zionism. They are both tribally orientated rather than universally driven.
VS: In your opinion, what cultural, national traits or ethos do Jews have in common which distinguishes them from non-Jews?
GA: Suffering, they are in love with the tail of suffering. This is probably why Israeli scholar Yeshayahu Leibowitz suggested that Holocaust religion is the new Jewish religion. However this is where the Jewish tragedy forms. The Holocaust religion lacks goodness, mercy or kindness. It offers redemption through vengeance and self love.
VS: Considering that most self-identified Jews are not religious, how could rabbinical Judaism define or determine their identity?
GA: It doesn't. Secular Jews are defined by negation. Rather than by what they are, they are defined by what they aren't. While the observant Jew is defined by his belief system. He follows the Halacha law, he observes the Sabbath and so on, the secular Jew is defined by a set of negations. He is not a religious Jew, yet he is not a Goy, he is neither American, English or French. The emancipated secular Jew is not defined by positive qualities but rather by some different sets of negations.
VS: Then what is the positive content of the Jewish self-awareness and how does it translate into the desire to either live in a racist and genocidal state or to support such a state from afar?
GA: Positive content is a relative notion. I assume that Jewish nationalism left right and center can be realized as futile craving for authenticity.
VS: Last question: you say that the Palestinians will liberate themselves - how do you see that happening? Do you believe that like the South African Whites, the Israeli Jews will come to realize that their racist regime is immoral and "switch sides" or do you think that, like in Algeria, the colonizers will have to leave on a boat?
GA: No, I do not believe that Israelis will ever come to acknowledge their immorality. Self mirroring is foreign to the Jewish philosophy and identity both religious and secular. I believe that Israel will be defeated into submission by facts on the ground. They are turning into a minority. Time is Israel’s biggest enemy. The only one who can save the Israelis of a rapid demographic disaster are the orthodox Jewish communities. Seemingly the Israeli resent their orthodox brothers more than the Palestinians. Israel is an isolated entity in a region that is becoming more and more unforgiving . Israel is entangled with its neighbors. At a certain stage it won’t be able to maintain its security by heavy policing. This will be the end of it.
I am deeply grateful to Gilad for taking the time for this Q&A even though he is very busy.
The Saker
-------
VS: Two leading intellectuals have recently made strong arguments for the so-called "right to exist" of Israel. Norman Finkestein's argument is simple, yet powerful. He says the international community, via the UN General Assembly and the World Court, has already decided what the solution of the conflict should be: two states in the 1967 borders, side by side, with refugees either back or compensated. He points to the fact that all the countries in the world agree on that except the Israel, the USA, and some small south Pacific Islands. He does not claim that this is the best solution, but he says that this is the only doable one. He therefore dismisses the "One State" solution as unachievable.
GA: In general, I am trying to avoid any discussion to do with discourse resolution. I avoid it for a few reasons. I do not live in the region and it is not down to me to decide for the Palestinian what country, political setting or resolution they should follow. However, I may use the opportunity to suggest that the Two State Solution doesn't address the Palestinian cause. It is impractical for the Israelis will never let refugees into their shtetle state. But most importantly, the right of return or the right to live on your land is not a subject to international community decisions or laws. It is actually a moral right. And as far as I am concerned as an individual, ethics and morality are far more crucial than some UN decisions that are made by Zionised politicians and corrupted diplomats.
VS: Shlomo Sand has recently stated that "even the child born of a rape has the right to live. Yes, 1948 was a rape, and that rape gave birth to Israel, but that is now a reality which cannot be dismissed".
GA: It is hard to avoid the fact that the "rape child" is living on a "stolen land', It is impossible to deny the fact that the "child" is now more than sixty years old and yet, he is still driven by murderous zeal. The "child"’ is yet to come to term with his original sin. In fact the "rape child" has transformed into a rapist father and then grandfather.
VS: I notice two fundamental features of these arguments. Both Finkestein and Sand fundamentally accept the authority of the United Nations to create a Jewish state in Palestine and both Finkestein and Sand seem to believe that the fundamental nature of that state has no bearing on the topic of the legitimacy of its existence. However, the creation of a state - any state - in Palestine without the consultation of the local people seems to me to violate the principle of the right of self determination.
GA: You are absolutely right. However, I am not that fascinated about the "right of self determination" for this right was exploited by the Jewish national project for more than a century, For some reason the national Jew believes that he is entitled to self determine himself on the expense of others.
VS: The principle of international law which states that no territory can legitimately be acquired by war would indicate that only the 1948 borders of Israel would have a legal basis and even here this basis would be tenuous because these borders were eventually agreed to with Arab neighbors and not with any body representing the Palestinians.
GA: Were they? After 60 years of Israeli barbarism and total failure of international community and of the international law to support the Palestinian, I just do not hold my breath any more. I believe that Palestinian will liberate themselves. Israel is living on borrowed time. I would invest my intellectual effort supporting Palestinian resistance.
VS: The other thing which bothers me is that in discussing the solution to the Middle-East conflict (somewhat of a misnomer), neither Finkestein nor Sand look at the nature of the self-declared "Jewish state". They seem to be talking about a state like Belgium or Spain. But Israel is qualitatively different. It is the last openly racist state on the planet, it is built on a mythology which many (such as Garaudy or Sands) have debunked.
GA: It is not just racist, it is also nationalist and expansionist, murderous and most concerning, democratic. Every Israeli is basically liable to the crimes committed by his state.
VS: Israel is also the Ueber-terrorist state of the planet which is conducing a slow-motion genocide against the Palestinians and it is a state which has comprehensively rejected any kind of abidance by the rules of international law or even basic civilized behavior. Whether looked at from a legal or a moral point of view, the existence of a racist state like Israel is a monstrosity, a disgrace for all of mankind. So even if a child born of a rape has the right to exist, does that still mean that when this child turns into an adult self-worshiping mass-murderer it's existence is still a "right"? It is obvious that the only people who have a right to decide what solution is, or is not, acceptable to this conflict are the Palestinians themselves. But without prejudging of what they might decide, what is your opinion of the arguments presented by Finkelstein and Sand and what do you make of the so-called "right to exist" issue?
GA: I assume that everyone in the region has the right to decide. However, the Israelis have lost the battle. They cannot dictate a solution. I would agree that every nation should enjoy the right to exist. However this right cannot be celebrated on the expense of other nations or people.
VS: you say that "the Israelis have lost the battle". Why? Are they not being successful in their slow-motion genocide of the Palestinians?
GA: Indeed, the Israelis do realize that implementing genocidal measures is counter effective. Israel does realize that its Hasbara project is falling apart due to its unacceptable tactics. Some of its ministers and military official are under real threat of being arrested. If anything, the Palestinian movement and the Hamas included bought a lot of legitimacy during and after operation Cast Lead.
VS: The USA under Obama supports Israel as much as Bush did, even though the rhetoric is somewhat different.
GA: I am not so sure about it.. Monitoring Israeli press and other sources I get a different impression. Israel seems to be rather hesitant with Obama administration. However, Obama is irrelevant to the topic. He was elected by the American people to lead their nation rather than to liberate the Palestinian people. Palestinian people will liberate themselves, with Obama or without him. If Obama manage to pull out American soldiers from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan this would be a major step forward.
VS: To make things worse, Israel is now openly threatening Iran with war. And you yourself admit that these polices do have the support of a majority the Israeli public opinion. Where do you see the signs of the defeat of Israel and what kind of scenario do you envision for this defeat to become indisputable?
GA: I see the wall as an Israeli acknowledgment that Israel is a fearful entity. Israel accepts that time is running out. This itself leads to total panic. They do not have any long term solution within their disposal.
VS: speaking of the Israeli public opinion I want to ask you a simple question: what is wrong with them?!
GA: Let me say it clearly, something is wrong, what is it? I do not know. I spend much of my energy exposing the symptoms. What is the disease exactly, I do not know for sure but I guess that it is something between supremacy, chosenness and self loving.
VS: Surely the Israelis are "people like everybody else",
GA: In fact it is not that clear. The Zionists indoctrination may as well make them into a very dangerous collective, far more dangerous than anything we are familiar with.
VS: Yet they clearly support genocide, gross human rights violations, systematic violations of the laws of war, a racist ideology ("Jewish state"). What are the roots of all this evil?
GA: It must have something to do with their secular interpretation of the Bible and endorsement of the Holocaust religion as their main precept.
VS: How can people who emigrated to Israel from all over the world and who were presumably educated in very diverse circumstances all come together and unite a racist, self-worshiping and utterly inhuman ideology?!
GA: You probably hit the nail here, once you are a Zionist it doesn’t matter where you come from. You become a vengeance driven possessed human being. You do not even have to be Jewish. As we know, many of the Russian new immigrants to Israel were very quick to endorse the most militant right wing Ideas in spite of the fact that many of them were not Jewish at all.
VS: Rabbi Yeshaiahu Karelitz once said that "the secular-Jewish cart is empty" and Shlomo Sand, who quotes him, also agrees with him. Do you agree with that?
GA: For sure, but the secular and nationalist do manage to fill the empty box with a lot of phantasmic and imaginary content. As you probably know I insist that Jewish Marxist and Jewish anti Zionism are not different categorically from Zionism. They are both tribally orientated rather than universally driven.
VS: In your opinion, what cultural, national traits or ethos do Jews have in common which distinguishes them from non-Jews?
GA: Suffering, they are in love with the tail of suffering. This is probably why Israeli scholar Yeshayahu Leibowitz suggested that Holocaust religion is the new Jewish religion. However this is where the Jewish tragedy forms. The Holocaust religion lacks goodness, mercy or kindness. It offers redemption through vengeance and self love.
VS: Considering that most self-identified Jews are not religious, how could rabbinical Judaism define or determine their identity?
GA: It doesn't. Secular Jews are defined by negation. Rather than by what they are, they are defined by what they aren't. While the observant Jew is defined by his belief system. He follows the Halacha law, he observes the Sabbath and so on, the secular Jew is defined by a set of negations. He is not a religious Jew, yet he is not a Goy, he is neither American, English or French. The emancipated secular Jew is not defined by positive qualities but rather by some different sets of negations.
VS: Then what is the positive content of the Jewish self-awareness and how does it translate into the desire to either live in a racist and genocidal state or to support such a state from afar?
GA: Positive content is a relative notion. I assume that Jewish nationalism left right and center can be realized as futile craving for authenticity.
VS: Last question: you say that the Palestinians will liberate themselves - how do you see that happening? Do you believe that like the South African Whites, the Israeli Jews will come to realize that their racist regime is immoral and "switch sides" or do you think that, like in Algeria, the colonizers will have to leave on a boat?
GA: No, I do not believe that Israelis will ever come to acknowledge their immorality. Self mirroring is foreign to the Jewish philosophy and identity both religious and secular. I believe that Israel will be defeated into submission by facts on the ground. They are turning into a minority. Time is Israel’s biggest enemy. The only one who can save the Israelis of a rapid demographic disaster are the orthodox Jewish communities. Seemingly the Israeli resent their orthodox brothers more than the Palestinians. Israel is an isolated entity in a region that is becoming more and more unforgiving . Israel is entangled with its neighbors. At a certain stage it won’t be able to maintain its security by heavy policing. This will be the end of it.
Accessory vs. Perpetrator
by Gilad Atzmon
German State Prosecutors Hans-Joachim Lutz announced yesterday that Mr John Demjanjuk, 89, is accused of being an ‘accessory’ of the death of 27,900 Jews.
Many of us may not understand what the legal notion of ‘accessory’ stands for. An ‘accessory’ is a person who assists in the commission of a crime, but who does not actually participate in the commission of the crime as a joint principal.
Bearing that in mind. I wonder what Demjanjuk’s court case is there to serve?
Clearly geriatric Demjanjuk is not a danger to society. He is neither blamed for being a murderer nor accused of being a mass murderer. Being an alleged ‘accessory’ he is not exactly the story of the Shoa either. If the Holocaust is an account of a racially driven industrial homicidal crime, a Ukrainian POW serving as a German guard while being a prisoner is not exactly a story of a principal executioner. If this court case is aimed at perpetuating the message of the holocaust, all it really does is spread the opposite message. It only proves once again that the Holocaust ideology is revengeful and merciless.
If the Germans are really after a last Holocaust spectacular trial can’t they pick something slightly more juicy than an ‘alleged accessory’?
In1986 John Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel where he was put on trial. According to the Israeli prosecutors, Demjanjuk was brought to a German POW camp in Chelmno in July 1942. He then volunteered to collaborate with the Germans and was sent to the camp at Trawniki, where he was trained to guard prisoners and was given a firearm, a uniform, and an ID card with his photograph. The principal allegation was that Demjanjuk was in fact "Ivan the Terrible" the notorious cold blooded murderer of Treblinka. On April 18, 1988, the Israeli court found Demjanjuk guilty of all charges. One week later it sentenced him to death by hanging.
In 1993, five Israeli Supreme Court judges overturned the guilty verdict on appeal. They realised that the case against Demjanjuk was based on ‘mistaken identification’. “We restrained ourselves” the Israeli judges wrote, “from convicting the appellant of the horrors of Treblinka. Ivan Demjanjuk has been acquitted by us, because of doubt, of the terrible charges attributed to Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka”
By the time the Israeli supreme court decided to release Demjanjuk the Israeli Attorney General was fully aware of John Demjanjuk being a guard in Sobibor. And yet he decided not to pursue accessory charges against him. Amongst other arguments in favour of Demjanjuk’s release Israeli Attorney General claimed that “new charges would be unreasonable given the seriousness of those of which he had been acquitted” he also argued that “conviction on the new charges (being a German guard) would be unlikely”. The Israeli Attorney General grasped that charging Demjanjuk for being an accessory would be counter effective.
Seemingly the German legal system lacks that necessary ‘Jewish’ wisdom performed by Israeli supreme judges and Attorney general. As it seems, the German court found a very embarrassing method to deal with the German past. They are now charging a dying Ukrainian/American for attempting to survive a Nazi POW camp by collaborating. That is, a onetime German prisoner became an ‘accessory’ of the German killing machine.
If the Germans are insisting to search for Nazi collaborators and brutal ‘accessories’, survivor Israel Shahak can adivise them where to find them. “Every Jewish child was taught (in the Ghettos)” says Shahak that "if you enter a square from which there are three exits, one guarded by a German SS man, one by a Ukrainian and one by a Jewish policeman, then you should first try to pass the German, and then maybe the Ukrainian, but never the Jew".( Prof. Israel Shahak, 19 May 1989. Kol Ha'ir, Jerusalem). Apparently, this story is reflected in many survivors’ personal and academic accounts. The Jewish capos and Judenrat were the most brutal of them all.
I think that the Germans better move on and let go of their past. Composing great symphonies and writing philosophy is by far a superior contribution to humanity than Holocaust trials. Guilt is a futile and destructive mode of being. However, if the Germans still feel at fault, they better transform their guilt into responsibility. They better remember that the Palestinians are de facto the last victims of Hitler. Their ordeal is far from being over. If the Germans feel culpable about their past they should never send German warships to Israel. If Germans are concerned with their history they better transform it into meaning. Rather than charging an 89 year old for being an alleged ‘accessory’ they better bring to justice some of the perpetrators of genocidal crimes that are taking place in front of our eyes.
Rather than pushing old Demjanjuk into court in a wheelchair, the German ministry of Justice better pursue Tony Blair, George Bush, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni, and Shimon Peres. They are all free and healthy enough to stand a trial. Unlike alleged accessory Demjanjuk they are all perpetrators of colossal crimes against humanity.
German State Prosecutors Hans-Joachim Lutz announced yesterday that Mr John Demjanjuk, 89, is accused of being an ‘accessory’ of the death of 27,900 Jews.
Many of us may not understand what the legal notion of ‘accessory’ stands for. An ‘accessory’ is a person who assists in the commission of a crime, but who does not actually participate in the commission of the crime as a joint principal.
Bearing that in mind. I wonder what Demjanjuk’s court case is there to serve?
Clearly geriatric Demjanjuk is not a danger to society. He is neither blamed for being a murderer nor accused of being a mass murderer. Being an alleged ‘accessory’ he is not exactly the story of the Shoa either. If the Holocaust is an account of a racially driven industrial homicidal crime, a Ukrainian POW serving as a German guard while being a prisoner is not exactly a story of a principal executioner. If this court case is aimed at perpetuating the message of the holocaust, all it really does is spread the opposite message. It only proves once again that the Holocaust ideology is revengeful and merciless.
If the Germans are really after a last Holocaust spectacular trial can’t they pick something slightly more juicy than an ‘alleged accessory’?
In1986 John Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel where he was put on trial. According to the Israeli prosecutors, Demjanjuk was brought to a German POW camp in Chelmno in July 1942. He then volunteered to collaborate with the Germans and was sent to the camp at Trawniki, where he was trained to guard prisoners and was given a firearm, a uniform, and an ID card with his photograph. The principal allegation was that Demjanjuk was in fact "Ivan the Terrible" the notorious cold blooded murderer of Treblinka. On April 18, 1988, the Israeli court found Demjanjuk guilty of all charges. One week later it sentenced him to death by hanging.
In 1993, five Israeli Supreme Court judges overturned the guilty verdict on appeal. They realised that the case against Demjanjuk was based on ‘mistaken identification’. “We restrained ourselves” the Israeli judges wrote, “from convicting the appellant of the horrors of Treblinka. Ivan Demjanjuk has been acquitted by us, because of doubt, of the terrible charges attributed to Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka”
By the time the Israeli supreme court decided to release Demjanjuk the Israeli Attorney General was fully aware of John Demjanjuk being a guard in Sobibor. And yet he decided not to pursue accessory charges against him. Amongst other arguments in favour of Demjanjuk’s release Israeli Attorney General claimed that “new charges would be unreasonable given the seriousness of those of which he had been acquitted” he also argued that “conviction on the new charges (being a German guard) would be unlikely”. The Israeli Attorney General grasped that charging Demjanjuk for being an accessory would be counter effective.
Seemingly the German legal system lacks that necessary ‘Jewish’ wisdom performed by Israeli supreme judges and Attorney general. As it seems, the German court found a very embarrassing method to deal with the German past. They are now charging a dying Ukrainian/American for attempting to survive a Nazi POW camp by collaborating. That is, a onetime German prisoner became an ‘accessory’ of the German killing machine.
If the Germans are insisting to search for Nazi collaborators and brutal ‘accessories’, survivor Israel Shahak can adivise them where to find them. “Every Jewish child was taught (in the Ghettos)” says Shahak that "if you enter a square from which there are three exits, one guarded by a German SS man, one by a Ukrainian and one by a Jewish policeman, then you should first try to pass the German, and then maybe the Ukrainian, but never the Jew".( Prof. Israel Shahak, 19 May 1989. Kol Ha'ir, Jerusalem). Apparently, this story is reflected in many survivors’ personal and academic accounts. The Jewish capos and Judenrat were the most brutal of them all.
I think that the Germans better move on and let go of their past. Composing great symphonies and writing philosophy is by far a superior contribution to humanity than Holocaust trials. Guilt is a futile and destructive mode of being. However, if the Germans still feel at fault, they better transform their guilt into responsibility. They better remember that the Palestinians are de facto the last victims of Hitler. Their ordeal is far from being over. If the Germans feel culpable about their past they should never send German warships to Israel. If Germans are concerned with their history they better transform it into meaning. Rather than charging an 89 year old for being an alleged ‘accessory’ they better bring to justice some of the perpetrators of genocidal crimes that are taking place in front of our eyes.
Rather than pushing old Demjanjuk into court in a wheelchair, the German ministry of Justice better pursue Tony Blair, George Bush, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni, and Shimon Peres. They are all free and healthy enough to stand a trial. Unlike alleged accessory Demjanjuk they are all perpetrators of colossal crimes against humanity.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Train bombing serious blow to Russian security
by Eric Walberg
The worst terrorist attack to hit Russia in five years, the bombing of the Nevsky Express train last week, was almost certainly by Islamist extremists, and security forces are just not prepared for these less spectacular acts of terrorism, Russian security experts say.
The cause of the crash was identified as a homemade bomb that exploded on the tracks between Moscow and St Petersburg, killing 26, wounding scores and raising fears of a new era of terrorism in Russia. At the attack site, 320km northwest of Moscow, investigators found remnants of the bomb, equivalent to 15 pounds of TNT, that left a crater 1.5m deep. The bomb was apparently planted on the tracks and detonated while the second half of the train was passing. A second, less powerful explosive went off later at the site of the crash.
Russia suffered a wave of attacks in the early part of the decade as Muslim separatists from Chechnya struck trains and public places in Moscow and elsewhere, but there have been no such deadly assaults in recent years.
However, another Nevsky Express train was derailed in 2007 by an explosion, wounding more than two dozen people. Two men from Ingushetia were arrested, and just last month confessed to involvement in that blast. But the main suspect, a former Russian soldier-turned-Islamic-extremist, Pavel Kosolapov, remains at large. This previous blast and the sophistication of the present bombing, which involved two explosions, point to Islamists as the perpetrators. Aleksandr Bobreshov, a senior official of the state railway company, noted, “the second explosion, which occurred some time later, is the so-called double-blast method, carried out by North Caucasus sabotage groups.”
Police issued a sketch of a middle aged “stocky, red-haired man” seen in the vicinity of Friday’s blast, who may be Kosolapov. Kosolapov is believed to have been a close associate of Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev, killed by Russian security forces in 2006, who was the mastermind of several large-scale terrorist attacks, including the tragic 2004 Beslan school siege, which left 330 people dead, mostly children.
The 1990s were a violent and unstable period in Russia, though the only large-scale terrorist attack was during the 1994-96 First Chechen War -- the 1995 Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis, which resulted in 200 deaths. It was Basayev’s first major “success” in as much as it led to peace talks with the Yeltsin’s government and resulted in the establishment of a quasi-independent Chechnya.
The next major terrorist acts were the five bombings of mostly Moscow apartment buildings that killed nearly 300 people in September 1999. None of the Chechen field commanders, including Basayev, accepted responsibility for the bombings and Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov denied involvement of his government. However, they coincided with border skirmishes between Chechnya and Dagestan, and evidence that Al-Qaeda and Wahabism were increasingly active in Chechnya. A ground offensive was launched from Dagestan by Russian troops in October which now marks the beginning of what is called the Second Chechen War, on which Vladimir Putin staked his presidency after he was appointed president by Boris Yeltsin in December 1999.
There followed a decade of gruesome war in Chechnya, with tens of thousands dying. There were also several spectacular terrorist attacks which this time Chechen rebels led by Basayev did take responsibility for. Russia’s security forces had to deal with the 2002 siege of a Moscow theatre which resulted in up to 200 deaths and the 2004 Beslan school assault. But Russia suffered no major attack after that, as the Chechen war ground to its supposed end.
Andrei Soldatov, editor of Agentura.ru, criticises Russian counter-terrorist efforts since Beslan, comparing officials to generals preparing for the last war, focussed on averting big attacks like Beslan, instead of preparing for smaller-scale strikes such as the bombings of the Nevsky Express, despite the 2007 warning blast. “We see new modus operandi taking shape, in which tiny cells of terrorists of three to five people plan and execute acts of sabotage,” he says. “But our security forces have militarised this problem, and are not set up to deal with small threats like that.”
Confirming his point, yet another bomb went off Monday in the southern republic of Dagestan, hitting a train travelling from the Siberian city of Tyumen to Baku in Azerbaijan. No one was injured in that blast, but analysts argue it was also by terrorists, who have never stopped operating in Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Chechnya, and warn that more ambitious attacks on Russia will no doubt follow. The northern Caucasus is witnessing a growth of forces that are no longer interested in local nationalism, or separatism, but “see themselves as being at war with Russia. Until lately, the most adventurous Russian Islamists tended to head for Afghanistan, or somewhere else, to wage jihad. Now there are signs that they are going to the Caucasus area, and this bodes very ill,” says Soldatov.
The Kremlin declared “mission accomplished” in Chechnya on 16 April 2009 after a decade and a half of military campaigning, pulling most of its forces out of the tiny republic, and leaving it under the control of local strongman Ramzan Kadyrov. Kremlin leaders argue that the harsh pacification of Chechnya, political crackdown and smarter security operations explain the fact that there has been no major terrorist attack on the Russian heartland since Beslan.
But it remains a fact that the terrorist tragedies in Russia during the past decade coincide with the brutal Second Chechen War, and that President Kadyrov himself is a loose cannon who has assassinated more than one opponent in the past year. Chechnya is also suspected of being a prime transit route for drug smugglers, and the lawlessness and threat to Russia emanating from Chechnya are not lost on other parties, in particular, the US and Israel. This latest incident is a serious blow not only to Putin’s strategy of holding on to Chechnya at all costs, but to overall Russian security.
***
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/
The worst terrorist attack to hit Russia in five years, the bombing of the Nevsky Express train last week, was almost certainly by Islamist extremists, and security forces are just not prepared for these less spectacular acts of terrorism, Russian security experts say.
The cause of the crash was identified as a homemade bomb that exploded on the tracks between Moscow and St Petersburg, killing 26, wounding scores and raising fears of a new era of terrorism in Russia. At the attack site, 320km northwest of Moscow, investigators found remnants of the bomb, equivalent to 15 pounds of TNT, that left a crater 1.5m deep. The bomb was apparently planted on the tracks and detonated while the second half of the train was passing. A second, less powerful explosive went off later at the site of the crash.
Russia suffered a wave of attacks in the early part of the decade as Muslim separatists from Chechnya struck trains and public places in Moscow and elsewhere, but there have been no such deadly assaults in recent years.
However, another Nevsky Express train was derailed in 2007 by an explosion, wounding more than two dozen people. Two men from Ingushetia were arrested, and just last month confessed to involvement in that blast. But the main suspect, a former Russian soldier-turned-Islamic-extremist, Pavel Kosolapov, remains at large. This previous blast and the sophistication of the present bombing, which involved two explosions, point to Islamists as the perpetrators. Aleksandr Bobreshov, a senior official of the state railway company, noted, “the second explosion, which occurred some time later, is the so-called double-blast method, carried out by North Caucasus sabotage groups.”
Police issued a sketch of a middle aged “stocky, red-haired man” seen in the vicinity of Friday’s blast, who may be Kosolapov. Kosolapov is believed to have been a close associate of Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev, killed by Russian security forces in 2006, who was the mastermind of several large-scale terrorist attacks, including the tragic 2004 Beslan school siege, which left 330 people dead, mostly children.
The 1990s were a violent and unstable period in Russia, though the only large-scale terrorist attack was during the 1994-96 First Chechen War -- the 1995 Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis, which resulted in 200 deaths. It was Basayev’s first major “success” in as much as it led to peace talks with the Yeltsin’s government and resulted in the establishment of a quasi-independent Chechnya.
The next major terrorist acts were the five bombings of mostly Moscow apartment buildings that killed nearly 300 people in September 1999. None of the Chechen field commanders, including Basayev, accepted responsibility for the bombings and Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov denied involvement of his government. However, they coincided with border skirmishes between Chechnya and Dagestan, and evidence that Al-Qaeda and Wahabism were increasingly active in Chechnya. A ground offensive was launched from Dagestan by Russian troops in October which now marks the beginning of what is called the Second Chechen War, on which Vladimir Putin staked his presidency after he was appointed president by Boris Yeltsin in December 1999.
There followed a decade of gruesome war in Chechnya, with tens of thousands dying. There were also several spectacular terrorist attacks which this time Chechen rebels led by Basayev did take responsibility for. Russia’s security forces had to deal with the 2002 siege of a Moscow theatre which resulted in up to 200 deaths and the 2004 Beslan school assault. But Russia suffered no major attack after that, as the Chechen war ground to its supposed end.
Andrei Soldatov, editor of Agentura.ru, criticises Russian counter-terrorist efforts since Beslan, comparing officials to generals preparing for the last war, focussed on averting big attacks like Beslan, instead of preparing for smaller-scale strikes such as the bombings of the Nevsky Express, despite the 2007 warning blast. “We see new modus operandi taking shape, in which tiny cells of terrorists of three to five people plan and execute acts of sabotage,” he says. “But our security forces have militarised this problem, and are not set up to deal with small threats like that.”
Confirming his point, yet another bomb went off Monday in the southern republic of Dagestan, hitting a train travelling from the Siberian city of Tyumen to Baku in Azerbaijan. No one was injured in that blast, but analysts argue it was also by terrorists, who have never stopped operating in Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Chechnya, and warn that more ambitious attacks on Russia will no doubt follow. The northern Caucasus is witnessing a growth of forces that are no longer interested in local nationalism, or separatism, but “see themselves as being at war with Russia. Until lately, the most adventurous Russian Islamists tended to head for Afghanistan, or somewhere else, to wage jihad. Now there are signs that they are going to the Caucasus area, and this bodes very ill,” says Soldatov.
The Kremlin declared “mission accomplished” in Chechnya on 16 April 2009 after a decade and a half of military campaigning, pulling most of its forces out of the tiny republic, and leaving it under the control of local strongman Ramzan Kadyrov. Kremlin leaders argue that the harsh pacification of Chechnya, political crackdown and smarter security operations explain the fact that there has been no major terrorist attack on the Russian heartland since Beslan.
But it remains a fact that the terrorist tragedies in Russia during the past decade coincide with the brutal Second Chechen War, and that President Kadyrov himself is a loose cannon who has assassinated more than one opponent in the past year. Chechnya is also suspected of being a prime transit route for drug smugglers, and the lawlessness and threat to Russia emanating from Chechnya are not lost on other parties, in particular, the US and Israel. This latest incident is a serious blow not only to Putin’s strategy of holding on to Chechnya at all costs, but to overall Russian security.
***
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Hezbollah New Manifesto: We Want Strong, United Lebanon
Hussein Assi reports for al-Manar TV:
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah announced on Monday the Resistance party's new political document that was approved during the party's General Conference that lasted for months.
Sayyed Nasrallah held a press conference through a giant screen at al-Jinan hall on the airport road to declare the new political document. The press conference was attended by prominent Lebanese, Arab and international journalists as well as some Hezbollah leaders and various political figures.
His eminence started the conference by noting that Hezbollah new political document aims to define the political vision of the party and includes its visions, stances, and aspirations. "This political document also comes as a result of the responsibility of sacrifice that we have experienced," his eminence added.
"At an exceptional time filled with transformations, it is no longer possible to address these changes without noting the special position our resistance has reached. We will address these transformations through two paths: the first is the Resistance one that resorts to the military and political victories as well as the expansion of the Resistance while the second focuses on the path of the US-Israeli mastery and hegemony which is witnessing military defeats that showed a failure in administering the developments."
"What strengthens the international hegemony system crisis are the actual collapses in the financial markets and the entry of the US economy in a situation of failure. Therefore, it's possible to say that we are amid historical transformations that signal the retreat of the US role as a predominant power and the demise of the Zionist entity."
"The resistance movements are at the heart of international transformations and emerge as a strategic factor after performing a central role in producing those transformations in our region," Sayyed Nasrallah read out, adding that the Resistance in Lebanon was the first to fight occupation and perceived since the beginning that it will reach victory at the end. "Through its long path and its depicted victories, the Resistance's project has grown from a liberation power to a balance and confrontation one to a defense and deterrence one in addition to its political and internal role as an influencing basis in building the just and capable state. The Resistance in Lebanon has evolved from a Lebanese national value to an Arab and Islamic value and has become today an international value that's taught all over the world."
"Hezbollah does not underestimate the size of current challenges and threats or the severity of the confrontation path. However, Hezbollah has now clearer choices and more trust in its people. In this context, Hezbollah defines the main headlines that constitutes a political and intellectual framework of its vision and stances towards the challenges," Hezbollah Secretary General read out, concluding the manifesto's introduction.
CHAPTER ONE – DOMINATION AND HEGEMONY
"Following the World War II, the United States became the center of polarity in the world, taking advantage of accomplishments on several levels of knowledge, including education, science and technology that are supported by an economic system that only views the world as markets that have to abide by the American own view. The most dangerous thing in their hegemony is that they consider that they own the world and therefore, the Western expanding strategy turned to be an international one without limits," Hezbollah new manifesto says, according to Sayyed Nasrallah.
"Globalization has reached its most dangerous aspect when it turned to a military one led by those following the Western plan of domination and was reflected in the Middle East in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. This plot found its peak with the neoconservative grip under the administration of George Bush since their project found its way to execution after he was sworn in. It was neither weird nor surprised that what the neoconservative platform focused on the most was rebuilding US capabilities what reflected a strategic vision of US national security through building military strategies not only as a force of deterrence but also as a force of action and intervention. Following the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration found that the opportunity was appropriate to exercise the largest possible influence under the slogan of universal war against terrorism. It has performed many attempts that were considered as successful in the beginning based on militarizing relationships with other countries and on having monopoly over decision-making by taking strategic decisions and rapidly ending war in Afghanistan to have the maximum amount of time for the next step, which is taking over Iraq and the foundation for launching the New Middle East project. Furthermore, the Bush administration sought to establish a conformity between terrorism and Resistance to remove the latter's legitimacy and therefore justify wars against its movements, seeking to remove the fundamental right of the nations of defending their right to live with dignity and national sovereignty."
"The Bush administration gave itself an absolute right to launch destroying wars that don't differentiate between human beings, given that the cost of the US terrorism wars has cost the humanity until now millions of people as well as global destruction. In brief, the Bush administration has transformed the United States into a danger that threatens the whole world."
"Terrorism has turned to be an American pretext for hegemony through many tools such as pursuit, arbitrary detention, unjust trials witnessed in Guantanamo as well as through direct meddling in the sovereignty of other countries and states in addition to impose sanctions against complete nations. The US terror is the root of all terror in the world."
"The failure and decline of the US strategy does not mean it will easily stop interfering, but will make an effort to protect its strategic interests. Indeed, if the whole world was suffering from the American hegemony, the Arab and Islamic nations seem to suffer even more for many considerations related to history, geographic site, civilization and culture. The Arab and Islamic world has always been subject to endless wild and savage wars. However, its most dangerous steps was reached with the creation of the Zionist entity. The central goal of the American hegemony resides in dominating the nations politically, economically, culturally and through all aspects. To achieve this goal, Washington resorted to different general policies and work strategies including providing the Zionist entity with stability guarantees, create sedition and divisions in the region especially sectarian ones."
"The American arrogance has left no choice to our nation and people but the choice of resistance, at least for a better life, and for a humanitarian future, a future governed by relations of brotherhood, solidarity and diversity at the same time in a world of peace and harmony."
CHAPTER TWO – LEBANON
CHAPTER TWO, SECTION ONE – THE HOMELAND
"Lebanon is our homeland and the homeland of our fathers, ancestors. It's also the homeland of our children, grandchildren, and the coming generations. It is the country to which we have given our most precious sacrifices for its sovereignty and pride, dignity and liberation," Sayyed Nasrallah read out from the political document introduction on Lebanon.
"We want Lebanon for all Lebanese alike, and we want it unified. We reject any kind of segregation or federalism, whether explicit or disguised. We want Lebanon to be sovereign, free, independent, strong and capable. We want it also to be strong, active, and present in the geopolitics of the region. We want it also to be a key contributor in making the present and the future."
"To conclude, it should be mentioned that one of the most important conditions for the establishment of a home of this type is having a fair state, a state which is capable and strong, as well as a political system that truly represents the will of the people and their aspirations for justice, freedom and security, stability and well-being and dignity. This is what all the Lebanese people want and work to achieve and we are a part of them."
CHAPTER TWO, SECTION TWO – THE RESISTANCE
"Israel represents an eternal threat to Lebanon – the State and the entity – and a real danger to the country in terms of its historical ambitions in land and water especially that Lebanon is considered to be a model of coexistence in a unique formula that contradicts with the idea of the racist state which expresses itself in the Zionist entity. Furthermore, Lebanon's presence at the borders of occupied Palestine obliged it to bear national and pan-Arab responsibilities."
"The Israeli threat to this country began since the laying of the Zionist entity in the land of Palestine, an entity that did not hesitate to disclose its ambitions to occupy some parts of Lebanon and to seize its wealth, particularly its water. Therefore, it sought to achieve these ambitions gradually. This entity started its aggression on Lebanon since 1948 from the border to the depth of the country, from the Hula massacre in 1949 to the aggression on the Beirut International Airport in 1968, including long years of attacks on border areas, their land, population and wealth, as a prelude to seize direct land through repeated invasions, leading to the March 1978 invasion and the occupation of the border area, making its people subject to its authority at all levels, as a prelude to subdue the whole country in the invasion of 1982."
"All of this was taking place with a full support of the United States and ignorance until the level of complicity of the so-called international community and its institutions amid a suspicious Arab official silence and an absence of the Lebanese authority at the time leaving the land and people subject to the Israeli occupation without assuming its responsibilities and national duties."
"Under this great national tragedy, Lebanese who are loyal to their homeland didn't have the choice but to use their right and proceed from their national duty and moral and religious in the defense of their land. Thus, their choice was: the launch of an armed popular resistance to confront the Zionist danger and permanent aggression."
"In such difficult circumstances, the process of restoring the nation through armed resistance started, paving the way for liberating the land and the political decision from the hands of the Israeli occupation as a prelude to the restoration of the State and the building of its constitutional institutions. The Resistance has crowned all these dimensions together through achieving the Liberation in 2000 and the historic victory in July 2006, presenting to the whole world a true experience in defending the homeland, an experience that turned into a school from which nations and states benefit to defend their territory, protect their independent and maintain their sovereignty."
"This national achievement was made real thanks to the support of a loyal nation and a national army, thus frustrating the enemy's goals and causing him a historic defeat, allowing the Resistance to celebrate alongside its fighters and martyrs as well as all of Lebanon through its nation and army the great victory that paved the way for a new phase in the region entitled pivotal role and function of the resistance to deter the enemy and ensure the protection of the country's independence, sovereignty and defend its people and completing the liberation of the rest of the occupied territory."
"The Resistance role is a national necessity as long as the Israeli threats and ambitions continue. Therefore, and in the absence of strategic balance between the state and the enemy, the Israeli threat obliges Lebanon to endorse a defensive strategy that depends on a popular resistance participating in defending the country and an army that preserves the security of the country, in a complementarity process that proved to be successful through the previous phase."
"This formula, developed from within the defensive strategy, constitutes an umbrella of protection for Lebanon, especially after the failure of other speculations on the umbrellas, whether international or Arab, or negotiating with the enemy. The adoption of the Resistance path in Lebanon achieved its role in liberating the land, restoring the State institutions and the protecting the sovereignty. Afterwards, Lebanese are concerned with safeguarding and maintaining this format because the Israeli danger threatens Lebanon in all its components, what requires the widest Lebanese participation in assuming responsibilities of defense."
"Finally, the success of the Resistance experience in fighting the enemy and the failure of all plots and schemes to delete resistance movements or besieging them or even disarming them annexed to the continuation of the Israeli threat in Lebanon obliges the Resistance to do its best to strengthen its abilities and consolidate its strengths to assume its national responsibilities and liberate what remains under the Israeli occupation in the Shebaa farms and Kfarshouba Drills and the Lebanese town of Ghajar as well as liberating the detainees and missing people and martyrs' bodies."
CHAPTER TWO, SECTION THREE – STATE AND POLITICAL SYSTEM
"The main problem in the Lebanese political system, which prevents its reform, development and constant updating is political sectarianism," Hezbollah manifesto clearly states.
"The fact that the Lebanese political system was established on a sectarian basis constitutes in itself a strong constraint to the achievement of true democracy where an elected majority can govern and an elected minority can oppose, opening the door for a proper circulation of power between the loyalty and the opposition or the various political coalitions. Thus, abolishing sectarianism is a basic condition for the implementation of the majority-minority rule."
"Yet, and until the Lebanese could reach through their national dialogue this historic and sensitive achievement, which is the abolishment of political sectarianism, and since the political system in Lebanon is based on sectarian foundations, the consensual democracy will remain the fundamental basis for governance in Lebanon, because it is the actual embodiment of the spirit of the constitution and the essence of the Charter of the co-existence."
"From here, any approach to the national issues according to the equation of the majority and minority awaits the achievement of the historic and social conditions for the exercise of effective democracy in which the citizen becomes a value in itself. Meanwhile, the Lebanese will to live together in dignity and equal rights and duties requires a constructive cooperation in order to consolidate the principle of true partnership, which constitutes the most appropriate formula to protect the full diversity and stability after an era of instability caused by the different policies based on the tendency towards monopoly, cancellation and exclusion."
"The consensual democracy constitutes an appropriate political formula to guarantee true partnership and contributes in opening the doors for everyone to enter the phase of building the reassuring state."
"Our vision for the State that we should build together in Lebanon is represented in the State that preserves public freedoms, the State that is keen on national unity, the State that protects its land, people, and sovereignty, the State that has a national, strong and prepared army, the State that is structured under the base of modern, effective and cooperative institutions, the State that is committed to the application of laws on all its citizens without differentiation, the State that guarantees a correct and right parliamentary representation based on a modern election law that allows the voters of choosing their representative away from pressures, the State that depends on qualified people regardless of their religious beliefs and that defines mechanisms to fight corruption in administration, the State that enjoys an independent and non-politicized Justice authority, the State that establishes its economy mainly according to the producing sectors and works on consolidating them especially the agriculture and industry ones, the State that applies the principle of balanced development between all regions, the State that cares for its people and works to provide them with appropriate services, that State that takes care of the youth generation and help young people to develop their energies and talents, the State that works to consolidate the role of women at all levels, the State that care for education and work to strengthen the official schools and university alongside applying the principle of obligatory teaching, the State that adopts a decentralized system, the State that works hard to stop emigration and the State that guards its people all over the world and protects them and benefits from their positions to serve the national causes."
"The establishment of a state based on these specifications and requirements is a goal to us just like it's the goal of every honest and sincere Lebanese. In Hezbollah, we will exert all possible efforts, in cooperation with the popular and political forces, to achieve this noble national goal."
CHAPTER TWO, SECTION FOUR – LEBANESE-PALESTINIAN TIES
"One of the tragic consequences of the emergence of the Zionist entity on the land of Palestine and the displacement of its inhabitants is the problem of Palestinian refugees who moved to Lebanon to live temporarily in its land as guests to their fellow Lebanese until returning to their homes from where they were expelled."
"The original and direct reason of the sufferance of Lebanese and Palestinians was actually the Israeli occupation of Palestine and all the resulting tragedies and calamities in the region. Moreover, the suffering of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon was not limited to the pain of forced migration but also to the Israeli massacres and atrocities in addition to what happened in the Nabatiyeh camp that has been fully destroyed. Palestinian refugees are also deprived of all civilian and social rights since the Lebanese governments didn't assume their responsibilities towards them."
"The Lebanese authorities are nowadays called to assume their responsibilities and therefore build the Lebanese-Palestinian relations under right, solid and legal bases that respect the justice, rights and mutual interests' balances to both nations. It is imperative that the Lebanese-Palestinian relationship remains governed by the whims and moods, as well as political calculations and internal interactions and international interventions."
"We believe that succeeding in this mission requires a Lebanese-Palestinian direct dialogue, a permission for Palestinians in Lebanon to agree on a unified reference that represents them, providing Palestinian refugees with their social and civilian rights, committing to the Right of Return and reject settlement."
CHAPTER TWO, SECTION FIVE – LEBANON AND ARAB TIES
"Lebanon is committed to the just and fair Arab causes, at the top of which comes the Palestinian cause as well as the conflict with the Israeli enemy. Even more, there is a definite need for concerted efforts to overcome the conflicts that run through the Arab ranks."
"The contradiction of strategies and the difference of alliances, despite their seriousness and intensity, doesn't justify the policies of targeting or engaging in external projects, based on the deepening discord and inciting sectarianism, leading to the exhaustion of the nation and therefore serving the Zionist enemy in the implementation of the purposes of America."
"The Resistance choice constitutes once again a central need and an objective factor in strengthening the Arab stance and weakening the enemy. In this context, Syria has recorded a distinctive attitude and supported the resistance movements in the region, and stood beside us in the most difficult circumstances, and sought to unify Arab efforts to secure the interests of the region and challenges."
"Hence, we emphasize the need to adhere to the distinguished relations between Lebanon and Syria as a political and security and economic need, dictated by the two countries and two peoples and the imperatives of geopolitics and the requirements for Lebanese stability and common challenges. We also call for an end to all the negative sentiment that have marred bilateral ties in the past few years and urge these relations to return to their normal status as soon as possible."
CHAPTER TWO, SECTION SIX – LEBANON AND ISLAMIC RELATIONS
"The Arab and Islamic world is facing challenges that shouldn't be undermined. Indeed, the sectarian fabricated conflicts, especially between Sunnis and Shiites, are threatening the cohesiveness of our societies. Therefore, and instead of being a source of wealth, the sectarian diversities seem to be exploited as factors of division and incitement. The situation resulting from this bad use seems to be the result of the intersection of Western deliberate policies, the US in particular."
"Hezbollah emphasizes the necessity to cooperate will Islamic states at different levels to gain strength in confronting hegemony schemes. Such cooperation also serves in facing the cultural invasion of the community and media, and encourages the Islamic states to take advantage of its resources in the exchange of the different benefits between these countries." "In this context, Hezbollah considers Iran as a central state in the Muslim world, since it is the State that dropped through its revolution the Shah's regime and its American-Israeli projects, and it's also the state that supported the resistance movements in our region, and stood with courage and determination at the side of the Arab and Islamic causes and especially the Palestinian one."
CHAPTER TWO, SECTION SEVEN – LEBANON AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
"Hezbollah considers that the unilateral hegemony in the world overthrows the international balance and stability as well as the international peace and security. The unlimited US support for Israeli and its cover for the Israeli occupation of Arab lands annexed to the American domination of international institutions and the American meddling in various states' affairs and adoption of the principle of circulating wars puts the American administration in the position of the aggressor and holds it responsible in producing chaos in the international political system."
"The American administration's unlimited support to Israel ... places the American administration in the position of the enemy of our nation and our peoples."
CHAPTER THREE – PALESTINE AND COMPROMISE NEGOTIATIONS
"The history of the Arab-Israeli conflict proves that armed struggle and military resistance is the best way of ending the occupation. The method of negotiations has proven that the Zionist entity becomes more boastful and more belligerent, and that it has no intention of reaching an accord. The resistance has managed to achieve a huge victory over the Zionist entity, provide the homeland with protection, and liberation of the remainder of its land. This function is a lasting necessity before Israel's expansionist threats and ambitions as well as the lack of a strong government in Lebanon. The ongoing Israeli threat forces the resistance to continue to boost its capacity ... in order to fulfill its role in liberating occupied territory."
"We categorically reject any compromise with Israel or recognizing its legitimacy," his eminence concluded. "This position is definitive, even if everyone recognizes Israel."
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah announced on Monday the Resistance party's new political document that was approved during the party's General Conference that lasted for months.
Sayyed Nasrallah held a press conference through a giant screen at al-Jinan hall on the airport road to declare the new political document. The press conference was attended by prominent Lebanese, Arab and international journalists as well as some Hezbollah leaders and various political figures.
His eminence started the conference by noting that Hezbollah new political document aims to define the political vision of the party and includes its visions, stances, and aspirations. "This political document also comes as a result of the responsibility of sacrifice that we have experienced," his eminence added.
"At an exceptional time filled with transformations, it is no longer possible to address these changes without noting the special position our resistance has reached. We will address these transformations through two paths: the first is the Resistance one that resorts to the military and political victories as well as the expansion of the Resistance while the second focuses on the path of the US-Israeli mastery and hegemony which is witnessing military defeats that showed a failure in administering the developments."
"What strengthens the international hegemony system crisis are the actual collapses in the financial markets and the entry of the US economy in a situation of failure. Therefore, it's possible to say that we are amid historical transformations that signal the retreat of the US role as a predominant power and the demise of the Zionist entity."
"The resistance movements are at the heart of international transformations and emerge as a strategic factor after performing a central role in producing those transformations in our region," Sayyed Nasrallah read out, adding that the Resistance in Lebanon was the first to fight occupation and perceived since the beginning that it will reach victory at the end. "Through its long path and its depicted victories, the Resistance's project has grown from a liberation power to a balance and confrontation one to a defense and deterrence one in addition to its political and internal role as an influencing basis in building the just and capable state. The Resistance in Lebanon has evolved from a Lebanese national value to an Arab and Islamic value and has become today an international value that's taught all over the world."
"Hezbollah does not underestimate the size of current challenges and threats or the severity of the confrontation path. However, Hezbollah has now clearer choices and more trust in its people. In this context, Hezbollah defines the main headlines that constitutes a political and intellectual framework of its vision and stances towards the challenges," Hezbollah Secretary General read out, concluding the manifesto's introduction.
CHAPTER ONE – DOMINATION AND HEGEMONY
"Following the World War II, the United States became the center of polarity in the world, taking advantage of accomplishments on several levels of knowledge, including education, science and technology that are supported by an economic system that only views the world as markets that have to abide by the American own view. The most dangerous thing in their hegemony is that they consider that they own the world and therefore, the Western expanding strategy turned to be an international one without limits," Hezbollah new manifesto says, according to Sayyed Nasrallah.
"Globalization has reached its most dangerous aspect when it turned to a military one led by those following the Western plan of domination and was reflected in the Middle East in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. This plot found its peak with the neoconservative grip under the administration of George Bush since their project found its way to execution after he was sworn in. It was neither weird nor surprised that what the neoconservative platform focused on the most was rebuilding US capabilities what reflected a strategic vision of US national security through building military strategies not only as a force of deterrence but also as a force of action and intervention. Following the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration found that the opportunity was appropriate to exercise the largest possible influence under the slogan of universal war against terrorism. It has performed many attempts that were considered as successful in the beginning based on militarizing relationships with other countries and on having monopoly over decision-making by taking strategic decisions and rapidly ending war in Afghanistan to have the maximum amount of time for the next step, which is taking over Iraq and the foundation for launching the New Middle East project. Furthermore, the Bush administration sought to establish a conformity between terrorism and Resistance to remove the latter's legitimacy and therefore justify wars against its movements, seeking to remove the fundamental right of the nations of defending their right to live with dignity and national sovereignty."
"The Bush administration gave itself an absolute right to launch destroying wars that don't differentiate between human beings, given that the cost of the US terrorism wars has cost the humanity until now millions of people as well as global destruction. In brief, the Bush administration has transformed the United States into a danger that threatens the whole world."
"Terrorism has turned to be an American pretext for hegemony through many tools such as pursuit, arbitrary detention, unjust trials witnessed in Guantanamo as well as through direct meddling in the sovereignty of other countries and states in addition to impose sanctions against complete nations. The US terror is the root of all terror in the world."
"The failure and decline of the US strategy does not mean it will easily stop interfering, but will make an effort to protect its strategic interests. Indeed, if the whole world was suffering from the American hegemony, the Arab and Islamic nations seem to suffer even more for many considerations related to history, geographic site, civilization and culture. The Arab and Islamic world has always been subject to endless wild and savage wars. However, its most dangerous steps was reached with the creation of the Zionist entity. The central goal of the American hegemony resides in dominating the nations politically, economically, culturally and through all aspects. To achieve this goal, Washington resorted to different general policies and work strategies including providing the Zionist entity with stability guarantees, create sedition and divisions in the region especially sectarian ones."
"The American arrogance has left no choice to our nation and people but the choice of resistance, at least for a better life, and for a humanitarian future, a future governed by relations of brotherhood, solidarity and diversity at the same time in a world of peace and harmony."
CHAPTER TWO – LEBANON
CHAPTER TWO, SECTION ONE – THE HOMELAND
"Lebanon is our homeland and the homeland of our fathers, ancestors. It's also the homeland of our children, grandchildren, and the coming generations. It is the country to which we have given our most precious sacrifices for its sovereignty and pride, dignity and liberation," Sayyed Nasrallah read out from the political document introduction on Lebanon.
"We want Lebanon for all Lebanese alike, and we want it unified. We reject any kind of segregation or federalism, whether explicit or disguised. We want Lebanon to be sovereign, free, independent, strong and capable. We want it also to be strong, active, and present in the geopolitics of the region. We want it also to be a key contributor in making the present and the future."
"To conclude, it should be mentioned that one of the most important conditions for the establishment of a home of this type is having a fair state, a state which is capable and strong, as well as a political system that truly represents the will of the people and their aspirations for justice, freedom and security, stability and well-being and dignity. This is what all the Lebanese people want and work to achieve and we are a part of them."
CHAPTER TWO, SECTION TWO – THE RESISTANCE
"Israel represents an eternal threat to Lebanon – the State and the entity – and a real danger to the country in terms of its historical ambitions in land and water especially that Lebanon is considered to be a model of coexistence in a unique formula that contradicts with the idea of the racist state which expresses itself in the Zionist entity. Furthermore, Lebanon's presence at the borders of occupied Palestine obliged it to bear national and pan-Arab responsibilities."
"The Israeli threat to this country began since the laying of the Zionist entity in the land of Palestine, an entity that did not hesitate to disclose its ambitions to occupy some parts of Lebanon and to seize its wealth, particularly its water. Therefore, it sought to achieve these ambitions gradually. This entity started its aggression on Lebanon since 1948 from the border to the depth of the country, from the Hula massacre in 1949 to the aggression on the Beirut International Airport in 1968, including long years of attacks on border areas, their land, population and wealth, as a prelude to seize direct land through repeated invasions, leading to the March 1978 invasion and the occupation of the border area, making its people subject to its authority at all levels, as a prelude to subdue the whole country in the invasion of 1982."
"All of this was taking place with a full support of the United States and ignorance until the level of complicity of the so-called international community and its institutions amid a suspicious Arab official silence and an absence of the Lebanese authority at the time leaving the land and people subject to the Israeli occupation without assuming its responsibilities and national duties."
"Under this great national tragedy, Lebanese who are loyal to their homeland didn't have the choice but to use their right and proceed from their national duty and moral and religious in the defense of their land. Thus, their choice was: the launch of an armed popular resistance to confront the Zionist danger and permanent aggression."
"In such difficult circumstances, the process of restoring the nation through armed resistance started, paving the way for liberating the land and the political decision from the hands of the Israeli occupation as a prelude to the restoration of the State and the building of its constitutional institutions. The Resistance has crowned all these dimensions together through achieving the Liberation in 2000 and the historic victory in July 2006, presenting to the whole world a true experience in defending the homeland, an experience that turned into a school from which nations and states benefit to defend their territory, protect their independent and maintain their sovereignty."
"This national achievement was made real thanks to the support of a loyal nation and a national army, thus frustrating the enemy's goals and causing him a historic defeat, allowing the Resistance to celebrate alongside its fighters and martyrs as well as all of Lebanon through its nation and army the great victory that paved the way for a new phase in the region entitled pivotal role and function of the resistance to deter the enemy and ensure the protection of the country's independence, sovereignty and defend its people and completing the liberation of the rest of the occupied territory."
"The Resistance role is a national necessity as long as the Israeli threats and ambitions continue. Therefore, and in the absence of strategic balance between the state and the enemy, the Israeli threat obliges Lebanon to endorse a defensive strategy that depends on a popular resistance participating in defending the country and an army that preserves the security of the country, in a complementarity process that proved to be successful through the previous phase."
"This formula, developed from within the defensive strategy, constitutes an umbrella of protection for Lebanon, especially after the failure of other speculations on the umbrellas, whether international or Arab, or negotiating with the enemy. The adoption of the Resistance path in Lebanon achieved its role in liberating the land, restoring the State institutions and the protecting the sovereignty. Afterwards, Lebanese are concerned with safeguarding and maintaining this format because the Israeli danger threatens Lebanon in all its components, what requires the widest Lebanese participation in assuming responsibilities of defense."
"Finally, the success of the Resistance experience in fighting the enemy and the failure of all plots and schemes to delete resistance movements or besieging them or even disarming them annexed to the continuation of the Israeli threat in Lebanon obliges the Resistance to do its best to strengthen its abilities and consolidate its strengths to assume its national responsibilities and liberate what remains under the Israeli occupation in the Shebaa farms and Kfarshouba Drills and the Lebanese town of Ghajar as well as liberating the detainees and missing people and martyrs' bodies."
CHAPTER TWO, SECTION THREE – STATE AND POLITICAL SYSTEM
"The main problem in the Lebanese political system, which prevents its reform, development and constant updating is political sectarianism," Hezbollah manifesto clearly states.
"The fact that the Lebanese political system was established on a sectarian basis constitutes in itself a strong constraint to the achievement of true democracy where an elected majority can govern and an elected minority can oppose, opening the door for a proper circulation of power between the loyalty and the opposition or the various political coalitions. Thus, abolishing sectarianism is a basic condition for the implementation of the majority-minority rule."
"Yet, and until the Lebanese could reach through their national dialogue this historic and sensitive achievement, which is the abolishment of political sectarianism, and since the political system in Lebanon is based on sectarian foundations, the consensual democracy will remain the fundamental basis for governance in Lebanon, because it is the actual embodiment of the spirit of the constitution and the essence of the Charter of the co-existence."
"From here, any approach to the national issues according to the equation of the majority and minority awaits the achievement of the historic and social conditions for the exercise of effective democracy in which the citizen becomes a value in itself. Meanwhile, the Lebanese will to live together in dignity and equal rights and duties requires a constructive cooperation in order to consolidate the principle of true partnership, which constitutes the most appropriate formula to protect the full diversity and stability after an era of instability caused by the different policies based on the tendency towards monopoly, cancellation and exclusion."
"The consensual democracy constitutes an appropriate political formula to guarantee true partnership and contributes in opening the doors for everyone to enter the phase of building the reassuring state."
"Our vision for the State that we should build together in Lebanon is represented in the State that preserves public freedoms, the State that is keen on national unity, the State that protects its land, people, and sovereignty, the State that has a national, strong and prepared army, the State that is structured under the base of modern, effective and cooperative institutions, the State that is committed to the application of laws on all its citizens without differentiation, the State that guarantees a correct and right parliamentary representation based on a modern election law that allows the voters of choosing their representative away from pressures, the State that depends on qualified people regardless of their religious beliefs and that defines mechanisms to fight corruption in administration, the State that enjoys an independent and non-politicized Justice authority, the State that establishes its economy mainly according to the producing sectors and works on consolidating them especially the agriculture and industry ones, the State that applies the principle of balanced development between all regions, the State that cares for its people and works to provide them with appropriate services, that State that takes care of the youth generation and help young people to develop their energies and talents, the State that works to consolidate the role of women at all levels, the State that care for education and work to strengthen the official schools and university alongside applying the principle of obligatory teaching, the State that adopts a decentralized system, the State that works hard to stop emigration and the State that guards its people all over the world and protects them and benefits from their positions to serve the national causes."
"The establishment of a state based on these specifications and requirements is a goal to us just like it's the goal of every honest and sincere Lebanese. In Hezbollah, we will exert all possible efforts, in cooperation with the popular and political forces, to achieve this noble national goal."
CHAPTER TWO, SECTION FOUR – LEBANESE-PALESTINIAN TIES
"One of the tragic consequences of the emergence of the Zionist entity on the land of Palestine and the displacement of its inhabitants is the problem of Palestinian refugees who moved to Lebanon to live temporarily in its land as guests to their fellow Lebanese until returning to their homes from where they were expelled."
"The original and direct reason of the sufferance of Lebanese and Palestinians was actually the Israeli occupation of Palestine and all the resulting tragedies and calamities in the region. Moreover, the suffering of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon was not limited to the pain of forced migration but also to the Israeli massacres and atrocities in addition to what happened in the Nabatiyeh camp that has been fully destroyed. Palestinian refugees are also deprived of all civilian and social rights since the Lebanese governments didn't assume their responsibilities towards them."
"The Lebanese authorities are nowadays called to assume their responsibilities and therefore build the Lebanese-Palestinian relations under right, solid and legal bases that respect the justice, rights and mutual interests' balances to both nations. It is imperative that the Lebanese-Palestinian relationship remains governed by the whims and moods, as well as political calculations and internal interactions and international interventions."
"We believe that succeeding in this mission requires a Lebanese-Palestinian direct dialogue, a permission for Palestinians in Lebanon to agree on a unified reference that represents them, providing Palestinian refugees with their social and civilian rights, committing to the Right of Return and reject settlement."
CHAPTER TWO, SECTION FIVE – LEBANON AND ARAB TIES
"Lebanon is committed to the just and fair Arab causes, at the top of which comes the Palestinian cause as well as the conflict with the Israeli enemy. Even more, there is a definite need for concerted efforts to overcome the conflicts that run through the Arab ranks."
"The contradiction of strategies and the difference of alliances, despite their seriousness and intensity, doesn't justify the policies of targeting or engaging in external projects, based on the deepening discord and inciting sectarianism, leading to the exhaustion of the nation and therefore serving the Zionist enemy in the implementation of the purposes of America."
"The Resistance choice constitutes once again a central need and an objective factor in strengthening the Arab stance and weakening the enemy. In this context, Syria has recorded a distinctive attitude and supported the resistance movements in the region, and stood beside us in the most difficult circumstances, and sought to unify Arab efforts to secure the interests of the region and challenges."
"Hence, we emphasize the need to adhere to the distinguished relations between Lebanon and Syria as a political and security and economic need, dictated by the two countries and two peoples and the imperatives of geopolitics and the requirements for Lebanese stability and common challenges. We also call for an end to all the negative sentiment that have marred bilateral ties in the past few years and urge these relations to return to their normal status as soon as possible."
CHAPTER TWO, SECTION SIX – LEBANON AND ISLAMIC RELATIONS
"The Arab and Islamic world is facing challenges that shouldn't be undermined. Indeed, the sectarian fabricated conflicts, especially between Sunnis and Shiites, are threatening the cohesiveness of our societies. Therefore, and instead of being a source of wealth, the sectarian diversities seem to be exploited as factors of division and incitement. The situation resulting from this bad use seems to be the result of the intersection of Western deliberate policies, the US in particular."
"Hezbollah emphasizes the necessity to cooperate will Islamic states at different levels to gain strength in confronting hegemony schemes. Such cooperation also serves in facing the cultural invasion of the community and media, and encourages the Islamic states to take advantage of its resources in the exchange of the different benefits between these countries." "In this context, Hezbollah considers Iran as a central state in the Muslim world, since it is the State that dropped through its revolution the Shah's regime and its American-Israeli projects, and it's also the state that supported the resistance movements in our region, and stood with courage and determination at the side of the Arab and Islamic causes and especially the Palestinian one."
CHAPTER TWO, SECTION SEVEN – LEBANON AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
"Hezbollah considers that the unilateral hegemony in the world overthrows the international balance and stability as well as the international peace and security. The unlimited US support for Israeli and its cover for the Israeli occupation of Arab lands annexed to the American domination of international institutions and the American meddling in various states' affairs and adoption of the principle of circulating wars puts the American administration in the position of the aggressor and holds it responsible in producing chaos in the international political system."
"The American administration's unlimited support to Israel ... places the American administration in the position of the enemy of our nation and our peoples."
CHAPTER THREE – PALESTINE AND COMPROMISE NEGOTIATIONS
"The history of the Arab-Israeli conflict proves that armed struggle and military resistance is the best way of ending the occupation. The method of negotiations has proven that the Zionist entity becomes more boastful and more belligerent, and that it has no intention of reaching an accord. The resistance has managed to achieve a huge victory over the Zionist entity, provide the homeland with protection, and liberation of the remainder of its land. This function is a lasting necessity before Israel's expansionist threats and ambitions as well as the lack of a strong government in Lebanon. The ongoing Israeli threat forces the resistance to continue to boost its capacity ... in order to fulfill its role in liberating occupied territory."
"We categorically reject any compromise with Israel or recognizing its legitimacy," his eminence concluded. "This position is definitive, even if everyone recognizes Israel."
Bogus Honduran Elections Today: Hypocrites Washington, Costa Rica, Panama, Perú, Colombia & Israel the only nations to recognize the illegal elections
by Eva Golinger
"What are we going to do, sit for four years and just condemn the coup?" a senior U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told reporters in Washington.
The true divides in Latin America - between justice and injustice, democracy and dictatorship, human rights and corporate rights, people's power and imperial domination - have never been more visible than today. People's movements throughout the region to revolutionize corrupt, unequal systems that have isolated and excluded the vast majority in Latin American nations, are successfully taking power democratically and building new models of economic and social justice. Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador are the vanguard of these movements, with other nations such as Uruguay and Argentina moving at a slower pace towards change.
The region has historically been plagued by brutal US intervention, seeking at all costs to dominate the natural and strategic resources contained in this vast, abundant territory. With the exception of the defiant Cuban Revolution, Washington achieved control over puppet regimes placed throughout Latin America by the end of the twentieth century. When Hugo Chávez won the presidency in 1998 and the Bolivarian Revolution began to root, the balance of power and imperial control over the region started to weaken. Eight years of Bush/Cheney brought coup d'etats back to the region, in Venezuela in 2002 against President Chávez and Haiti in 2004 against President Aristide. The former was defeated by a mass popular uprising, the latter succeeded in ousting a president no longer convenient to Washington's interests.
Despite the Bush administration's efforts to neutralize the spread of revolution in Latin America through coups, economic sabotages, media warfare, psychological operations, electoral interventions and an increasing military presence, nations right across the border such as Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala elected leftist-leaning presidents. Latin American integration solidified with UNASUR (the union of South American nations) and ALBA (the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas), and Washington's grip on power began to slip away.
Henry Kissinger said in the seventies, "if we can't control Latin America, how can we dominate the world?" This imperial vision is more evident today than ever before. Obama's presence in the White House was erroneously viewed by many in the region as a sign of an end to US aggression in the world, and especially here, in Latin America. At least, many believed, Obama would downscale the growing tensions with its neighbors to the south. In fact, he himself, the new president of the United States, made allusion to such changes.
But now, the Obama administration's "Smart Power" strategy has been unmasked. The handshakes, smiles, gifts and promises of "no intervention" and "a new era" made by President Obama himself to leaders of Latin American nations last Spring at the Summit of the Americas meeting in Trinidad have unraveled and turned into cynical gestures of hypocrisy. When Obama came to power, Washington's reputation in the region was at an all-time low. The meager attempts to "change" the North-South relationship in the Americas have made things worse and reaffirmed that Kissinger's vision of control over this region is a state policy, irrespective of party affiliation or public discourse.
Washington's role in the coup in Honduras against President Zelaya has been evident from day one. The continual funding of coup leaders, the US military presence at the Soto Cano base in Honduras, the ongoing meetings between State Department officials and the US Ambassador in Honduras, Hugo Llorens, with coup leaders, and the cynical attempts to force "mediation" and "negotiation" between the coup leaders and the legitimate government of Honduras, have provided clear evidence of Washington's intentions to consolidate this new form of "smart coup". The Obama administration's initial public insistence on Zelaya's legitimacy as president of Honduras quickly faded after the first weeks of the coup. Calls for "restitution of democratic and constitutional order" became weak whispers repeated by the monotone voices of State Department spokesmen.
The imposition of Costan Rican president Oscar Arias - a staunch ally of neoliberalism and imperialism -to "mediate" the negotiation ordered by Washington between coup leaders and President Zelaya was a circus. At the time, it was apparent that Washington was engaging in a "buying time" strategy, pandering to the coup leaders while publicly "working" to resolve the conflict in Honduras. Arias' insincerity and complicity in the coup was evident from the very morning of Zelaya's violent kidnapping and forced exile. The Pentagon, State Department and CIA officials present on the Soto Cano base, which is controlled by Washington, arranged for Zelaya's transport to Costa Rica. Arias had subserviently agreed to refuge the illegally ousted president and to not detain those who kidnapped him and piloted the plane that - in violation of international law - landed in Costa Rican territority.
Today, Oscar Arias has called on all nations to "recognize" the illegal and illegitimate elections occurring in Honduras. Why not? he says, if there is no fraud or irregularity, "why not recognize the newly elected president?" The State Department and even President Obama himself have said the same thing, and are calling on all nations - pressuring - to recognize a regime that will be elected under a dictatorship. Seems that fraud and irregularity are already present, considering that today, no democracy exists in Honduras that would permit proper conditions for an electoral process. Not to mention that the State Department admitted to funding the elections and campaigns in Honduras weeks ago. And the "international observers" sent to witness and provide "credibility" to the illegal process are all agencies and agents of empire. The International Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute, both agencies created to filter funding from USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to political parties abroad in order to promote US agenda, not only funded those groups involved in the Honduran coup, but now are "observing" the elections. Terrorist groups such as UnoAmerica, led by Venezuelan coup leader Alejando Peña Esclusa, have also sent "observers" to Honduras. Miami-Cuban terrorist and criminal Adolfo Franco, former USAID director, is another "heavyweight" on the list of electoral observers in Honduras today.
But the Organization of American States (OAS) and Carter Center, hardly "leftist" entities, have condemned the electoral process as illegitimate and refused to send observers. So has the United Nations and the European Union, as well as UNASUR and ALBA.
Washington stands alone, with its right-wing puppet states in Colombia, Panamá, Perú, Costa Rica and Israel, as the only nations to have publicly indicated recognition of the electoral process in Honduras and the future regime. A high-level State Department official cynically declared to the Washington Post, "What are we going to do, sit for four years and just condemn the coup?" Well, Washington has sat for 50 years and refused to recognize the Cuban government. But that's because the Cuban government is not convenient for Washington. The Honduran dictatorship is.
The Honduran resistance movement is boycotting the elections, calling on people to abstain from participating in an illegal process. The streets of Honduras have been taken over by thousands of military forces, under control of the coup regime and the Pentagon. With advanced weapons technology from Israel, the coup regime is prepared to massively repress and brutalize any who attempt to resist the electoral process. We must remain vigilant and stand with the people of Honduras in the face of the immense danger surrounding them. Today's elections are a second coup d'etat against the Honduran people, this time openly designed, promoted, funded and supported by Washington. Whatever the result, no justice will be brought to Honduras until Washington's intervention ceases.
"What are we going to do, sit for four years and just condemn the coup?" a senior U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told reporters in Washington.
The true divides in Latin America - between justice and injustice, democracy and dictatorship, human rights and corporate rights, people's power and imperial domination - have never been more visible than today. People's movements throughout the region to revolutionize corrupt, unequal systems that have isolated and excluded the vast majority in Latin American nations, are successfully taking power democratically and building new models of economic and social justice. Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador are the vanguard of these movements, with other nations such as Uruguay and Argentina moving at a slower pace towards change.
The region has historically been plagued by brutal US intervention, seeking at all costs to dominate the natural and strategic resources contained in this vast, abundant territory. With the exception of the defiant Cuban Revolution, Washington achieved control over puppet regimes placed throughout Latin America by the end of the twentieth century. When Hugo Chávez won the presidency in 1998 and the Bolivarian Revolution began to root, the balance of power and imperial control over the region started to weaken. Eight years of Bush/Cheney brought coup d'etats back to the region, in Venezuela in 2002 against President Chávez and Haiti in 2004 against President Aristide. The former was defeated by a mass popular uprising, the latter succeeded in ousting a president no longer convenient to Washington's interests.Despite the Bush administration's efforts to neutralize the spread of revolution in Latin America through coups, economic sabotages, media warfare, psychological operations, electoral interventions and an increasing military presence, nations right across the border such as Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala elected leftist-leaning presidents. Latin American integration solidified with UNASUR (the union of South American nations) and ALBA (the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas), and Washington's grip on power began to slip away.
Henry Kissinger said in the seventies, "if we can't control Latin America, how can we dominate the world?" This imperial vision is more evident today than ever before. Obama's presence in the White House was erroneously viewed by many in the region as a sign of an end to US aggression in the world, and especially here, in Latin America. At least, many believed, Obama would downscale the growing tensions with its neighbors to the south. In fact, he himself, the new president of the United States, made allusion to such changes.
But now, the Obama administration's "Smart Power" strategy has been unmasked. The handshakes, smiles, gifts and promises of "no intervention" and "a new era" made by President Obama himself to leaders of Latin American nations last Spring at the Summit of the Americas meeting in Trinidad have unraveled and turned into cynical gestures of hypocrisy. When Obama came to power, Washington's reputation in the region was at an all-time low. The meager attempts to "change" the North-South relationship in the Americas have made things worse and reaffirmed that Kissinger's vision of control over this region is a state policy, irrespective of party affiliation or public discourse.
Washington's role in the coup in Honduras against President Zelaya has been evident from day one. The continual funding of coup leaders, the US military presence at the Soto Cano base in Honduras, the ongoing meetings between State Department officials and the US Ambassador in Honduras, Hugo Llorens, with coup leaders, and the cynical attempts to force "mediation" and "negotiation" between the coup leaders and the legitimate government of Honduras, have provided clear evidence of Washington's intentions to consolidate this new form of "smart coup". The Obama administration's initial public insistence on Zelaya's legitimacy as president of Honduras quickly faded after the first weeks of the coup. Calls for "restitution of democratic and constitutional order" became weak whispers repeated by the monotone voices of State Department spokesmen.
The imposition of Costan Rican president Oscar Arias - a staunch ally of neoliberalism and imperialism -to "mediate" the negotiation ordered by Washington between coup leaders and President Zelaya was a circus. At the time, it was apparent that Washington was engaging in a "buying time" strategy, pandering to the coup leaders while publicly "working" to resolve the conflict in Honduras. Arias' insincerity and complicity in the coup was evident from the very morning of Zelaya's violent kidnapping and forced exile. The Pentagon, State Department and CIA officials present on the Soto Cano base, which is controlled by Washington, arranged for Zelaya's transport to Costa Rica. Arias had subserviently agreed to refuge the illegally ousted president and to not detain those who kidnapped him and piloted the plane that - in violation of international law - landed in Costa Rican territority.
Today, Oscar Arias has called on all nations to "recognize" the illegal and illegitimate elections occurring in Honduras. Why not? he says, if there is no fraud or irregularity, "why not recognize the newly elected president?" The State Department and even President Obama himself have said the same thing, and are calling on all nations - pressuring - to recognize a regime that will be elected under a dictatorship. Seems that fraud and irregularity are already present, considering that today, no democracy exists in Honduras that would permit proper conditions for an electoral process. Not to mention that the State Department admitted to funding the elections and campaigns in Honduras weeks ago. And the "international observers" sent to witness and provide "credibility" to the illegal process are all agencies and agents of empire. The International Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute, both agencies created to filter funding from USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to political parties abroad in order to promote US agenda, not only funded those groups involved in the Honduran coup, but now are "observing" the elections. Terrorist groups such as UnoAmerica, led by Venezuelan coup leader Alejando Peña Esclusa, have also sent "observers" to Honduras. Miami-Cuban terrorist and criminal Adolfo Franco, former USAID director, is another "heavyweight" on the list of electoral observers in Honduras today.
But the Organization of American States (OAS) and Carter Center, hardly "leftist" entities, have condemned the electoral process as illegitimate and refused to send observers. So has the United Nations and the European Union, as well as UNASUR and ALBA.
Washington stands alone, with its right-wing puppet states in Colombia, Panamá, Perú, Costa Rica and Israel, as the only nations to have publicly indicated recognition of the electoral process in Honduras and the future regime. A high-level State Department official cynically declared to the Washington Post, "What are we going to do, sit for four years and just condemn the coup?" Well, Washington has sat for 50 years and refused to recognize the Cuban government. But that's because the Cuban government is not convenient for Washington. The Honduran dictatorship is.
The Honduran resistance movement is boycotting the elections, calling on people to abstain from participating in an illegal process. The streets of Honduras have been taken over by thousands of military forces, under control of the coup regime and the Pentagon. With advanced weapons technology from Israel, the coup regime is prepared to massively repress and brutalize any who attempt to resist the electoral process. We must remain vigilant and stand with the people of Honduras in the face of the immense danger surrounding them. Today's elections are a second coup d'etat against the Honduran people, this time openly designed, promoted, funded and supported by Washington. Whatever the result, no justice will be brought to Honduras until Washington's intervention ceases.
Monday, November 30, 2009
United Against Spitting
by Gilad Atzmon
Three days ago the Israeli Right wing paper The Jerusalem Post published an exposé of the growing tendency of Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem to spit on their Christian neighbours. (‘Mouths Filled with Hatred’, By Larry Derfner The JPost, Nov. 26, 2009).
Three days ago the Israeli Right wing paper The Jerusalem Post published an exposé of the growing tendency of Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem to spit on their Christian neighbours. (‘Mouths Filled with Hatred’, By Larry Derfner The JPost, Nov. 26, 2009).
Father Samuel Aghoyan, a senior Armenian Orthodox cleric in Jerusalem's Old City, told the JPost “that he's been spat at by young Haredi (God fearing religious Jews) and national Orthodox Jews ‘about 15 to 20 times’ in the past decade”. Father Aghoyan added, "Every single priest in this church has been spat on. It happens day and night."
Similarly Father Athanasius, a Texas-born Franciscan monk who heads the Christian Information Centre in Jerusalem’s Old City, said he's been spat at by Orthodox Jews "about 15 times in the last six months".
Jewish spitting is not exactly breaking News. I myself have explored the issue more than once. The Israeli professor Israel Shahak commented on Jewish hatred towards Christianity and its symbolism, suggesting that “dishonouring Christian religious symbols is an old religious duty in Judaism.” According to Shahak, “spitting on the cross, and especially on the Crucifix, and spitting when a Jew passes a church, have been obligatory from around AD 200 for pious Jews.”
Interestingly enough Jewish spitting has had an impact on the European urban landscape. The following can be read in a ‘Travel Guide for Jewish Europe’.
“In Prague’s Charles Bridge, the visitor will observe a great crucifix surrounded by huge gilded Hebrew letters that spell the traditional Hebrew sanctification Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh Adonai Tzvaot, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts.” According to various commentators, this piece, degrading to Jews, came about because in 1609 a Jew was accused of desecrating the crucifix. The Jewish community was forced to pay for putting up the Hebrew words in gold letters. Another explanation is that a Jew spat at the cross and for this he was to be put to death as a punishment. When this man begged for his life, the king, seeking to have good relations with the Jews, said the Jewish community had to rectify the offence….” (To read more: Travel Guide for Jewish Europe, pg 497)
Shahak maintains that “in the past, when the danger of anti-Semitic hostility was a real one, the pious Jews were commanded by their rabbis either to spit so that the reason for doing so would be unknown, or to spit onto their chests, not actually on a cross or openly before a church.”
But times are changing. In the Jewish state most Jewish inhibitions seem to have disappeared. In Israel Jews can spit as much as they like and on whatever they like. As we read above, in the Jewish state it isn’t just Christian symbols that are being spat on, it is actually the Goyim in general. Far more concerning, it isn’t even just kosher saliva. It is actually everything they may find at their disposal: saliva, live ammunition, bombs, missiles, WMD, white phosphorous, you name it, they spit it.
In fact, spitting is not the problem. Spiting is just a symptom of a deeply imbued cultural categorical dismissal of ‘otherness’ that distinguishes Israel as a criminal state. It is also this very dismissal of ‘otherness’ that stops the Israelis and their supporters around the world from understanding the level of resentment that is mounting against any form of Jewish nationalism.
Hatred is a form of blindness. Jewish hatred, that is culturally, religiously and spiritually orientated, is also a form of deafness. This may explain the tragic consequences in which nationalist Jews fail time after time to internalise the criticism leveled against them: against their politics and culture. This may explain why Jews fail to grasp what is the root cause of ‘anti semitism’. Rather than being reflective and engaging in self-mirroring, the nationalistic Jew would insist that the problem is always somewhere else.
As interesting as it may be, Zionism was the only modern serious Jewish collective attempt to amend the cultural abnormalities within Jewish culture. Early Zionism took anti Jewish criticism seriously. It committed itself to bring about a civilized ethical person. Zionism obviously failed completely. Yet, till the 1980’s some fading voices of “humanist Zionism”, people who wanted to see the Jews setting themselves into a peaceful nation living amongst others, could still be heard in occupied Palestine. It may also explain why the most radical and effective voices against Zionism and Jewish nationalism, are in fact people who were a product of Zionist upbringing (Shahak, I. Shamir, Sand, Burg and a few others).
In the late 1970’s a young dissident movement led by an Israeli Refusenik Gadi Elgazi protested against serving in the occupied territories. “Occupation Corrupts” Elgazi said. He was sent to prison repeatedly. Elgazi and his supporters maintained that controlling other people would have a devastating impact on the Jewish state and its morality. They were obviously correct. Through the years Israel has become a criminal collective, complicit in genocide. With 94% of its population supporting the IDF measures in Gaza, there is no room for doubt, Israel has no room amongst nations. As if this is not enough, the level of crime within Israel is also soaring. The rate of homicidal crime is rapidly growing and it seems as if no one there knows how to tackle the problem. Elgazi’s predictions proved to be a prophecy. The occupation turned against the occupier.
Interestingly enough, it didn’t take long before Jewish cultural hatred towards Goyim and their symbols would turn inward and mature into an internal Jewish war where Jews do spit on each other. The tension within Israel’s Jewish communities is rising by the day whether it is the rapid rise of poverty or the rising social division between Israeli Jewish communities. Seemingly, there is a growing unresolved tension between the secular and orthodox Jews in Israel. As much as Jews can hate the Goyim, nothing is comparable with the way and manner in which they despise each other.
Channel 4, the brave British broadcaster that just 10 days ago exposed the cross-party Jewish lobby operating in the UK, did it again. The Battle for Israel’s Soul is an exposé of the feud between Jewish communities in Israel(1). Just like in the case of the occupation that turned eventually against the Israelis, hatred towards Goyim made the Israelis into a vengeful collective. Naturally it didn’t take long before the Israelis would start to spit on each other.
My message to the Palestinians is actually very simple. Give the Israelis time. They do not need enemies. With the level of self contempt they carry in themselves it is just a question of time before they totally implode.
(1) To watch the entire film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRQsJWDTNXA
Sunday, November 29, 2009
9/11: Pentagon Aircraft Hijack Impossible: flight deck door closed for entire flight
by pilots for 9/11 Truth:
Newly decoded data provided by an independent researcher and computer programmer from Australia exposes alarming evidence that the reported hijacking aboard American Airlines Flight 77 was impossible to have existed. A data parameter labeled "FLT DECK DOOR", cross checks with previously decoded data obtained by Pilots For 9/11 Truth from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) through the Freedom Of Information Act.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 departed Dulles International Airport bound for Los Angeles at 8:20 am Eastern Time. According to reports and data, a hijacking took place between 08:50:54 and 08:54:11[1] in which the hijackers allegedly crashed the aircraft into the Pentagon at 09:37:45. Reported by CNN, according to Ted Olson, wife Barbara Olson had called him from the reported flight stating, "...all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by armed hijackers..."[2]. However, according to Flight Data provided by the NTSB, the Flight Deck Door was never opened in flight. How were the hijackers able to gain access to the cockpit, remove the pilots, and navigate the aircraft to the Pentagon if the Flight Deck Door remained closed?[3]
Founded in August 2006, Pilots For 9/11 Truth is a growing organization of aviation professionals from around the globe. The organization has analyzed Data provided by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for the Pentagon Attack, the events in Shanksville, PA and the World Trade Center attack. The data does not support the government story. The NTSB/FBI refuse to comment. Pilots For 9/11 Truth do not offer theory or point blame at this point in time. However, there is a growing mountain of conflicting information and data in which government agencies and officials along with Mainstream Media refuse to acknowledge. Pilots For 9/11 Truth Core member list continues to grow.
http://pilotsfor911truth.org/core.html for full member list.
http://pilotsfor911truth.org/join to join.
Comments? Click here for discussion.
[1] Hijacker Timeline - http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=17
[2] Common Strategy Prior to 9/11/2001 - http://pilotsfor911truth.org/pentagon.html
[3] Right click and save target as here to download csv file with "FLT DECK DOOR" parameter.
You Get What you Vote For!
By Cindy Sheehan for OpEdNews
The so-called anti-war movement currently finds itself in somewhat of a quagmire: What to do when the man you raised money for, volunteered for, and yes, even voted for, actually fulfills one of his most repulsive campaign promises?
First of all, I never understood why, or how, peace people could support someone who voted to pay for the wars while he was a Senator and was quite clear on the fact that he would increase violence in Afghanistan and perform a slow, painful and very incomplete withdrawal from Iraq. Principles that were proclaimed so loudly while Bush was president get shoved aside and buried now that a Democrat is president and how do you get your principles back from the dung-pile of selling out?
Secondly, On January 23rd of a rapidly dissipating 2009, Barack Obama perpetrated his first war crime (as president) by authorizing a drone attack in Pakistan. In February of this same year, he ordered an increase of roughly 20,000 more troops to Afghanistan: more war crimes, no corresponding outcry. However, when I cried out, I was roundly attacked by the “left” for not giving Obama a “chance.” 2009 is going to be the most deadly year for our troops and Afghan and Pakistani civilians on record. I think George Bush is calling: he wants his Nobel Peace Prize back.
It is being widely reported (and it seems hotly anticipated by some)—that even though the “anti-war” movement wrote a letter to Obama and asked him to “pretty please” not send any more troops to Afghanistan and had us calling the White House all day on Monday the 23rd when Obama was scheduled to hold his final “war summit"—that the U.S. will commit 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan which is a 50 percent increase in troop strength in the Land of Certain Empire Death.
What is the “anti-war” movement's response going to be? Candlelight vigils; “honk if you love peace” rallies; a hundred rounds of “We Shall Over Come" (someday, not today or tomorrow); or, is the “anti-war” movement going to say: “Phew, McChrystal asked for 80,000, but our letter worked—he's only sending 34,000?”
True story: in October of 2005, U.S. troop deaths were going to reach 2000, within days and the “movement” was planning its response. I called for a die-in, with risk of arrest, in front of the White House and MoveOn.org called for a candlelight vigil in Lafayette Park. MoveOn.org moved their vigil to another location because they told me that their members weren't ready to do civil disobedience and some of them may be accidentally swept up in some kind of a "peace sweep." I said, “Fine, MoveOn.org, have a candlelight vigil for 2000 like you did for 1000 and next year you'll have one for 3000, then 4000, and then 5000.” I think many of MoveOn.org's members were ready, I just don't think that MoveOn.org was then, or is now. They didn't do it when Bush was president, I can't imagine MoveOn.org standing up for peace when their man is the one doing the killing.
So, here we are four years, thousands of U.S. troops deaths and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths later, and the Pope of Hope, the Dalai O'bama, the Nobel Laureate will soon be condemning thousands of more to the same fate and his supporters have given him permission to do so, no matter how many letters they write, petitions they sign or phone calls they make.
In the end, you always get what you vote for.
I knew that this surge was a done deal no matter how much political posturing and pandering occurred. I chained myself to the White House fence on October 5th and was arrested with 60 other people protesting the wars and demanding that peace be put on the proverbial table. But those were symbolic actions and the problems we are facing are deadly and in full Techno-Color, real. The time for symbolism and street-theater ended years ago, but moribund actions won't seem to just go away gracefully, so we will have to cut them off, cold turkey!
On Monday, November 30, the Peace of the Action Coalition will be sending out a press release condemning the escalation and announcing our Mother of all Protests (MOAP) that will begin in the spring.
If you're looking for some action, look no further than Peace of the Action and stayed fine-tuned for further details!
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan, who was KIA in Iraq on 04/04/04. She is a co-founder and President of Gold Star Families for Peace and the author of two books: Not One More Mother's Child and Dear President Bush.
The so-called anti-war movement currently finds itself in somewhat of a quagmire: What to do when the man you raised money for, volunteered for, and yes, even voted for, actually fulfills one of his most repulsive campaign promises?
First of all, I never understood why, or how, peace people could support someone who voted to pay for the wars while he was a Senator and was quite clear on the fact that he would increase violence in Afghanistan and perform a slow, painful and very incomplete withdrawal from Iraq. Principles that were proclaimed so loudly while Bush was president get shoved aside and buried now that a Democrat is president and how do you get your principles back from the dung-pile of selling out?
Secondly, On January 23rd of a rapidly dissipating 2009, Barack Obama perpetrated his first war crime (as president) by authorizing a drone attack in Pakistan. In February of this same year, he ordered an increase of roughly 20,000 more troops to Afghanistan: more war crimes, no corresponding outcry. However, when I cried out, I was roundly attacked by the “left” for not giving Obama a “chance.” 2009 is going to be the most deadly year for our troops and Afghan and Pakistani civilians on record. I think George Bush is calling: he wants his Nobel Peace Prize back.
It is being widely reported (and it seems hotly anticipated by some)—that even though the “anti-war” movement wrote a letter to Obama and asked him to “pretty please” not send any more troops to Afghanistan and had us calling the White House all day on Monday the 23rd when Obama was scheduled to hold his final “war summit"—that the U.S. will commit 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan which is a 50 percent increase in troop strength in the Land of Certain Empire Death.
What is the “anti-war” movement's response going to be? Candlelight vigils; “honk if you love peace” rallies; a hundred rounds of “We Shall Over Come" (someday, not today or tomorrow); or, is the “anti-war” movement going to say: “Phew, McChrystal asked for 80,000, but our letter worked—he's only sending 34,000?”
True story: in October of 2005, U.S. troop deaths were going to reach 2000, within days and the “movement” was planning its response. I called for a die-in, with risk of arrest, in front of the White House and MoveOn.org called for a candlelight vigil in Lafayette Park. MoveOn.org moved their vigil to another location because they told me that their members weren't ready to do civil disobedience and some of them may be accidentally swept up in some kind of a "peace sweep." I said, “Fine, MoveOn.org, have a candlelight vigil for 2000 like you did for 1000 and next year you'll have one for 3000, then 4000, and then 5000.” I think many of MoveOn.org's members were ready, I just don't think that MoveOn.org was then, or is now. They didn't do it when Bush was president, I can't imagine MoveOn.org standing up for peace when their man is the one doing the killing.
So, here we are four years, thousands of U.S. troops deaths and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths later, and the Pope of Hope, the Dalai O'bama, the Nobel Laureate will soon be condemning thousands of more to the same fate and his supporters have given him permission to do so, no matter how many letters they write, petitions they sign or phone calls they make.
In the end, you always get what you vote for.
I knew that this surge was a done deal no matter how much political posturing and pandering occurred. I chained myself to the White House fence on October 5th and was arrested with 60 other people protesting the wars and demanding that peace be put on the proverbial table. But those were symbolic actions and the problems we are facing are deadly and in full Techno-Color, real. The time for symbolism and street-theater ended years ago, but moribund actions won't seem to just go away gracefully, so we will have to cut them off, cold turkey!
On Monday, November 30, the Peace of the Action Coalition will be sending out a press release condemning the escalation and announcing our Mother of all Protests (MOAP) that will begin in the spring.
If you're looking for some action, look no further than Peace of the Action and stayed fine-tuned for further details!
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan, who was KIA in Iraq on 04/04/04. She is a co-founder and President of Gold Star Families for Peace and the author of two books: Not One More Mother's Child and Dear President Bush.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Far Beyond Chutzpah
by Gilad Atzmon
“How come Barak, Israel’s Defence Minister, is under threat of being arrested in the UK while Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Hamas, roams London free of concern” asks Prof Alan Dershowitz, who is probably the leading defender of the Jewish state in America. In fact the question could be easily extended, one may wonder how come Dershowitz and his ilk are roaming freely between Western capitals considering the racist, nationalist expansionist ideology they promote i.e. Zionism. At the end of the day, Dershowitz the loudest Zionist apologist in America is promoting a precept that has proved to be genocidal.
What intrigues me about Dershowitz is the fact that Israel’s leading Hasbara cheer-leader is also one of America’s most prominent criminal lawyers specialising in murder and attempted murder cases. As a criminal appellate lawyer, Dershowitz has won thirteen out of the fifteen murder and attempted murder cases he has handled. Notable is his role as the appellate adviser for the defence in the criminal trial of O.J. Simpson. Seemingly, this is exactly what Israel needs and deserves, a ‘criminal attorney’. One that would help it to get away with murder.
In a conversation with Ynet, a leading Israeli paper, Dershowitz claimed that Judge Richard Goldstone, the author of the UN report investigating Operation Cast Lead, “preferred to give interviews to public television rather than debating him.” Dershowitz said that it isn't appropriate for Goldstone to ‘filter whom he debates with’. One may wonder why? It is a common and accepted practice amongst humanists not to share a platform with racists. Zionism is not only a racist ideology, it is also murderous in practice. Dershowitz is a proud rabid Zionist. It is understandable that any decent human being would prefer to avoid sharing a platform with him or his cohorts.
According to Ynet, “Dershowitz demanded that Judge Goldstone provide explanations of the sources that led him to his final conclusion in the report, which asserted that Israel's policy in Operation Cast Lead was to kill as many Palestinian civilians as possible.” Dershowitz, may have to find time to watch this Youtube video. It is all there. An extensive review of the Israeli terror campaign in Gaza.
One doesn’t have to be a military expert to grasp that pouring WMD, and using artillery against a civilian population is sufficient evidence. Israeli murderous tactics are now established facts and common knowledge.
Dershowitz said that he “does not expect Israel to suffer much damage in the US following the Goldstone report. He asserted that the Americans understand that the Human Rights Council is a farce and its conclusions not taken too seriously”. Dershowitz obviously fails to tell the truth. If the Human Rights Council is a ‘farce’ as he says, why does Zionist loud mouth Dershowitz insist to debate Judge Goldstone?
Dershowitz also claimed that “Israel can breathe easily in academic circles as well, saying that students in the US can think for themselves and will not believe that Israel decided intentionally to kill Palestinian civilians.” Again, if this is the case, if Israel’s reputation within the academic circuit is secured, why is Dershowitz & Co mounted pressure on Finkelstein, Walt, Mearsheimer and every other critical voice of Israel and Zionism. Dershowitz is obviously failing to tell the truth again. He can see that the tide is changing. He knows that every ethically orientated human being sees the truth behind Israeli brutality. Why is Dershovitz lying? Because Jewish nationalism left, right and centre is grounded on a set of lies. By way of deception they make their wars.
Canada’s Guantanamo
Just what will it take to wake Canadians up to their government’s lies and subterfuge, wonders Eric Walberg
A scandal erupted last week in sleepy Ottawa with the revelations of Canada’s chief diplomat in Kandahar in 2006-07, Richard Colvin, who told a House of Commons committee on Afghanistan that Afghans arrested by Canadian military and handed over to Afghan authorities were knowingly tortured. His and others’ attempts to raise the alarm had been quashed by the ruling Conservative government and he felt a moral obligation to make public what was happening.
The startling allegations — the first of their kind from a senior official — have caused extreme embarrassment to the government, which has more than once stated categorically detainees were not passed to Afghan control if there was any danger of torture. Canada has 2,700 soldiers in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the hotbed of the insurgency, on a mission that is due to end in 2011.
Warnings to Colvin to keep quiet were not enough to cow him and he calmly told shocked MPs that he started sending reports soon after he arrived in Kandahar in early 2006 to top officials indicating the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) was abusing detainees. “For a year and half after they knew about the very high risk of torture, they continued to order military police in the field to hand our detainees to the NDS.”
Colvin’s comments come at a sensitive time for the minority government, which was almost ousted by the opposition a year ago. So far 133 Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan and recent polls indicate most Canadians oppose the mission. Colvin said Canadian military leaders in Afghanistan “cloaked our detainee practices in extreme secrecy,” refused to hand over details of prisoners to the Red Cross in a timely fashion and kept “hopeless” records. “As I learned more about our detainee practices, I came to the conclusion that they were un-Canadian, counterproductive, and probably illegal.” Officials in Ottawa initially ignored his reports. “By April 2007 we were receiving written messages from the senior Canadian government coordinator for Afghanistan to the effect that we should be quiet and do what we were told,” he said.
Canadian troops first began transferring detainees to Afghan authorities in late 2005. Eventually, faced with persistent allegations of abuse, Ottawa signed a deal with Kabul in May 2007 to boost protection for detainees. Colvin said Canadian troops regularly detain six times as many Afghans as the British, who are also operating in southern Afghanistan. Although some may have been Taliban members, many were “random human beings in the wrong place at the wrong time”. He added: “We detained and handed over for severe torture a lot of innocent people. Complicity in torture is a war crime.” In the face of accusations of this complicity, Prime Minister Stephen Harper publically insisted Canadian military officials did not send individuals off to be tortured. “Behind the military’s wall of secrecy that unfortunately was exactly what we were doing,” Colvin told his captive audience.
Now, instead of launching an inquiry, the Conservatives are pursuing their usual practice of smearing critics. “We frankly just found his evidence lacked credibility. All his information was, he admits, at best second hand,” said Lawrie Hawn, parliamentary secretary to Defense Minister Peter MacKay. MacKay angrily dismissed the charges, while former Canadian military chief-in-command in Afghanistan Rick Hillier can’t “remember reading a single one of those cables”, and depicted the fuss as mere “howling at the moon”. “Even in our own prisons somebody can get beaten up,” he cracked to reporters.
But then this is standard operating procedure for Harper’s Conservatives. They called New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton “Taliban Jack” for his suggestion that NATO should negotiate with elements of the Taliban. That is now the policy not only of Canada in Afghanistan, but of the Karzai government in Kabul.
In The Unexpected War, Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang report that the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International, and Canadian Louise Arbour, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights “had concluded that abuse, torture, and extrajudicial killing were routinely inflicted on people in Afghan custody.” University of Ottawa Law Professor Amir Attaran documented how Afghan detainees have been beaten not only by the NDS, but while detained and interrogated by Canadian soldiers. Attaran called for an investigation into the treatment of the detainees by the Military Police Complaints Commission, a civilian body established to investigate complaints against the Canadian military. In February 2007, the Canadian military launched an investigation and heard testimony concerning three Afghans beaten by Canadian soldiers, handed over to the Afghans, who subsequently disappeared. The Globe and Mail managed to interview thirty former detainees who said they had been transferred from Canadian to Afghan jurisdiction and then had been tortured.
Then defence minister Gordon O’Connor told the House of Commons that a new agreement struck with the Karzai government stipulated that “If there is something wrong with their treatment, the Red Cross or Red Crescent would inform us and we would take action.” This was exposed as a lie when Red Cross spokesman Simon Schorno told the Globe and Mail that “we were informed of the agreement, but we are not a party to it and we are not monitoring the implementation of it.”
Colvin immediately warned that the new agreement was full of holes. It can only be concluded that the government condoned the torture, ignoring and now pooh-poohing complaints about it. Attempts to feign innocence don’t hold water. According to a senior NATO official, Harper used a “6,000-mile screwdriver” to make sure “that every single statement that went out [was] cleared by him personally”.
Michael Semple, Colvin’s EU colleague in Kabul, said he was “totally flabbergasted” by insinuations that Colvin’s reports were not credible, that he was a closet Taliban sympathiser “soft on terrorists”. Colvin was an “absolutely rock solid” diplomat who volunteered to go in as a civilian representative with Canada’s Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar after a close friend of Semple’s was killed by a suicide car bomber outside Kandahar.
But to anyone who knows anything at all about US -- and now, alas, Canadian -- politics this is hardly new. Colin Powell’s rise to the heights of US politics was due to his burying the initial reports of the My Lai massacre in 1968 where US troops gunned down 500 mostly women, children and seniors in an act of revenge. Charged with investigating the incident, then major Powell reported, “In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent.” Powell was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1970, served a White House fellowship under president Richard Nixon from 1972-73, and continued up the ladder, becoming a general in 1989 and finally secretary of state in 2001.
Current Canadian politics occasionally provides a touch of humour to the inanities of Western moral hypocrisy. Remember the travel ban imposed by the Conservative government on UK MP George Galloway this spring, apparently because he is a terrorist. The Conservative government denied it had anything to do with the decision, that it was entirely up to the Canada Border Services Agency. Or the current furore over US lesbian soldier Bethany Lanae Smith, whom a Canadian judge insists be granted refugee status, overturning an Immigration and Refugee Board ruling. Not because she rejects the illegal US wars and occupations, but because she was harassed by male US soldiers and resented their taunts and/or untoward advances.
The recent haemorrhage of US war resisters coming to Canada has been resolutely staunched by the pro-war government, in line with its fervent support of US/ NATO wars. But in the interests of political correctness the government may well allow Smith to stay, unlike her more principled fellow soldiers, male and female, who defected to Canada out of conviction, and who were sent back to the US to face jail terms.
Will there be any consequences to Colvin for his embarrassing revelations? Word has it that the hitherto promising career of the former second-in-command in Afghanistan and current high-level diplomat in Washington is over. Remember the fate of UK ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray from 2002-2004 whom the Foreign Office tried to declare noncompis mentis, and who resigned, supposedly in disgrace. His altercation with the empire sobered him and made him a committed anti-imperialist. At his site, he even posts an update of US-caused deaths in Iraq, now at 1,339,771.
If Colvin’s career as a diplomat is over, he can still take a page from Murray ’s post-FO career book. His expose of Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov as one of the world’s most eminent torturers, Murder in Samarkand, is now being made into a feature film. He has been awarded multiple prizes for promoting world peace, ran for parliament against his former boss foreign minister Jack Straw, and is a witty and incisive commentator on the internet, PressTV and elsewhere. He is currently rector of his alma mater the University of Dundee. There is life after the death of diplomatic service. Murray quips, “Being a dissident is quite fun.”
***
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/
A scandal erupted last week in sleepy Ottawa with the revelations of Canada’s chief diplomat in Kandahar in 2006-07, Richard Colvin, who told a House of Commons committee on Afghanistan that Afghans arrested by Canadian military and handed over to Afghan authorities were knowingly tortured. His and others’ attempts to raise the alarm had been quashed by the ruling Conservative government and he felt a moral obligation to make public what was happening.
The startling allegations — the first of their kind from a senior official — have caused extreme embarrassment to the government, which has more than once stated categorically detainees were not passed to Afghan control if there was any danger of torture. Canada has 2,700 soldiers in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the hotbed of the insurgency, on a mission that is due to end in 2011.
Warnings to Colvin to keep quiet were not enough to cow him and he calmly told shocked MPs that he started sending reports soon after he arrived in Kandahar in early 2006 to top officials indicating the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) was abusing detainees. “For a year and half after they knew about the very high risk of torture, they continued to order military police in the field to hand our detainees to the NDS.”
Colvin’s comments come at a sensitive time for the minority government, which was almost ousted by the opposition a year ago. So far 133 Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan and recent polls indicate most Canadians oppose the mission. Colvin said Canadian military leaders in Afghanistan “cloaked our detainee practices in extreme secrecy,” refused to hand over details of prisoners to the Red Cross in a timely fashion and kept “hopeless” records. “As I learned more about our detainee practices, I came to the conclusion that they were un-Canadian, counterproductive, and probably illegal.” Officials in Ottawa initially ignored his reports. “By April 2007 we were receiving written messages from the senior Canadian government coordinator for Afghanistan to the effect that we should be quiet and do what we were told,” he said.
Canadian troops first began transferring detainees to Afghan authorities in late 2005. Eventually, faced with persistent allegations of abuse, Ottawa signed a deal with Kabul in May 2007 to boost protection for detainees. Colvin said Canadian troops regularly detain six times as many Afghans as the British, who are also operating in southern Afghanistan. Although some may have been Taliban members, many were “random human beings in the wrong place at the wrong time”. He added: “We detained and handed over for severe torture a lot of innocent people. Complicity in torture is a war crime.” In the face of accusations of this complicity, Prime Minister Stephen Harper publically insisted Canadian military officials did not send individuals off to be tortured. “Behind the military’s wall of secrecy that unfortunately was exactly what we were doing,” Colvin told his captive audience.
Now, instead of launching an inquiry, the Conservatives are pursuing their usual practice of smearing critics. “We frankly just found his evidence lacked credibility. All his information was, he admits, at best second hand,” said Lawrie Hawn, parliamentary secretary to Defense Minister Peter MacKay. MacKay angrily dismissed the charges, while former Canadian military chief-in-command in Afghanistan Rick Hillier can’t “remember reading a single one of those cables”, and depicted the fuss as mere “howling at the moon”. “Even in our own prisons somebody can get beaten up,” he cracked to reporters.
But then this is standard operating procedure for Harper’s Conservatives. They called New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton “Taliban Jack” for his suggestion that NATO should negotiate with elements of the Taliban. That is now the policy not only of Canada in Afghanistan, but of the Karzai government in Kabul.
In The Unexpected War, Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang report that the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International, and Canadian Louise Arbour, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights “had concluded that abuse, torture, and extrajudicial killing were routinely inflicted on people in Afghan custody.” University of Ottawa Law Professor Amir Attaran documented how Afghan detainees have been beaten not only by the NDS, but while detained and interrogated by Canadian soldiers. Attaran called for an investigation into the treatment of the detainees by the Military Police Complaints Commission, a civilian body established to investigate complaints against the Canadian military. In February 2007, the Canadian military launched an investigation and heard testimony concerning three Afghans beaten by Canadian soldiers, handed over to the Afghans, who subsequently disappeared. The Globe and Mail managed to interview thirty former detainees who said they had been transferred from Canadian to Afghan jurisdiction and then had been tortured.
Then defence minister Gordon O’Connor told the House of Commons that a new agreement struck with the Karzai government stipulated that “If there is something wrong with their treatment, the Red Cross or Red Crescent would inform us and we would take action.” This was exposed as a lie when Red Cross spokesman Simon Schorno told the Globe and Mail that “we were informed of the agreement, but we are not a party to it and we are not monitoring the implementation of it.”
Colvin immediately warned that the new agreement was full of holes. It can only be concluded that the government condoned the torture, ignoring and now pooh-poohing complaints about it. Attempts to feign innocence don’t hold water. According to a senior NATO official, Harper used a “6,000-mile screwdriver” to make sure “that every single statement that went out [was] cleared by him personally”.
Michael Semple, Colvin’s EU colleague in Kabul, said he was “totally flabbergasted” by insinuations that Colvin’s reports were not credible, that he was a closet Taliban sympathiser “soft on terrorists”. Colvin was an “absolutely rock solid” diplomat who volunteered to go in as a civilian representative with Canada’s Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar after a close friend of Semple’s was killed by a suicide car bomber outside Kandahar.
But to anyone who knows anything at all about US -- and now, alas, Canadian -- politics this is hardly new. Colin Powell’s rise to the heights of US politics was due to his burying the initial reports of the My Lai massacre in 1968 where US troops gunned down 500 mostly women, children and seniors in an act of revenge. Charged with investigating the incident, then major Powell reported, “In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent.” Powell was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1970, served a White House fellowship under president Richard Nixon from 1972-73, and continued up the ladder, becoming a general in 1989 and finally secretary of state in 2001.
Current Canadian politics occasionally provides a touch of humour to the inanities of Western moral hypocrisy. Remember the travel ban imposed by the Conservative government on UK MP George Galloway this spring, apparently because he is a terrorist. The Conservative government denied it had anything to do with the decision, that it was entirely up to the Canada Border Services Agency. Or the current furore over US lesbian soldier Bethany Lanae Smith, whom a Canadian judge insists be granted refugee status, overturning an Immigration and Refugee Board ruling. Not because she rejects the illegal US wars and occupations, but because she was harassed by male US soldiers and resented their taunts and/or untoward advances.
The recent haemorrhage of US war resisters coming to Canada has been resolutely staunched by the pro-war government, in line with its fervent support of US/ NATO wars. But in the interests of political correctness the government may well allow Smith to stay, unlike her more principled fellow soldiers, male and female, who defected to Canada out of conviction, and who were sent back to the US to face jail terms.
Will there be any consequences to Colvin for his embarrassing revelations? Word has it that the hitherto promising career of the former second-in-command in Afghanistan and current high-level diplomat in Washington is over. Remember the fate of UK ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray from 2002-2004 whom the Foreign Office tried to declare noncompis mentis, and who resigned, supposedly in disgrace. His altercation with the empire sobered him and made him a committed anti-imperialist. At his site, he even posts an update of US-caused deaths in Iraq, now at 1,339,771.
If Colvin’s career as a diplomat is over, he can still take a page from Murray ’s post-FO career book. His expose of Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov as one of the world’s most eminent torturers, Murder in Samarkand, is now being made into a feature film. He has been awarded multiple prizes for promoting world peace, ran for parliament against his former boss foreign minister Jack Straw, and is a witty and incisive commentator on the internet, PressTV and elsewhere. He is currently rector of his alma mater the University of Dundee. There is life after the death of diplomatic service. Murray quips, “Being a dissident is quite fun.”
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Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/
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