Benazir Played Miss Congeniality III: Unarmed & Endangered

Benazir Bhutto's assassination was easy to predict: in fact, her survival, both politically and physically, was something of a dark horse. With many enemies and no army, strong pro-US anti-terrorist rhetoric right in the heart of Al-Qaeda Country, and without any political clout except being the titular head of a political party that was not really in the running, she had no one watching her back except the remote-control promises of a maligned superpower (with the Oh-so-trustworthy Bush administration), and her old nemesis, Pervez Musharraf who only allowed her back in Pakistan under U.S. pressure. By her own account:

"There was one suicide squad from the Taleban elements, one suicide squad from al-Qaeda, one suicide squad from Pakistani Taleban and a fourth – a group, I believe, from Karachi,” she said.

So why did the geniuses at Bushco put her up to it? Her gushing, smiling interviews before her "triumphant" return to Pakistan gave her the innocent look of a True Believer. I asked myself, "Does she actually believe this war on terror crap? Does she really think the United States is trying to bring democracy to Pakistan? She looks for all the world like she really does..."

Bhutto was the perfect answer to America's public relations disaster in Pakistan - our Great White Hope for a Democratic Pakistan. A disarming - but not demilitarizing - smile, general good looks, a woman who is nonetheless Muslim, she has name recognition, a following, a way with words (first female president of prestigious Oxford's Debate Club) ... what more could she ask for?

Blackwater, for one thing. But Musharraf wouldn't allow Blackwater to operate in Pakistan, leaving Benazir at the mercy of rivalvMusharraf, with those sticky fingers in the Al-Qaeda/Taliban/Islamist pie...

Bhutto was "immortalized" in Pakistani newspapers, such as this article:

Benazir Bhutto embraced martyrdom and was immortalized just like her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as another tragedy struck the unfortunate Bhutto family.She is the fourth Bhutto dying in violent circumstances.

She was killed in the same town where her father was executed 28 years ago, in an area

"... outside the Liaquat Bagh, the same park where Pakistan’s first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was shot dead not long after the country’s independence. ... Liaquat Bagh, named after Liaquat Ali Khan, has in a way become a tragic place where participants of public rallies have been often attacked and killed and two prime ministers lost their lives in violent circumstances."

With a family known for being on the receiving end of death plots, you couldn't say she didn't know she was putting herself in harm's way. It took much cajoling and reassurance from Condi Rice to convince her to come back. Rice, too, was fully aware of the danger to Ms. Bhutto in this high-stakes, high-risk gamble. Ultimately, her love of the adulation of crowds and the high-end perks of power, combined with her trusting attitude towards American assurances, led to her "dark horse" going down.

According to earlier reports:

Benazir made the fatal mistake to come out of the sun-roof, deciding to wave to the crowd, and was shot.

You wouldn't catch Musharraf standing up in a van - he's a survivor, not a Bhutto. And he has the military, the executive power, and the conniving to back up his own security against repeated assassination attempts. He now stands accused of being either behind the Bhutto murder or deliberately laissez fair in her security. Now he's also accused of a coverup, which lends more credence to the murder plot innuendoes. Why else would he try to deny the gunman's hand and point at the suicide bomber?

The initial reports of Ms Bhutto having been killed by a gunman's bullets to her head and neck were changed later by officials in the Mubarak regime to state that the suicide bomb blast caused her to hit her head, causing her death. But new video released by nbc news shows that the official line could NOT have been the case, and that the gunman is the actual assassin who killed Benazir Bhutto. This, of course, only inflames the Pakistani public further against Musharraf.

Even before this responsibility claim was supposedly released from al-Qaeda:

"We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen,” Al-Qaeda’s commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English. Al-Yazid is the main al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan.

Bush was already pinning the tail on the donkey:

"The US strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy," he said. "Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice."

Of course, we all know "extremists" by name. Then why, now, are those dastardly al-Qaeda folks denying it? The Musharraf government had even named the al-Qaeda operative, Ali Mehsud, who now publicly states it would be against his tribal traditions to kill a woman, and that he had nothing to do with it. Speaking on behalf of al-Qaeda - and who in that shadowy world doesn't? - and the Taliban - or more precisely, a recently formed Pakistani version of same - he claims

"This was a well-planned conspiracy carried out by the intelligence agencies, army and government for their own political motives," he said.

So who speaks on behalf of whom? Who really killed Benazir? Check out the above video for the photo of the guy. As for who put Benazir in harm's way, we should look beyond UBL, America's favorite anti-Christ, and a little closer to home... like that bumbling, foreign-policy wizard, the one who thinks the so-called war on terror is a great idea, a guy also known as W ...

Who assassinated Benazir Bhutto?

Sometimes, numbers convey a strange sense of fatefulness. Just 12 days before the election, Benazir Bhutto is assassinated by a suicide bomber/gunman, who also took out at least 30 others on his way to his own death. In the same square where 2 other Pakistani prime ministers were also killed. It was 12-27-2007. She was 54 years old.

According to this report from the Hindustan Times,

After the major candidates from the region made their speeches, she spoke. I have heard many of her speeches and this was perhaps one of her finest, not in terms of the content but for her exemplary delivery. She mostly talked about her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and his achievements and avoided dwelling upon the current political situation in the country. She especially avoided criticizing President Musharraf. She did not name any of her opponents, but instead called them ‘political orphans’.

Later, her own trusting nature and political sense led to her death:

Benazir made the fatal mistake to come out of the sun-roof, deciding to wave to
the crowd, and was shot. The suicidal bomber then blew himself up.

Benazir Bhutto died in the hospital after almost an hour of desperate, but futile surgery.

She was "immortalized" in Pakistani newspapers, such as this article:

Benazir Bhutto embraced martyrdom and was immortalized just like her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as another tragedy struck the unfortunate Bhutto family.She is the fourth Bhutto dying in violent circumstances.

PPP founder Mr Bhutto was executed in 1979 after being deposed by General Ziaul Haq in a military coup. His execution was later termed as judicial murder and one of the judges, Justice Nasim Hassan Shah, who was on the bench that tried him on murder charges conceded sometime back that the court’s verdict was a mistake.

Benazir Bhutto’s brothers Shahnawaz Bhutto and Murtaza Bhutto were killed in mysterious circumstances. Shahnawaz, younger of the two, died in France while Murtaza was gunned down outside his family home in Karachi’s posh Clifton locality. Their killers never got punished.
...
Ironically, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in the same city, Rawalpindi, where her father was executed 28 years ago. He was hanged at the Adiala jail ...(but) she was assassinated outside the Liaquat Bagh, the same park where Pakistan’s first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was shot dead not long after the country’s independence. ... Liaquat Bagh, named after Liaquat Ali Khan, has in a way become a tragic place where participants of public rallies have been often attacked and killed and two prime ministers lost their lives in violent circumstances.

She was matchless as her name, Benazir, which could be roughly translated as someone without parallel.

And this report mentions "A suicide attacker, who was reportedly riding a motorcycle, then detonated his explosives, killing up to 30 people and injuring 60 others."

Bush, of course, has already stated his opinion:

"The US strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy," he said. "Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice."

There are reports in the West stating that it's the work of Al-Qaida. Just the shot in the arm we need for the war on terror to jumpstart in the hearts of America? Not by a long shot.

This is all we need to destabilize Pakistan, the Islamic world, and change the dynamics of the so-called war on terror, from a war against the notorious al-Qaida to a war of chaos, of ever-shifting factions against one another. Who can claim this was not the work of the also-notorious Musharraf?

Apparently, Al-Qaeda did claim responsibility.

"We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen,” Al-Qaeda’s commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English. Al-Yazid is the main al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan.

It is believed that the decision to kill Bhutto, who is the leader of the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP), was made by al-Qaeda No. 2, the Egyptian doctor, Ayman al-Zawahiri in October. Death squads were allegedly constituted for the mission and ultimately one cell comprising a defunct Lashkar-i-Jhangvi’s Punjabi volunteer succeeded in killing Bhutto.

Those guys sure are brilliant. Whatever it is they're fighting for, it's not an Islamic state, for sure. Bhutto may have been an "American asset", but the alternative, which they now have, is the old standby, military dictatorship. So where's the "power to the people" and "anti-oppression" line they've trumped up? Benazir, for her part, practically set herself up for assassination by linking up with the U.S. & all its oppressive baggage while trumpeting, "I'm going to wipe out the extremists!" Brilliant for martyrdom, idiotic for survival.

And at any rate, one thing is certain. Any leader tied to the United States is sure to be targeted. American alliance is also the kiss of death. And the only ones who can survive that deadly embrace are ruthless dictators like Musharraf, Hosny Mubarak, and the autocratic but less ostentatiously ruthless King Abdullah and his royal clan of Saudi Arabia. Ultimately, it's the people of those nations we "embrace" who suffer.

So much for the idea that the "war on terror" is somehow pro-democracy. That's the "passion play" du jour but in reality it's the direct opposite. Maybe Benazir's death should give us fair warning that if we want democracies, we ourselves should act like one. Start with letting other nations run their own affairs. Without, please, more invasions.

As for the terrorists, why did they only target Benazir, if Musharraf is also an enemy of terrorists, as the U.S. is fond of broadcasting? Because she was more... well, democratic. Yet she espoused that "war on terror" line quite openly. She really believed that passion play. But her failure to address what "terrorism" is really all about - her mimicking of the Bush line that we simply have to "fight the extremists" - thus playing into the extremists' hands rather than playing them for fools - exposed her to their ever-present plots. Like standing up for the crowds, knowing full well her killer could be out there. If only someone in Pakistan would see ... dialogue always trumps rhetoric. If only a democratic leader could gain power - while standing up without America in the wings. If only America would stop inventing wars.

So You Thought The Stazi of E. Germany Were Bad: Our Secret Police Will Have Your Genome

Welcome to Big Brotherland, land of Federal Brotherly Intelligence: Where Intelligence Is Love.

The Washington Post reports "FBI Prepares Vast Database Of Biometrics
$1 Billion Project to Include Images of Irises and Faces" ... Not just those backward old scent jars where the old East German secret police would tap into the unique smell of each of hundreds, maybe thousands of people-deemed-suspicious. Not those tell-tale vinyl KGB jackets. The Central Iris-etcetera Amassing group is gonna get your genome. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

For starters,

For the past two years, the Defense Department has been storing in a
database images of fingerprints, irises and faces of more than 1.5 million Iraqi
and Afghan detainees, Iraqi citizens and foreigners who need access to U.S.
military bases. The Pentagon also collects DNA samples from some Iraqi
detainees, which are stored separately.

As for U.S. citizens, they are also part of this Grand Scheme of Identification:

The department is also looking to apply iris- and face-recognition
techniques to other programs. The DHS already has a database of millions of sets
of fingerprints, which includes records collected from U.S. and foreign
travelers stopped at borders for criminal violations, from U.S. citizens
adopting children overseas, and from visa applicants abroad.

And if that doesn't make you feel secure enough, the future holds a huge boost for your security-thirsty soul:

Soon, the server at CJIS headquarters will also compare palm prints and,
eventually, iris images and face-shape data such as the shape of an earlobe. If
all goes as planned, a police officer making a traffic stop or a border agent at
an airport could run a 10-fingerprint check on a suspect and within seconds know
if the person is on a database of the most wanted criminals and terrorists. An
analyst could take palm prints lifted from a crime scene and run them against
the expanded database. Intelligence agents could exchange biometric information
worldwide.

Aren't you glad you're safe? Doesn't it just warm the heart to know that your earlobe could prevent you from being confused with some phone phreaker in Milwaukee? or some alleged terrorist in Rawalpindi? or a Dutch marijuana salesman? We can all now sigh a gigantic sigh of relief knowing that the entire planet can know exactly where we are, what we are doing, and most importantly, why.

The FBI intends to make both criminal and civilian data available to
authorized users, officials said.

Does "civilian data" mean shopping patterns? Does it mean unlawful detainers? Does it mean trips to the veterinarian? Does it mean expired license plates? And what if some more-intelligent Chinese, or Mafia-friendly, "unauthorized user" just figured out how to tap into this gold mind of info? Or what if one's spurned lover happened to also be a great hacker? What havoc could this bring to life?

But fear not:

"We have very stringent laws that control who can go in there and to secure
the data," Bush said.

With the solid integrity of our President, who could feel anything but extremely safe? We can all relax now that we have it on his word this system will be nothing less than a savior for all mankind. Just like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Would those grand adventures ever have been undertaken without our superior intelligence? Think about how we could have wasted the money on education, health care, and boring infrastructure. Then relax, and feel the love.

Who Are the Insurgents?

Dahr Jamail reviews "Meeting Resistance"

"Suppose Iraq invaded America. And an Iraqi soldier was on a tank passing through an American street, waving his gun at the people, threatening them, raiding and trashing houses. Would you accept that? This is why no Iraqi can accept occupation, and don’t be surprised by their reactions," says "The Imam," a young man from a mixed Sunni-Shia family, as he explains the genesis of the insurgency in Iraq and its exponential growth.

He is one of the protagonists that Meeting Resistance presents as unmistakable evidence that the root cause of the conflict in Iraq is the occupation itself. The film has resistance fighters themselves tell their story.

Journalists-turned-filmmakers Molly Bingham and Steve Connors were compelled to film this documentary during their early reporting of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. They used the al-Adhamiya neighborhood of Baghdad to explore and depict an insurgency that has been caricatured by the Bush Administration.

Bingham, who has reported previously from Rwanda, the Gaza Strip, and Iran, was the official photographer to the Office of the Vice President of the United States from 1998 to 2001. She believes that it is imperative to understand the people within the resistance if the United States is to find a solution to the Iraq quagmire.
...

The eighty-five-minute groundbreaking film focuses on ten members of the Iraqi resistance. Interspersed with stunning footage of the aftermath of car bomb attacks, of frightened soldiers aiming their weapons at crowds of Iraqis, and of burning remains of destroyed military vehicles, the meat of the film is the words of the fighters themselves.

"I felt a fire in my heart," one of them recounts. "When they occupied Iraq, they subjugated me, subjugated my sister, subjugated my mother, subjugated my honor, my homeland. Every time I saw them I felt pain. They pissed me off, so I started working [in the resistance]."

The complex nature of their lives speaks to the intricacies of the Iraqi resistance.

...
"To place an opponent like the Iraqi resistance in the human space of ordinary people defending their right to self-determination is to challenge our view of ourselves as liberators," says Connors.
While laying bare the motivations of the resistance, the film also does a forceful job of dispelling other myths.
One of the interviewed, referred to as "The Republican Guard" since he was a career officer in Saddam Hussein's military, is a Sunni married to a Shia woman. "The Sunni and Shia are bound together by blood and family ties," he explains. "I am married to a Shia, my sister is married to a Shia. I can’t kill my own children's uncles or kill my wife, the mother of my children."
One scene includes a butcher hacking away at a side of beef. "Iraq is our homeland, it's our Iraq," he says. "If you don't defend your land, you will not defend your honor."
The film recognizes that the resistance has the tacit support of a large percentage of the population, even though the Bush Administration doesn't acknowledge this.

"The Administration chooses to portray people who oppose their will in Iraq as terrorists or extremists who live on the fringes of Iraqi society, isolated from their own countrymen," says Bingham. "Without doubt some individuals involved in attacking U.S. troops are 'extreme' in their beliefs, and they are relentless fighters in the pursuit of their goals, but they are very human and very much part of the social structure of Iraqi society, and move within it. If we removed the context of occupation—in all its forms—from Iraq, most of them would stand down and return to their lives."
...
Bingham feels that the film represented a radically different perspective to the military personnel who viewed it.
"The bulk of the people were taking on new information that was a dramatic paradigm shift for them," she says. "To see their enemy as largely fighting for their homeland because of nationalism and religion, rather than being terrorists, is a big deal."

Dahr Jamail is the author of the recently released book "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq." Jamail spent eight months reporting from Iraq, and has been covering the Middle East for over four years for the Inter Press Service, The Sunday Herald, Foreign Policy in Focus, andThe Independent, among others.

U.S. Aggression Led to "Worst of All Worlds", Says Archbishop

In an interview with a UK Muslim magazine

THE Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the United States wields its power in a way that is worse than Britain during its imperial heyday.
Rowan Williams claimed that America’s attempt to intervene overseas by “clearing the decks” with a “quick burst of violent action” had led to “the worst of all worlds”.
In a wide-ranging interview with a British Muslim magazine, the Anglican leader linked criticism of the United States to one of his most pessimistic declarations about the state of western civilisation.
He said the crisis was caused not just by America’s actions but also by its misguided sense of its own mission. He poured scorn on the “chosen nation myth of America, meaning that what happens in America is very much at the heart of God’s purpose for humanity”.

Williams went beyond his previous critique of the conduct of the war on terror, saying the United States had lost the moral high ground since September 11. He urged it to launch a “generous and intelligent programme of aid directed to the societies that have been ravaged; a check on the economic exploitation of defeated territories; a demilitarisation of their presence”.
He went on to suggest that the West was fundamentally adrift: “Our modern western definition of humanity is clearly not working very well. There is something about western modernity which really does eat away at the soul.”
Williams suggested American leadership had broken down: “We have only one global hegemonic power. It is not accumulating territory: it is trying to accumulate influence and control. That’s not working.”
He contrasted it unfavourably with how the British Empire governed India. “It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly, that’s what the British Empire did — in India, for example.
“It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put it back together — Iraq, for example.”
In the interview in Emel, a Muslim lifestyle magazine, Williams makes only mild criticisms of the Islamic world. He said the Muslim world must acknowledge that its “political solutions were not the most impressive”.
He commends the Muslim practice of praying five times a day, which he says allows the remembrance of God to be “built in deeply in their daily rhythm”.

The above is all a quote from that article. Check the above link for the entire interview. His critique of the Muslim world is called "mild" but worth hearing.

Charley Reese: Israel is a Huge Liability, on Moral Low Road

This is verbatim from a column few have the courage to write. It is sometimes followed by death or death threats... against those who challenge the "Israel Right or Wrong" policy:

Dump Israel

by Charley Reese

It is long past time for American politicians to quit carrying water for the state of Israel and its powerful U.S. lobby. Congress' craven obedience to the lobby is a disgrace.

America's strategic interests in the Middle East lie with the Arab countries. Israel is a strategic and economic liability. The U.S. government's slavish support of Israel brands us as a hypocrite and is responsible for most of the hostility toward the U.S.

Americans have been brainwashed into believing that it's the Arabs, and the Palestinians in particular, who don't want peace. That is a big lie. The Palestinians made an enormous concession when they agreed to settle for a state on 18 percent of Palestine. Saudi Arabia proposed several years ago a peace plan in which all of the Arab countries would recognize Israel in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. The Israelis rejected it out of hand, just as they reject Arab efforts to have the Middle East a nuclear-free zone.

Israel's goal is and always has been to take all of Palestine and to get rid of the Palestinians. The Israelis employed ethnic cleansing in 1948 and again in 1967 to make hundreds of thousands of Palestinians refugees. For 40 years, the Israelis have refused to give back the Palestinian and Syrian lands they seized in war. They have blatantly violated international law by building settlements on occupied land, and by violating the airspace of other sovereign countries.

Palestinians are the victims, not the villains, in this case. The Israelis make their lives miserable in the hope they will give up and leave. At the same time, the Israelis, in cahoots with the American government, maintain a charade of proposed peace talks. They of course never come to fruition. The Israeli government is not about to allow the Palestinians to have a viable state. If they give the Palestinians anything, it will be a patchwork of enclaves completely surrounded and controlled by Israel. Having created 700,000 Palestinian refugees, the Israelis have from the beginning refused to allow them to return to their homes, farms and businesses, all of which Israel confiscated on the specious grounds that they were "abandoned property."

Without U.S. aid, which now is conservatively estimated to total $108 billion (think of the infrastructure and schools that amount could build in the U.S.), and without the U.S. wielding its veto every time the United Nations tries to act, none of this would be possible.

It is not just the Muslim world that hates our pro-Israel foreign policy, for sound reasons that it is unjust and cruel. Europeans and others around the world are contemptuous of America's slavelike obedience to a small foreign power. It has gotten to the point that to be seen as an ally of the United States is viewed negatively.

The Arab and Muslim people, with the exception of al-Qaida, don't hate America or Americans. It is the pro-Israel foreign policy and, of course, our invasions of two Muslim countries that they hate. Virtually all of the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim propaganda generated in this country has its source in the Israeli lobby and in Israel itself.

Thanks to the unconstitutional largess of the cowardly Congress, Israel is a rich country and one of the world's leading military powers. It doesn't need American aid. It is time to quit dancing to the tune of a lobby with dual loyalties and to pursue America's interests.

Americans are being betrayed by their own politicians, and it's time to treat those scoundrels with the contempt they deserve.

Muslim Hero to New York Subway Jews

In a twist on post-9/11 worldviews, a young Muslim man risked his life to help two Jewish victims of a racist attack in a New York subway. The perpetrators were yelling "Merry Christmas!" and in response, a young Jewish couple said "Happy Hannukah!" - it being, in fact, Hannukah at the time and not Christmas, incidentally - to which the Christmas-yellers responded by a brutal physical attack. The Muslim, a Sunni originally from Pakistan - ooh, doesn't he fit the terrorist profile? - came to their rescue, and was himself beaten up by the Merry Christmas crew.

Now don't tell me about how many Christians are shuddering, saying "That's not typical of us!"

Will they instead say, "That's not typical of Muslims!" ... ???

Don't they represent Pat Robertson and his ilk? Don't those thugs represent Christendom and those who follow the many and sundry sects and visions and splinter groups of Christianity? Don't they speak for every and any Christian? If they yelled "Kill the Jews!" - well, didn't Hitler do that, too? So shall we arrest all Christians then, to save the Jews? Are not all Christians alike?

If you don't think so, then why do you apply the same great logic to Muslims? Is not Osama bin Laden the Spokesperson at Large for all Islam? Looks like Gitmo will be the destiny for a hell of a lot of people if we don't rein in our profiling proliferation...

We'll have to detain all Christians on suspicion of killing the Jews, and presumably, to appease the Evangelical wing, detain Jews because if Jesus comes again they might kill him, and of course, we're already detaining Muslims because they are known to be bloodthirsty. Humankind is really basically rotten, and that's what Guantanamo and the Patriot Act and the whole War on Terror are all about. It's about saving humans from themselves by locking them up so somebody can get rich.

Hopefully, that someone will ride the subway ... if there's anyone left to run it. In the meantime, those of us in the real world ought to sit back and enjoy this news story that has a good ending, breaking all the neocon Cheney-Bush-driven stereotypes that are pulling us back into a very dangerous netherworld.

A huge thank you to Hassan Askari!

"Weather Warfare" - Using Climate as a Weapon: It's Here

Playing God has been an apparent Republican pastime the last 8 years, and now it's been taken to the ultimate Zeusian extreme: using weather as a weapon, employing the latest technology....

It's not just for the defunct Weekly World News anymore.

Check out this blockbuster - climate change, yes, but as a weapon, courtesy of the U.S. government:

"Rarely acknowledged in the debate on global climate change, the world’s weather can now be modified as part of a new generation of sophisticated electromagnetic weapons. Both the US and Russia have developed capabilities to manipulate the climate for military use.

Environmental modification techniques have been applied by the US military for more than half a century. US mathematician John von Neumann, in liaison with the US Department of Defense, started his research on weather modification in the late 1940s at the height of the Cold War and foresaw ‘forms of climatic warfare as yet unimagined’. During the Vietnam war, cloud-seeding techniques were used, starting in 1967 under Project Popeye, the objective of which was to prolong the monsoon season and block enemy supply routes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The US military has developed advanced capabilities that enable it selectively to alter weather patterns. The technology, which is being perfected under the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), is an appendage of the Strategic Defense Initiative – ‘Star Wars’. From a military standpoint, HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction, operating from the outer atmosphere and capable of destabilising agricultural and ecological systems around the world.
While the substance of the 1977 Convention was reasserted in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, debate on weather modification for military use has become a scientific taboo. "

Since when did the neocons recognize taboos? It's Machiavelli trumping conscience...

"But Rosalie Bertell, president of the International Institute of Concern for Public
Health, says HAARP operates as ‘a gigantic heater that can cause major disruptions in the ionosphere, creating not just holes, but long incisions in the protective layer that keeps
deadly radiation from bombarding the planet’. Physicist Dr Bernard Eastlund called it ‘the
largest ionospheric heater ever built’.

HAARP is presented by the US Air Force as a
research programme, but military documents confirm its main objective is to ‘induce
ionospheric modifications’ with a view to altering weather patterns and disrupting communications and radar. According to a report by the Russian State Duma: ‘The US plans to
carry out large-scale experiments under the HAARP programme [and] create weapons capable of breaking radio communication lines and equipment installed on spaceships and rockets, provoke serious accidents in electricity networks and in oil and gas pipelines, and have a negative impact on the mental health of entire regions.’

An analysis of statements emanating from the US Air Force points to the unthinkable: the
covert manipulation of weather patterns, communications and electric power systems
as a weapon of global warfare, enabling the US to disrupt and dominate entire regions.

Obviously, the campaign against weapons of mass destruction doesn't apply to the U.S.
Read more...

Why Abbas Does Not Represent Palestine

They call him a "Palestinian Leader" or the President of the "Palestinian Authority" or even of "Fatah", but Mahmoud Abbas does not represent Palestine or the Palestinian people. He represents what Israel wants.

He represents the view that Israel is the be-all and end-all of the place once called Palestine, and represents recognition of the Superpower behind the throne. He represents the view that capitulation to demands of a power will bring rewards.

Maybe he represents himself and his own power, which will certainly increase if he agrees to Israeli demands. He may see himself as bringing peace by submission to Israel, as a compromiser who will finally end years of conflagration by waving a white flag. He may believe the very superficial promises given to him by Israeli officials and the highly trustworthy George W. Bush, whose integrity, like that of Olmert, have the sort of impeccable reputation that could only be worthy of a great stone wall inscribed with the words "the end justifies the means" and "what serves our immediate purpose overrides all other considerations."

George W. and Olmert have one common vision: the eradication of the Palestinian problem by the elimination of as many Palestinians as possible without anyone realizing it or causing any international outcry.

In other words, stealth slaughter.

It starts with bulldozers, settlements, checkpoints, walls and barbed wire. It continues with a public relations campaign and propaganda completely denigrating and humiliating the Palestinian people in the most insidious ways, in order to form public opinion about them that they are mostly terrorists, lowlifes, and not worthy of our time or consideration.

They appeal to fear, from xenophobia to the strongest fear - fear of terror, fear of fear itself. They use a few scapegoats to massacre the reputation of a nation. They will never hesitate to use collective punishment, and they never cry a tear over a single child, infant or mother, let alone fathers, sons, adults...

They never show Palestinian families, but always "terrorists", suicide bombers. As if the pain of having one's home bulldozed and one's family killed over mere suspicion is nothing. But any Israeli pain is everything. Palestinians' families don't count. Israelis' families are worth dying for, worth billions of tax dollars, worth endless eulogies. The Palestinians are poor, and poverty always makes for bad P.R. The Israelis are rich and can afford the best P.R. money can buy.

And so when Abbas agrees that Israel is a "Jewish Homeland", he opens the doors to genocide of all non-Jews - read "Arabs", Palestinians - now living in Israel. They will be immediately deported, their lands taken over, and to hell with them. Why worry about sub-humans? The Jews are everything. The Palestinians can have their homeland.

Ah, that Israeli rhetoric. They will say anything to look good. They say the Palestinians need a homeland. And they will give it to them. A "homeland" under Israeli control. A "homeland" without nation status. They will be under restrictions from Israel. They cannot elect their own leaders or determine their own destiny. They will be under a new form of occupation called "Supervised Nationhood." They can have a flag, a president, a police force, some officials. But they cannot be free. Because Israel's "security" means Eternal Occupation, Eternal Control.

Like a control person on steroids, Israel can neither relinquish control nor take responsibility for its own massacres, cruelty, crimes, injustices, torture, imprisonment without recourse to justice, and other forms of outright oppression of the Palestinians. They do the unconscionable in the name of "conscience."

Being Jewish should never mean that. It shouldn't mean merely a DNA ticket to impunity. It should have the more profound meaning that many thinking Jews have espoused over the years. But instead it merely means the right to oppress, to deny others their meagerest of human rights in the name of security for what for all intents and purposes amounts to a Master Race. The idea of a Jewish State is no different than the idea of an Aryan Nation. Both are based on race, and both are responses to suffering and loss. The idea is so imbalanced that it can never succeed.

Abbas ignores all this and goes all the way with Olmert in giving him a free ticket to oppression. It is not even good for Israel, because the position is in the long run untenable. But Abbas takes the path of expediency, the easier road, the road of capitulation.

The Palestinians are at a crossroads. Now their very right to exist has been essentially signed away by one man. That is, if Abbas represents the Palestinian people. But he does not. He was neither elected nor is his authority recognized by a majority of Palestinians. So under what authority does he sign this so-called "peace accord"? The authority of Israel? The United States? Do they now represent Palestine?

Hamas separated from Fatah because Fatah was both corrupt and representing the tendency to give in under enormous pressure. Fatah, under Abbas' leadership, represents Israel, not the Palestinians. Israel represents its own interests. Someone must be strong to represent the Palestinians, who have little power and even less money, but they do have powerful motivation and spiritual drive. But Hamas has been declared a terrorist organization! Hamas, the party elected to power by an election supervised by an "objective third party", under the leadership of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter - is now a non-entity.

Palestinians elect a leadership, later to be kidnapped by Israel under the usual auspices: "security", that catch-all reason for all injustices and atrocities. Then that leadership is declared by the United States Superpower to be a "terrorist organization". Making it an infraction and "evil" act to support Hamas with money or other means. So who is supposed to represent the Palestinian people? The "approved" Mahmoud Abbas who now signed away all rights for Palestinians to ever achieve any semblance of justice or independence or nationhood?

There are many who declare Israel a terrorist nation. But "terrorism" is a label never given to the strong - but always to the weaker. If a tyrant strikes, it's a government action. If a freedom fighter rebels in defense of his family or his people, he's a "terrorist". Both are collective punishment. Both strike innocent civilians. Both are technically despicable. But one does it to maintain power, the other to defend the innocent, right wrongs, and to survive. Until the strong listen to the motives of the weak, they can never end the war on terrorism. They should really fight a war on oppression. But how can an oppressor fight oppression?

Maybe Hamas is trying to tell us something. They did try to fight oppression, at least. If we recognized them, too, maybe a leader among them would stand as a strong representative of the Palestinian people and hence, a true peace accord would be reached. But these forced false papers represent nothing, bring nothing but pain and oppression to Palestinians, and are only documents of domination. In terms of true peace, the peace accords are unconscionable and worthless.

Everything You Need to Know About the "Peace Conference"

Here's your portrait of the Annapolis "Peace Conference". I'm sure there will be many more such portraits to come, knowing that the "Road Map" to destruction has been signed by all parties. Maybe that's why Hamas split off from Fatah - people are tired of their homes becoming mere "photo ops" like the one at left.

There was a photo op in Annapolis. As usual, Israel Antoinette took the cake. Palestinians, as usual, got screwed. Everybody's smiling.

But wait! If you want to know the truth, the very big hard truth, behind the facade, read Heathlander's post on this subject. As usual, it's well worth every minute of your time.

This paragraph succinctly points out the pointlessness of such "peace process" exercises, and of Israeli's bad intentions towards the whole thing:

What this all amounts to, then, is a demand that the Palestinians provide Israel with complete security while remaining under occupation. This is absurd - as a British MP recently put it, the Israeli position is akin to “that of somebody who stands on somebody else’s toes and says that they will get off only when that person stops screaming.” The idea that the Palestinian Authority - which, as the International Crisis Group points out, Israel has “all but destroyed” in the past seven years, to the point where it can barely move a hundred policemen from one town to another because of Israeli checkpoints - can provide Israel with security under conditions of occupation when the IDF, the fourth ranking military on the planet, is unable to do so is, as Daniel Levy puts it, “a nonsense”. It is an impossible demand, and deliberately so. It is designed to be unachievable in order to provide Israel with an excuse to string out negotiations indefinitely while continuing its colonial policies on the ground.

Heathlander further notes that: "it is particularly offensive to revert back to the roadmap like this given that Israel has been violating the agreement from day one."

He concludes:

That the Palestinian Authority and the Arab regimes have signed on to a process which ratifies the roadmap as the only framework for resolving the conflict in return for an agreement which addresses none of the core issues and which gives Israel a free hand to continue its oppressive and colonial policies in the Occupied Territories is nothing short of a betrayal of the Palestinian cause.

And then there's another view: In "Chasing a ghost," an article subheaded "Annapolis The 'viable Palestinian state' is an illusion, a deformed reality from which Palestinians must break free", writer Soumaya Ghannoushi says there are two basic limitations to this supposed peace conference:

The first of these is Bush's letter to former Israeli Prime Minister Sharon of 14 April 2004 which was ratified in both houses of the US Congress. The document confers full American backing for Israel's positions regarding refugees - who would be settled outside Israel's borders in contravention of UN resolution 194, which demands their immediate return to their homes - and illegal settlements, since as it states "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centres, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949." In other words, Palestinians should accept Israel's expropriations as a fait accompli.

The second is the demand that Arabs recognise the Jewishness of the Israeli state. This would effectively wipe out the existence of over four million Palestinian refugees. It would mean the legitimisation of the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians by Zionist gangs and militias in the lead up to, and after the establishment of the state of Israel and possible ethnic cleansing of the remaining 1.5 millions inside Israel.

So the right to a Palestinian State is not really that at all. In fact, as the author says, the tough issues are being sidetracked by a made-for-Israel "Palestinian Dream"...

Instead, we will hear much on the coming of the "viable Palestinian state", an amorphous shapeless and faceless notion devised to divert attention from the real issues on the ground. This is one of history's greatest fallacies; a "state" founded with no distinct boundaries, no coherent territory, no freedom of movement, no control over borders, water, airspace or communications, no economic viability, no military, and not even the right to forge alliances without Israeli permission.
A handful of scattered cantons enclosed by Israel from all sides, this "state" had been invented to fulfil a crucial task: the regulation of the indigenous population's movement internally - much like the colonial administrations of old. What it amounts to in the final run is a collection of security services devised to relieve the Israeli military machine of the Palestinian burden. Yitzhak Rabin used to wish that he would awake in the morning and find that Gaza had drowned in the sea. Oslo was his chance to do just that...

It is time they shook off the suicidal illusion of statehood. Had the Algerians, Vietnamese, or any of the nations whose lands were occupied throughout history viewed their reality through the prism of the "viable state", they would have never wrested land and sovereignty and never founded a state. Liberating land and freeing sovereignty are the way to the state and not the other way round.

But she does not say exactly what path should be followed next. And she shouldn't. If she did, I'm sure the map would be burned.

Computers as Bad as SUV's for Climate, Report Says

Pollution on the information superhighway? Trewin Restorick, Director of Global Action Plan, a UK-based environmental organisation, says simply increasing the efficiency of energy use and data storage could easily cut 30% of power use in businesses. "In theory, this could happen overnight," he said.

Read more why your computers, especially if you are an IT company, are just as big a threat to the earth as those devilish SUVs.

Out of Guantanamo, and into the fire

Bridgethought of the Day: Injustice always blows back ... eventually...

Here's a great article about a horrible subject:

The recent conviction, in a Tunisian court, of former Guantanamo detainee Abdullah bin Omar undermines claims by the Bush administration that it has found adequate ways of repatriating wrongly arrested detainees to their home countries.

A former railway engineer, bin Omar, who is 51, left Tunisia because of religious persecution in 1989. Taking his wife and children with him, he moved to Pakistan, where he was seized at his home by Pakistani police in May 2002. He later claimed, as did numerous other detainees, that, as a result of bounty payments offered by the Americans for Al-Qaeda or Taliban suspects, he was sold to US forces for $5,000.

Held for five years without charge or trial in Guantanamo, bin Omar was accused of traveling to Pakistan "under Osama bin Laden's protection," of running a guest house for fighters in Afghanistan, and of having various connections with Al-Qaeda. He maintained, however, that he had never even visited Afghanistan, and had not been "a member of any type of group or organization while he lived in Pakistan." The allegations had evidently evaporated by early 2007, when he was cleared for release by a military review board.

...Read more...

Nightmare Rape Meets Saudi Y "Utopia"

The illustrious "blueblood" cum Citibank bigwig Alwaleed Al-Talal, once described his kingdom as "Utopia" - we'll footnote that For Royal Men ... if you want to find justice, wealth or even utopia in Saudi Arabia, you'd better show your y chromosomes - even if you're born there...


Someone at the top must be in a state of shock. Not about the brutal gang-rape of a 19-year-old by seven Saudi thugs, or the rape of the male who was driving her home. Not about a judge meting out the brutal "punishment" of 200 lashes on the victim, plus six months prison. Not about her brother attempting to kill her for "shaming" her family by being raped at knife-point. Not about the initial sentence in which one of her rapists was given fewer lashes than she was. Not about doubling her sentence only because she told her story to "the media". Not even that this punishment has no basis in the Shari'a or in the Qur'an or in Islam - except insofar as they impose a "false Shari'a" worse than anything David Horowitz could dream up.

No. Saudi royal sensibilities are shocked that the rest of the world doesn't think 200 lashes and six months in jail is a suitable punishment for being in a car with a man who is not her relative. So they came up with a solution. Now the Saudis changed their story, and it's not just about her being in a car with a relative. The "real story" now is that she is an "adulteress." So this is simply a different way of administering the Scarlet Letter.

Now the Saudi Ministry of Justice issued a statement in defense ofthe decision to punish the gang-rape victim with what could only be described as "cruel and unusual", to say the least - definitely draconian - by saying she "deserved" 200 lashes and 6 months in jail. For being what Greta van Susteren once termed "a floozy." The statement implied "that the woman had owned up to having an extramarital affair with the man in the car."

"She admitted to ... exchanging sinful relations," the statement said, adding
the woman was in state of undress with the man in the car before the attack took
place.

While her own testimony, both in court and to Human Rights Watch and the press, in an ABC News report, stated:

"I had a relationship with someone on the phone. We were both 16. I had never
seen him before. I just knew his voice. He started to threaten me, and I got
afraid. He threatened to tell my family about the relationship... "

She only went to meet the young man to retrieve a photo of herself to prevent him from blackmailing her. Because women by law can't drive in Saudi Arabia, he was her only way home. The 2 were kidnapped within minutes of reaching her home. As she describes,

"One of the men brought a knife to my throat. They told me not to speak. They
pushed us to the back of the car and started driving. We drove a lot, but I
didn't see anything since my head was forced down.
"They took us to an area
... with lots of palm trees. No one was there. If you kill someone there, no one
would know about it. They took out the man with me, and I stayed in the car. I
was so afraid. They forced me out of the car. They pushed me really hard ...
took me to a dark place. Then two men came in. They said, 'What are you going to
do? Take off your abaya.' They forced my clothes off. The first man with the
knife raped me. I was destroyed. If I tried to escape, I don't even know where I
would go. I tried to force them off but I couldn't."

The rest is even worse, as the whole world now knows. Yet the Saudi Ministry of Justice has the guts to claim that her testimony, from which the above is pretty much the same, admits "guilt" to "sinful relations", which the "official press" interprets as an extramarital affair. So again, the Saudi government wants to show that she "deserved" those 200 lashes, while they further smear her reputation.

I guess wearing a black cloak is no guarantee of protection from rape, or from being publicly humiliated with libelous statements. So what then is the point of the "abaya"? Why not ask a Saudi woman?

Hatoon al-Fassi, a history lecturer at King Saud university in Riyadh and
another women rights activist, agreed that women suffer from the lack of written
laws, which subjects rulings to the discretion of judges. "It all depends on the
reasoning of the judge," she told AFP. "It is good that the case has taken an
international dimension. It is shameful that such a case could have stayed
unspoken of... This is a ruling that has treated the victim as a culprit," she
said. "Such logic is so distant from Islam. It is the result of a
male-chauvinist reasoning," she charged.

"The woman does not have the right to represent herself in a court. She enters the court covered entirely in black. Some judges do not even allow her to speak," she said.

The victim's husband describes her situation, and how the court railroaded her.

The events ended her pursuit of an education past high school, he said. "Her
situation keeps changing from bad to worse," he said. "You could say she's a
crushed human being." "The court proceedings were like a spectacle at times," he
said. "The criminals were allowed in the same room as my wife. They were allowed
to make all kinds of offensive gestures and give her dirty and threatening
looks." Of the three judges at the trial, one of them "was mean and from the
beginning dealt with my wife as guilty person who had done something wrong," he
said.

It's not even her word against theirs. It's their word against ... a standing, mute, black-cloaked object. The judge was actually on the rapists' side, saying that she "brought it on" by being in a car with a man not a member of her family. Even though she was kidnapped along with the young man with her. But now the Saudi Ministry of Justice one-ups the judge, accusing her, against her own sworn testimony, of not only adultery, but being in "a state of undress", while riding home in a car in Saudi Arabia, no less. And this is supposed to "defend" the Saudis' position. So of course the woman is supposed, in their view, to be "of ill repute" and hence, "fair game" for gang-rape.

But again, she couldn't actually tell her story. It's not even her word against theirs. It's their word against ... a standing, mute, black-cloaked object. Women in Saudi Arabia can't speak in a court of law. A lawyer, or another man, have to speak for them. So imagine what that means when the judge summarily removes her attorney from the case. She becomes a mute, standing object draped in black. So the only testimony that can be heard is not that of the victim, but of the perpetrator.

Along with the young woman's sentence, the General Court of Qatif confiscated
the license of her attorney, Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, a lawyer known for taking on
controversial cases that push back against Saudi Arabia's strictly interpreted
system of sharia, or Islamic law.
"Asking me to appear in front of a
disciplinary committee at the Ministry of Justice ... is a punishment for taking
human rights cases against some institutions," Al-Lahem
told Arab News.

The ministry also stressed the Saudi judicial system was based on Islamic law derived from the holy Koran and that a court ruling in the kingdom was only made after both sides in a case are given a fair and balanced hearing.

And since there were "no confessions" and "no witnesses", there was not much of a case, according to the Saudi government. Right - the rapists conveniently withdrew their confessions when the thought of 100+ lashes began to sink in. And since their victim has no voice, their heads would remain safely on their necks.

On the other hand, a columnist in the Philadelphia Bulletin has opined:

The West has continuously failed to understand that the primary reason for the
Arab world's anti-Americanism is not because of our freedom, liberties and way
of life but because we are seen as meddling in the internal and sovereign
affairs of Arab countries.
Whether we like it or not, the Middle East, and
Saudi Arabia in particular, controls of much of the world's oil supply. Until
that situation changes, we would do well to heed the old adage "It's not what
you say; it's how you say it."

He's probably cool with Bush's original assessment: "astonishing." But until someone attacks and puts pressure on abusive governments, they will continue to act as they do without a care in the world. In the absence of conscience, what can human beings rely on if not social condemnation for abuse? The "Girl of Qatif", a Shi'a in a Sunni world, came before the court of the world because the Saudis do not hear. To remain silent on such abuse is to put oil before conscience, lucre before the soul.

It's not enough that Saudi Arabia has to smear a traumatized, innocent, and very young woman in a place where being smeared means being subhuman, "fair game" for brutality. They also smear Islam and the Qur'an, too, by claiming that this "justice system" is based on Islamic law. Since when did Saudi Arabia have anything to do with Islamic Law or the Qur'an, except in name only? Don't just blame David Horowitz...

200 lashes is not a punishment for any crime in the Qur'an. (And neither is stoning or beheading.) Being in the proximity of a man not a relative is also not a crime in the Qur'an. Nor does the Qur'an specifically require a woman to cover her face, or even her hair (except by interpretation of a word that means "ornaments"). But the Qur'an does mention the cutting off of hands for theft - which is also mentioned in the old Testament. But a greater law is "the rule of law must be by mutual agreement and discussion between you all." They call it "shura" and it's reduced under the Saudis to a few men lining up to politely ask for some favors from royals. What a farce!

Dictatorship is in fact against the Qur'an's guidance, if one were to take it seriously. But the Saudi royals wouldn't dare apply the real Shari'a. After all, they consider the country's resources as their pocket money. If the Shari'a were applied, imagine how many hands would fly... and considering the way judges lord it over their victims, they'd better watch their own necks .. or at least, backs.

As for the world's pressure on this case, at least it caused the Saudi delegation to the peace talks in Annapolis "embarrassment", according to sources. And judging by what "shame" means to a woman there, perhaps "embarrassment" on a public stage will have some impact on a man - or better yet, a few powerful men.

Dubai Bigger Than China? Same Boom, Labor Issues...

Check out this video on CNBC discussing Dubai's new emergence as a world tech Mecca - even allegedly bigger than China, according to the Guy from Google.

Note how the Dubai elite brush off issues regarding the slave labor conditions of their mostly Asian workers - who make up about 80% of the population in Dubai - who are not, and cannot become, Dubai citizens. Got a few issues here, if Dubai wants to be, as Mr. Alabbar, the man in charge of much of the building boom here, says, the new "hub" of the region that includes Pakistan, Iran, and of course, the Middle East. There has to be some honesty in the face of their long-held elitist attitude. One of the prices of the perks of progress. (Israel, are you listening?)

In Sports at Least, Palestine is a Nation - with a Winner

While doomed negotiations with the ever-refusing Israelis crawl in the vacuum tube called U.S. Foreign Policy, Palestine and its flag flies over athletics and bench-pressing as this record-setting athlete, Ahmed Abukhater, represents his country in world competition.

Who, incidentally, is also a water resources specialist at the University of Texas who can comment on the water crisis facing Gaza's 1.4 million residents.

Read more...

Be A Voice Against Torture

On Wednesday evening, the House of Representatives passed an Iraq withdrawal bill that provides interim funding for the hostilities in Iraq and calls for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. It includes an anti-torture provision that would require all government agencies - including the CIA - to follow the Army Field Manual when conducting interrogations. In doing so, it would prohibit torture and other such "harsh" interrogation techniques. Majority Leader Harry Reid has said that he will bring this bill before the Senate today (Friday, November 16, 2007).

Don't let the Senate debate a bill that relates to torture without expressing your support for the anti-torture provisions in the bill.

Please contact - by phone or by email - your Senators to express your support for the provision that would require the CIA and other government agencies to abide by the restrictions in the Army Field Manual on Interrogations. You can contact your Senators by calling the Senate switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or you can look up their direct lines and their email addresses at this website.

Bush/Cheney gun for Ahmedinejad; But Saudis "Tool up" for War, Too - The Devil is on Both Sides?

Richard Posner Favors Surveillance of All US Muslims

"There, but for the grace of God, go I." Under surveillance, Sheikh Posner! To the Kangaroo Court you go!"

The title is a link to this brainboggling article, which is the culmination of all things Orwellian where reason is replaced by the knee-jerk notion, "Have you screwed bin Laden today?"

Of course, it speaks volumes for the "First Freedom," freedom of religion. Which was right up there in the First Amendment along with freedom of speech until Mr. Posner came along and saw fit to class all Muslims with UBL, who has been trying hard to repent, but we just won't let 'im, folks.

Now bear in mind that Richard Posner is a possible Supreme Court Justice contender, and considered a "libertarian" or "liberal" as opposed to an "authoritarian". The Aussie article where this story broke, reports:

" Melbourne QC Tim Tobin said it was a shock to hear such hard and isolationist positions coming from a judge known as a liberal thinker. While he was disturbed by the judge's proposed crackdown on US and Canadian Muslims, he suspected the sentiment would be welcomed by the Howard Government.
Judge Posner raised the prospect of secret trials as a "tailored regime" to prosecute terrorists in cases where there was a concern about classified information going public.
Queensland SC Glenn Martin said he had been "jolted" by the address: "I hope we never have secret trials in Australia." "

It sounds like the notion of Big Brother and Kangaroo Courts is resonating in the supposed halls of justice. These guys no longer believe in justice. For justice cannot be meted out on the basis of fear, or on the basis of emotions. Maybe he never heard of the Salem witchcraft trials. Maybe he forgot about the Spanish inquisition. When emotions, especially fear, are running high, well, it's hard to really believe in due process. Ask any crime victim. On the other hand, shall we give up 200 years of due process for which our founding fathers fought so hard because some old guys are so whipped up into a state of fear that they forget the cause of all their terror in the first place?

And what's that "cause"? It's their own demons: greed, blindness, power-lust, oppression, cruelty, and prejudice. Withdraw the troops from invasive ill-begotten wars, stop financing the eternal Israeli occupation of the Palestinians (with oppression and murder and bulldozing rampant), take care of our own Americans, hold together our respected and free Republic, give what we can to the hungry and downtrodden, and the "terrorists", especially the "Islamic terrorists", will vanish into the sunset, quite suddenly. Leaving a struggling but peaceful, and terror-free landscape. Not a dream, not a promise, but an obvious, glaring truth.

One species, too many lies. Truth endures.

Record number of Chinese Muslims making pilgrimage to Makkah

Many people do not know that Islam is alive and well in China. Oh, yes, and that it's universal, and has nothing to do with being of one ethnicity or another. Contrary to popular opinion.

Just some stats:

To prevent possible accidents, China's Regulations on Religious Affairs,
which was promulgated in 2004, stipulates that all outbound pilgrimage
activities of Chinese Muslims should be organized by the national Islamic
association, referring to the IAC.

China has more than 20 million Muslims, mainly living in Xinjiang,
Qinghai, Ganshu, Ningxia, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia and Henan. Starting in
1985, nearly 100,000 Muslims have fulfilled their pilgrimages.

Cyclone Sidr about to hit: Networks in Vegas

Bridgethought of the day: Do you ever get the feeling "World News" is just another franchise bought by - who else? - either Rupert Murdoch, Sam Walton's kids, or Alwaleed bin Talal?

Here's another post on the same subject - Cyclone Sidr, that is.

Surge Success: "There is no one left for them to kill"

The news is full of it: Casualties in Iraq are down, the Surge is a success. Bush/Cheney and Al-Maliki claim that they have "won" a "victory" over the "militants" - whatever that means. They cite recent lower casualty numbers, claiming the "surge" worked, and things are getting better. But people on the ground have a different explanation for the relative calm, which is atypical of the rest of 2007.
"There is no one left for them to kill," 55-year-old retired teacher Nathum Taha told IPS in Baghdad. "The Americans continue to use Arab Shia Iraqi militias to kill Sunnis, but most people have left by now."
Now the city of Baghdad, and much of the nation that was Iraq before we invaded it, is divided along sectarian lines. Where once Shi'a and Sunni families coexisted peacefully, there are ethnic cleansings that have driven many into "safe" neighborhoods, and others are refugees in strange cities, if they can't leave Iraq altogether. And it's not because they're naturally violent or divisive as the Republicans would have you believe...

This assessment from an Iraqi who voiced what people who have to live in the war zone are saying:

"Americans and Iranians have succeeded in realising their old dream of dividing the Iraqi people into sects. That is the only success they can talk about."

"If the situation is good, why are five million Iraqis living in exile," says 55- year-old Abu Mohammadwho was evicted from Shula in West Baghdad to become a refugee in Amiriya, a few miles from his lost home.

"Sectarian killings are less because all the Sunnis have been evicted from mixed areas in Baghdad," Salman Hameed, a teacher who was evicted from the al-Hurriya area west of Baghdad eight months ago told IPS. "All my relatives and Sunni neighbours who survived the killing campaign led by the militias under the eyes of American and Iraqi forces have fled either to Syria or to other Sunni cities."

Over 30 tons of cluster bombs, which are known for their heavy "collateral damage" on civilian populations, were dropped in the first 6 months of 2007. And that's not counting the
"Attacks against U.S. forces are not much less than they were last month, but media coverage has almost disappeared," Muhammad Younis from Mosul, in Baghdad on a business trip, told IPS. "The resistance is moving fast and changing locations in order to avoid intelligence provided by collaborators. Most Iraqis hate the Americans more than ever after the death and destruction caused by their occupation."

"American air raids are increasing in a way that shows a total failure on the ground," a retired general of the dissolved Iraqi army told IPS. "A whole family was killed near Madayin, southeast Baghdad on Saturday (Nov. 3) just after the tragic bombing of houses south of Tikrit (about 100 km north of Baghdad) where more than 10 civilians were killed."

On Nov. 4, Iraqi army personnel backed by U.S. soldiers detained 12 people during a raid on the Sunni Abu Hanifa mosque in the Adhamiyah district of northern Baghad.

"Those American and government forces could not face the resistance fighters, so they arrest innocent people," Aziz Thafir, a lawyer who witnessed the arrests, told IPS. "They started their raid with nasty sectarian words against Sunnis, and then arrested every one who was around in the mosque."
"They are more vicious than they were before," 44-year-old Abu Ahmed told IPS in the capital. "This is a religious war against Sunnis, who would not accept the occupation and division of the country."

Many Iraqis believe the sectarian violence is being perpetrated or orchestrated by the U.S., not prevented or stopped by them, as presented in American public propaganda, aka media blitzes. And they see that reporting is not accurate either - attacks by U.S. and Iraqi forces, as well as Iraqi police, against Iraqi civilians, are not being covered. They see the U.S. as working on a "divide and conquer" policy, and the lessening of violence as merely the result of so many people having either been killed or fled as refugees - plus the dividing of their cities into ethnically cleansed "havens".

"I would like to agree with the idea that violence in Iraq has decreased and
that everything is fine," retired general Waleed al-Ubaidy told IPS
in Baghdad. "But the truth is far more bitter. All that has happened is a
dramatic change in the demographic map of Iraq."
And as with Baquba and
other violence-hit areas of Iraq, he says a part of the story in Baghdad is that
there is nobody left to tell it. "Most of the honest journalists have
left."
"Baghdad has been torn into two cities and many towns and
neighbourhoods," Ahmad Ali, chief engineer from one of Baghdad's municipalities
told IPS. "There is now the Shia Baghdad and the Sunni Baghdad to start with.
Then, each is divided into little town-like pieces of the hundreds of thousands
who had to leave their homes."

The U.S. has to answer questions about possible complicity.

"The Americans ask (Prime Minister Nouri al) Maliki to stop the sectarian assassinations when they know very well that his ministers are ordering the sectarian cleansing," Mahmood Farhan from the Muslim Scholars Association, a leading Sunni group, told IPS.

At least they could have read

"A UN report released September 2005 held interior ministry forces responsible for an organised campaign of detentions, torture and killings. It said special police commando units accused of carrying out the killings were recruited from the Shia Badr and Mehdi militias.
Retired Col. James Steele, who served as advisor to Iraqi security forces under former U.S. ambassador John Negroponte, supervised the training of these forces.

Steele had been commander of the U.S. military advisors group in El Salvador in 1984-86; Negroponte was U.S. ambassador to neighbouring Honduras 1981-85. Negroponte was accused of widespread human rights violations by the Honduras Commission on Human Rights in 1994. The Commission reported the torture and disappearance of at least 184 political workers.
The violations Negroponte oversaw in Honduras were carried out by operatives trained by the CIA, according to a CIA working group set up in 1996 to look into the U.S. role in Honduras.
The CIA records document that "special intelligence units", better known as "death squads", comprised CIA-trained Honduran armed units which kidnapped, tortured and killed thousands of people suspected of supporting leftist guerrillas.
Negroponte was ambassador to Iraq for close to a year from June 2004. "

Makes you wonder what those in Iraq were really trained to do. Why then don't the Democrats put up a stronger fight to stop this disastrous war?

Here's a taste of life under an Emperor. We can be put in jail for not paying taxes. $10 billion of those taxes can be given unconditionally to a dictator in a far-away country, say, Pakistan, because Dick and George say they get it. And there ain't a damn thing you or Congress or anyone else can do about it. Because now it's Dick and George's money.

According to the Washington Post article:

U.S. assistance to the key anti-terrorism and nuclear armed ally _ which has totaled nearly $10 billion since 2001 _ is governed by legislative requirements that could trigger automatic aid cutoffs, but all are covered by locked-in presidential waivers, said officials familiar with a government-wide review.

Those waivers exempt Pakistan from aid restrictions.

If you look closely, you'll find a lot of those waivers. And Presidential directives. And signing statements. And there ain't a damn thing you or the Congress or anyone else can do about it. Because Dick wants George to be an Emperor, and y'all to be an Empire. An expensive enterprise, that. So far in human history, there's no nation that could ever really afford it.

Being an empire inevitably costs more than any one nation can produce, and its subjected sub-nations invariably hate the imposition, which usually leads to unrest, often civil war, and as long as it's an empire and handled militarily, rarely offers those riches and resources so desired by the invading powers.

So Pakistan, run by a military dictatorship, is actually "on the road to democracy"? And guess who's footing the bill for that democracy?

"Bush has been obligated by law since 2002 to issue waivers for most assistance to Pakistan, declaring that direct payments to Islamabad are in the U.S. national interest because they promote the transition to democratic rule. The officials familiar with the aid review conceded Musharraf's recent actions are at odds with the process of democratization but noted that unless Congress enacts new legislation or passes the new budget, the existing waivers continue to apply."

And the war in Iraq is also touted for promoting democracy. That's the whole point.

Building an empire. Democracy by force. And you pay ... or else...

Dalia Karpel Meets the Occupation: Her Riveting Story: "My God, What Did We Do?"

One night, Tamar Yarom was awakened by one of the soldiers in her unit. He said he wanted to show her something in the basement of the abandoned building where they were staying. "Before we opened the door, I heard this awful noise from a generator and there was a strong smell of diesel fuel. I saw a middle-aged Palestinian detainee lying with his head on the generator. His ear was pressed against the generator that was vibrating, and the guy's head was vibrating with it. His face was completely messed up. It amazed me that through all the blood and horror, you could still see the guy's expression and that's what stayed with me for years after - the look on his face." Yarom, now a film director, made two films following her army service as a mashakit tash (welfare officer) in an infantry company in the territories.

Read the rest...

"Aliens in America": Comic Diplomacy Trumps Guns ... Hopefully

In the war on terror, is there a more effective weapon in ... comedy? In a new sitcom on CW network, "Aliens in America," comedy wins.

An interview with "Mad About You" co-creator David Guarascio on the altmuslim website reveals how the show was conceived and ultimately became the first TV series with a lead character who is also a Muslim Pakistani teen in suburban America - and the whole thing actually succeeds in being funny. As Guarascio says,
"We also started talking about politics and the giant gap that exists between Americans and really the rest of the world, specifically the Muslim world. In that stew, we sort of came up with the idea for the show."

The "situation" involves "all the insecurities, anxieties, and nightmare experiences of high school" and the interviewer, Wajahat Ali, notes "the main character Justin Tolchuk, played by Dan Byrd, is one of the unluckiest and dorkiest teenagers I've seen on television in a long time." Guarascio describes him as "feeling like an alien in his own school."
"So, the idea is that we are all sort of aliens in one way or another."
The reaction from the American Muslim community has been very enthusiastic. As Guarascio reveals,
"The first results we usually get from Muslims is "thank you for doing a comedy," Nobody ever called MPAC with a comedy, usually it's very serious, a drama, not always terrorism, but always very, very serious. So, they said thank you for a comedy because it allows people to relax a bit and is a lot more inclusive, and more can identify with comedy than drama."
Interestingly, the idea for the main protaganist, Justin, comes from the experiences of Guarascio's co-creator for the show, Moses Port, who
"comes from a small town that is entirely Christian and he was just one of the couple of Jewish kids in his school. During Christmas time, the whole school would sing Christmas songs together, and they would put Moses and one other kid on stage to sing Hanukkah songs. So, he has distinctive feelings about being marked for his differences."
The feeling of being a stranger in a strange land could, through the universal medium of humor, bring together people who, in other circumstances, have been at war. The real war on terror is in breaking down the terror, the fear, the xenophobia, the ethnic prejudices on all sides. With comedy? Well, it's universal, it's a common language, it's not aggressive, it's compelling, and compared with the military weapons we've spent so much on, maybe it's more effective.
We need a surge of great universal sitcoms... right about now...
After all, America has successfully brought together vastly different people from clashing cultures to live together in relative peace in one society. The very charisma of that idea helps form the bond that keeps us together.
Maybe this comedy-to-peace thing should go farther. How about a surge of great universal sitcoms? ... once we get those explosives out of the way...

Omar Khadr Update

This from the ACLU:

"ACLU attorney Jamil Dakwar is in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba serving as a human rights observer at the hearing of a Canadian citizen named Omar Ahmed Khadr. Khadr was only 15 years old when he was captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. This is his third hearing; the first two resulted in the charges against him being thrown out.
After nearly six years of disarray and uncertainty about how to prosecute the 320 remaining prisoners being held at Guantánamo Bay, the U.S. government has failed to complete a single trial. As the prisoners continue to languish without being charged or tried, one thing remains crystal clear: We cannot arbitrarily detain prisoners, deny them access to lawyers, and hold them indefinitely.
It is also clear that Congress cannot continue to put off taking action, they need to close Guantánamo Bay, restore habeas corpus and repudiate torture once and for all. In the meantime, you and I cannot wait for a change in Congress or the White House to demand that our leaders fix the damage done to the Constitution, our freedoms and our most fundamental American values over the last seven years.
That’s why we’re asking ACLU members to bring the discussion about these vital issues to their friends and family by hosting a screening of the powerful documentary, "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib," on or before December 10, International Human Rights Day. Sign up to host a screening. "

P.S. You don't have to be an ACLU member to do this (I don't believe).

And this blockbuster from CTV:

Khadr legal team says eyewitness was 'buried'

"The defence team for Canadian Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Khadr said they have just recently been told about an eyewitness who could provide "exculpatory information."
The surprise announcement came after a U.S. military judge postponed making a decision on whether Khadr is subject to a war-crimes tribunal.
Upon arriving at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, defence lawyers for Khadr told reporters that there was an eyewitness to the 2002 firefight that led to Khadr being charged in the death of U.S. Army Sgt. Christopher Speer.
CTV's Lisa LaFlamme reported from Guantanamo Bay that the witness was a U.S. government employee, possibly a soldier.
Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, Khadr's U.S. trial lawyer, told reporters Thursday that the government had known about the witness but had tried to bury him.
"It's an eyewitness that the government has always known about," said Kuebler.
"They weren't going to tell us who he was or how to get in touch with him or where he was. Their theory is that they've done their investigation and they've disclosed everything they have to disclose. And we don't necessarily have an entitlement to talk to people who were actually at the scene of the crime."
Khadr's defence team said they learned of the eyewitness only two days ago when they received disclosure prior to the appearance before a military tribunal.
"He's been in custody for how long? Coming up on six years?" asked Deputy Chief of Defence Mike Berringer. "How we can be on the eve of a hearing to determine his status, how we can have newly discovered evidence, is beyond me."
Meanwhile, Khadr's tribunal in Guantanamo Bay ended without a clear determination of his status.
The court is pondering the question of whether Khadr is an "alien unlawful enemy combatant."
"The judge decided to withhold that pending a Federal Court appeal," LaFlamme said Thursday.
In the end, Khadr was not arraigned. Instead, dates for December and January have been set to hear new pre-trial motions.
Khadr appeared relaxed during his hearing, telling the judge he was satisfied with his defence team.
Khadr was before the military judge for a pre-trial hearing as lawyers argued whether the U.S. Defence Department has the right to try him on charges of murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and spying.
Asked if he wanted to keep his current legal team -- a Pentagon-appointed lawyer and two civilian defence lawyers -- Khadr told the judge: "Yes, sir."
The 21-year-old entered the room dressed in a white uniform reserved for the most compliant prisoners.
He then sat unshackled with his legs crossed at the defence table, alongside his legal team.
Khadr is accused of killing Speer with a grenade during a firefight in Afghanistan on July 27, 2002 -- when he was 15.
In 2004, a military panel classified him as an "enemy combatant."
But because he wasn't classified as an "alien unlawful enemy combatant" -- required under rules written by Congress -- Col. Peter Brownback said last June that he had no choice but to throw the case out.
In September, a special military appeals court ruled that Brownback has the authority to determine whether Khadr was "unlawfully" fighting with the Taliban when Speer was killed.
Born in Canada, Khadr returned with his family to Pakistan and then travelled to Afghanistan as a child. He was captured at 15 at a suspected al Qaeda compound, badly wounded and blinded in one eye.

Despite Khadr's admission that he was satisfied with his legal team, Khadr's Canadian lawyer Dennis Edney said earlier Thursday that the trial was being manipulated.
He said Khadr is only able to choose between the prospect of representing himself or accepting a U.S. military system that's stacked against him.
Edney criticized his client's U.S. lawyer, Kuebler, saying his team was unprepared.
"The military defence team has not interviewed any of the prosecution's witnesses and only recently has looked at the disclosure -- notwithstanding that the prosecution team has been preparing for these days for the last two years," Edney told CTV's Canada AM on Thursday.
Edney also said Khadr's U.S. lawyer has no trial experience and only has a background in taxation law.
"The least you could provide him (Khadr) with is a competent lawyer familiar with the areas in which Mr. Khadr is charged," he said.

Edney has been barred from Thursday's arraignment because of his complaints about Kuebler.
"I think there's a concern that I would delay the process by advising the judge that first of all Mr. Khadr needs a psychiatric assessment to determine his fitness to stand trial," said Edney.
"You have to understand that Mr. Khadr has spent a quarter of his life in solitary confinement in that hellhole called Guantanamo Bay."
Edney's partner, lawyer Nate Whitling, did manage to meet with Khadr on Wednesday to explain that Edney would not be present today.

Meanwhile, Canada does have a representative at the base for the proceedings but officials are remaining very secretive, said LaFlamme.
"The Canadian government is the only Western nation that has done nothing to try to extradite their national from this prison," she said. "Every other country -- the U.K., Australia, New Zealand -- they've all reclaimed their detainees here at Guantanamo."
University of Toronto political scientist David Welsh criticized the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay saying that the detainees were not being treated with due process.
The U.S. have been "making it up as they go along," he said.
But Sgt. (Ret'd) Layne Morris, a former U.S. soldier injured in the 2002 firefight, said Thursday that he believes the evidence will be compelling.
"I think that's probably why those who would argue on behalf of Omar Khadr are so anxious to always go back and try and challenge the legal system and the circumstances of the trial because, to a certain extent, they think the outcome of this is probably inevitable," Morris told Canada AM.
Morris was left partially blind following the 2002 firefight. "

We hope that justice will prevail, but knowing the U.S. system on this, it's doubtful.