Bridgethought of the Day: Every person has intuition planted in his heart, allowing him to distinguish truth from falsehood. It's the politician's job to black that out. That's why war should never be waged by politicians. Like Bush, Cheney, and their DOD appointees. Military leaders do better when they follow their "gut feeling", aka intuition. Too bad they have to follow a lying, conniving, & not-very-intuitive Vice Commander-in-Chief. (The CiC is just a pen-wielder.)
Here is an important report from Dahr Jamail's website:
The number of detainees held by the U.S. military has increased by more than 50 percent since the U.S. administration announced the surge six months ago, bringing the detainee population to at least 24,500, according to U.S. military officers in Iraq. The officers have said the detainee population was 16,000 in February of this year.
John Sifton, researcher for Human Rights Watch, told reporters Aug. 24 that "the allegations of abuse are far worse for Iraqi facilities than for those detainees in U.S. custody. It is difficult to know the Iraqi detainee population. There are both official and unofficial Iraqi detention systems."
Sifton said Human Rights Watch and other human rights organisations "have concerns about a 50 percent increase in detainees because it is 50 percent more people at risk of having been arbitrarily detained or, worse, of being handed over to Iraqi officers who might subject them to torture."
Sifton added that there are no reliable numbers provided by the Iraqi government on the number of detainees, and that the U.S. military will not provide the numbers either.
"My three sons were selling vegetables in Baghdad at the wholesale market when Americans took them away over a year ago," 55-year-old Saadiya from the Abu Ghraib area west of Baghdad told IPS. "We learned three months later that they were taken to Bucca prison near Basra. They were only farmers, and now they are listed as terrorists just because they are Sunni."
Stories like this are recounted all over the western areas of Iraq, where Sunni Arabs are the dominant population.
"A roadside bomb exploded near our house and killed three Americans," Sumaya, a woman from the Dora area of southwest Baghdad told IPS. "Then American tanks came with hundreds of soldiers and arrested over 30 men from the neighbourhood, including my husband. We were asleep when the blast occurred at 5 am, and it was curfew hours, but they still wanted us to tell them who did it. Now I have to work and feed my four children."
"A force from the Ministry of Interior took 45 men from our village nine months ago and we still do not know their whereabouts," Farhan Abbas told IPS. Abbas is from Youssufiya, 25 km south of Baghdad, and was visiting Baghdad in hope of finding information about the people detained from his neighbourhood.
"We lost hope for them because when we went to the ministry to ask about them, they denied their arrest and told us it must be the militias dressed in uniform," said Abbas. "We argued that the force came in the ministry's vehicles, but they told us to get lost or else they would arrest us too."
Two vice-presidents of Iraq, Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shia with the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, and Tariq al-Hashimi of the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front, recently visited Camp Cropper, a U.S. military detention centre near Baghdad International airport.
Al-Sharqiya television reported that while Mehdi did not talk to detainees, Hashimi talked with several of them at length and promised that their cases would be looked into shortly.
"You are better off here than outside," Hashimi said to the detainees. "It is much safer here than outside, believe me."
"What a wonderful deputy president we have," Ahmad Ali from Ramadi who was visiting Baghdad told IPS. "He thinks people are better off in jail than at home."
The Iraqi Accord Front withdrew from Maliki's government Aug. 1 because several of their demands had not been met. The first was release of at least 80 percent of the detainees who are believed to be innocent.
(*Ali, a correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, a U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region)
With this kind of "surge side effect", what does it say about our purposes there? We are trying to round up Sunnis, then complain because Iraq is being dominated by Iran-friendly Shi'aa.
We keep hearing that the Maliki government is not handling their nation properly, that the alienation of the Sunnis is due to his weakness. But it is the Americans who are causing the failure of the Maliki government - and no one else! They are detaining people without due process, and yet they talk about how they are creating and promoting democracy. Pure hypocrisy. This is the biggest load of BS ever shoveled on our nation, the nation of sheep.
But don't worry... Remember, Cheney is watching over you... that sheep may safely graze...
Friday, August 31, 2007
Friday, August 24, 2007
Bigger Towers, Bigger Crimes: Dubai a "model" for the Mideast?
"Utopia II: Built by Slaves, Enjoyed by Businessmen" Bridgethought of the Day: Just when you think you're getting somewhere, someone has to go and tell everybody how you got there. Another good reason to watch your step...
Human Rights Watch has come out with a report on the abuse of workers who build the famous towers in Dubai that is downright horrifying. At the same time, Dubai is having something of a "coming out" party, both as a potential high tech business mecca and tax shelter, according to an article by Michael Kanellos, editor at large at CNET News.com. Although Mr. Kanellos' source, Ghazi Benothman, a Senior Associate with Crosslink Capital, says "there's almost no poverty," the Human Rights Watch report, as discussed in a piece by Rafia Zakaria, tells a shocking and very different story:
"Workers in the Gulf States face some of the most horrendous work environments on the planet. Forced to work sixteen- to twenty-hour days in debilitating heat, without any vacation for years and with compensation withheld for months on end, the Dubai construction workers eke out an existence devoid of any dignity or freedom. Living at the mercy of the employers, who literally "own" their employment visas and hence their freedom of movement, these modern day slaves are unable to leave any employer for fear of deportation.
The employers, on the other hand, can, like the Pharoanic rulers of Egypt, easily trade them for cheaper workers or sell them via trading their employment contracts to other companies."
But it gets worse ...
"In addition to the restricted freedom of movement, companies in the UAE, both large and small, often refuse to pay these workers since few legal enforcement mechanisms exist to force them to do so. According to the Report, Al-Hamed Development and Construction, a company worth over $300 million dollars and one of the fastest growing construction companies in the world, failed to pay 7000 of its construction workers in 2005-2006. The smaller companies are also notorious for absconding or simply closing up shop without paying their workers.The fact that the construction workers are "guests" without equivalent legal rights that would enable to contest such actions without fears of reprisals, further entrenches their status as slaves in a society that surely treats them as such. In addition, most workers still owe debts to their handlers and so cannot return without wages to pay them off; so they are caught in a vicious circle of persecution."
Most of the workers are Pakistani, Indian, Sri-Lankan and Bangladeshi, and other Asian nationalities. The Arabs of Dubai behave in a way that reveals their totally un-Islamic racism . These workers are treated as human chattel, slaves. It reminds me of the attitude of Sudanese Arabs in Darfur. This ugly side of Sunni Muslims must be faced-down - by other Sunni Muslims, those with a conscience. Those with no allegiance to corrupt governments, such as the Saudi government.
Their "mainstream" position certainly doesn't look deserved from a human rights standpoint. What message are they trying to convey? Did they never hear that superiority is not attained by hubris or fantasy? And on the flip side, what are the "rebels" trying to say that can only be written in the blood of the unguilty? When did al-Qaeda ever unseat a dictator? Well, at least they are egalitarian - Asians welcome alongside Arabs...
On the other hand, while Dubai is showcased as a "model" for Middle Eastern "development" and "cooperation", this is all greased by plenty of liquor and, of course, prostitution and oil money splurged by "fun-starved Saudis" and Kuwaitis for their "entertainment" on the abuse of children as jockeys and the abuse of young women, many of them Russian, as prostitutes. Although much of this is in fact illegal (with the exception of alcohol), enforcement is slim to rare, probably mostly for appearances.
This only feeds into the constant refrain that the so-called "war" between the West & Islam is actually a cultural war between those who drink alcohol and engage in non-marital sex and "show some skin", to those nasty Islamists who emphatically do not, and are willing to fight for a world where these things are kept to a minimum. The "West" sees it as a war between "backward" ways, always using the example of cutting off hands as a punishment for theft, stoning to death for adulterers (not common, since even in the strictest sense, it requires 4 uninvolved male - or 8 female - eyewitnesses), wearing head coverings for women, and of course, that favorite one about "jihad", wildly & widely thought to mean "cutting off heads of infidels NOW". Even Christiane Amanpour went to great lengths to show how difficult and disturbing it can be to wear those head-coverings, while in fact, it could take about 10 seconds to pull on a "Taliban-strength" hijab, much less time than the most perfunctory hairdo.
Both sides exaggerate the nefarious intent of the other, and when they attempt to bridge the gap, you get people from the Islamic world falling all over themselves to baptize themselves in buckets of corruption and imitation Westernism meeting slick-looking but basically unaware businessmen from the West with dollar signs in their brains more than willing to overlook the side effects of this awkward version of cultural detente. After all, human oppression, be it in China or the Middle East, is all in a day's work. And somewhere in the thick of it all, ominously, lies the long shadow of Halliburton and its godfather, Dick Cheney.
But Divine intervention may be on the way. They say very tall buildings may actually cause or trigger earthquakes in places where none were before. So how long is this history's tallest manmade structure going to last? And what do you think it symbolizes?
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Will the Surge bring success? Does Hell bring Paradise?
Remember Madeline Albright's "collateral damage"? She was referring to the millions of children in Iraq suffering, or killed, as a result of the sanctions imposed on Iraq during the Bush I and Clinton years. Children were just "collateral". The important thing was the sanctions. "Get tough". Now, of course, with a full-scale invasion and takeover going on in the most mindless, ill-planned manner conceivable, the same victims, Iraqi children, Iraqi families, are suffering beyond imagination. Wow. The surge is really working, isn't it? But for whom? Not Iraqis surely! And I don't see what most Americans are getting out of it, either.
Even that supposed "winner" in the Iraq War Fiasco, Dick Cheney, That Halliburton Guy, is losing too. If Bush's ratings are low, Cheney's are even lower. The whole Republican Party is sinking in the sludge and blood of Iraq. Goodbye, and good riddance. So why can't they say goodbye to Iraq? Isn't it already a bloodbath?
Yeah, but do the Dems have any guts either? Are they going to fall into the trap of fear, fear of that Huge Gigantic Sci-Fi Enemy - the Middle East Islamic Terrorist People Hordes? From what we can observe, from the rubber stamped surveillance bill and the lukewarm attempts to dampen the fire of the Surge, the Dems look like politics as usual - trying to placate imagined fears rather than take courageous stands.
Like the stand on behalf of disenfranchised people, the lost, the refugees, the children, the women, the war victims. Are our policies doing so much more harm than good, that the whole middle east, that democracy itself, that the hope for anything positive to come out of this, would increase if we just withdrew - the sooner the better? Why do we think we're right - or have the right - to remain in Iraq? Is it Superpower Hubris in action?
Here is an extremely important news article from http://dahrjamailiraq.com/ that can help open our eyes to the nature and scope of what is really going on.
Between the Two Rivers, Lack of Water Kills
Inter Press Service
By Ali al-Fadhily*
BAGHDAD, Aug 17 (IPS) - The collapse of Iraq's infrastructure has created a worsening water crisis that is killing untold numbers of Iraqis. Iraq, with its famous Tigris and Euphrates rivers that run the length of the country, is now unable to provide drinking water to most of its people.
"The two rivers are still there, great as they always were, and flowing all through the year," chief engineer Ahmad Salman of the Baghdad Water Authority told IPS. "Yet Iraqis are thirsty, and we are ashamed of being engineers in the service. We have simply failed to provide our people with half of the drinking water they need."
Much of the country is suffering severe lack of water, and the small quantities supplied are not good for human use.
"I analysed the water supplied by the water authority, and the result was shocking," Dr Ibrahim Ali, a laboratory owner in Baghdad told IPS. "It is definitely not good for human consumption, and every time we analyse it we find something new that might, in time, cause death."
The doctor added, "Various kinds of bacterial pollution and germs we are finding can be as dangerous as biological weapons."
Iraqi hospitals are full of people with illnesses due to the unsafe water. Doctors at several hospitals confirmed to IPS that water is one of the worst causes of diseases, especially among children, and that some of children had died of water-borne diseases compounded by a severe lack of medicines.
These problems are exacerbated during the summer when both the quantity and quality of water are at their lowest.
"One of the reasons for this lack of water is lack of electric power and fuel for generators," a member of a local municipal council in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "We have got tired of raising our needs for the water stations because our ministers and their leaders are busy fighting over chairs so that they make as much money as possible before they are thrown away."
U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker acknowledged to reporters Jul. 19 that Baghdad residents were receiving on average only one hour of electricity a day. Before the U.S.-led invasion, Baghdad residents received 16-24 hours of electricity daily. Without electricity, water cannot be pumped to homes.
A report released Jul. 30 by the international agency Oxfam and NCCI, a network of aid organisations working in Iraq, said that eight million Iraqis, nearly one in three, were in dire need of emergency aid.
The report, 'Rising to the Humanitarian Challenge in Iraq' said that 70 percent of Iraqis are without adequate water supplies, compared to 50 percent in 2003, the year the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was launched. About 80 percent of Iraqis lack effective sanitation, the report said.
According to the Oxfam report, "child malnutrition rates have risen from 19 percent before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to 28 percent now." Lack of potable water is at the root of most such conditions.
"It is corruption more than anything else," an engineer at the Baghdad Water Authority, who did not wish to be named, told IPS. "The authority is full of corruption from bottom to top, and there is no way to improve the situation unless the political situation is improved by removing these corrupt officials."
An IPS correspondent was advised not to go to the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources in the face of a danger of being kidnapped by security men at the ministry.
"It is another weapon that the Americans are killing us with," 62-year-old Abu Mahmood, a carpenter from Baghdad told IPS. "No water means diseases that lead to slow, but certain death. They did it to us at the time of sanctions and now it is their chance to do it again without firing bullets and making scandals."
Few Iraqis see hope under the present government. "The problem is that we do not have a government like any other country," Baghdad resident Nabhan Mukhlis told IPS. "We should just stop complaining and surrender to the death penalty that was issued the day Americans decided to invade our country."
(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region)
©2004-2007 Dahr Jamail.
Even that supposed "winner" in the Iraq War Fiasco, Dick Cheney, That Halliburton Guy, is losing too. If Bush's ratings are low, Cheney's are even lower. The whole Republican Party is sinking in the sludge and blood of Iraq. Goodbye, and good riddance. So why can't they say goodbye to Iraq? Isn't it already a bloodbath?
Yeah, but do the Dems have any guts either? Are they going to fall into the trap of fear, fear of that Huge Gigantic Sci-Fi Enemy - the Middle East Islamic Terrorist People Hordes? From what we can observe, from the rubber stamped surveillance bill and the lukewarm attempts to dampen the fire of the Surge, the Dems look like politics as usual - trying to placate imagined fears rather than take courageous stands.
Like the stand on behalf of disenfranchised people, the lost, the refugees, the children, the women, the war victims. Are our policies doing so much more harm than good, that the whole middle east, that democracy itself, that the hope for anything positive to come out of this, would increase if we just withdrew - the sooner the better? Why do we think we're right - or have the right - to remain in Iraq? Is it Superpower Hubris in action?
Here is an extremely important news article from http://dahrjamailiraq.com/ that can help open our eyes to the nature and scope of what is really going on.
Between the Two Rivers, Lack of Water Kills
Inter Press Service
By Ali al-Fadhily*
BAGHDAD, Aug 17 (IPS) - The collapse of Iraq's infrastructure has created a worsening water crisis that is killing untold numbers of Iraqis. Iraq, with its famous Tigris and Euphrates rivers that run the length of the country, is now unable to provide drinking water to most of its people.
"The two rivers are still there, great as they always were, and flowing all through the year," chief engineer Ahmad Salman of the Baghdad Water Authority told IPS. "Yet Iraqis are thirsty, and we are ashamed of being engineers in the service. We have simply failed to provide our people with half of the drinking water they need."
Much of the country is suffering severe lack of water, and the small quantities supplied are not good for human use.
"I analysed the water supplied by the water authority, and the result was shocking," Dr Ibrahim Ali, a laboratory owner in Baghdad told IPS. "It is definitely not good for human consumption, and every time we analyse it we find something new that might, in time, cause death."
The doctor added, "Various kinds of bacterial pollution and germs we are finding can be as dangerous as biological weapons."
Iraqi hospitals are full of people with illnesses due to the unsafe water. Doctors at several hospitals confirmed to IPS that water is one of the worst causes of diseases, especially among children, and that some of children had died of water-borne diseases compounded by a severe lack of medicines.
These problems are exacerbated during the summer when both the quantity and quality of water are at their lowest.
"One of the reasons for this lack of water is lack of electric power and fuel for generators," a member of a local municipal council in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "We have got tired of raising our needs for the water stations because our ministers and their leaders are busy fighting over chairs so that they make as much money as possible before they are thrown away."
U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker acknowledged to reporters Jul. 19 that Baghdad residents were receiving on average only one hour of electricity a day. Before the U.S.-led invasion, Baghdad residents received 16-24 hours of electricity daily. Without electricity, water cannot be pumped to homes.
A report released Jul. 30 by the international agency Oxfam and NCCI, a network of aid organisations working in Iraq, said that eight million Iraqis, nearly one in three, were in dire need of emergency aid.
The report, 'Rising to the Humanitarian Challenge in Iraq' said that 70 percent of Iraqis are without adequate water supplies, compared to 50 percent in 2003, the year the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was launched. About 80 percent of Iraqis lack effective sanitation, the report said.
According to the Oxfam report, "child malnutrition rates have risen from 19 percent before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to 28 percent now." Lack of potable water is at the root of most such conditions.
"It is corruption more than anything else," an engineer at the Baghdad Water Authority, who did not wish to be named, told IPS. "The authority is full of corruption from bottom to top, and there is no way to improve the situation unless the political situation is improved by removing these corrupt officials."
An IPS correspondent was advised not to go to the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources in the face of a danger of being kidnapped by security men at the ministry.
"It is another weapon that the Americans are killing us with," 62-year-old Abu Mahmood, a carpenter from Baghdad told IPS. "No water means diseases that lead to slow, but certain death. They did it to us at the time of sanctions and now it is their chance to do it again without firing bullets and making scandals."
Few Iraqis see hope under the present government. "The problem is that we do not have a government like any other country," Baghdad resident Nabhan Mukhlis told IPS. "We should just stop complaining and surrender to the death penalty that was issued the day Americans decided to invade our country."
(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region)
©2004-2007 Dahr Jamail.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Goodbye, Rove: A White Elephant Bites the Dust
Bridgethought of the Day: You can't go forward in reverse. You might just turn to a pillar of salt.
****
They say an elephant never forgets. They didn't say you can't forget him. Yet there's a moment of sadness, oddly enough, as if some great sea monster just beached himself. Watching him lifeless on the sand, no more the terror of the waves, no more devouring innocent seal calves, no more children scattering at the sight ... just an old, overweight man with glasses. It's oddly touching. Suddenly, he's a human, tears well up, his voice breaks, and the power wafts out like a deflating mattress.
Is this only a small victory or the culmination of a long campaign to wrest power from the autocrats? Or is it another sign of Cheney-Bush failure, of the Republicans' last gasp, of the self-demise of the neocons? Rove is not alone.
The whole political infrastructure of what has become the conservative movement has crossed its own wires or messed up their sonar receptors. They just don't get what's on the airwaves anymore.
People wanted less government intrusion, more freedom. They got a police/prison/security state, complete with Big Brother watching, and hemorrhaging wars ... and more taxes, less service.
People wanted more free enterprise. They got stifling giant corporate takeovers and mergers.
People wanted fair elections, fair news coverage, more participation. They got rigged elections, a media propaganda machine that avoids real news, and blocked participation.
They wanted to stop crime. They got more prisoners, more criminals, more prisons, and more crime.
They wanted more free speech. They got mindless word wars and endless smear, sneer, & snivel.
They wanted bridges, and they got walls. Walls and wars ad infinitum.
We've been waiting so long for this requiem, to see that elephant finally bite the dust.
Rove-think is dead. Long live the doves.
****
They say an elephant never forgets. They didn't say you can't forget him. Yet there's a moment of sadness, oddly enough, as if some great sea monster just beached himself. Watching him lifeless on the sand, no more the terror of the waves, no more devouring innocent seal calves, no more children scattering at the sight ... just an old, overweight man with glasses. It's oddly touching. Suddenly, he's a human, tears well up, his voice breaks, and the power wafts out like a deflating mattress.
Is this only a small victory or the culmination of a long campaign to wrest power from the autocrats? Or is it another sign of Cheney-Bush failure, of the Republicans' last gasp, of the self-demise of the neocons? Rove is not alone.
The whole political infrastructure of what has become the conservative movement has crossed its own wires or messed up their sonar receptors. They just don't get what's on the airwaves anymore.
People wanted less government intrusion, more freedom. They got a police/prison/security state, complete with Big Brother watching, and hemorrhaging wars ... and more taxes, less service.
People wanted more free enterprise. They got stifling giant corporate takeovers and mergers.
People wanted fair elections, fair news coverage, more participation. They got rigged elections, a media propaganda machine that avoids real news, and blocked participation.
They wanted to stop crime. They got more prisoners, more criminals, more prisons, and more crime.
They wanted more free speech. They got mindless word wars and endless smear, sneer, & snivel.
They wanted bridges, and they got walls. Walls and wars ad infinitum.
We've been waiting so long for this requiem, to see that elephant finally bite the dust.
Rove-think is dead. Long live the doves.
Friday, August 10, 2007
A handshake from Israel is a Kiss of Death
Bridgethought of the Day: If a nation keeps repeating lies and enforcing belief in them, and refuses to air the truth, what does that do to Democracy? What does it do to truth when the collective psychology around us teaches us to avoid that "evil danger"?
Here is an article about the truth in the Middle East, sad but real, and how the core issue between Israel and Palestine is twisted for American consumption. American protoplasm, take note: use your minds, will ya...
When Olmert and Abbas shake hands
Nora Barrows-Friedman writing from Deheisheh refugee camp, occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine, 10 August 2007
What will follow their handshake?: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meets with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the West Bank city of Jericho, 6 August 2007.
On Monday, Israeli occupation Authority Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and occupied Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas once again met and shook hands, each promising respective constituents that a so-called "peaceful solution" is near. Olmert "agreed" that cooperation between Israel and the PA will expand, something that is not lost on the millions of occupied Palestinians who continue to suffer each day as many other things expand beneath their feet -- the settlement colonies, the apartheid wall, the egregious acts of violence and oppression enacted by the Israeli occupation military.
What does an expansion of cooperation between the PA and Israel mean when the prisons of the foreign occupier, the nuclear state, are filled to the brim with Palestinian political prisoners, as many as 12,000 people who are tortured and broken and humiliated?
An expansion of cooperation comes with Abbas' capitulation to Olmert's designs of an ethno-centric state for Jews only, whose second-in-command, Avigdor Lieberman, is an unashamed proponent of ethnic cleansing from Moldovia who consistently demands that all Arabs be "transfered" or wiped out. An expansion of cooperation is called for as Mahmoud Abbas' private militia continues to beg Israel for arms and power moves against the democratically-elected Hamas party, like a kid asking a rich man for a few pennies to buy candy.
An expansion of cooperation means more whittling away of the rights of the Palestinian people. It means the further dispossession of land and farms and freedom and time and money and childhoods. It means the only true "solution" -- one state, for every person, and a respect for human rights and the Palestinian right of return -- continues to be further away from realization.Meanwhile, as Abbas thanks Olmert for scraps, life here on the ground continues to worsen and sour.
The Israeli military death squads are scooping people up in Nablus and throwing them in prison camps. Or shooting them. Or dropping bombs on them in Gaza. Or sealing off entire villages with the apartheid wall. Or making them wait in the blistering hot sun at some of the 450 checkpoints.
Yes, thank you, Olmert.A friend here in Dheisheh posed this question with a glint in his eye: What will happen when Abbas' constituents, the millions of Palestinians who see right through his capitualtions, go to back to the polls and re-elect Hamas? What will he do then?
Nora Barrows-Friedman is the senior producer and co-host of Flashpoints on Pacifica Radio, and also reports for InterPress Service in Europe. Her website is http://electronicintifada.net/v2/norabf.com.
Here is an article about the truth in the Middle East, sad but real, and how the core issue between Israel and Palestine is twisted for American consumption. American protoplasm, take note: use your minds, will ya...
When Olmert and Abbas shake hands
Nora Barrows-Friedman writing from Deheisheh refugee camp, occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine, 10 August 2007
What will follow their handshake?: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meets with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the West Bank city of Jericho, 6 August 2007.
On Monday, Israeli occupation Authority Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and occupied Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas once again met and shook hands, each promising respective constituents that a so-called "peaceful solution" is near. Olmert "agreed" that cooperation between Israel and the PA will expand, something that is not lost on the millions of occupied Palestinians who continue to suffer each day as many other things expand beneath their feet -- the settlement colonies, the apartheid wall, the egregious acts of violence and oppression enacted by the Israeli occupation military.
What does an expansion of cooperation between the PA and Israel mean when the prisons of the foreign occupier, the nuclear state, are filled to the brim with Palestinian political prisoners, as many as 12,000 people who are tortured and broken and humiliated?
An expansion of cooperation comes with Abbas' capitulation to Olmert's designs of an ethno-centric state for Jews only, whose second-in-command, Avigdor Lieberman, is an unashamed proponent of ethnic cleansing from Moldovia who consistently demands that all Arabs be "transfered" or wiped out. An expansion of cooperation is called for as Mahmoud Abbas' private militia continues to beg Israel for arms and power moves against the democratically-elected Hamas party, like a kid asking a rich man for a few pennies to buy candy.
An expansion of cooperation means more whittling away of the rights of the Palestinian people. It means the further dispossession of land and farms and freedom and time and money and childhoods. It means the only true "solution" -- one state, for every person, and a respect for human rights and the Palestinian right of return -- continues to be further away from realization.Meanwhile, as Abbas thanks Olmert for scraps, life here on the ground continues to worsen and sour.
The Israeli military death squads are scooping people up in Nablus and throwing them in prison camps. Or shooting them. Or dropping bombs on them in Gaza. Or sealing off entire villages with the apartheid wall. Or making them wait in the blistering hot sun at some of the 450 checkpoints.
Yes, thank you, Olmert.A friend here in Dheisheh posed this question with a glint in his eye: What will happen when Abbas' constituents, the millions of Palestinians who see right through his capitualtions, go to back to the polls and re-elect Hamas? What will he do then?
Nora Barrows-Friedman is the senior producer and co-host of Flashpoints on Pacifica Radio, and also reports for InterPress Service in Europe. Her website is http://electronicintifada.net/v2/norabf.com.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Infrastructure, Infrastructure...wherefore art thou, Infrastructure?
When nation-building meant building our nation, not everybody else's ... when "homeland security" meant taking care of what makes a nation secure, such as investing in economic stability, peaceful relations with the rest of the world, fair and just social support systems such as health care, welfare, education and "justice" systems (aka "corrections", now simply "collective social revenge") ... when bridges were symbolic of what made our nation great ...
Ah, in those halcyon days, the days when Ike Eisenhower led a Republican Party that invested in such things, and warned against a "military-industrial complex", and actually believed the word "conservative" had some relationship with the root "conserve" ... In those days, the idea that American would invest its lion share of resources in a profligate, nation-gutting killing machine that makes mucho bucks for the ever-consolidating Executive Puppetmaster would have been inconceivable.
Now, instead of diplomacy, we have a war without borders against an enemy without a state and it feeds the bleed .. A collapsing bridge in Minnesota is a symbol in so many ways, down to the good hearts and self-sacrifice of the people it collapsed on.
The Cheney-Bush Executive Warlord Group (CBEWG) invaded Iraq - and finally Cheney admitted it was an "invasion" not a "liberation", casually to Larry King - and that Group displays a singular proficiency at destroying everything it touches, from Iraq and its neighbors to those who joined them, such as Tony Blair.
Before, Sunni and Shi'a lived together in peace - in Lebanon, where they shared a government; in Saddam-ruled Iraq before the invasion (albeit with oppression and unfairness); and between such countries as Iran and Saudi Arabia. If there was animosity, it was not widespread violence. Both groups attend the Hajj in Makkah every year without sectarian incident. This is really a card of potential division used by non-Muslims to divide Muslims when it suits their interests. And it certainly suits U.S. and Israeli interests to divide Muslims in the Middle East, both to gain a hand on oil resources and to solidify their own power/influence in the area.
And now the CBEWG killing machine has invaded the Middle East full force and set it on fire. A real damned mean conflagration, burning bodies and souls.
Halliburton wins. Cheney loses no sleep. In his world, there is no conscience for homo sapiens. He's Republican, and all's well with the world. He's comfortable. His interests are being served. Larry King asks him what about all this #%$&#^$% ??? What about all the dead people, the poisoned water supplies, the oppression? Cheney tells the world he's cool with it. And he's very, very cool indeed.
The new Republicans have redefined lots of things, among them infrastructure. It does NOT mean roads, bridges, pipelines, dams, electric grids, that sort of thing - let alone schools, hospitals, health care, a break for small businesses and free enterprise. No, those are NOT a part of Republican Infrastructure. The New Republicans have a new "road map" for Infrastructure: it means prisons, Bradley fighting vehicles, fighter planes, armored Humvees, military hardware of all kinds, and of course, guns and other weaponry, and did we forget bombs, grenades, military-grade computers, battlefield electronics, UAV's, and of course, prisons and prison complexes ... and whatever it takes to keep those warzones going, and... oh, tax breaks for Big Business ... and, uh... oil rigs, yes! That's Republican Infrastructure!
Note this Republican Redefinition for Infrastructure is applied in Iraq - talk about even-handed! Yes, they have none of "old-think liberal" infrastructure, such as power grids - theirs is shot, literally - or hospitals - what hospitals now? - or of course, clean potable water or anything that could assist in its transport. Water, electricity, health care - that's damn liberal stuff, and who needs it anyway? If we can't provide it for our own citizens, let's bomb everyone else's! That way we'll get more Republican Infrastructure. Where you have a choice between war and prison. "Go to war or go to jail!" That's the latest in recruiting bait. What a great motive! Those soldiers must be really feeling that freedom fight down to the last 130 degree F moment.
Republicans, in their war on crime (everything worth anything, they figure, must be a war on something), are busy building more and bigger prisons and prison complexes to house everyone, citizens and non-citizens. Guilty or not, here you go! Immigration used to be considered a "civil" matter - imagine the gall! People having the criminal intent of entering this country from some damn foreign country have got to be stopped! Criminalize it now! They all are criminals and want amnesty, like those jerks at Amnesty International. How are we going to fill all those prisons and create those create prison industry jobs without creating more crimes!
Instead of better power grids or telecommunications systems, let's work on surveillance because with all those wars God knows who will try to destroy us and take revenge, so we'll create a government so gigantic, so top-heavy, it will make Big Brother Watching You look like nurserycams. And all because we need more and more protection and security. We do not need freedom. It is a dangerous world, and freedom is to blame for all of that.
Republican Infrastructure means the "social infrastructure" of executive privilege taken to include martial law. And what do you know about martial law? Well, judging by Mubarak's Egypt which has run on it since he took office, it's really, really bad for infrastructure. The "liberal" kind, that is, like sewers, tap water, roads, and power grids. But the biggest casualty is freedom. Do you really want all those good-hearted heroes to live in this Republican future? Well... don't just sit there pining over it, Juliet ...
Ah, in those halcyon days, the days when Ike Eisenhower led a Republican Party that invested in such things, and warned against a "military-industrial complex", and actually believed the word "conservative" had some relationship with the root "conserve" ... In those days, the idea that American would invest its lion share of resources in a profligate, nation-gutting killing machine that makes mucho bucks for the ever-consolidating Executive Puppetmaster would have been inconceivable.
Now, instead of diplomacy, we have a war without borders against an enemy without a state and it feeds the bleed .. A collapsing bridge in Minnesota is a symbol in so many ways, down to the good hearts and self-sacrifice of the people it collapsed on.
The Cheney-Bush Executive Warlord Group (CBEWG) invaded Iraq - and finally Cheney admitted it was an "invasion" not a "liberation", casually to Larry King - and that Group displays a singular proficiency at destroying everything it touches, from Iraq and its neighbors to those who joined them, such as Tony Blair.
Before, Sunni and Shi'a lived together in peace - in Lebanon, where they shared a government; in Saddam-ruled Iraq before the invasion (albeit with oppression and unfairness); and between such countries as Iran and Saudi Arabia. If there was animosity, it was not widespread violence. Both groups attend the Hajj in Makkah every year without sectarian incident. This is really a card of potential division used by non-Muslims to divide Muslims when it suits their interests. And it certainly suits U.S. and Israeli interests to divide Muslims in the Middle East, both to gain a hand on oil resources and to solidify their own power/influence in the area.
And now the CBEWG killing machine has invaded the Middle East full force and set it on fire. A real damned mean conflagration, burning bodies and souls.
Halliburton wins. Cheney loses no sleep. In his world, there is no conscience for homo sapiens. He's Republican, and all's well with the world. He's comfortable. His interests are being served. Larry King asks him what about all this #%$&#^$% ??? What about all the dead people, the poisoned water supplies, the oppression? Cheney tells the world he's cool with it. And he's very, very cool indeed.
The new Republicans have redefined lots of things, among them infrastructure. It does NOT mean roads, bridges, pipelines, dams, electric grids, that sort of thing - let alone schools, hospitals, health care, a break for small businesses and free enterprise. No, those are NOT a part of Republican Infrastructure. The New Republicans have a new "road map" for Infrastructure: it means prisons, Bradley fighting vehicles, fighter planes, armored Humvees, military hardware of all kinds, and of course, guns and other weaponry, and did we forget bombs, grenades, military-grade computers, battlefield electronics, UAV's, and of course, prisons and prison complexes ... and whatever it takes to keep those warzones going, and... oh, tax breaks for Big Business ... and, uh... oil rigs, yes! That's Republican Infrastructure!
Note this Republican Redefinition for Infrastructure is applied in Iraq - talk about even-handed! Yes, they have none of "old-think liberal" infrastructure, such as power grids - theirs is shot, literally - or hospitals - what hospitals now? - or of course, clean potable water or anything that could assist in its transport. Water, electricity, health care - that's damn liberal stuff, and who needs it anyway? If we can't provide it for our own citizens, let's bomb everyone else's! That way we'll get more Republican Infrastructure. Where you have a choice between war and prison. "Go to war or go to jail!" That's the latest in recruiting bait. What a great motive! Those soldiers must be really feeling that freedom fight down to the last 130 degree F moment.
Republicans, in their war on crime (everything worth anything, they figure, must be a war on something), are busy building more and bigger prisons and prison complexes to house everyone, citizens and non-citizens. Guilty or not, here you go! Immigration used to be considered a "civil" matter - imagine the gall! People having the criminal intent of entering this country from some damn foreign country have got to be stopped! Criminalize it now! They all are criminals and want amnesty, like those jerks at Amnesty International. How are we going to fill all those prisons and create those create prison industry jobs without creating more crimes!
Instead of better power grids or telecommunications systems, let's work on surveillance because with all those wars God knows who will try to destroy us and take revenge, so we'll create a government so gigantic, so top-heavy, it will make Big Brother Watching You look like nurserycams. And all because we need more and more protection and security. We do not need freedom. It is a dangerous world, and freedom is to blame for all of that.
Republican Infrastructure means the "social infrastructure" of executive privilege taken to include martial law. And what do you know about martial law? Well, judging by Mubarak's Egypt which has run on it since he took office, it's really, really bad for infrastructure. The "liberal" kind, that is, like sewers, tap water, roads, and power grids. But the biggest casualty is freedom. Do you really want all those good-hearted heroes to live in this Republican future? Well... don't just sit there pining over it, Juliet ...
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Axis of Global Warming: Axis of Evil - Planetary Defenders, Arise!
If you didn't think Bush-Cheney and his international cronies who have a stake in the oil industry, among other things (doesn't the oil feed his war horses?), are going to fight tooth and nail against the IDEA of global warming, as a buffer against the action they do not want the international community to take on their client polluter-industries, well ... welcome to planet Mars...
For those of you who still prefer Earth as a planet of residence, there's a great movement going on against Bush's latest tactic - an international, grand-scale tactic - against planet Earth and its defenders, whom he views as "enemies" of his international police force/oil-profit force/ world-domination scheme. Of course, his gain is the planet's loss. So they have a Plan: it's called the Axis of Global Warming.
Note the name, so apropos: "Axis" as in WWII "Axis Powers" and his own term "Axis of Evil." Yes, he's finally upfront - this is truly an Evil plan, if evil means destructive.
Then, linked with "Global Warming" as it is, the name literally implies "Axis of those determined to bring about global warming in spite of all efforts against it - by denying it, doing nothing about it, and letting it just happen." But we can, and MUST do all we can to stop them.
Enter Avaaz, an organization with many people but a low budget and a few (9) doing all the fancy footwork, or office work, as the case may be. They also have a plan - work hard against Bush-Howard's plan to fast-forward pollution and back-pedal safeguards for the planet - in their own words:
"There's a new threat to progress on climate change -- and it could undermine all of the work we've done so far. President Bush and his allies have recognized that the the movement against climate change is too powerful to be directly confronted. So Bush, Australia's John Howard, and a small group of other high-pollution governments are using back-channel pressure to build a bloc of countries--call it an "Axis of Global Warming"--that plans to sabotage the negotiations on a binding climate treaty.
"It's an extraordinary danger.They must be stopped. And we've got a plan to do it. We're laying plans for a massive, country-by-country pressure campaign to block the Axis of Global Warming--and we need your help to make it work.
A donor has pledged to match all contributions up to 100,000 Euros. Can you donate now to help save the planet?https://secure.avaaz.org/en/axis_of_warming/b.php/?cl=15435385
There's strength in numbers--already this year, half a million of us have taken climate actions with Avaaz. We've run television ads, delivered massive petitions, marched in the streets and flooded governments with email messages. Now, if enough of us can contribute 50, 20 or even 1 Euro, we'll have the resources to take all of these tactics to a new level--and add some spectacular new ones.
Our strategy is simple: expose Bush's plan, and help citizens in "swing countries" like Japan and Canada to pressure their governments not to join the Axis of Global Warming. Bush can only succeed if he rallies enough governments to join his side. But if we show these governments that there's a price to be paid for abandoning the planet, people power can prevail.The next five months are key. Here are the most critical moments:
September: Australia's John Howard hosts the Asia-Pacific APEC summit, gathering leaders of 21 countries including the US, China, Japan, Russia, and Canada. We need to shame the Axis of Global Warming, disrupt their alliance-building and persuade the swing voters to stay strong for a UN process--and we're working with Australian campaigners GetUp on a spectacular plan to spoil Bush and Howard's party in Sydney.Then we'll burst into the UN Secretary-General's emergency session on climate change--100 heads of state invited, and your voice will be heard there too.
October/November: a "Major Emitters" conference of the biggest polluters, called by Bush after the G8 meeting in June. This is likely to be the public unveiling of Bush's plan. In the lead-up, we'll empower Avaaz members in each of our countries, pressing national leaders to commit publicly to a real deal--and reject Bush’s game.
December 3-14: UN-led negotiations begin in Bali, Indonesia for a global climate change treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. This is the big one: the key to ending the climate crisis. We'll be there in force, virtually and for real. Every nation gets a voice in Bali--and because we have members in every nation, so do we. Avaaz will work outside and inside to influence the negotiations as they happen, day to day and hour by hour. These are the moments that will define whether the climate crisis can be stopped -- and our ability to influence them together will be determined in part by our resources.
For example, we need:
25,000 Euros to build tools enabling Avaaz members to directly contact their leaders--tools capable of sending millions of messages to hundreds of governments in a dozen languages, fast.
8,000 Euros to mount a major stunt at the Asia-Pacific summit in Sydney, grabbing the attention of leaders and the media
5,000 Euros each to buy full-page newspaper ads in key "swing voter" countries like Japan, Canada or China.
Avaaz has a lot of members, but a small staff--currently just nine people, working from five cities on three continents. We're laser-focused on squeezing every bit of impact we can from every Euro or dollar we spend. This is a David and Goliath struggle, the people of the world versus the Axis of Global Warming--and we simply can't afford to lose. Can you help, by donating whatever you can?
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/axis_of_warming/c.php/?cl=15435385
Climate change is a threat that affects us all. But it's also an opportunity to build a different kind of world, where each of us recognizes our connections, and our responsibility to each other.Imagine looking back, twenty years from now, and remembering how we won. Remembering the moment when citizens from every nation joined to save our planet and ourselves."
For those of you who still prefer Earth as a planet of residence, there's a great movement going on against Bush's latest tactic - an international, grand-scale tactic - against planet Earth and its defenders, whom he views as "enemies" of his international police force/oil-profit force/ world-domination scheme. Of course, his gain is the planet's loss. So they have a Plan: it's called the Axis of Global Warming.
Note the name, so apropos: "Axis" as in WWII "Axis Powers" and his own term "Axis of Evil." Yes, he's finally upfront - this is truly an Evil plan, if evil means destructive.
Then, linked with "Global Warming" as it is, the name literally implies "Axis of those determined to bring about global warming in spite of all efforts against it - by denying it, doing nothing about it, and letting it just happen." But we can, and MUST do all we can to stop them.
Enter Avaaz, an organization with many people but a low budget and a few (9) doing all the fancy footwork, or office work, as the case may be. They also have a plan - work hard against Bush-Howard's plan to fast-forward pollution and back-pedal safeguards for the planet - in their own words:
"There's a new threat to progress on climate change -- and it could undermine all of the work we've done so far. President Bush and his allies have recognized that the the movement against climate change is too powerful to be directly confronted. So Bush, Australia's John Howard, and a small group of other high-pollution governments are using back-channel pressure to build a bloc of countries--call it an "Axis of Global Warming"--that plans to sabotage the negotiations on a binding climate treaty.
"It's an extraordinary danger.They must be stopped. And we've got a plan to do it. We're laying plans for a massive, country-by-country pressure campaign to block the Axis of Global Warming--and we need your help to make it work.
A donor has pledged to match all contributions up to 100,000 Euros. Can you donate now to help save the planet?https://secure.avaaz.org/en/axis_of_warming/b.php/?cl=15435385
There's strength in numbers--already this year, half a million of us have taken climate actions with Avaaz. We've run television ads, delivered massive petitions, marched in the streets and flooded governments with email messages. Now, if enough of us can contribute 50, 20 or even 1 Euro, we'll have the resources to take all of these tactics to a new level--and add some spectacular new ones.
Our strategy is simple: expose Bush's plan, and help citizens in "swing countries" like Japan and Canada to pressure their governments not to join the Axis of Global Warming. Bush can only succeed if he rallies enough governments to join his side. But if we show these governments that there's a price to be paid for abandoning the planet, people power can prevail.The next five months are key. Here are the most critical moments:
September: Australia's John Howard hosts the Asia-Pacific APEC summit, gathering leaders of 21 countries including the US, China, Japan, Russia, and Canada. We need to shame the Axis of Global Warming, disrupt their alliance-building and persuade the swing voters to stay strong for a UN process--and we're working with Australian campaigners GetUp on a spectacular plan to spoil Bush and Howard's party in Sydney.Then we'll burst into the UN Secretary-General's emergency session on climate change--100 heads of state invited, and your voice will be heard there too.
October/November: a "Major Emitters" conference of the biggest polluters, called by Bush after the G8 meeting in June. This is likely to be the public unveiling of Bush's plan. In the lead-up, we'll empower Avaaz members in each of our countries, pressing national leaders to commit publicly to a real deal--and reject Bush’s game.
December 3-14: UN-led negotiations begin in Bali, Indonesia for a global climate change treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. This is the big one: the key to ending the climate crisis. We'll be there in force, virtually and for real. Every nation gets a voice in Bali--and because we have members in every nation, so do we. Avaaz will work outside and inside to influence the negotiations as they happen, day to day and hour by hour. These are the moments that will define whether the climate crisis can be stopped -- and our ability to influence them together will be determined in part by our resources.
For example, we need:
25,000 Euros to build tools enabling Avaaz members to directly contact their leaders--tools capable of sending millions of messages to hundreds of governments in a dozen languages, fast.
8,000 Euros to mount a major stunt at the Asia-Pacific summit in Sydney, grabbing the attention of leaders and the media
5,000 Euros each to buy full-page newspaper ads in key "swing voter" countries like Japan, Canada or China.
Avaaz has a lot of members, but a small staff--currently just nine people, working from five cities on three continents. We're laser-focused on squeezing every bit of impact we can from every Euro or dollar we spend. This is a David and Goliath struggle, the people of the world versus the Axis of Global Warming--and we simply can't afford to lose. Can you help, by donating whatever you can?
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/axis_of_warming/c.php/?cl=15435385
Climate change is a threat that affects us all. But it's also an opportunity to build a different kind of world, where each of us recognizes our connections, and our responsibility to each other.Imagine looking back, twenty years from now, and remembering how we won. Remembering the moment when citizens from every nation joined to save our planet and ourselves."
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