Take Back the Media

Ron Paul: Health Care Bill Could Kill The Dollar

2009-11-09T14:57:00.000-05:00

Universal health care will not be free – it will devastate the economy, warns Congressman

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, November 9, 2009

If the Obama administration keeps its promise in guaranteeing not to raise taxes to pay for universal health care, the only way to cover the costs will be for the Federal Reserve to print even more money out of thin air, a process that will kill the dollar and lead to lower living standards for all Americans, warns Congressman Ron Paul.

In his weekly Texas Straight Talk telephone update, Dr. Paul said that Saturday night’s passage of the health care bill in Congress will lead to a further devastation of the American economy and the greenback.

The Congressman highlights the fact that the health care reform package is already twice as expensive as originally forecast and that estimates of past health care spending programs have been off by as much as 100 per cent, “So there is no telling what the actual cost will be,” states Paul, adding that government intervention has always been expensive and historically has routinely led to waste, fraud and abuse.

Paul labeled the bill “completely unconstitutional” and accused Washington of “torturing the numbers” rather than facing the truth and warned, “If health care reform does indeed pass, we should not be under the illusion that it will be free, they will have to get the money from somewhere.”

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Dismissing claims that the government will get the money from cutting wage fraud and abuse, noting that this was intrinsic to government programs, Paul said that if the administration doesn’t raise taxes and premiums, “This can only then put more pressure on the Fed to print the money out of thin air,” resulting in an even greater acceleration in the weakening of the dollar.

“This new monumental pressure could very well be the straw that will break the dollar’s back,” warns Paul.

“Foreign creditors are already nervous about continuing to invest in the U.S. because of our skyrocketing debt – the explosion of debt that is certain to accompany the enactment of this national health care bill can only add to that nervousness,” said the Congressman.

Paul concluded by warning that a government takeover of health care will take a flawed system and make it “immeasurably worse”.

Listen to Dr. Paul’s comments via the You Tube clip below.

CNBC – Dollar Will be Utterly Destroyed, Global Currency, New World Order

2009-11-09T14:51:00.002-05:00

CNBC
Monday, November 9, 2009

The dollar will get “utterly destroyed” and become “virtually worthless”, said Damon Vickers, chief investment officer of Nine Points Capital Partners. Due to the huge wage disparities between the United States and emerging markets like China, Vickers said that may resolve itself in some type of a global currency crisis.

“If the global currency crisis unfolds, then inevitably you get an alignment of a global world government. A new global currency and a new world order, so we may be moving towards that,” he said.

Federal Chancellor Merkel for a new global order!

2009-11-09T14:51:00.001-05:00

BERLIN (AFP)--Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) expressed herself for a new global order, in which the nation states deliver authority to multilateral organizations. Peaceful living together in the world will be possible only such global correct, said Merkel on Monday in Berlin on on the occasion of 20. Anniversary of the fall of the wall taking place conference of science “Falling of embankment”.

When example of such called a multilateral organization Merkel the European Union, which had been strengthened by its member states, although not all decisions from Brussels were loved. Compared with the European the Americans more problems would have to deliver authority. This is however necessary for a peaceful future. “One of the most exciting questions, in order to overcome walls, becomes its: The nation states are ready and able to deliver authority to multilateral organizations.”

Merkel recruited before this background to come with the forthcoming UN-climate summit in December into Copenhagen to a result that itself beside Germany, which the USA or Russia also countries attach such as China and India.

Top INterrogators Say Torture Cost American Lives

2009-05-27T07:29:00.002-04:00

One of the Military’s Top Interrogators Says Torture Cost Hundreds ‘If Not Thousands’ Of American Lives

Washington’s Blog
Wednesday, May 27, 2009

One of the top military interrogators, head of an elite interrogation team in Iraq, who oversaw more than 1,000 interrogations, conducting more than 300 in Iraq personally, says that the use of torture has cost “hundreds if not thousands” of American lives.

“Torture does not save lives . . . And the reason why is that our enemies use it, number one, as a recruiting tool…These same foreign fighters who came to Iraq to fight because of torture and abuse….literally cost us hundreds if not thousands of American lives.”

Moreover, he says that many — as many as 90 percent — of those captured in Iraq said they joined the fight against the United States because of the torture conducted at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

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But perhaps most damning of the policy of torture is his statement that:

“The American principles of freedom and democracy are cherished in the Muslim world and the idea, at least, of America is still a seductive one. But it is the behavior of the Bush administration at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and secret prisons around the globe that undercuts that image, allowing Al Qaeda to make the argument that America isn’t what it stands for.”

“One of Al Qaeda’s goals, it’s not just to attack the United States, it’s to prove that we’re hypocrites, that we don’t live up to American principles,” Alexander said. “So when we use torture and abuse, we’re playing directly into one of their stated goals.”

Watch the video:

See this and this.

War Journalist May have to be Killed

2009-05-27T07:29:00.001-04:00

Right-wing military writer: We may have to kill war journalists

Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story
Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Former soldier Ralph Peters has carved out quite a niche for himself in the world of publishing. His work regularly lands on the pages of The New York Post and has cropped up in USA Today. He’s even a special contributor to Fox News.

But after today’s showing, in his latest column for the Journal of International Security Affairs, Mr. Peters seemingly treads very close to finding himself at odds with his journalistic colleagues.

After all, reporters don’t really like it when the editorial page calls for consideration of grinding them into bloody chunks as a matter of war policy.

In his latest essay, in a segment titled “The killers without guns,” Peters suggests that the media is responsible for “saving” Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, but that media had “failed to defeat” the U.S. government’s charge toward Iraq.

“Rejecting the god of their fathers, the neo-pagans who dominate the media serve as lackeys at the terrorists’ bloody altar,” he gallingly charges.

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It culminates:

Pretending to be impartial, the self-segregating personalities drawn to media careers overwhelmingly take a side, and that side is rarely ours. Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. Perceiving themselves as superior beings, journalists have positioned themselves as protected-species combatants. But freedom of the press stops when its abuse kills our soldiers and strengthens our enemies. Such a view arouses disdain today, but a media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom.

Because, of course, in Peters’ mind America can do no wrong:

The point of all this is simple: Win. In warfare, nothing else matters. If you cannot win clean, win dirty. But win. Our victories are ultimately in humanity’s interests, while our failures nourish monsters.

Jason Linkins over at Huffington Post evicerates this stunning outpouring of hatred.

I must say, considering the line-up of Neoconservative half-stars that is the Journal of International Security Affairs editorial board, this tripe is not surprising.

This reporter, in a rare editorial capacity, can only personally hope the emergence of such breathtaking savagery disguised as intelligent discourse will serve as an example to other rational thinkers as to how dangerous hyper-militarism and hawkish Neoconservatism really is.

Bush and Cheney Tortue Memos Released

2009-04-22T08:41:00.000-04:00

Senate report: Bush admin. solicited torture ‘wish list,’ ordered ‘communist’ tactics

Stephen Webster and Diane Sweet
Raw Story
Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Sen. Levin recommends Holder appoint a ‘distinguished individual or individuals’ to ‘establish accountability of high-level officials’

A report by the Senate Armed Services Committee released Tuesday night says that torture techniques used at Abu Ghraib prison and approved by officials in the George W. Bush administration were applied only after soliciting a “wish list” from interrogators.

President George W. Bush made a written determination that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, did not apply to al Qaeda or Taliban detainees. This act, the committee found, cleared the way for a new interrogation program to be developed in-part based on “Chinese communist” tactics used against Americans during the Korean War, mainly to elicit false confessions for propaganda purposes.

The committee’s report was made available in Dec. 2008, but was delayed by the Pentagon’s declassification program. Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) concluded that the findings were enough to warrant serious consideration by the Department of Justice.

“There is still the question, however, of whether high level officials who approved and authorized those policies should be held accountable,” he wrote. “I have recommended to Attorney General Holder that he select a distinguished individual or individuals – either inside or outside the Justice Department, such as retired federal judges – to look at the volumes of evidence relating to treatment of detainees, including evidence in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s report, and to recommend what steps, if any, should be taken to establish accountability of high-level officials – including lawyers.”

The tactics, such as waterboarding, body slapping, the use of dogs and insects, prolonged standing, sleep deprivation and forced sexual humiliation are all part of the Navy’s Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) program.

“In SERE training, U.S. troops are briefly exposed, in a highly controlled setting, to abusive interrogation techniques used by enemies that refuse to follow the Geneva Conventions,” the report reads. “The techniques are based on tactics used by Chinese Communists against American soldiers during the Korean War for the purpose of eliciting false confessions for propaganda purposes. Techniques used in SERE training include stripping trainees of their clothing, placing them in stress positions, putting hoods over their heads, subjecting them to face and body slaps, depriving them of sleep, throwing them up against a wall, confining them in a small box, treating them like animals, subjecting them to loud music and flashing lights, and exposing them to extreme temperatures. Until recently, the Navy SERE school also used waterboarding.

‘The purpose of the SERE program is to provide U.S. troops who might be captured a taste of the treatment they might face so that they might have a better chance of surviving captivity and resisting abusive and coercive interrogations.”

SERE is operated by the “Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA),” the report says. “…An agency whose expertise was in training American personnel to withstand interrogation techniques considered illegal under the Geneva Conventions.”

“The Committee’s investigation revealed that, following Secretary Rumsfeld’s authorization, senior staff at GTMO drafted a standard operating procedure (SOP) for the use of SERE techniques, including stress positions, forcibly stripping detainees, slapping, and ‘walling’ them,” the committee found. “That SOP stated that ‘The premise behind this is that the interrogation tactics used at U.S. military SERE schools are appropriate for use in real-world interrogations.’ Weeks later, in January 2003, trainers from the Navy SERE school traveled to GTMO and provided training to interrogators on the use of SERE techniques on detainees.”

“According to several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago, they did not know that the military training program, called SERE [...] had been created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans,” reported the New York Times.

“Even George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director who insisted that the agency had thoroughly researched its proposal and pressed it on other officials, did not examine the history of the most shocking method, the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding.”

“In mid-August 2003, an email from staff at Combined Joint Task Force 7 (CJTF-7) headquarters in Iraq requested that subordinate units provide input for a ‘wish list’ of interrogation techniques [to be used at Abu Ghraib], stated that ‘the gloves are coming off,’ and said ‘we want these detainees broken,’” the report found.

The full report may be read here (PDF link).

A lengthy response from Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) follows.
####

Statement of Senator Carl Levin

Senate Armed Services Committee

Report of the Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody

Today we’re releasing the declassified report of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s investigation into the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. The report was approved by the Committee on November 20, 2008 and has, in the intervening period, been under review at the Department of Defense for declassification.

In my judgment, the report represents a condemnation of both the Bush administration’s interrogation policies and of senior administration officials who attempted to shift the blame for abuse – such as that seen at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and Afghanistan – to low ranking soldiers. Claims, such as that made by former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz that detainee abuses could be chalked up to the unauthorized acts of a “few bad apples,” were simply false.

The truth is that, early on, it was senior civilian leaders who set the tone. On September 16, 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney suggested that the United States turn to the “dark side” in our response to 9/11. Not long after that, after White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales called parts of the Geneva Conventions “quaint,” President Bush determined that provisions of the Geneva Conventions did not apply to certain detainees. Other senior officials followed the President and Vice President’s lead, authorizing policies that included harsh and abusive interrogation techniques.

The record established by the Committee’s investigation shows that senior officials sought out information on, were aware of training in, and authorized the use of abusive interrogation techniques. Those senior officials bear significant responsibility for creating the legal and operational framework for the abuses. As the Committee report concluded, authorizations of aggressive interrogation techniques by senior officials resulted in abuse and conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody.

In a May 10, 2007, letter to his troops, General David Petraeus said that “what sets us apart from our enemies in this fight… is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human beings.” With last week’s release of the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinions, it is now widely known that Bush administration officials distorted Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape “SERE” training – a legitimate program used by the military to train our troops to resist abusive enemy interrogations – by authorizing abusive techniques from SERE for use in detainee interrogations. Those decisions conveyed the message that abusive treatment was appropriate for detainees in U.S. custody. They were also an affront to the values articulated by General Petraeus.

In SERE training, U.S. troops are briefly exposed, in a highly controlled setting, to abusive interrogation techniques used by enemies that refuse to follow the Geneva Conventions. The techniques are based on tactics used by Chinese Communists against American soldiers during the Korean War for the purpose of eliciting false confessions for propaganda purposes. Techniques used in SERE training include stripping trainees of their clothing, placing them in stress positions, putting hoods over their heads, subjecting them to face and body slaps, depriving them of sleep, throwing them up against a wall, confining them in a small box, treating them like animals, subjecting them to loud music and flashing lights, and exposing them to extreme temperatures. Until recently, the Navy SERE school also used waterboarding. The purpose of the SERE program is to provide U.S. troops who might be captured a taste of the treatment they might face so that they might have a better chance of surviving captivity and resisting abusive and coercive interrogations.

SERE training techniques were never intended to be used in the interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody. The Committee’s report, however, reveals troubling new details of how SERE techniques came to be used in interrogations of detainees in U.S. custody.

Influence of SERE on Military Interrogations at Guantanamo Bay

The Committee’s investigation uncovered new details about the influence of SERE techniques on military interrogations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GTMO). According to newly released testimony from a military behavioral scientist who worked with interrogators at GTMO, “By early October [2002] there was increasing pressure to get ‘tougher’ with detainee interrogations” at GTMO. (p. 50). As a result, on October 2, 2002, two weeks after attending interrogation training led by SERE instructors from the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), the DoD agency that oversees SERE training, the behavioral scientist and a colleague drafted a memo proposing the use of aggressive interrogation techniques at GTMO. The behavioral scientist said he was told by GTMO’s intelligence chief that the interrogation memo needed to contain coercive techniques or it “wasn’t going to go very far.” (p. 50). Declassified excerpts from that memo indicate that it included stress positions, food deprivation, forced grooming, hooding, removal of clothing, exposure to cold weather or water, and scenarios designed to convince a detainee that “he might experience a painful or fatal outcome.” On October 11, 2002, Major General Michael Dunlavey, the Commander of JTF-170 at GTMO requested authority to use aggressive techniques. MG Dunlavey’s request was based on the memo produced by the behavioral scientists.

MG Dunlavey’s request eventually made its way to Department of Defense (DoD) General Counsel Jim Haynes’ desk. Notwithstanding serious legal concerns raised by the military service lawyers, Haynes recommended that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approve 15 of the interrogation techniques requested by GTMO. On December 2, 2002, Secretary Rumsfeld approved Haynes’ recommendation, authorizing such techniques as stress positions, removal of clothing, use of phobias (such as fear of dogs), and deprivation of light and auditory stimuli.

The Committee’s investigation revealed that, following Secretary Rumsfeld’s authorization, senior staff at GTMO drafted a standard operating procedure (SOP) for the use of SERE techniques, including stress positions, forcibly stripping detainees, slapping, and “walling” them. That SOP stated that “The premise behind this is that the interrogation tactics used at U.S. military SERE schools are appropriate for use in real-world interrogations.” Weeks later, in January 2003, trainers from the Navy SERE school travelled to GTMO and provided training to interrogators on the use of SERE techniques on detainees. (pp. 98-104).

Impact of Secretary Rumsfeld’s Authorization on Interrogations in Iraq and Afghanistan

The influence of Secretary Rumsfeld’s December 2, 2002, authorization was not limited to interrogations at GTMO. Newly declassified excerpts from a January 11, 2003, legal review by a Special Mission Unit (SMU) Task Force lawyer in Afghanistan state that “SECDEF’s approval of these techniques provides us the most persuasive argument for use of ‘advanced techniques’ as we capture possible [high value targets] … the fact that SECDEF approved the use of the… techniques at GTMO, [which is] subject to the same laws, provides an analogy and basis for use of these techniques [in accordance with] international and U.S. law.” (p.154).

The Committee’s report also includes a summary of a July 15, 2004, interview with CENTCOM’s then-Deputy Staff Judge Advocate (SJA) about Secretary Rumsfeld’s authorization and its impact in Afghanistan. The Deputy SJA said: “the methodologies approved for GTMO… would appear to me to be legal interrogation processes. [The Secretary of Defense] had approved them. The General Counsel had approved them. .. I believe it is fair to say the procedures approved for Guantanamo were legal for Afghanistan.” (p. 156).

The Committee’s report provides extensive details about how the aggressive techniques made their way from Afghanistan to Iraq. In February 2003, an SMU Task Force designated for operations in Iraq obtained a copy of the SMU interrogation policy from Afghanistan that included aggressive techniques, changed the letterhead, and adopted the policy verbatim. (p. 158) Months later, the Interrogation Officer in Charge at Abu Ghraib obtained a copy of the SMU interrogation policy and submitted it, virtually unchanged, through her chain of command to Combined Joint Task Force 7 (CJTF-7), led at the time by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez. On September 14, 2003, Lieutenant General Sanchez issued an interrogation policy for CJTF-7 that authorized interrogators to use stress positions, environmental manipulation, sleep management, and military working dogs to exploit detainees’ fears in their interrogations of detainees.

The Committee’s investigation uncovered documents indicating that, almost immediately after LTG Sanchez issued his September 14, 2003, policy, CENTCOM lawyers raised concerns about its legality. One newly declassified email from a CENTCOM lawyer to the Staff Judge Advocate at CJTF-7 – sent just three days after the policy was issued – warned that “Many of the techniques [in the CJTF-7 policy] appear to violate [Geneva Convention] III and IV and should not be used . . .” (p. 203). Even though the Bush administration acknowledged that the Geneva Conventions applied in Iraq, it was not until nearly a month later that CJTF-7 revised that policy.

Not only did SERE techniques make their way to Iraq, but SERE instructors did as well. In September 2003, JPRA sent a team to Iraq to provide assistance to interrogation operations at an SMU Task Force. The Chief of Human Intelligence and Counterintelligence at the Task Force testified to the Committee in February 2008 that JPRA personnel demonstrated SERE techniques to SMU personnel including so-called “walling” and striking a detainee as they do in SERE school. (p. 175). As we heard at our September 2008 hearing, JPRA personnel were present during abusive interrogations during that same trip, including one where a detainee was placed on his knees in a stress position and was repeatedly slapped by an interrogator. (p. 176). JPRA personnel even participated in an interrogation, taking physical control of a detainee, forcibly stripping him naked, and giving orders for him to be kept in a stress position for 12 hours. In August 3, 2007, testimony to the Committee, one of the JPRA team members said that, with respect to stripping the detainee, “we [had] done this 100 times, 1000 times with our [SERE school] students.” The Committee’s investigation revealed that forced nudity continued to be used in interrogations at the SMU Task Force for months after the JPRA visit. (pp. 181-182).

Over the course of the investigation, the Committee obtained the statements and interviews of scores of military personnel at Abu Ghraib. These statements reveal that the interrogation techniques authorized by Secretary Rumsfeld in December 2002 for use at GTMO – including stress positions, forced nudity, and military working dogs – were used by military intelligence personnel responsible for interrogations.

· The Interrogation Officer in Charge in Abu Ghraib in the fall of 2003 acknowledged that stress positions were used in interrogations at Abu Ghraib. (p. 212).

· An Army dog handler at Abu Ghraib told military investigators in February 2004 that “someone from [military intelligence] gave me a list of cells, for me to go see, and pretty much have my dog bark at them… Having the dogs bark at detainees was psychologically breaking them down for interrogation purposes.” (p. 209).

· An intelligence analyst at Abu Ghraib told military investigators in May 2004 that it was “common that the detainees on [military intelligence] hold in the hard site were initially kept naked and given clothing as an incentive to cooperate with us.” (p. 212).

· An interrogator told military investigators in May 2004 that it was “common to see detainees in cells without clothes or naked” and says it was “one of our approaches.” (p. 213).

The investigation also revealed that interrogation policies authorizing aggressive techniques were approved months after the CJTF-7 policy was revised to exclude the techniques, and even after the investigation into detainee abuses at Abu Ghraib had already begun. For example, an interrogation policy approved in February 2004 in Iraq included techniques such as use of military working dogs and stress positions. (p. 220).

A policy approved for CJTF-7 units in Iraq in March 2004 also included aggressive techniques. While much of the March 2004 policy remains classified, newly declassified excerpts indicate that it warned that interrogators “should consider the fact that some interrogation techniques are viewed as inhumane or otherwise inconsistent with international law before applying each technique. These techniques are labeled with a [CAUTION].” Among the techniques labeled as such were a technique involving power tools, stress positions, and the presence of military working dogs. (pp. 220-221).

Warnings about Using SERE Techniques in Interrogations

Some have asked why, if it is okay for our own U.S. personnel to be subjected to physical and psychological pressures in SERE school, what is wrong with using those SERE training techniques on detainees? The Committee’s investigation answered that question.

On October 2, 2002, Lieutenant Colonel Morgan Banks, the senior Army SERE psychologist warned against using SERE training techniques during interrogations in an email to personnel at GTMO, writing that:

[T]he use of physical pressures brings with it a large number of potential negative side effects… When individuals are gradually exposed to increasing levels of discomfort, it is more common for them to resist harder… If individuals are put under enough discomfort, i.e. pain, they will eventually do whatever it takes to stop the pain. This will increase the amount of information they tell the interrogator, but it does not mean the information is accurate. In fact, it usually decreases the reliability of the information because the person will say whatever he believes will stop the pain… Bottom line: the likelihood that the use of physical pressures will increase the delivery of accurate information from a detainee is very low. The likelihood that the use of physical pressures will increase the level of resistance in a detainee is very high… (p. 53).

Likewise, the Deputy Commander of DoD’s Criminal Investigative Task Force at GTMO told the Committee in 2006 that CITF “was troubled with the rationale that techniques used to harden resistance to interrogations would be the basis for the utilization of techniques to obtain information.” (p. 69).

Other newly declassified emails reveal additional warnings. In June 2004, after many SERE techniques had been authorized in interrogations and JPRA was considering sending its SERE trainers to interrogation facilities in Afghanistan, another SERE psychologist warned: “[W]e need to really stress the difference between what instructors do at SERE school (done to INCREASE RESISTANCE capability in students) versus what is taught at interrogator school (done to gather information). What is done by SERE instructors is by definition ineffective interrogator conduct… Simply stated, SERE school does not train you on how to interrogate, and things you ‘learn’ there by osmosis about interrogation are probably wrong if copied by interrogators.” (p. 229).

Conclusion

If we are to retain our status as a leader in the world, we must acknowledge and confront the abuse of detainees in our custody. The Committee’s report and investigation makes significant progress toward that goal. There is still the question, however, of whether high level officials who approved and authorized those policies should be held accountable. I have recommended to Attorney General Holder that he select a distinguished individual or individuals – either inside or outside the Justice Department, such as retired federal judges – to look at the volumes of evidence relating to treatment of detainees, including evidence in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s report, and to recommend what steps, if any, should be taken to establish accountability of high-level officials – including lawyers.

Congresswoman Harman Caught Agreeing to Lobby for AIPAC Spies

2009-04-21T08:17:00.001-04:00

Bombshell: Rep. Jane Harman Caught on Tape Agreeing to Lobby for Alleged AIPAC/Israel Spies?

Jeremy Scahill
Rebel Reports
Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Harman was allegedly heard saying she’d ‘waddle into’ the AIPAC case in return for support for her bid to become chair of the Intelligence Committee.

This is a huge story: Representative Jane Harman, a hawkish, influential “Blue Dog” Democrat “was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington,” according to a report from CQ Politics:

Harman was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference,” according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

In exchange for Harman’s help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.

Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”

The case, known as the AIPAC espionage scandal centers around allegations that at least two AIPAC staff members passed sensitive US intelligence on Iran, provided by Pentagon official Lawrence Franklin, to Israel. In early 2006, Franklin pled guilty to espionage-related charges and was sentenced to 13 years in prison. The case against two indicted AIPAC staffers, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, is ongoing.

Allegations that Harman intervened in this case in an effort to win the spot as chair of the Intelligence Committee have been widespread since 2006, but an FBI investigation into Harman was dropped for “lack of evidence.” As CQ Politics reports:

What is new is that Harman is said to have been picked up on a court-approved NSA tap directed at alleged Israel covert action operations in Washington.

And that, contrary to reports that the Harman investigation was dropped for “lack of evidence,” it was Alberto R. Gonzales, President Bush’s top counsel and then attorney general, who intervened to stop the Harman probe.

Why? Because, according to three top former national security officials, Gonzales wanted Harman to be able to help defend the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about break in The New York Times and engulf the White House.

When Justice Department officials reviewed the transcript of the wiretaps on Rep. Harman, its attorneys determined she had committed a “completed crime,” which, according to CQ Politics is “a legal term meaning that there was evidence that she had attempted to complete it.” The Justice Department attorneys wanted to open a case on her, but they needed the green light from top intel officials to confirm it rightly constituted a national security investigation. Porter Goss, who was then the CIA director reportedly approved the investigation and was preparing to notify then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and House Speaker Dennis Hastert and, through them, Harman herself:

But that’s when, according to knowledgeable officials, Attorney General Gonzales intervened.

According to two officials privy to the events, Gonzales said he “needed Jane” to help support the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about to be exposed by the New York Times.

Harman, he told Goss, had helped persuade the newspaper to hold the wiretap story before, on the eve of the 2004 elections. And although it was too late to stop the Times from publishing now, she could be counted on again to help defend the program

He was right.

On Dec. 21, 2005, in the midst of a firestorm of criticism about the wiretaps, Harman issued a statement defending the operation and slamming the Times, saying, “I believe it essential to U.S. national security, and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.”

Pelosi and Hastert never did get the briefing.

And thanks to grateful Bush administration officials, the investigation of Harman was effectively dead.

On his Salon blog today Glenn Greenwald points out:

Jane Harman, in the wake of the NSA scandal, became probably the most crucial defender of the Bush warrantless eavesdropping program, using her status as “the ranking Democratic on the House intelligence committee” to repeatedly praise the NSA program as “essential to U.S. national security” and “both necessary and legal.” She even went on Meet the Press to defend the program along with GOP Sen. Pat Roberts and Rep. Pete Hoekstra, and she even strongly suggested that the whistleblowers who exposed the lawbreaking and perhaps even the New York Times (but not Bush officials) should be criminally investigated, saying she “deplored the leak,” that “it is tragic that a lot of our capability is now across the pages of the newspapers,” and that the whistleblowers were “despicable.” And Eric Lichtblau himself described how Harman, in 2004, attempted very aggressively to convince him not to write about the NSA program.

There may be some who attempt to portray Harman as a victim of blackmail by Gonzales (and the wiretapping of members of Congress—and other Americans— should be thoroughly investigated) but Harman is a right wing Democrat who was often in sync with the heinous policies of the Bush administration. Over at TalkingPointsMemo, Josh Marshall raises some interesting issues on this story, particularly relating to the wiretap itself:

Among the many questions the story raises are some that Harman should probably answer, but not all. High on my list would be finding out more about the circumstances under which a member of Congress ended up having her phone conversations recorded by the NSA. The article suggests it was a by-the-books wiretap — part of a highly-classified probe of Israeli agents in the US, which led to the indictments of two AIPAC employees — and not one of the ‘warrantless’ ones. But we’ve seen so much funny business on that front that I’m not sure that’s enough information.

In a prepared statement, Harman said: “These claims are an outrageous and recycled canard, and have no basis in fact… I never engaged in any such activity. Those who are peddling these false accusations should be ashamed of themselves.”

Israel engaged in covert war inside Iran: report

2009-02-17T20:55:00.001-05:00

By Luke Baker Luke Baker 1 hr 46 mins ago

LONDON (Reuters) – Israel is involved in a covert war of sabotage inside Iran to try to delay Tehran's alleged attempts to develop a nuclear weapon, a British newspaper said on Tuesday, quoting a former CIA agent and intelligence experts.

An intelligence source in the Middle East told Reuters last year Israel planned to target Iranian nuclear scientists with letter bombs and poisoned packages and had set off explosions in Iran. Analysts offered similar accounts and said such tactics would be credible, but no confirmation has been available.

Some analysts caution that reports of such a "dirty war" may form part of a psychological warfare campaign to unsettle Iran.

The intelligence source told Reuters that Israeli agents were working with Western governments and firms doing business with Tehran, whose Islamist leadership is a sworn enemy of Israel but denies accusations its nuclear program has a military purpose.

Israel's government, widely assumed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East, declines all comment on such reports.

"Israel has launched a covert war against Iran as an alternative to direct military strikes against Tehran's nuclear program," Britain's Daily Telegraph said on Tuesday. "It is using hitmen, sabotage, front companies and double agents to disrupt the regime's illicit weapons project, the experts say."

Quoting intelligence experts and an unnamed former CIA agent, the newspaper said Israel's "decapitation" strategy had targeted members of Iran's atomic program, hoping to set back the country's nuclear ambitions without resorting to war.

"SABOTAGE GOING ON"

Meir Javendafar, an Iran expert at Meepas, a Middle East analysis group, told Reuters there were also reports Iran was being sold faulty equipment for its nuclear program, and that there were attempts to disrupt the electricity supply to Natanz, a uranium enrichment facility in central Iran.

"I think there is sabotage going on. It's a logical move and it makes sense in the game that is part of the overall struggle to disrupt Iran's nuclear ambitions," he said.

As evidence of Israel's reported strategy, Iran watchers have pointed to events such as the death of Ardeshire Hassanpour, a nuclear scientist at the Isfahan uranium plant who died at home from apparent gas poisoning in 2007.

The former CIA agent told the Telegraph: "Disruption is designed to slow progress on the program, done in such a way they don't realize what's happening. The goal is delay, delay, delay until you can come up with some other solution.

"It's a good policy, short of taking them out militarily, which probably carries unacceptable risks."

Asked about the newspaper report, Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, told Reuters: "It is not our practice to comment publicly about these sorts of allegations, not in this situation, not in any situation."

New U.S. President Barack Obama has taken a more diplomatic line with Tehran, quietening former Bush administration talk of a possible military strike against Iranian nuclear assets.

Israeli leaders have been careful not to rule out their military options, though analysts question how far a new Israeli government, still to be formed after last week's parliamentary election, will be prepared to act without Washington's backing.

Javendafar said there were indications several states were attempting to infiltrate Iran to disrupt nuclear development but also suggested much of the reported clandestine activity was more part of a psychological war than an actual one of sabotage.

"Numerous intelligence agencies are trying their best to do this. Not just Israel, but the Americans and many European spy agencies," he said. "If it's true, then it's putting pressure on the Iranian program technically.

"Even if there's no truth to it, it's part of what is a massive psychological war against Iran's nuclear program ... It's ... much more affordable than sabotaging equipment."

(Editing by Janet McBride)

Christian Bale Goes Bat S**t on Peter Griffin!!! Funny

2009-02-15T13:22:00.001-05:00

Posted Feb 15th 2009 3:00AM by TMZ Staff

Christian Bale went crazy berserk on Peter Griffin -- seriously -- and by some crazy twist of fate, TMZ got our hands on the most friggin' sweet ass unedited clip you've ever heard. WARNING: Video contains explicit language.

The full "Family Guy" episode airs Sunday 9/8c on FOX.

Evangelical Pastor involved in more Gay Sex

2009-01-24T13:24:00.000-05:00

Disgraced pastor faces more gay sex accusation

By ERIC GORSKI, AP Religion Writer Eric Gorski, Ap Religion Writer – 48 mins ago

DENVER – Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard's former church disclosed Friday that the gay sex scandal that caused his downfall extends to a young male church volunteer who reported having a sexual relationship with Haggard — a revelation that comes as Haggard tries to repair his public image.

Brady Boyd, who succeeded Haggard as senior pastor of the 10,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, told The Associated Press that the man came forward to church officials in late 2006 shortly after a Denver male prostitute claimed to have had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with Haggard.

Boyd said an "overwhelming pool of evidence" pointed to an "inappropriate, consensual sexual relationship" that "went on for a long period of time ... it wasn't a one-time act." Boyd said the man was in his early 20s at the time. He said he was certain the man was of legal age when it began.

Reached Friday night, Haggard declined to comment and said all interviews would have to be arranged through a publicist for HBO, which is airing a documentary about him this month.

Boyd said the church reached a legal settlement to pay the man for counseling and college tuition, with one condition being that none of the parties involved discuss the matter publicly.

Boyd said a Colorado Springs TV station reached him Thursday to say the young man was planning to provide a detailed report of his relationship with Haggard to the station. Boyd said the church preferred to keep the matter private, but it was the man's decision to go public.

The disclosure comes as Haggard, 52, is about to give a series of high-profile interviews to promote the cable documentary about his time in exile. He is scheduled to appear on CNN's Larry King Live on Thursday, the date of the documentary's premiere, and already has taped "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

In early 2007, New Life Church disclosed that an investigation uncovered new evidence that Haggard engaged in "sordid conversation" and "improper relationships" — but didn't go into detail. Earlier, a church board member had said there was no evidence that Haggard had sexual relations with anyone but Mike Jones, the former male prostitute.

Haggard confessed to undisclosed "sexual immorality" after Jones' allegations and resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and from New Life Church, where he faced being fired.

Anticipating criticism of the settlement with the former church volunteer, Boyd said Friday that it was in the best interests of all involved. He would not name the volunteer or the settlement amount.

"It wasn't at all a settlement to make him be quiet or not tell his story," Boyd said. "Our desire was to help him. Here was a young man who wanted to get on with his life. We considered it more compassionate assistance — certainly not hush money. I know what's what everyone will want to say because that's the most salacious thing to say, but that's not at all what it was."

He said that "secondarily, it's not great for our church either" that the story be told. Boyd said Haggard knew about the settlement two years ago.

In a letter e-mailed Friday to New Life Church members, Boyd said of the settlement and agreement not to talk: "This decision was made not as an attempt to conceal wrongdoings, but to protect him from those who would seek to exploit him. His actions now suggest that he has changed his mind."

The letter said the church "received reports of a number of incidents of inappropriate behavior" after Haggard's fall. "In each case, we have tried our very best to do the right thing each time, including disciplinary action when appropriate."

Boyd said the "inappropriate behavior" referred to the man who was the volunteer involved with Haggard. After Haggard's fall, another church staff member resigned after admitting to what was described as "sexual misconduct."

Boyd said the church will not take action against the man if he tells his story in the press.

"We have legal standing to do that, but not the desire to," he said.

Boyd said he had spoken to the man once and came away with the impression that he was speaking out because of the documentary. "I think what caused this young man to be a bit aggravated was Ted being seen as a victim, when he himself had experienced a great deal of hurt," Boyd said. "I seriously doubt this man would have come forward if the documentary had not been made."

In an AP interview this month before an appearance in front of TV critics in California, Haggard described his sexuality as complex and something that can't be put into "stereotypical boxes."

U.N. chief Ban sees "heartbreaking" Gaza damage

2009-01-20T14:52:00.000-05:00

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Louis Charbonneau Nidal Al-mughrabi And Louis Charbonneau 2 hrs 7 mins ago

GAZA (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, voicing shock and anger at the "heartbreaking" devastation, visited the Gaza Strip on Tuesday to pledge aid for Palestinians after Israeli attacks killed 1,300 and made thousands homeless.

Israel had withdrawn most of its force before U.S. President Barack Obama was inaugurated -- Israeli leaders seemed eager not to cloud the start of a new era in a key alliance. Obama's predecessor George W. Bush endorsed Israel's right to defend itself against rocket fire by Gaza's ruling Islamists.

Since a ceasefire, though nothing like a peace accord, took hold on Sunday, Hamas has demonstrated it remains in charge in the coastal enclave. It held "victory" rallies to coincide with Ban's visit. Some speakers urged him and Western powers to end their boycott of Hamas, which won the last Palestinian election.

"I have seen only a fraction of the destruction. This is shocking and alarming," Ban said, condemning the "excessive use" of force by Israel as well as Hamas's rocket fire into Israel.

"These are heartbreaking scenes I have seen and I am deeply grieved by what I have seen today," he told a news conference held against a backdrop of still smoldering food aid in a U.N. warehouse set ablaze by Israeli gunfire last Thursday.

Ban called the attack "outrageous" and demanded an inquiry and, if need be, the guilty to be held to account.

Israel blames Hamas for fighting around civilians and sites run by the United Nations, which supports much of the population of 1.5 million. Most are from families of refugees who fled or were forced from homes in what became Israel in 1948.

Ban, on a Middle East tour, was the most senior diplomatic figure to visit the territory in years, certainly since Hamas routed secular Fatah forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and seized control of Gaza in June 2007.

BAN CALLS FOR PALESTINIAN UNITY

Although aid agencies said they planned a massive inflow of supplies to Gaza's people through Israeli crossings, help will be complicated by the Western boycott of Hamas as a "terrorist" organization and an Israeli blockade on many items, including building materials, that can be used to make weapons.

So Ban urged the Palestinians to patch up their political differences within Abbas's Palestinian Authority in order to realize their hopes of statehood and make peace with Israel.

"I appeal to Fatah, Hamas, to all Palestinian factions, to reunite within the framework of the legitimate Palestinian Authority," Ban said, urging an end to a schism between Hamas in Gaza and Abbas in the West Bank that has paralyzed peace talks.

Thousands of Hamas supporters, many waving green Islamist banners, marched through Gaza and held a rally outside the compound during Ban's visit. Speakers demanded U.N. recognition.

"The Hamas government was elected by popular vote," one said. "We demand an end to double standards."

The United Nations, with other key mediators in the Middle East, say they will only deal with Hamas if it recognizes Israel, renounces violence and accepts interim peace deals.

In the crowd outside the U.N. headquarters in Gaza, engineer Abu Murad Ghaleb, 40, criticized what many Palestinians see as repeated failure to impose U.N. peace resolutions on Israel.

"He is just an image, not a voice," Ghaleb said. "I am not here to support Hamas but I am here to tell the U.N. there is no power on earth but Israel and we are not going to bow to it."

Israeli leaders hope the devastation wrought on Gaza will undermine Hamas's popularity. There is some sign of impatience.

Also watching the rally outside buildings marked by the latest war, Wael Eid said: "Hamas over-estimated its own strength ... and brought this greater destruction.

"We've been let down by everyone in the world, so now we should seek a peace settlement with Israel."

TROOP WITHDRAWAL

An Israeli security source said much of a pullout was completed as planned, before Obama's inauguration, though some forces remained inside the enclave. Analysts saw the withdrawal as an effort to avoid any tension with the new president.

Many Palestinians returned to the rubble of what used to be their homes in Gaza city suburbs that were hard hit during the fighting. They picked through debris, salvaging belongings.

"We've won the war. But we've lost everything," said Nabil Sultan, commenting on Hamas's V for Victory signs as he surveyed the rubble of his home on the outskirts of the city of Gaza. "This was my house," he shrugged, by a pile of smashed concrete.

Two children were killed by bombs left behind in Gaza, Hamas officials said. There were scattered and contradictory reports of occasional firing but no clear breach of the ceasefire.

Ban, who met Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert before traveling to Gaza, later visited southern Israel, an area hit by Palestinian rockets during the Gaza war. At Olmert's office, Ban said he wanted to help to make the ceasefire "durable."

Gaza medical officials said the Palestinian dead included at least 700 civilians. Israel says hundreds of militants died.

The United Nations has estimated some $330 million is needed for urgent aid. Reconstruction, if it can be launched in light of the frost between Hamas and the West, may cost close to $2 billion, according to Palestinian and international estimates.

Israel said it hoped to more than treble the number of trucks delivering supplies to about 500 a day.

(Additional reporting by Douglas Hamilton in Gaza, Adam Entous, Luke Baker, Jeffrey Heller, Ari Rabinovitch and Alastair Macdonald in Jerusalem; Writing by Jeffrey Heller and Alastair Macdonald)

Video shows evidence of phosphorus bombs in Gaza

2009-01-17T19:14:00.001-05:00

Richard Norton-Taylor
London Guardian

Saturday, Jan 17, 2009

Video showing injuries consistent with the use of white phosphorus shells has been filmed inside hospitals treating Palestinian wounded in Gaza City.

Contact with the shell remnants causes severe burns, sometimes burning the skin to the bone, consistent with descriptions by Ahmed Almi, an Egyptian doctor at the al-Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.

Almi said the entire body of one victim was burned within an hour. It was the first time he had seen the effects of what he called a “chemical weapon”.

The Israeli military has denied using white phosphorus during the assault on Gaza, but aid agencies say they have no doubt it has been used.

“It is an absolute certainty,” said Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch. He had seen Israeli artillery fire white phosphorus shells at Gaza City, Garlasco said.

Full article here

UK Jewish Member of Parliament likens Israel to Nazis

2009-01-17T19:13:00.001-05:00

Angirfan
Friday, January 16, 2009

On 15 January 2009, the UK parliament discussed Gaza.

A veteran British Jewish lawmaker, Sir Gerald Kaufman, compared the Israeli offensive in Gaza to the Nazis who forced his family to flee from Poland.

“It is time for our government to make clear to the Israeli government that its conduct and policies are unacceptable and to impose a total arms ban on Israel.”

- Jewish British lawmaker likens Israel to Nazis

Both the UK Labour and Conservative parties have Members of Parliament who are ‘Friends of Israel.’

These are similar to the UK fascists in the 1930s who were fans of Hitler.

Arbuthnot - Upper class Conservative who reportedly supports the Israelis who steal land, murder children and carry out false-flag operations. (MP for North East Hampshire)

From The Guardian (Commons debate on Gaza - live):

James Arbuthnot, Conservative, said he was proud to be chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel.

Dismore, MP for Hendon, apparently is a friend of the people who steal land and murder children.

Andrew Dismore, Labour Party, said “Israel has the right to defend itself.”

Burt, MP for North East Bedfordshire, apparently likes the state of Israel which was founded on terrorism.

Alistair Burt, Conservative Party , described himself as a friend of Israel.

Jews used terrorism to drive the Palestinians out of their villages and into places like Gaza. Israelis have been killing Palestinian children since at least 1948.
George Galloway referred to the MPs who have talked about visiting Siderot in Israel.

“Did any of them, when they were there, see the remains of the Palestinian villages on which Siderot was built”?

Or did they consider the Palestinians living “in the refugee camps of Gaza who used to live in the villages on which Siderot was built”?

He said the conflict has a long history. “This started in this building when Arthur Balfour on behalf of one people made a promise to a second people of land that belonged to a third people.

Bizarre and Offensive Online Gallery Fearmongers For Terror Attacks in London, NYC

2009-01-16T10:10:00.000-05:00

UK Telegraph carries vulgar propaganda in arts and culture section

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, January 16, 2009

A bizarre, anonymous and offensive picture gallery currently appearing on the website of the London Telegraph newspaper that tells the story of a terrorist nuke attack on London has left many asking questions about its origin and meaning.

The slide show features on a section dedicated to art, culture, film and music but seemingly holds no artistic credence whatsoever, comprising merely of a series of crude pictures designed to instill fear into the viewer. The only purpose of the gallery is presumably just a continuation of the incessant drone of fearmongering propaganda from the establishment media and authorities about the imminent inevitability of a mass casualty terror attack.

Entitled “Blackjack,” the gallery begins with a date, June 20 at 2pm, followed by an MI5 logo and the text “MI5 report warns government of imminent terrorist attack”. This certainly makes sense because MI5 and MI6 have proven themselves adept at controlling terrorist groups and carrying out attacks in the past, including paying Al-Qaeda $100,000 in the mid-80’s in a failed attempt to assassinate Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

After we learn that the attack will be the work of “home grown extremists, Islamists and Christian doomsday cultists,” the date switches to June 21 at 12pm as a nuclear bomb is loaded onto a white van in London. As Cryptogon.com notes, the ‘fictitious’ attack occurs during the Summer solstice, the name on the side of the van is New Dawn Presentations and the logo is the Sun. The white van also harks back to the Kingstar (controlled demolition company) van that was pictured near the exploded bus after the 7/7 London bombings.

After citizens panic buy groceries and flee London in droves, on June 22 at 8:03am, the nuke explodes in central London. The images then show the devastation in the aftermath of the attack as the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace and Big Ben lay in ruins.

This is only the end of part one and in part two we are promised similar devastation with an image of millions fleeing New York City.

This disgusting and pointless “gallery” cannot be classed as culture, art or anything of the sort - it is nothing more than gratuitous and macabre pornography for those in establishment, and believe me there are many, that yearn for another 9/11 or worse in order to unravel their contemptuous political agenda.

What kind of sick mind created this and why was it allowed to feature so prominently on a major UK newspaper website? This is vile, vulgar propaganda and downright offensive, especially to the millions of people who live in London and New York City and have already suffered terrorist attacks, both of which were carried out with the complete complicity of the British and U.S. governments, within the past decade.

We need answers as to who created this, what its implausible artistic merit is, and why the London Telegraph allowed it to appear on their website.

We encourage people to make their complaints via this online form. Don’t give them your real address, just make up a fake one.

Israeli forces Bomb Food Storage for Gaza Residents

2009-01-15T18:04:00.000-05:00

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press Writers Ibrahim Barzak And Christopher Torchia, Associated Press Writers 6 mins ago

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israeli artillery shells struck the U.N. headquarters in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, setting a food warehouse ablaze and drawing a sharp rebuke from the visiting U.N. chief who called it an "outrage." Another Israeli bombardment killed Hamas' head of security.

The attack added to a day of deadly chaos pitting Israeli troops against Islamic militants. Terrified residents huddled in shelters and stairwells, or scooped up toddlers and fled on foot.

After nightfall, shells landed near Gaza City's Quds Hospital, where many families had sought refuge, and the building caught fire, forcing staff to evacuate hundreds of people. According to a hospital medic, some patients were pushed down the street on gurneys; a few held white flags.

The destruction added to what aid groups say is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and ratcheted up tensions between Israel and the international community even as diplomats indicated progress in cease-fire talks.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was departing Thursday night for Washington to discuss a Gaza cease-fire with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The United States and Egypt have been working to forge an agreement to end 20 days of bitter fighting.

The U.N. compound, made up of workshops and warehouses as well as offices, was struck about a half-dozen times over a roughly two-hour period while more than 700 civilians were sheltering there, said John Ging, head of Gaza operations for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency.

The civilians were huddling in the compound's vocational training center when it was struck by a tank round or an artillery shell, causing the three injuries, Ging said. Throughout this time, he said, U.N. officials were frantically contacting Israeli officials to urge an end to the firing on the U.N. compound.

The attack triggered a raging fire that engulfed a warehouse and destroyed thousands of pounds of food and other aid intended for Gaza's beleaguered citizens. Workers with fire extinguishers and Palestinian firefighters, some wearing bulletproof jackets, struggled to douse flames and tugged bags of flour from the debris.

Fuel supplies and cars in a garage also went up in flames.

Ging said the contacts with Israeli officials were made under a new liaison system aimed at preventing any attack similar to the shelling at a U.N. school in northern Gaza earlier this month that killed about 40 people. At the time, Israel said militants had fired on army positions from the area.

An Israeli airstrike killed Interior Minister Said Siam, a key figure in Hamas who oversaw thousands of security agents, Hamas TV said. A top aide, Siam's brother and his brother's family also were killed.

"We are talking about a key person in terms of logistics in the field, and also in the political sense," said Bassem Zbeidy, a Hamas expert in the West Bank.

He said Siam's death was a "huge loss for Hamas," but noted that the movement is easily capable of generating new leaders, often more radical than their predecessors.

Israel's intense assaults Thursday seemed to reflect an extra push to pressure Hamas negotiators into making concessions on a cease-fire and punish the militant group as much as possible before any end to hostilities.

Israeli envoy Amos Gilad returned from Cairo, where he discussed a cease-fire proposal with Egyptian officials who are also trying to coax Hamas into ending the war.

Israel launched the offensive Dec. 27 to end Hamas rocket attacks on Israel. Gaza medics say about 1,100 Palestinians, half of them civilians, have died; 13 Israelis have also been killed.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, visiting Israel, said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told him the attack on the U.N. compound was a "grave" error and apologized for it.

"I conveyed my strong protest and outrage to the defense minister and foreign minister and demanded a full explanation," said Ban, who arrived Thursday from Egypt.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the military fired artillery shells at the U.N. compound after Hamas militants opened fire from the location. Three people were wounded.

"It is absolutely true that we were attacked from that place, but the consequences are very sad and we apologize for it," he said.

Israel's chief military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu, said the military had not clarified the incident and that an investigation was under way.

"If it becomes clear that we returned shots at the source of fire, we will say so, and if it turns out we operated by mistake, we will not hesitate to confess," Benayahu told Israeli television.

Ging described the Israeli claim as "total nonsense" and "typical misinformation."

He said his staff in Tel Aviv was told by the Israeli liaison office "that there were no militants in the compound. There were militants operating ... in the area, but no militants or any firing from our compound. That's the official position of the Israeli authorities that deal with us. It happens, to my knowledge here, to be representative of the facts."

U.N. officials said hundreds of people sheltering in the compound were forced to flee, and that the Israeli shells contained white phosphorus, an incendiary agent that can cause horrific injuries. After the shelling, fire spread to nearby fuel tankers in the compound, triggering another massive blast.

The U.N. compound distributes food aid to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the tiny seaside territory of 1.4 million people.

Ging said the U.N. had warned the Israeli military that the compound was in peril from shelling that had begun overnight. U.N. officials say they have provided Israel with GPS coordinates of all U.N. installations in Gaza to prevent such attacks.

The U.N. Security Council expressed "grave concern" and requested a briefing from U.N. officials.

"We are calling all parties to respect international humanitarian law and especially to ensure the protection of civilians," said Jean-Maurice Ripert, France's U.N. ambassador.

An artillery shell hit the Quds Hospital pharmacy, and another shell landed on its front steps early in the day. It caught fire after nightfall, forcing the evacuation.

"There's gunfire, and warplanes above us," medic Abdul Aziz Aishe said by cell phone as he and a group of people fled. Ambulances ferried them to another hospital.

Dr. Moaiya Hassanain, a Gaza health official, said at least 70 people were killed or died of wounds throughout Gaza on Thursday.

Israeli shells also hit five high-rise apartment buildings and a building housing media outlets in Gaza City, injuring several journalists.

Bullets hit a building housing offices of The Associated Press, entering a room where two staffers were working but wounding no one. The Foreign Press Association, representing journalists covering Israel and the Palestinian territories, demanded a halt to attacks on press buildings.

The army had collected the locations of media organizations at the outset of fighting to avoid such attacks.

Gaza City resident Sami Helu, 34, was evacuated by the international Red Cross after he, his wife and 8-year-old daughter sheltered from withering fire around their apartment in the Tel Hawwa neighborhood. During the escape, he saw cars and buildings gutted by fire, bomb craters, speeding ambulances and fallen electricity poles.

"I saw suitcases abandoned, I think from people fleeing the area," Helu said. "There was a car still running, there was some money inside."

Israeli police said 20 rockets hit southern Israel, injuring 10 people. Five of the wounded were in a car in the city of Beersheba.

Olmert's office said Rice telephoned him, and he told her Israel hoped Egyptian mediators could help bring about a cease-fire and an end to weapons smuggling. The statement said Rice, who leaves office Tuesday, told Olmert that the U.S. was willing to help resolve the smuggling issue.

The Bush administration was racing in its final days to negotiate a deal on American support for mediation efforts under which the U.S. would give technical support and expertise to prevent Hamas from rearming, said U.S. and Israeli diplomats.

The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the talks.

Israel wants a total end to Hamas' rocket launches into Israel and an arms embargo on Gaza's militant rulers. Hamas has demanded an immediate Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the opening of blockaded border crossings.

"These are our demands and we don't accept any political movement that does not accept them," the movement's top political leader, Khaled Mashaal, said in a televised address from his headquarters in Damascus, Syria.

Ban said Israel was preparing to decide soon on whether to accept a cease-fire.

"I hope that decision will be the right one," he said after meeting Israeli President Shimon Peres.

In addition to the attack on the U.N. office, Israel shells landed next to a U.N. school in another Gaza City neighborhood, wounding 14 people who had sought sanctuary there, medics and firefighters said.

___

Barzak reported from Gaza City; Torchia from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Diaa Hadid, Karin Laub and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

An Unnecessary War

2009-01-14T09:20:00.000-05:00

Thursday 08 January 2009

by: Jimmy Carter, The Washington Post

A Palestinian confronts Israeli soldiers during a protest Thursday in the West Bank. Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Ramallah to demand an immediate halt to Israeli attacks. (Photo: Eric Gaillard / Reuters)

I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided.

After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years), the town was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions. About 3,000 residents had moved to other communities, and the streets, playgrounds and shopping centers were almost empty. Mayor Eli Moyal assembled a group of citizens in his office to meet us and complained that the government of Israel was not stopping the rockets, either through diplomacy or military action.

Knowing that we would soon be seeing Hamas leaders from Gaza and also in Damascus, we promised to assess prospects for a cease-fire. From Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who was negotiating between the Israelis and Hamas, we learned that there was a fundamental difference between the two sides. Hamas wanted a comprehensive cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israelis refused to discuss anything other than Gaza.

We knew that the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved, as the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food had found that acute malnutrition in Gaza was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day.

Palestinian leaders from Gaza were noncommittal on all issues, claiming that rockets were the only way to respond to their imprisonment and to dramatize their humanitarian plight. The top Hamas leaders in Damascus, however, agreed to consider a cease-fire in Gaza only, provided Israel would not attack Gaza and would permit normal humanitarian supplies to be delivered to Palestinian citizens.

After extended discussions with those from Gaza, these Hamas leaders also agreed to accept any peace agreement that might be negotiated between the Israelis and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who also heads the PLO, provided it was approved by a majority vote of Palestinians in a referendum or by an elected unity government.

Since we were only observers, and not negotiators, we relayed this information to the Egyptians, and they pursued the cease-fire proposal. After about a month, the Egyptians and Hamas informed us that all military action by both sides and all rocket firing would stop on June 19, for a period of six months, and that humanitarian supplies would be restored to the normal level that had existed before Israel's withdrawal in 2005 (about 700 trucks daily).

We were unable to confirm this in Jerusalem because of Israel's unwillingness to admit to any negotiations with Hamas, but rocket firing was soon stopped and there was an increase in supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel. Yet the increase was to an average of about 20 percent of normal levels. And this fragile truce was partially broken on Nov. 4, when Israel launched an attack in Gaza to destroy a defensive tunnel being dug by Hamas inside the wall that encloses Gaza.

On another visit to Syria in mid-December, I made an effort for the impending six-month deadline to be extended. It was clear that the preeminent issue was opening the crossings into Gaza. Representatives from the Carter Center visited Jerusalem, met with Israeli officials and asked if this was possible in exchange for a cessation of rocket fire. The Israeli government informally proposed that 15 percent of normal supplies might be possible if Hamas first stopped all rocket fire for 48 hours. This was unacceptable to Hamas, and hostilities erupted.

After 12 days of "combat," the Israeli Defense Forces reported that more than 1,000 targets were shelled or bombed. During that time, Israel rejected international efforts to obtain a cease-fire, with full support from Washington. Seventeen mosques, the American International School, many private homes and much of the basic infrastructure of the small but heavily populated area have been destroyed. This includes the systems that provide water, electricity and sanitation. Heavy civilian casualties are being reported by courageous medical volunteers from many nations, as the fortunate ones operate on the wounded by light from diesel-powered generators.

The hope is that when further hostilities are no longer productive, Israel, Hamas and the United States will accept another cease-fire, at which time the rockets will again stop and an adequate level of humanitarian supplies will be permitted to the surviving Palestinians, with the publicized agreement monitored by the international community. The next possible step: a permanent and comprehensive peace.

-------

The writer was president from 1977 to 1981. He founded the Carter Center, a nongovernmental organization advancing peace and health worldwide, in 1982.

The Humiliation of America

2009-01-14T09:10:00.000-05:00

By Paul Craig Roberts

January 14, 2009 "Information Clearinghouse" -- - “Early Friday morning the secretary of state was considering bringing the cease-fire resolution to a UNSC vote and we didn’t want her to vote for it.” Olmert said. “I said ‘get President Bush on the phone.’ They tried and told me he was in the middle of a lecture in Philadelphia. I said ‘I’m not interested, I need to speak to him now.’ He got down from the podium, went out and took the phone call.”

“Let me see if I understand this,” wrote a friend in response to news reports that Israeli Prime Minister Olmert ordered President Bush from the podium where he was giving a speech to receive Israel’s instructions about how the United States had to vote on the UN resolution. “On September 11th, President Bush is interrupted while reading a story to school children and told the World Trade Center had been hit--and he went on reading. Now, Olmert calls about a UN resolution when Bush is giving a speech and Bush leaves the stage to take the call. There exists no greater example of a master-servant relationship.”

Olmert gloated as he told Israelis how he had shamed US Secretary of State Condi Rice by preventing the American Secretary of State from supporting a resolution that she had helped to craft. Olmert proudly related how he had interrupted President Bush’s speech in order to give Bush his marching orders on the UN vote.

Israeli politicians have been bragging for decades about the control they exercise over the US government. In his final press conference, President Bush, deluded to the very end, said that the whole world respects America. In fact, when the world looks at America, what it sees is an Israeli colony.

Responding to mounting reports from the Red Cross and human rights organizations of Israel’s massive war crimes in Gaza, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted 33-1 on January 12 to condemn Israel for grave offenses against human rights.

On January 13, the London Times reported that Israelis have gathered on a hillside overlooking Gaza to enjoy the slaughter of Palestinians in what the Times calls “the ultimate spectator sport.”

It is American supplied F-16 fighter jets, helicopter gunships, missiles, and bombs that are destroying the civilian infrastructure of Gaza and murdering the Palestinians who have been packed into the tiny strip of land. What is happening to the Palestinians herded into the Gaza Ghetto is happening because of American money and weapons. It is just as much an attack by the United States as an attack by Israel. The US government is complicit in the war crimes.

Yet in his farewell press conference on January 12, Bush said that the world respects America for its compassion.

The compassion of bombing a UN school for girls?

The compassion of herding 100 Palestinians into one house and then shelling it?

The compassion of bombing hospitals and mosques?

The compassion of depriving 1.5 million Palestinians of food, medicine, and energy?

The compassion of violently overthrowing the democratically elected Hamas government?

The compassion of blowing up the infrastructure of one of the poorest and most deprived people on earth?

The compassion of abstaining from a Security Council vote condemning these actions?

And this is a repeat of what the Israelis and Americans did to Lebanon in 2006, what the Americans did to Iraqis for six years and are continuing to do to Afghans after seven years. And still hope to do to the Iranians and Syrians.

In 2002 I designated George W. Bush “the White House Moron.” If there ever was any doubt about this designation, Bush’s final press conference dispelled it.

Bush talked about connecting the dots, but Bush has failed to connect any dots for eight solid years. “Our” president was a puppet for a cabal led by Dick Cheney and a handful of Jewish neoconservatives, who took control of the Pentagon, the State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, and “Homeland Security.” From these power positions, the neocon cabal used lies and deception to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, pointless wars that have cost Americans $3 trillion, while millions of Americans lose their jobs, their pensions, and their access to health care.

“These obviously very difficult economic times,” Bush said in his press conference, “started before my presidency.”

Bush has plenty of liberal company in failing to connect a $3 trillion dollar war with hard times. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities blames Bush’s tax cut, not the wars, for “the fiscal deterioration.”

Bush told the White House Press Corps, a useless collection of non-journalists, that the two mistakes of his invasion of Iraq were: (1) Putting up the “mission accomplished” banner on the aircraft carrier, which, he said, “sent the wrong message,” and (2) the absence of the alleged weapons of mass destruction that he used to justify the invasion.

Although Bush now admits that there were not any such weapons in Iraq, Bush said that the invasion was still the right thing to do.

The deaths of 1.25 million Iraqis, the displacement of 4 million Iraqis, and the destruction of a country’s infrastructure and economy are merely the collateral damage associated with “bringing freedom and democracy” to the Middle East.

Unless George W. Bush is the best actor in human history, he truly believes what he told the White House Press Corps.

What Bush did not explain is how America is respected when its people put a moron in charge for eight years.

Obama's Pro-Israel Congressional Welcome

2009-01-14T09:09:00.000-05:00

By Rami G. Khouri
Daily Star staff

January 14, 2009 "Daily Star" -- If the Israeli attack on Gaza that started 18 days ago was designed partly to send a message to the incoming Barack Obama, the United States Congress in the past week seems to have joined the battle to handcuff the new president and lay down the law for him, even before he takes office.

Obama has tried to remain aloof and stay out of the political battle over the Gaza war by making no substantive statements about it. Israel and its supporters in Washington have different plans. Obama has stayed away from the war, but they brought the war to him - shoving it down his throat as his first pre-incumbency lesson in how American presidents must behave with respect to Israel's desires, if they wish to remain in power.

The House of Representatives voted last Friday by 390-5 for a resolution that backed Israel in its Gaza onslaught, affirming "Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza." A day earlier, the Senate overwhelmingly supported Israel and its right to defend itself against terrorism.

Such extraordinary one-sided support for Israel by Congress mirrors the same position taken by the administration. Both President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared on Monday that Hamas was to blame for the current war and for the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza, and that any ceasefire had to guarantee that Hamas stopped attacking Israel. They seemed incomprehensibly blind to Israel's combined strangulation of and assault on Gaza.

This almost irrational absolute support for Israel in both the legislative and executive branches of the US government occurs amid a chorus of international condemnation of Israel for using excessive force. This includes calls by some United Nations officials and respectable non-governmental organizations to investigate whether Israel has committed war crimes.

Israel is using the two arsenals it is most comfortable with - military force to kill, injure, terrorize and displace thousands of Palestinian civilians; and the equivalent political overkill to bludgeon the American political establishment into total submission. After six decades of trying, Israel has been unable to turn Palestinians into vassals and subservient slaves - but it has succeeded in transforming an otherwise impressive American political governance system into a herd of castrated cattle who cower before the threats that Israel's Washington-based henchmen and hit men direct at them. Gaza will get its ceasefire soon, but will Washington ever find relief from the stranglehold of Israel's political thugs?

These Congressional votes in the past few days were not an unusual event, sadly, but rather a routine reaffirmation of the chokehold that Israel enjoys over the elected representatives of an otherwise healthy democracy. For example, two years ago, when Israel attacked Lebanon with similar ferocity, the House of Representatives voted 410-8 to support the Israeli onslaught and to condemn Hamas and Hizbullah for "unprovoked and reprehensible armed attacks against Israel." Two years before that, in 2004, the House voted 407-9 to support Bush's position that it was "unrealistic" for Israel to return completely to its pre-June 1967 borders in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

On no other foreign policy issue does Congress collectively stick its head in its back pocket, turn off its power of independent judgment, and disregard the impact of its decisions on how the US is perceived around the world. On no other issue does Congress vote according to the interests of a foreign country, rather than according to the US national interest. This kind of blind, wholehearted plunge into a maelstrom of pro-Israeli fanaticism and zealotry reflects precisely how strong the pro-Israeli lobby is in the United States, and how weak are the voices of reason, balance and justice as drivers of American foreign policy.

This is the distorted reality that Obama will inherit in one week's time, and what an ugly thing it is. It captures the worst of all worlds all rolled into one: the vicious force of the pro-Israel lobby in the US that buys and terrorizes politicians as easily as buying peanuts at a circus; the anemic, mindless and spineless Arab governments who stand naked before Israel and the US, and shameless before their own people; and the American political establishment that behaves on the Palestinian issue - with a handful of brave and decent exceptions - in a most un-American manner in the face of the pro-Israeli forces that decide if they live or die politically.

None of this is surprising or new. It only amazes me that Americans expect us to take them seriously and not to laugh - or throw up - when they preach to us about promoting democracy.

Rami G. Khouri is published twice-weekly by THE DAILY STAR.

How American News Media Works In Favor Of Israel

2009-01-14T09:04:00.000-05:00

Video

Part 2

Part 3

Please click on any statistic for the source and more information.

Statistics Last Updated: November 6, 2008

Israeli and Palestinian Children Killed September 29, 2000 - Present
123 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 1,050 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000. (View Source)

Israelis and Palestinians Killed September 29, 2000 - Present
	1,062 Israelis and at least 4,876 Palestinians have been killed since September 29, 2000. (View Source)

Israelis and Palestinians Injured September 29, 2000 - Present
8,341 Israelis and 33,034 Palestinians have been injured since September 29, 2000. (View Source)

Daily U.S. Taxes to Israel and the Palestinians Fiscal Year 2007
	During Fiscal Year 2007, the U.S. gave more than $6.8 million per day to Israel and $0.3 million per day to the Palestinians. (View Source)

UN Resolutions Targeting Israel and the Palestinians 1955 - 1992
Israel has been targeted by at least 65 UN resolutions and the Palestinians have been targeted by none. (View Source)

Current Number of Political Prisoners and Detainees
	1 Israeli is being held prisoner by Palestinians, while 10,756 Palestinians are currently imprisoned by Israel. (View Source)

Demolitions of Israeli and Palestinian Homes 1967 - Present
0 Israeli homes have been demolished by Palestinians and 18,147 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel since 1967. (View Source)

Current Israeli and Palestinian Unemployment Rates
	The Israeli unemployment rate is 7.3%, while the Palestinian unemployment is estimated at 23%. (View Source)

Current Illegal Settlements on the Other’s Land
Israel currently has 223 Jewish-only settlements and ‘outposts’ built on confiscated Palestinian land. Palestinians do not have any settlements on Israeli land. (View Source)

Please visit http://www.ifamericansknew.com/

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US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Rules Out Talks With Hamas

2009-01-14T09:02:00.000-05:00

By Agence France-Presse

January 13, 2009 "AFP" -- -US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has ruled out negotiations with the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas unless it drops its extremist stance, saying her position is "absolute".

"On Israel, you cannot negotiate with Hamas until it renounces violence, recognises Israel and agrees to abide by past agreements. That is just for me an absolute," Mrs Clinton told a Senate confirmation hearing.

"That is the United States government's position. That is the president-elect's position," she said after a senator suggested it is "naive and illogical" to pursue diplomacy with governments opposed to Israel.

She echoed the stance of the outgoing administration of President George W. Bush which is supporting Egyptian efforts to mediate a ceasefire following an 18-day Israeli war to stop Hamas rocket attacks.

Palestinian medical sources said around 70 more people had been killed in the fighting, bringing the overall toll to around 975 Palestinians with a further 4400 wounded.

On the Israeli side, 10 soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or by rocket attacks since December 27 when the Jewish state began its deadliest ever offensive on Gaza, ruled by the Islamists of Hamas since the group won elections in mid-2007.

The Bush administration has opposed negotiations with what it calls a terrorist organisation.

Mr Obama has proposed reaching out to the leaders of anti-US countries like Iran, North Korea and Cuba, but analysts doubted he would engage with Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah, which the US denounces as terrorist groups.

During her confirmation hearing, Mrs Clinton said the new administration will try a "new approach" toward Iran by engaging it diplomatically.

Killing Gaza

2009-01-14T08:56:00.000-05:00

When a picture is worth a thousand words

WARNING

This video contains images of the death and destruction caused by Israel's attack on the people of Gaza.

Viewer discretion is advised

Posted January 13, 2009

Video will take a moment to load - Its worth the wait.

Photo Reportage Khaled Safi - Gaza December 2008 - January -PalestineFreeVoice

"Wipe Them All Out"

2009-01-14T08:25:00.000-05:00

Bomb A Ghetto - Raise A Cheer

Must Watch 6 Minute Video

Interview With Pro Israel Demonstrators New York January 11, 2009.

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Gaza victims' burns increase concern over phosphorus

2009-01-08T15:30:00.000-05:00

Timesonline.co.uk

The pale blue 155mm rounds are clearly marked with the designation M825A1, an American-made white phosphorus munition

Michael Evans, Defence Editor and Sheera Frenkel in Jerusalem

Photographic evidence has emerged that proves that Israel has been using controversial white phosphorus shells during its offensive in Gaza, despite official denials by the Israel Defence Forces.

There is also evidence that the rounds have injured Palestinian civilians, causing severe burns. The use of white phosphorus against civilians is prohibited under international law.

The Times has identified stockpiles of white phosphorus (WP) shells from high-resolution images taken of Israel Defence Forces (IDF) artillery units on the Israeli-Gaza border this week. The pale blue 155mm rounds are clearly marked with the designation M825A1, an American-made WP munition. The shell is an improved version with a more limited dispersion of the phosphorus, which ignites on contact with oxygen, and is being used by the Israeli gunners to create a smoke screen on the ground.

The rounds, which explode into a shower of burning white streaks, were first identified by The Times at the weekend when they were fired over Gaza at the start of Israel's ground offensive. Artillery experts said that the Israeli troops would be in trouble if they were banned from using WP because it is the simplest way of creating smoke to protect them from enemy fire.

There were indications last night that Palestinian civilians have been injured by the bombs, which burn intensely. Hassan Khalass, a doctor at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, told The Times that he had been dealing with patients who he suspected had been burnt by white phosphorus. Muhammad Azayzeh, 28, an emergency medical technician in the city, said: “The burns are very unusual. They don't look like burns we have normally seen. They are third-level burns that we can't seem to control.”

Victims with embedded WP particles in their flesh have to have the affected areas flushed with water. Particles that cannot be removed with tweezers are covered with a saline-soaked dressing.

Nafez Abu Shaban, the head of the burns unit at al-Shifa hospital, said: “I am not familiar with phosphorus but many of the patients wounded in the past weeks have strange burns. They are very deep and not like burns we used to see.”

When The Times reported on Monday that the Israeli troops appeared to be firing WP shells to create a thick smoke camouflage for units advancing into Gaza, an IDF spokesman denied the use of phosphorus and said that Israel was using only the weapons that were allowed under international law.

Rows of the pale blue M825A1 WP shells were photographed on January 4 on the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border. Another picture showed the same munitions stacked up behind an Israeli self-propelled howitzer.

Confronted with the latest evidence, an IDF spokeswoman insisted that the M825A1 shell was not a WP type. “This is what we call a quiet shell - it is empty, it has no explosives and no white phosphorus. There is nothing inside it,” she said.

“We shoot it to mark the target before we launch a real shell. We launch two or three of the quiet shells which are empty so that the real shells will be accurate. It's not for killing people,” she said.

Asked what shell was being used to create the smokescreen effect seen so clearly on television images, she said: “We're using what other armies use and we're not using any weapons that are banned under international law.”

Neil Gibson, technical adviser to Jane's Missiles and Rockets, insisted that the M825A1 was a WP round. “The M825A1 is an improved model. The WP does not fill the shell but is impregnated into 116 felt wedges which, once dispersed [by a high-explosive charge], start to burn within four to five seconds. They then burn for five to ten minutes. The smoke screen produced is extremely effective,” he said.

The shell is not defined as an incendiary weapon by the Third Protocol to the Convention on Conventional Weapons because its principal use is to produce smoke to protect troops. However, Marc Galasco, of Human Rights Watch, said: “Recognising the significant incidental incendiary effect that white phosphorus creates, there is great concern that Israel is failing to take all feasible steps to avoid civilian loss of life and property by using WP in densely populated urban areas. This concern is amplified given the technique evidenced in media photographs of air-bursting WP projectiles at relatively low levels, seemingly to maximise its incendiary effect.”

He added, however, that Human Rights Watch had no evidence that Israel was using incendiaries as weapons.

British and American artillery units have stocks of white phosphorus munitions but they are banned as anti-personnel weapons. “These munitions are not unlawful as their purpose is to provide obscuration and not cause injury by burning,” a Ministry of Defence source said.

Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian war surgery specialist working in Gaza, told The Times that he had seen injuries believed to have resulted from Israel's use of a new “dense inert metal explosive” that caused “extreme explosions”. He said: “Those inside the perimeter of this weapon's power zone will be torn completely apart. We have seen numerous amputations that we suspect have been caused by this.”

Uncensored Video Report From Dr. In Gaza Hospital

2009-01-07T09:37:00.000-05:00

“This is an all-out war against the civilian Palestinian population”

Video and Text

January 06, 2009 "Information Clearinghouse"

Dr. Mads Gilbert, Gaza,

Dr . Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor in Gaza, tells Sky News that the number of civilians injured and killed in Gaza proves that Israel is deliberately attacking the population.

“Just a little bit more than an hour ago the Israelis bombed the central fruit market in Gaza city and we had a mass influx of about 50 injured and between 10 and 15 killed. At the same time they bombed an apartment house with children playing on the roof and we had a lot of children also. So this is really like speaking from the dumps of Inferno, it’s like hell here now, and it’s been bombing all night. Until now close to 500 people have been killed and the number of casualties is getting to 2,500 of which 50% are children and women.

Are your hospitals reaching capacity? Can you deal with these people?

We have been doing surgery around the clock. I have just talked with one of my colleagues in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit), he's not been sleeping for three days and the hospital is completely overcrowded, we are running 6 - 7 Ors (Operating Rooms) and there are injuries you just don’t want to see in this world… children coming in with open abdomens and legs cut off. We just had a child that we had to amputate both legs and an arm. And their only crime is being civilians and Palestinians living in Gaza. The relief now is not more doctors and more drugs; the relief now is to stop the bombing immediately, this cannot go on, it’s a disaster.

You’ve talked about the civilians, the women, the children, the men who aren’t involved in this, but are you also getting casualties that are Hamas fighters?

To be honest, we came on New Year’s Eve in the morning. I’ve seen one military person among the tenths… I mean hundreds that we’ve seen and treated, so anybody who tries to portrait this as a totally clean war against another army are lying. This is an all-out war against the civilian Palestinian population in Gaza, and we can prove that with numbers. And you have to remember that the average age of the Gaza inhabitants is 17 years, it’s a very young population, and 80% are living below the poverty limit of the UN. So this is a poor and very young people, and they are able to escape absolutely nowhere, because they cannot flee like other populations can in war time, because they are fenced in and they are in a cage, so they’re bombing 1.5 million people in a cage… young people, poor people and, you know, you cannot separate between the civilians and the fighters in such a situation.”

'As I Ran I Saw Three Of My Children. All Dead'

2009-01-07T09:35:00.000-05:00

By Hazem Balousha in Gaza City and Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem

January 06, 2009 " The Guardian" -- The small dead bodies were laid next to one another on the tiled floor of the morgue corridor, the blood drained from their cheeks. One had a bandage still wrapped around his head, another lay with his mouth half-open in his oversized, bloodstained clothes.

For a week the Samouni family had taken shelter in their small, single-storey home in Zeitoun, south-east of Gaza City, and there they survived wave after wave of Israeli bombing and artillery strikes. Then came Israel's ground offensive, the next phase in what Israel argues is a necessary and justified battle against the Palestinian militants firing rockets out of Gaza.

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, promised an "iron fist" for Hamas and said he would treat the civilian citizens of Gaza with "silk gloves," though the Palestinians of Gaza know perhaps better than most that there are few silk gloves in war.

The Samouni family woke on Sunday morning to find themselves surrounded by camouflaged Israeli troops and dozens of tanks, who had set up a position in the rubble of what was once the large Jewish settlement of Netzarim. As dawn broke, the soldiers seized control of the highest buildings in the district and ordered several of the neighbours into the Samouni family home and there a dozen of them waited, without food and without water.

"All day Sunday there was shooting and bombing. We didn't have anything to eat, we didn't have water to drink - our water tanks had been damaged in the fighting," said Wael Samouni, 32, who on a normal day would be manning his stall at the vegetable market. "We couldn't sleep."

He stepped out of the house briefly and saw a man shooting an M16 assault rifle. He mistook him for a Palestinian militant. Samouni shouted at him: "Please don't come here. They'll kill us. Go away." But as the gunman turned round, it became clear he was an Israeli soldier. The soldier shouted back in Arabic: "Bring me your ID." Samouni disappeared back into his house and decided not to venture out again.

They passed another night under the bombing and artillery strikes, grateful to have made it through to morning. Samouni remembered sitting in the crowded living room yesterday, surrounded by his neighbours, wondering how much longer they had to endure. It was 6.30am.

"We were sitting and suddenly there was bombing on our house and everyone started to run. There were three rockets. I have no idea where they came from," said Samouni. The rockets, believed now to be tank shells, hit the building and brought it crashing down. "I looked to my side, took hold of my boy Mohammad and I started to run. As I ran I looked back and saw on the floor my mother, two cousins and three of my children. All dead," he said. Samouni and the others ran from the house, some raised white cloths as flags and they made it to a patch of safe ground where they were taken to hospital by car.

Yesterday, as three of his children were laid out dead on the hospital floor, Samouni was in a bed upstairs in the Shifa hospital, recovering from wounds to his legs and shoulder and comforting his son Mohammad, five, who had suffered a broken arm in the shelling and had just woken after his operation. He was still unsure exactly how many of his 10 children had died.

"It's a massacre," Samouni said. "I'm 32 years old and I've never seen such things as this. I couldn't help myself or any of those around me. We just want to live in peace."

At his bedside was his brother Nael, 36, who lives in a house close by. His wife and daughter had been in Wael's house yesterday morning at the time of the shelling: both were killed.

"I wanted to go and join them the night before, but it was too dangerous to go out. If anyone moved he would be shot," Nael said. "Then when I heard the bombing this morning I saw people running. I saw an injured man fall to the ground. I ran to help, but there was an Israeli sniper in the house next door who shouted: 'Leave him alone.' We couldn't rescue anyone."

As he ran, Israeli troops fired over their heads and then ordered them to lift up their shirts to show they carried no weapons under their clothes. "We just made it out and here to the hospital," Nael said. Then, in a moment of anger, he pointed the blame. "Hamas is responsible for this. They are starving us, now they are killing us," he said. "They asked the Israelis to enter but where is the resistance? They are hiding. All the leaders of Hamas are underground. It's just the civilians confronting the Israeli army. I don't like Hamas and I don't want them ruling Gaza."

Hospital officials believe nine people were killed in the Samouni house, including at least four children. But they were not the only civilians to die at the hand of the Israeli offensive yesterday. Just north of Gaza City in the Shamali district, a missile struck a three-storey apartment block in the middle of the night - home to three brothers, their families and their father. It hit the roof and dropped down to the basement, destroying half the building and killing Amer Abu Asha, 47, along with his two wives, three sons and one daughter.

Yesterday his brother Samer Abu Asha, 50, sat outside on a plastic chair under a green awning. Neighbours came to shake his hand and offer their sympathy before slipping away quickly to avoid the next missile strike.

The family were not asleep at 1.30am yesterday when the Israeli missile struck - the noise of the bombing had been too much. In the moments after the attack there was such confusion no one knew who or how many had died.

"We started searching but it was hard with the dust, the darkness and the smoke," said Abu Asha. Neighbours told them bodies had been taken to the hospital, so they rushed to the Shifa in Gaza City, only to be told no one from their family had been admitted. "We went back home and searched everywhere," he said. Finally they found his brother Amer lying on a patch of ground outside the house, mortally wounded, his stomach ripped open. "We started to search for others under the rubble. We found arms, legs, half a head," he said. "We didn't find a complete body."

Abu Asha admitted that another brother in the family - but one who did not live in the building - was in the Hamas military wing but said he could not account for the bombing. They had received no warning. "It's unjust. They are targeting civilians, children, old women," he said. "Some European and Arab countries are supporting Israel in this terrorism. They want to crack down on Hamas, but Hamas is not in the houses. It's on the front line. Go there and kill them. Not us."

The Real Estate War in Gaza

2009-01-07T09:24:00.000-05:00

The History and "Morals" of Ethnic Cleansing

By Victoria Buch

January 06, 2009 "Counterpunch" -- -I arrived in Israel 40 years ago. It took me many years to understand that the very existence of my country, as it is today, is based on an ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The project started many years ago. Its seed can be traced to the basic fallacy of the Zionist movement, which set out to establish a Jewish-national state in a location already inhabited by another nation. Under these conditions, one has, at most, a moral right to strive for a bi-national state; establishing a national state implies, more or less by definition, ethnic cleansing of the previous inhabitants.

Albert Einstein grasped this fallacy a long time ago. A short time after WWI "Einstein complained that the Zionists were not doing enough to reach agreement with the Palestinian Arabs…He favored a binational solution in Palestine and warned Chaim Weizmann against `Prussian style` nationalism"[1]

But such warnings passed un-heeded by the Zionist movement. So here we are, nearly a century later, with a Jewish national state dominated by militaristic and militant nationalists, who diligently pursue colonization and "judaization" of the land under Israeli control, on both sides of the Green Line (1967 border). The project has been pursued continuously and relentlessly under the different Israeli governments, recently under the cover of bogus "negotiations" with President Abbas. Most of the Israeli institutions participate in it. Young Israelis, generation after generation, join the army to provide the military cover. The young folks have been brain-washed to honestly believe that the army pursues Israel's "fight for existence". However it seems evident to the author of this article, as to many others, that the survival of the Jewish community in this country depends on establishing viable mechanisms of coexistence with the Palestinians. Thus, under the slogan of "fight for existence", the State of Israel is pursuing an essentially suicidal project.

This long-standing outlook of the Israeli governing classes was summarized succinctly in a recent book `Palestine Inside Out` by Saree Makdisi, an American academic. His book "suggests that occupation is merely a feature of an ongoing Israeli policy of slow transfer of the native Palestinian population from their lands. This policy predates the founding of the state, and all of the various practices of the occupier: illegal settlement, land confiscation, home demolition and so on, serve this ultimate purpose."[2]

If you do not believe the above assessment, consider several statements by David Ben Gurion himself, from the time before the establishment of the State of Israel (Ben Gurion was the leader of the Zionist movement before 1948 and the first Israeli Prime Minister after 1948):

"The compulsory transfer of the [Palestinian] Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had, even when we stood on our own during the days of the first and second Temples…We are given an opportunity which we never dared to dream of in our wildest imaginings. This is more than a state, government and sovereignty, this is national consolidation in a free homeland." [3]

"With compulsory transfer we [would] have a vast area [for settlement]…I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it."[3]

During the 1948 war, about two-thirds of the Palestinians who would become refugees were in fact expelled from their homes by the nascent Israeli army, and one-third became refugees while escaping the dangers of war. All these people, 0.75-1 million of them, were prevented from returning to Israel after the armistice agreement, while their homes and property were demolished or appropriated by the State of Israel.

Among the common mantras provided to the Israelis to justify the above is the following: "Israel accepted the UN partition plan, and Arabs did not, so what happened afterwards is their own fault". What is conveniently overlooked is that Palestinian Arabs constituted between one third and one half of the population of that designated Jewish homeland (according to various UN reports). Why should these people, whose ancestors lived there for generations, accept living in somebody else's designated homeland? Imagine, for example, the reaction of French Belgians if their country were designated as a "Flemish homeland" by the UN.

But the main mantra drummed into the conscience of an Israeli citizen from kindergarten, is that in 1948 "it was either them or us", "Arabs would have thrown us into the sea if we did not establish a Jewish majority state with a strong army", etc. I have my doubts about that line, too, but let us suppose for the moment that in fact, it was so. And then came the year 1967, and the Six Day War. Another chapter in the Israeli "fight for existence" against recalcitrant Arabs who just keep trying to throw us into the sea. On the face of it, that is how it seemed. I together with most of my compatriots believed for years that 1967 was in fact a moment of existential danger for Israel. Until I stumbled upon some telling quotes, uttered by our very own leaders [4]:

"(a) The New York Times quoted Prime Minister Menachem Begin`s (1977 - 83) August, 1982 speech saying: `In June, 1967, we had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that (President Gamal Abdel) Nasser (1956 - 70) was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.`

(b) Two-time Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (1974 - 77 and 1992 - 95) told French newspaper Le Monde in February, 1968: `I do not believe Nasser wanted war. The two divisions which he sent into Sinai on May 14 would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it.`

(c) General Mordechai Hod, Commander of the Israeli Air Force during the Six-Day War said in 1978: `Sixteen years of planning had gone into those initial eighty minutes. We lived with the plan, we slept on the plan, we ate the plan. Constantly we perfected it.`

(d) General Haim Barlev, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief told Ma`ariv in April 1972: `We were not threatened with genocide on the eve of the six-day war, and we had never thought of such a possibility.`"

So: instead of "thwarting an existential danger", in 1967 the State of Israel carried out an effective military operation to acquire some real estate. There is nothing new about that "existential danger" propaganda. Acquisition of real estate by conquest has been already called pleasing names by various other conquerors and occupiers, throughout the old and new history: such as "manifest destiny", "white man's burden", "spreading true religion / culture / democracy", whatnot.

The reader may like to know that the 1967 real estate acquisition by the State of Israel was anticipated some twenty years earlier by Ben-Gurion, at the time of the partition plan (which was supposedly accepted by the Zionist leadership). See the following quotes of Ben-Gurion, which can be found in the book by an Israeli historian[5]:

"Just as I do not see the proposed Jewish state as a final solution to the problems of the Jewish people, so I do not see partition as the final solution of the Palestine question. Those who reject partition are right in their claim that this country cannot be partitioned because it constitutes one unit, not only from a historical point of view but also from that of nature and economy".

"After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the [Jewish] state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of the Palestine".

I wonder if at any point in history there was any association of people who acquired goodies by brute force, and who viewed themselves candidly as such. Times and again, conquerors considered themselves unwilling victims of circumstances, and the barbarians (their own victims!) against whom they have to regretfully protect their rights. Consider the following pronouncements of Benny Morris, a historian who documented the 1948 ethnic cleansing. In a 2004 interview with Morris which was published in Haaretz one reads[6]:

Q: The title of the book you are now publishing in Hebrew is "Victims." In the end, then, your argument is that of the two victims of this conflict, we [Israelis] are the bigger one.

Morris: "Yes. Exactly. We are the greater victims in the course of history and we are also the greater potential victim. Even though we are oppressing the Palestinians, we are the weaker side here. We are a small minority in a large sea of hostile Arabs who want to eliminate us.

The above opinion is representative of the Israeli mainstream. It has been raised to the status of axiom over the years, and no reasonable peace offers (such as the latest Saudi one) are likely to put a dent in it. Israelis are using this slogan to exempt themselves from normal human decency towards Palestinians. Most Israeli Jews have convinced themselves that they have a moral right to expropriate and expel Palestinians because Palestinians are such barbarians, who did not respond to Israel's"generous peace offers" and "only wanted to throw us to the sea". Because we are a nation of Holocaust survivors. My compatriots imagined themselves starring in a modern version of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" - starring as beautiful elves, of course, who were forced by sad fate to fight ugly goblins the Palestinians (goblins = "terrorists"). Human mercy does not apply to "terrorists". You do not make territorial compromises or peace agreements with "terrorists".

The above explains the mass participation of otherwise normal and more-or-less decent Israelis in the ongoing ethnic-cleansing projects. How else can you account for a dying elderly man and his wife being dragged out of their east Jerusalem apartment to make space for Jewish settlers. Building the Jerusalem "Museum of Tolerance" on the site of an ancient Muslim graveyard. Onslaught on West Bank orphanages supported by Islamic charities. State-subsidized Jewish settler-thugs conducting pogroms against Palestinians in Hebron and elsewhere in the Occupied Territories. Widespread sadism practiced by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian detainees. Trashing of Palestinian homes during nightly military incursions in Palestinian towns and villages. Demolitions of Palestinian homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem under the brazen pretext of "illegal construction". Extensive land grab for settlers. And much more.[7]

The Gaza Strip is the place where the self-righteous Israeli sadism has reached new heights. The Strip is densely populated, mostly by descendants of Palestinians expelled in 1948. Well before the Second Intifada, choice Gazan real estate along the beach (about ¼ of the Strip land) was confiscated for a few thousand Jewish settlers. Still, a million and a half Gazan Palestinians had a sort of normal life (under the Israeli occupation) – growing fruits and vegetables, making construction materials and other products for Israeli markets, and working as laborers within the Green Line. Before the second Intifada, very little terror was coming from there to Israel.

However, since the beginning of the Intifada (a year and a half before the first Palestinian rocket landing across the border) the Israeli army embarked on the systematic destruction of the Strip. Incursions were carried out every few weeks and included the destruction of factories and workshops, roads, agricultural land, homes, and whatnot. Access to the Israeli economy was closed. Eventually, desperate Palestinians resorted to shooting Qassam rockets which rarely caused casualties or real damage but served as an excellent pretext for Israeli military "action".

And then Sharon carried out his brilliant propaganda move of "disengagement" from Gaza. The whole operation was marketed as a demonstration of Israeli good will. The Israeli settlements in Gaza were in fact removed, but the army was redeployed around the Strip, and the Strip was converted to a large scale prison. The economic strangulation of Gaza was tightened to a draconian extent, especially after the Hamas government suppressed the Israel-cum-USA sponsored Fatah putsch. (I am no fan of Hamas but their government was democratically elected by the Palestinians) Hamas offered several times to conduct negotiations with Israel, based on 1967 borders, but the offers were under-reported and ignored. It is likely that such negotiations would have stopped the Qassams, but Israeli leaders appeared interested in continuation of the violence. The Qassams created a great opportunity for more "poor little us" propaganda, and a great pretext to wiggle out of legitimate international requests to stop the massive colonization of the West Bank.

Finally, a truce with Hamas was negotiated. Since the beginning of the truce defense minister Barak commenced preparations for a massive attack on Gaza[8]. On November 14th the working truce with Hamas was deliberately broken on Barak's orders, by killing several Hamas fighters. A totally predictable Palestinian response ensued - cancellation of the truce and a barrage of rockets. The barrage was used by Barak as a pretext for that large-scale operation, including the slaughter of hundreds of people in Gaza with missiles deployed from airplanes. This muscle-flexing is an obvious part of Barak's and Livni's forthcoming election campaign, at the price of hundreds of Palestinian casualties, and several Israeli ones (as meanwhile Palestinians have improved their aim). In a forthcoming ground operation Israeli soldiers are also likely to pay with their lives for this form of electioneering.

Do you know what mainstream Israelis make of the above? 'We, Israelis, in an act of self-sacrifice, removed poor Jewish settlers from their "homes" in the Gaza Strip and gave Palestinians a chance for free and happy existence. But the Palestinians spurned our peace efforts and preferred instead to pursue their addiction to "throwing Jews to the sea." Gaza could have become a new Singapore, but the Gazans chose instead to shoot rockets at Israelis.'

The disengagement was thus an act of brilliance on part of that evil genius, Sharon. He provided mainstream Israelis with a sweeping moral absolution. Palestinians "disappointed" them. Now the Israeli leaders can do anything they wish to Palestinians. Do not expect a squeak of public protest from the Israeli Jewish public, except for a tiny minority of "self hating Jews" like yours truly.

Believe me, these Jewish-Israeli mainstreamers are not natural-born monsters. They just do not know any better. Alas, I used to be one of them. Then one day I stumbled, more or less by chance, into the West Bank with a group of activists. I acquired some Palestinian friends and finally understood the criminality of the treatment of the Palestinians by my country. And I learned to ignore the daily portion of preposterous propaganda which is provided to my compatriots by the media in lieu of "news". But how to convince my compatriots not to listen to this propaganda? I do not know.

Then again, it does not have to be so. In addition to four million or so stateless Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories, there are about a million Palestinians living within the Green Line and carrying Israeli citizenship. Despite the very considerable internal racism, many of these Palestinian citizens are deeply involved in Israeli society. You meet Arab doctors and nurses in Israeli hospitals, Arab students in Israeli universities etc. There is quite an element of coexistence and cooperation between Jews and Arabs there. But a mainstream Jewish-Israeli colleague who might treat his or her Arab co-worker perfectly decently would still be proud of a soldier son who is "serving the country" in the Occupied Territories. He or she would still repeat racist propaganda about the "demographic danger" to the State of Israel from its Arab citizens, and believe the bloodthirsty speeches of generals and ex-generals on the TV. And vote for any of the three major Zionist parties, Likud, Kadima and Labour, whose leaders have been dedicated ethnic cleansers over the years.

For the sake of both nations living in this country, this outrage must be stopped. It must be stopped by pressure from outside, because at present within Israel there are no significant political forces to oppose it. Please do something, my friends, and do it urgently. And kindly ignore the endless "negotiations" between our government and the powerless Palestinian Authority, they are just a cover for more ethnic cleansing. If you do not believe me, come and see the massive settlement construction in East Jerusalem and West Bank. And the walls of the Palestinian ghettos.

UN: Gaza school attack only hit Civilians!

2009-01-07T09:00:00.000-05:00

UN: Gaza school attack only hit civilians

Press TV
Wednesday, Jan 7, 2008

The United Nations has dismissed Israeli claims that its bloody attacks on schools were directed at killing Palestinians fighters.

Christopher Gunness, spokesman for the UN refugee agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said with high confidence on Wednesday that there were no combatants or combative activities in the schools and school compounds targeted by Israel on Tuesday.

“We are calling for an independent investigation to establish the facts,” he said, calling for those who broke the rules of war to be brought to justice.

Israeli forces attacked three UN-run schools in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 45 civilians, most of whom were Palestinians who had taken refuge in the buildings to escape the raining Israeli fire on Gaza.

(Article continues below)

Israeli officials had tried to justify the incident as an attack on a militant stronghold.

Israeli ground forces began a full-scale invasion of Gaza on Saturday after pounding the region with airstrikes for a week.

According to Tel Aviv, the war on Gaza is aimed at ending rocket attacks against Israeli settlers, toppling Hamas and preventing the resistance group from rearming.

Hamas, however, demands a cessation of Israeli attacks and the opening of the Gaza border — which has been closed due to the 18-month blockade imposed on the strip by Tel Aviv.

So far the Israeli aggression has killed over 660 Palestinians, half of whom are women and children. More than 2,950 others have been wounded and many are feared to be under the rubble

George Galloway Speaks At London Gaza Protest

2009-01-05T13:56:00.000-05:00

3 Minute Video

George Galloway call for the overthrow of Egypt's President.

Posted January 04, 2009

Part of a Broader Israeli Military-Intelligence Agenda

2009-01-05T13:53:00.000-05:00

"Operation Cast Lead",

By Michel Chossudovsky

January 04, 2009 "Global Research" -- - The aerial bombings and the ongoing ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli ground forces must be analysed in a historical context. Operation "Cast Lead" is a carefully planned undertaking, which is part of a broader military-intelligence agenda first formulated by the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001:

"Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas."(Barak Ravid, Operation "Cast Lead": Israeli Air Force strike followed months of planning, Haaretz, December 27, 2008)

It was Israel which broke the truce on the day of the US presidential elections, November 4:

"Israel used this distraction to break the ceasefire between itself and Hamas by bombing the Gaza strip. Israel claimed this violation of the ceasefire was to prevent Hamas from digging tunnels into Israeli territory.

The very next day, Israel launched a terrorizing siege of Gaza, cutting off food, fuel, medical supplies and other necessities in an attempt to “subdue” the Palestinians while at the same time engaging in armed incursions.

In response, Hamas and others in Gaza again resorted to firing crude, homemade, and mainly inaccurate rockets into Israel. During the past seven years, these rockets have been responsible for the deaths of 17 Israelis. Over the same time span, Israeli Blitzkrieg assaults have killed thousands of Palestinians, drawing worldwide protest but falling on deaf ears at the UN." (Shamus Cooke, The Massacre in Palestine and the Threat of a Wider War, Global Research, December 2008)

Planned Humanitarian Disaster

On December 8, US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte was in Tel Aviv for discussions with his Israeli counterparts including the director of Mossad, Meir Dagan.

"Operation Cast Lead" was initiated two days day after Christmas. It was coupled with a carefully designed international Public Relations campaign under the auspices of Israel's Foreign Ministry.

Hamas' military targets are not the main objective. Operation "Cast Lead" is intended, quite deliberately, to trigger civilian casualities.

What we are dealing with is a "planned humanitarian disaster" in Gaza in a densly populated urban area. (See map below)

The longer term objective of this plan, as formulated by Israeli policy makers, is the expulsion of Palestinians from Palestinian lands:

"Terrorize the civilian population, assuring maximal destruction of property and cultural resources... [T]he daily life of the Palestinians must be rendered unbearable: They should be locked up in cities and towns, prevented from exercising normal economic life, cut off from workplaces, schools and hospitals, This will encourage emigration and weaken the resistance to future expulsions" Ur Shlonsky, quoted by Ghali Hassan, Gaza: The World’s Largest Prison, Global Research, 2005)

"Operation Justified Vengeance"

A turning point has been reached. Operation "Cast Lead" is part of the broader military-intelligence operation initiated at the outset the Ariel Sharon government in 2001. It was under Sharon's "Operation Justified Vengeance" that F-16 fighter planes were initially used to bomb Palestinian cities.

"Operation Justified Vengeance" was presented in July 2001 to the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon by IDF chief of staff Shaul Mofaz, under the title "The Destruction of the Palestinian Authority and Disarmament of All Armed Forces".

"A contingency plan, codenamed Operation Justified Vengeance, was drawn up last June [2001] to reoccupy all of the West Bank and possibly the Gaza Strip at a likely cost of "hundreds" of Israeli casualties." (Washington Times, 19 March 2002).

According to Jane's 'Foreign Report' (July 12, 2001) the Israeli army under Sharon had updated its plans for an "all-out assault to smash the Palestinian authority, force out leader Yasser Arafat and kill or detain its army".

"Bloodshed Justification"

The "Bloodshed Justification" was an essential component of the military-intelligence agenda. The killing of Palestinian civilians was justified on "humanitarian grounds." Israeli military operations were carefully timed to coincide with the suicide attacks:

The assault would be launched, at the government's discretion, after a big suicide bomb attack in Israel, causing widespread deaths and injuries, citing the bloodshed as justification. (Tanya Reinhart, Evil Unleashed, Israel's move to destroy the Palestinian Authority is a calculated plan, long in the making, Global Research, December 2001, emphasis added)

The Dagan Plan

"Operation Justified Vengeance" was also referred to as the "Dagan Plan", named after General (ret.) Meir Dagan, who currently heads Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency.

Reserve General Meir Dagan was Sharon's national security adviser during the 2000 election campaign. The plan was apparently drawn up prior to Sharon’s election as Prime Minister in February 2001. "According to Alex Fishman writing in Yediot Aharonot, the Dagan Plan consisted in destroying the Palestinian authority and putting Yasser Arafat 'out of the game'." (Ellis Shulman, "Operation Justified Vengeance": a Secret Plan to Destroy the Palestinian Authority, March 2001):

"As reported in the Foreign Report [Jane] and disclosed locally by Maariv, Israel's invasion plan — reportedly dubbed Justified Vengeance — would be launched immediately following the next high-casualty suicide bombing, would last about a month and is expected to result in the death of hundreds of Israelis and thousands of Palestinians. (Ibid, emphasis added)

The "Dagan Plan" envisaged the so-called "cantonization" of the Palestinian territories whereby the West Bank and Gaza would be totally cut off from one other, with separate "governments" in each of the territories. Under this scenario, already envisaged in 2001, Israel would:

"negotiate separately with Palestinian forces that are dominant in each territory-Palestinian forces responsible for security, intelligence, and even for the Tanzim (Fatah)." The plan thus closely resembles the idea of "cantonization" of Palestinian territories, put forth by a number of ministers." Sylvain Cypel, The infamous 'Dagan Plan' Sharon's plan for getting rid of Arafat, Le Monde, December 17, 2001)

From Left to Right: Dagan, Sharon, Halevy

The Dagan Plan has established continuity in the military-intelligence agenda. In the wake of the 2000 elections, Meir Dagan was assigned a key role. "He became Sharon’s "go-between" in security issues with President’s Bush’s special envoys Zinni and Mitchell." He was subsequently appointed Director of the Mossad by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in August 2002. In the post-Sharon period, he remained head of Mossad. He was reconfirmed in his position as Director of Israeli Intelligence by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in June 2008.

Meir Dagan, in coordination with his US counterparts, has been in charge of various military-intelligence operations. It is worth noting that Meir Dagan as a young Colonel had worked closely with defense minister Ariel Sharon in the raids on Palestinian settlements in Beirut in 1982. The 2009 ground invasion of Gaza, in many regards, bear a canny resemblance to the 1982 military operation led by Sharon and Dagan.

Continuity: From Sharon to Olmert

It is important to focus on a number of key events which have led up to the killings in Gaza under "Operation Cast Lead":

1. The assassination in November 2004 of Yaser Arafat. This assassination had been on the drawing board since 1996 under "Operation Fields of Thorns". According to an October 2000 document "prepared by the security services, at the request of then Prime Minister Ehud Barak, stated that 'Arafat, the person, is a severe threat to the security of the state [of Israel] and the damage which will result from his disappearance is less than the damage caused by his existence'". (Tanya Reinhart, Evil Unleashed, Israel's move to destroy the Palestinian Authority is a calculated plan, long in the making, Global Research, December 2001. Details of the document were published in Ma'ariv, July 6, 2001.).

Arafat's assassination was ordered in 2003 by the Israeli cabinet. It was approved by the US which vetoed a United Nations Security Resolution condemning the 2003 Israeli Cabinet decision. Reacting to increased Palestinian attacks, in August 2003, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz declared "all out war" on the militants whom he vowed "marked for death."

"In mid September, Israel's government passed a law to get rid of Arafat. Israel's cabinet for political security affairs declared it "a decision to remove Arafat as an obstacle to peace." Mofaz threatened; "we will choose the right way and the right time to kill Arafat." Palestinian Minister Saeb Erekat told CNN he thought Arafat was the next target. CNN asked Sharon spokesman Ra'anan Gissan if the vote meant expulsion of Arafat. Gissan clarified; "It doesn't mean that. The Cabinet has today resolved to remove this obstacle. The time, the method, the ways by which this will take place will be decided separately, and the security services will monitor the situation and make the recommendation about proper action." (See Trish Shuh, Road Map for a Decease Plan, www.mehrnews.com November 9 2005

The assassination of Arafat was part of the 2001 Dagan Plan. In all likelihood, it was carried out by Israeli Intelligence. It was intended to destroy the Palestinian Authority, foment divisions within Fatah as well as between Fatah and Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas is a Palestinian quisling. He was installed as leader of Fatah, with the approval of Israel and the US, which finance the Palestinian Authority's paramilitary and security forces.

2. The removal, under the orders of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2005, of all Jewish settlements in Gaza. A Jewish population of over 7,000 was relocated.

"It is my intention [Sharon] to carry out an evacuation – sorry, a relocation – of settlements that cause us problems and of places that we will not hold onto anyway in a final settlement, like the Gaza settlements.... I am working on the assumption that in the future there will be no Jews in Gaza," Sharon said." (CBC, March 2004)

The issue of the settlements in Gaza was presented as part of Washington's "road map to peace". Celebrated by the Palestinians as a "victory", this measure was not directed against the Jewish settlers. Quite the opposite: It was part of the overall covert operation, which consisted in transforming Gaza into a concentration camp. As long as Jewish settlers were living inside Gaza, the objective of sustaining a large barricaded prison territory could not be achieved. The Implementation of "Operation Cast Lead" required "no Jews in Gaza".

3. The building of the infamous Apartheid Wall was decided upon at the beginning of the Sharon government.

4. The next phase was the Hamas election victory in January 2006. Without Arafat, the Israeli military-intelligence architects knew that Fatah under Mahmoud Abbas would loose the elections. This was part of the scenario, which had been envisaged and analyzed well in advance.

With Hamas in charge of the Palestinian authority, using the pretext that Hamas is a terrorist organization, Israel would carry out the process of "cantonization" as formulated under the Dagan plan. Fatah under Mahmoud Abbas would remain formally in charge of the West Bank. The duly elected Hamas government would be confined to the Gaza strip.

Ground Attack

On January 3, Israeli tanks and infantry entered Gaza in an all out ground offensive:

"The ground operation was preceded by several hours of heavy artillery fire after dark, igniting targets in flames that burst into the night sky. Machine gun fire rattled as bright tracer rounds flashed through the darkness and the crash of hundreds of shells sent up streaks of fire. (AP, January 3, 2009)

Israeli sources have pointed to a lengthy drawn out military operation. It "won't be easy and it won't be short," said Defense Minister Ehud Barak in a TV address.

Israel is not seeking to oblige Hamas "to cooperate". What we are dealing with is the implementation of the "Dagan Plan" as initially formulated in 2001, which called for:

"an invasion of Palestinian-controlled territory by some 30,000 Israeli soldiers, with the clearly defined mission of destroying the infrastructure of the Palestinian leadership and collecting weaponry currently possessed by the various Palestinian forces, and expelling or killing its military leadership. (Ellis Shulman, op cit, emphasis added)

The broader question is whether Israel in consultation with Washington is intent upon triggering a wider war.

Mass expulsion could occur at some later stage of the ground invasion, were the Israelis to open up Gaza's borders to allow for an exodus of population. Expulsion was referred to by Ariel Sharon as the "a 1948 style solution". For Sharon "it is only necessary to find another state for the Palestinians. -'Jordan is Palestine' - was the phrase that Sharon coined." (Tanya Reinhart, op cit)

Living on Borrowed Time in a Stolen Land

2009-01-05T13:52:00.000-05:00

By Gilad Atzmon

January 04, 2009 "Information Clearinghouse" -- Communicating with Israelis may leave one bewildered. Even now when the Israeli Air Force is practicing murder in broad daylight of hundreds of civilians, elderly persons, women and children, the Israeli people manage to convince themselves that they are the real victims in this violent saga.

Those who are familiar intimately with Israeli people realise that they are completely uninformed about the roots of the conflict that dominates their lives. Rather often Israelis manage to come up with some bizarre arguments that may make a lot of sense within the Israeli discourse, yet make no sense whatsoever outside of the Jewish street. Such an argument goes as follows: ‘those Palestinians, why do they insist upon living on our land (Israel), why can’t they just settle in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon or any other Arab country?’ Another Hebraic pearl of wisdom sounds like this: ‘what is wrong with these Palestinians? We gave them water, electricity, education and all they do is try to throw us to the sea’.

Astonishingly enough, the Israelis even within the so-called ‘left’ and even the educated ‘left’ fail to understand who the Palestinians are, where they come from and what they stand for. They fail to grasp that for the Palestinians, Palestine is home. Miraculously, the Israelis manage to fail to grasp that Israel had been erected at the expense of the Palestinian people, on Palestinian land, on Palestinian villages, towns, fields and orchards. The Israelis do not realise that Palestinians in Gaza and in refugee camps in the region are actually dispossessed people from Ber Shive, Yafo, Tel Kabir, Shekh Munis, Lod, Haifa, Jerusalem and many more towns and villages. If you wonder how come the Israelis don’t know their history, the answer is pretty simple, they have never been told. The circumstances that led to the Israeli Palestinian conflict are well hidden within their culture. Traces of pre-1948 Palestinian civilisation on the land had been wiped out. Not only the Nakba, the 1948 ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinians, is not part of the Israeli curriculum, it is not even mentioned or discussed in any Israeli official or academic forum.

In the very centre of almost every Israeli town one can a find a 1948 memorial statue displaying a very bizarre, almost abstract, pipe work. The plumbing feature is called Davidka and it is actually a 1948 Israeli mortar cannon. Interestingly enough, the Davidka was an extremely ineffective weapon. Its shells wouldn’t reach more than 300 meters and would cause very limited damage. Though the Davidika would cause just minimal harm, it produced a lot of noise. According to the Israeli official historical narrative, the Arabs i.e., Palestinians, simply ran away for their lives once they heard the Davidka from afar. According to the Israeli narrative, the Jews i.e., ‘new Israelis’ did a bit of fireworks and the ‘Arab cowards’ just ran off like idiots. In the Israeli official narrative there is no mention of the many orchestrated massacres conducted by the young IDF and the paramilitary units that preceded it. There is no mention also of the racist laws that stop Palestinians[1][1] from returning to their homes and lands.

The meaning of the above is pretty simple. Israelis are totally unfamiliar with the Palestinian cause. Hence, they can only interpret the Palestinian struggle as a murderous irrational lunacy. Within the Israeli Judeo- centric solipsistic universe, the Israeli is an innocent victim and the Palestinian is no less than a savage murderer.

This grave situation that leaves the Israeli in the dark regarding his past demolishes any possibility of future reconciliation. Since the Israeli lacks the minimal comprehension of the conflict, he cannot contemplate any possible resolution except extermination or cleansing of the ‘enemy’. All the Israeli is entitled to know are various phantasmic narratives of Jewish suffering. Palestinian pain is completely foreign to his ears. ‘Palestinian right of return’ sounds to him like an amusing idea. Even the most advanced ‘Israeli humanists’ are not ready to share the land with its indigenous inhabitants. This doesn’t leave the Palestinians with many options but to liberate themselves against all odds. Clearly, there is no partner for peace on the Israel side.

This week we all learned more about the ballistic capability of Hamas. Evidently, Hamas was rather restrained with Israel for more than a long while. It refrained from escalating the conflict to the whole of southern Israel. It occurred to me that the barrages of Qassams that have been landing sporadically on Sderot and Ashkelon were actually nothing but a message from the imprisoned Palestinians. First it was a message to the stolen land, homes fields and orchards: ‘Our beloved soil, we didn’t forget, we are still here fighting for you, sooner rather than later, we will come back, we will start again where we had stopped’. But it was also a clear message to the Israelis. ‘You out there, in Sderot, Beer Sheva, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Tel Aviv and Haifa, whether you realise it or not, you are actually living on our stolen land. You better start to pack because your time is running out, you have exhausted our patience. We, the Palestinian people, have nothing to lose anymore’.

Let’s face it, realistically the situation in Israel is rather grave. Two years ago it was Hezbollah rockets that pounded northern Israel. This week the Hamas proved beyond doubt that it is capable of serving the South of Israel with some cocktail of ballistic vengeance. Both in the case of the Hezbollah and the case of the Hamas, Israel was left with no military answer. It can no doubt kill civilians but it fails to stop the rocket barrage. The IDF lacks the means of protecting Israel unless covering Israel with a solid concrete roof is a viable solution. At the end of the day, they might be planning just that (link).

But this is far from the end of the story. In fact it is just the beginning. Every Middle East expert knows that Hamas can seize control of the West Bank within hours. In fact, PA and Fatah control in the West Bank is maintained by the IDF. Once Hamas takes the West Bank, the biggest Israeli population centre will be left to the mercy of Hamas. For those who fail to see, this would be the end of Jewish Israel. It may happen later today, it may happen in three months or in five years, it isn’t matter of ‘if’ but rather matter of ‘when’. By that time, the whole of Israel will be within firing range of Hamas and Hezbollah, Israeli society will collapse, its economy will be ruined. The price of a detached villa in Northern Tel Aviv would equal a shed in Kiryat Shmone or Sderot. By the time a single rocket hits Tel Aviv, the Zionist dream will be over.

The IDF generals know it, the Israeli leaders know it. This is why they stepped up the war against the Palestinian into extermination. The Israelis do not plan upon invading Gaza. They have lost nothing there. All they want is to finish the Nakba. They drop bombs on Palestinians in order to wipe them out. They want the Palestinians out of the region. It is obviously not going to work, Palestinians will stay. Not only they will they stay, their day of return to their land is coming closer as Israel has been exploiting its deadliest tactics.

This is exactly where Israeli escapism comes into play. Israel has passed the ‘point of no return’. Its doomed fate is deeply engraved in each bomb it drops on Palestinian civilians. There is nothing Israel can do to save itself. There is no exit strategy. It can’t negotiate its way out because neither the Israelis nor their leadership understand the elementary parameters involved in the conflict. Israel lacks the military power to conclude the battle. It may manage to kill Palestinian grassroots leaders, it has been doing it for years, yet Palestinian resistance and persistence is growing fierce rather than weakening. As an IDF intelligence general predicted already at the first Intifada. ‘In order to win, all Palestinians have to do is to survive’. They survive and they are indeed winning.

Israeli leaders understand it all. Israel has already tried everything, unilateral withdrawal, starvation and now extermination. It thought to evade the demographic danger by shrinking into an intimate cosy Jewish ghetto. Nothing worked. It is Palestinian persistence in the shape of Hamas politics that defines the future of the region.

All that is left to Israelis is to cling to their blindness and escapism to evade their devastating grave fate that has become immanent already. All along their way down, the Israelis will sing their familiar various victim anthems. Being imbued in a self-centred supremacist reality, they will be utterly involved in their own pain yet completely blind to the pain they inflict on others. Uniquely enough, the Israelis are operating as a unified collective when dropping bombs on others, yet, once being slightly hurt, they all manage to become monads of vulnerable innocence. It is this discrepancy between the self-image and the way they are seen by the rest of us which turns the Israeli into a monstrous exterminator. It is this discrepancy that stops Israelis from grasping their own history, it is that discrepancy that stops them from comprehending the repeated numerous attempts to destroy their State. It is that discrepancy that stops Israelis from understanding the meaning of the Shoah so can they prevent the next one. It is this discrepancy that stops Israelis from being part of humanity.

Once again Jews will have to wander into an unknown fate. To a certain extent, I myself have started my journey a while ago.

Iranian Jews slam Israel over Gaza

2008-12-30T12:46:00.002-05:00

Iranian Jews express their solidarity with the Palestinians and the victims of the tragic incidents of Gaza. Iranian Jews Society has condemned Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Gaza which have so far killed over 281 people in two consecutive days.

The Israelis showed that they do not abide by any civil and human laws, the society said in a statement released on Sunday.

Meaningful silence of the international community towards Israel's atrocities shows that there is an urgent need for a new plan for fighting against oppression and retrieving the rights of the oppressed people, the statement added.

The UN Security Council on Sunday failed to force an end to Israeli attacks against Gazans because the United States vetoed the anti-Israeli resolution sought by the UNSC members.

The US, a staunch ally to Israel, has so far vetoed over 40 anti-Israeli resolutions sought by the council since 1972.

Iranian Jews express their solidarity with the Palestinians and the victims of the tragic incidents of Gaza, it said.

The Iranian Jews reaffirm that the inhuman behavior of the Zionist regime contradicts the religious teachings of Prophet Moses (PBUH), according to the statement.

Head of Jewish societies of Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan, Kermanshah and Yazd have undersigned the statement.

At least 281 people have been killed and 800 others wounded during two days of Israel's air strikes on Gaza.

Obama on Gaza: No Comment

2008-12-30T12:46:00.001-05:00

“There was no immediate comment on the Israeli air strikes on Gaza from Obama, who is vacationing with his family in Hawaii, or his staff.”

This is how our incoming President has reacted to the worst attack on the Palestinian people in 20 years – by not reacting at all.

The Bush White House, of course, has responded as we all know they would: Israel-has-the-right-to-defend itself, let the killing begin, etc., ad nauseum.

And don’t expect much better from the Obama camp. Remember how he scolded the UN for daring to even discuss the Gaza situation?:

“We have to understand why Israel is forced to do this… Israel has the right to respond while seeking to minimize any impact on civilians. The Security Council should clearly and unequivocally condemn the rocket attacks… If it cannot bring itself to make these common sense points, I urge you to ensure that it does not speak at all.”

With his silence – or, at least, his very delayed reaction – it seems clear that Obama is taking his own advice. Even as Israel takes the possibility of a new page in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict off the agenda, and sabotages all his brave talk about a renewed US diplomatic effort, the great “liberal” hope is apparently tongue-tied. And when he finally speaks, “progressives” should prepare for the worst: after all, this is someone who endorsed the Israeli re-invasion of Lebanon.

The Israeli-Palestinian “peace process”? The Israelis, for their part, are having none of it – and neither is our future President.

Five sisters killed in Gaza while they slept

2008-12-30T12:45:00.001-05:00

Israel's target was the mosque next door. But the rocket attack claimed the lives of innocent children

By Donald Macintyre and Said Ghazali
Tuesday, 30 December 2008

GETTY

'You will be martyrs': These were the words spoken by the surviving sister as her five siblings, Jawaher, four, Dina, eight, Samar, 12, Ikram, 15 and Tahrir, 17, lay dying beneath the rubble of their home;

More pictures

The five Palestinian sisters were fast asleep when a night-time Israeli airstrike hit the next-door mosque in Gaza. One of the walls collapsed on to their small asbestos-roofed home and they were all killed in their beds. The eldest sister, Tahrir, was 17 years old, the youngest, Jawaher, just four.

"They grow up day after day and night after night. Within a second, I have lost them," the girls' father, Anwar Balousha, said yesterday. The 37-year-old, along with another three of his children, was himself injured in the attack on the densely populated Jabalya refugee camp.

The funerals of the sisters – Tahrir, 17; Ikram, 15; Samar, 12; Dina eight; and Jawaher, four – were attended by family members and thousands of mourners. But with space running out in the cemetery, the five girls had to be buried in just three graves, one for the eldest and the others forced to share.

Mr Balousha wept down the phone, saying he felt "how a father who lost his five daughters would feel". With recorded readings from the Koran audible in the background, along with occasional explosions in the distance, he added: "It is the will of Allah. We are believers in God."

Amid the pile of rubble that was the Balousha home yesterday, three torn blankets could be seen poking out from the ruins along with a painted blue iron, a broken brown cupboard and a baby's bed.

The Israeli military said it had targeted the next-door mosque because it was a "known gathering place" of Hamas adherents. It said four gunmen were inside it at the time of the attack. The mosque was named Imad Akel after the former leader of the Hamas military wing.

As Israeli strikes continued, the uncle of the dead sisters said the family had been innocent victims. "We are not those who are firing rockets against Israel," Ibrahim Balousha said. "We are just people, human beings and not animals."

The Balousha family had moved out of their house when the Israeli bombing started on Saturday but they had decided to return "to meet their fate" in the words of the dead girls' uncle. He said that three missiles had been used in the airstrike at around 11.20pm on Sunday night and that hundreds of neighbours had arrived to help in the wake of the carnage.

After the funeral, 16-year-old Iman, who was briefly buried in the rubble of the family home but survived, described her unlucky siblings' dying moments. "I told my sisters, you will be martyrs, this is the end."

Her grieving uncle said that Hamas had taken advantage of the funeral to chant slogans including "Vengeance, Vengeance". Shouts of "Bomb Tel Aviv" were also heard. But Ibrahim Balousha said he had given the militant group short shrift. "I told them, this is a funeral and not a rally."

Times were already tough for the family of refugees even before the latest tragedy. The girls' father is unemployed for 11 months of the year, picking up work selling Ka'ak bread around Ramadan. The family depend on food rations from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and a $40 (£27.50) monthly handout. "The story is almost the same for decades," Ibrahim Balousha said: "Intifada and miseries, poverty and catastrophes."

UNRWA spokesman Christopher Gunness said: "The killing of these young girls is another tragic illustration that this bombardment is exacting a terrible price on innocent civilians. As with the killing of UNRWA students [on Saturday] we hope there will be a thorough and impartial and transparent investigation.

"Most important of all there has to be accountability. We need to know if international law was violated and if so, by whom," he added.

The UN yesterday issued a "conservative" estimate of the number of civilians killed in three days of unprecedentedly fierce aerial bombardment, putting the death toll at 62. It is a deliberately conservative estimate because it excludes all men in the Gaza City area to ensure that it does not accidentally include uniformed personnel.

The Palestinian Centre of Human Rights said that "most" of the more than 300 casualties were civilian but their tally includes Hamas policemen. It also said some bodies had still to be identified because they were so badly disfigured and that its field officers – who aim to chart every Palestinian casualty – are facing "extreme difficulties in visiting some areas, particularly those under multiple bombardment.

The Israeli military insists that it is doing its utmost to prevent civilian casualties but repeatedly points out that Hamas regularly and "cynically and specifically" uses locations in heavily built-up areas.

Torture trail seen starting with Bush!

2008-12-15T11:30:00.000-05:00

Jason Leopold
Online Journal
Monday, Dec 15, 2008

A bipartisan congressional report traces the U.S. abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib to President George W. Bush’s Feb. 7, 2002, action memorandum that excluded “war on terror” suspects from Geneva Convention protections.

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s report said Bush’s memo opened the door to “considering aggressive techniques,” which were then developed with the complicity of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Bush’s National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and other senior officials.

Three months ago, Rice admitted that she led high-level discussions beginning in 2002 with other senior Bush administration officials about subjecting suspected al-Qaeda terrorists to the harsh interrogation technique known as waterboarding, according to documents released by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, committee chairman.

“The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of ‘a few bad apples’ acting on their own,” the committee report said. “The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees.”

The Dec. 11 report also disputed the Bush administration’s rationale that the harsh interrogation methods were effective in extracting valuable intelligence and protecting the country from terrorist attacks.

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Instead, the report said, “Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority.”

The findings, which were released by Sens. Levin and John McCain of Arizona, this year’s Republican presidential nominee, drew no dissent from the 12 Republicans on the 25-member committee.

The 19-page report is the final installment in the Armed Services Committee’s 18-month investigation, which generated 38,000 pages of documents and relied upon the testimony of 70 people.

The White House declined comment, but Keith Urbahn, an aide to Rumsfeld, told the Washington Post that the allegations were “unfounded” and called the committee report a “false narrative.”

The narrative

The report’s narrative of the prisoner abuse begins in early 2002 when Rumsfeld’s Defense Department inquired about what limits should be placed on interrogations of terror suspects detained during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

Those questions sparked an internal administration debate and led to Bush’s Feb. 7, 2002, memo stating that the Third Geneva Convention, which sets standards for treatment of prisoners from armed conflicts, “did not apply to the conflict with al-Qaeda and concluding that Taliban detainees were not entitled to prisoner of war status or the legal protections afforded by the Third Geneva Convention,” the report said.

“The president’s order closed off application of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, to al-Qaeda or Taliban detainees.

“While the president’s order stated that, as ‘a matter of policy, the United States Armed Forces shall continue to treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of the Geneva Conventions,’ the decision to replace well established military doctrine, i.e., legal compliance with the Geneva Conventions, with a policy subject to interpretation, impacted the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.”

What followed were senior-level meetings deciding which interrogation techniques could be used and which couldn’t.

“In the spring of 2002, CIA sought policy approval from the National Security Council (NSC) to begin an interrogation program for high-level al-Qaeda terrorists,” Rice said, according to the report. Rice is now Bush’s Secretary of State.

“Secretary Rice said that she asked Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet to brief NSC Principals on the program and asked the attorney general, John Ashcroft, ‘personally to review and confirm the legal advice prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel.’ She also said that Rumsfeld participated in the NSC review of CIA’s program,” according to the report.

In July 2002, Rumsfeld and his legal counsel, William Haynes, solicited input from military psychologists about developing harsh methods that interrogators could use against detainees who were being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“Mr. Haynes was not the only senior official considering new interrogation techniques for use against detainees,” the report said. “Members of the president’s cabinet and other senior officials attended meetings in the White House where specific interrogation techniques were discussed.”

John B. Bellinger, Rice’s legal adviser at the State Department, said they recalled participating in meetings with Ashcroft and Rumsfeld in July 2002 about an Army and Air Force survival training program called Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE), which was meant to prepare U.S. soldiers for abuse they might suffer if captured by an outlaw regime.

“SERE training techniques were designed to give our troops a taste of what they might be subjected to if captured by a ruthless, lawless enemy so that they would be better prepared to resist,” Levin said Thursday. “The techniques were never intended to be used against detainees in U.S. custody.”

Last April, President Bush told an ABC News reporter during an interview that he approved meetings of the NSC’s Principals Committee to discuss specific interrogation techniques the CIA could use against detainees. The Principals Committee included Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General Ashcroft as well as Rumsfeld and Rice.

Spreading abuse

On Dec. 2, 2002, Rumsfeld authorized “aggressive interrogation techniques,” leading to “interrogation policies and plans approved by senior military and civilian officials [that] conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in US. military custody,” the committee report said.

“What followed was an erosion in standards dictating that detainees be treated humanely.”

After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and amid the rising Iraqi insurgency against the American occupation in 2004, the harsh interrogation tactics, which had been used at Guantanamo, spread to Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Bush’s Feb. 7, 2002, memo prompted Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who became the top commander in Iraq, to institute a “dozen interrogation methods beyond” the Army’s standard practice under the convention, according to a report by a panel headed by James Schlesinger on the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses in 2004.

Sanchez said he based his decision on “the President’s Memorandum,” which he said had justified “additional, tougher measures” against detainees, the Schlesigner report said.

The abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib exploded into an international scandal in 2004 when photos were leaked showing American prison guards parading detainees around naked and forcing them into mock sexual positions.

Bush, Rumsfeld and other senior administration officials expressed outrage over the Abu Ghraib photos and blamed the abuses on low-level soldiers acting on their own.

Eleven enlisted soldiers, who were guards at Abu Ghraib, subsequently were convicted in courts martial.

Cpl. Charles Graner, Jr., received the harshest sentence – 10 years in prison – while Lynndie England, a 22-year-old single mother who was photographed holding an Iraqi on a leash and pointing at a detainee’s penis, was sentenced to three years in prison. Their superior officers either were cleared of wrongdoing or received mild reprimands.

The Bush administration’s handling of the Abu Ghraib scandal drew especially sharp criticism from the Armed Services Committee chairman.

“Attempts by senior officials to pass the buck to low-ranking soldiers while avoiding any responsibility for abuses are unconscionable,” Levin said. “The message from top officials was clear; it was acceptable to use degrading and abusive techniques against detainees.”

Regarding the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, the committee’s report concluded that it “was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own.” The report added, “Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there.”

Obama’s response

Human rights organizations have pressed Barack Obama to aggressively investigate the Bush administration’s actions once he is sworn as president next month.

In a recent interview with “60 Minutes,” President-elect Obama told correspondent Steve Kroft “that America doesn’t torture and I’m going to make sure we don’t torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world.”

But Obama has not indicated whether Eric Holder, his choice for attorney general, will pursue an investigation into Bush’s interrogation policies.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said this week that he told Obama’s transition team that some of the Bush administration’s interrogation policies should remain intact.

In an interview with Congress Daily, Reyes, D-Texas, said dealing with suspected terrorists requires that “some options” beyond interrogation rules in the Army Field Manual need to be available.

“There are those that believe that this particular issue has to be dealt with very carefully because there are beliefs that there are some options that need to be available,” Reyes said. “We don’t want to be known for torturing people. At the same time we don’t want to limit our ability to get information that’s vital and critical to our national security. That’s where the new administration is going to have to decide what those parameters are, what those limitations are.”

Meanwhile, Attorney General Michael Mukasey has argued that there is no legal basis to prosecute current and former administration officials for authorizing torture and warrantless domestic surveillance because those decisions were made in the context of a presidential interest in protecting national security.

“There is absolutely no evidence that anybody who rendered a legal opinion, either with respect to surveillance or with respect to interrogation policies, did so for any reason other than to protect the security in the country and in the belief that he or she was doing something lawful,” Mukasey said during a Dec. 3 roundtable discussion with reporters.

“If the word goes out to the contrary, then people are going to get the message, which is that if you come up with an answer that is not considered desirable in the future you might face prosecution, and that creates an incentive not to give an honest answer but to give an answer that may be acceptable in the future,” Mukasey told the reporters.

Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, immediately took issue with the “breadth” of Mukasey’s statement “and the blanket conclusion that everyone involved in approving these policies believed they were acting within the law.”

Conyers reminded Mukasey that reams of evidence — including testimony from career military and law enforcement officials — show that top White House officials may have broken the law by authorizing torture and warrantless domestic surveillance.

Indeed, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led an early investigation of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, said “there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”

Christopher Anders, the American Civil Liberties Union senior legislative counsel, said the Armed Services Committee’s report “makes clear the role of top White House and Defense Department officials in authorizing torture and abuse.”

The American Worker

2008-11-21T14:00:00.000-05:00

Friday 21 November 2008

by: Rick Kepler, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Members of the United Auto Workers at a monthly benefit meeting. (Photo: Getty Images)

I am an American worker, and you are damn right I want the wealth to be shared and spread. I am talking about the wealth my hard work helped to create, but was taken from me by George Bush's base, the very rich, or as I know them, my corporate bosses. For the past eight years I have watched W.'s and McCain's (Country Club First) base grab the largest share of our country's wealth. Where did they take it from? They took it from my family's pocketbook, and my co-workers' families' pocketbooks. They stole the wealth that I was trying to build for me and my family when they stripped my pension plan from me and told me to invest in a 401k. Then they stole most of that 401k and other workers' 401k savings with this economic meltdown. This was a massive transfer of wealth from the workers' pockets into the already stuffed pockets of the rich. My retirement savings and my coworkers' savings all across America have been looted by the corporate bosses, who just got bailed out while we got left out. Again!

The American worker, whether black, brown, white, red, yellow, or rainbow color, has been fleeced over these past eight years. We are the ones who go to work every day. We don't own our places of work, nor do we help manage them. We just go in and do the job. And we must be doing one hell of a good job because we are told that we are the most productive workers in the world. We are working longer and harder, but our paychecks keep shrinking! Where are those productivity gains going then? Not into our pockets. Our standard of living has been going down these past eight years ($2,000 less in family income since W. took office) This is another damn transfer of wealth into the hands of the extremely rich.

Their greed is insatiable. Take our family's health care. They do. They keep passing on their increased costs to us, or they just drop coverage for the worker completely. That means we either join the 50,000,000 who have no health care, or we end up having to buy it privately, thus eating up a huge portion of our family's income. If we manage to hang onto our health care plans, our deductibles, co-pays, and out-of-pay contributions keep skyrocketing. This amounts to another massive transfer of wealth from our pockets into the overflowing pockets of our corporate bosses.

The list goes on for the American worker. We saw overtime pay stripped from millions of workers during this past nightmare eight years. The worker was still working overtime, but due to a new "boss law" passed by W. and McCain's party that assists these thieves, the workers didn't receive overtime pay because they were declared exempt. They also weakened the workers' health and safety standards or just plain didn't enforce the laws already on the books. As a result, the American worker pays the price in lost days due to accidents from unsafe conditions or from lingering, expensive illnesses suffered from unhealthy working conditions. This too is a massive transfer of wealth from our pockets into our corporate bosses' bulging pockets.

To further sweeten their own pots, they took full-time jobs and converted them to part-time with no benefits, or they just made their employees line up and reapply for their exact same jobs at half the pay. Are we beginning to see what a true transfer of wealth looks like? So, do I want to see a spreading of the wealth? You bet your sweet hind-end I do. But all I ask of Obama is to give me and my co-workers the ability to retrieve some of the wealth that has been stolen from us.

Strengthen the laws that give workers the right to organize and bargain for a contract with our bosses. The current laws on the books have been torn to shreds by W. and McCain on behalf of their base. This is just part of their attack on American workers. Under globalization, the bosses seek a much cheaper workforce, which always means non-union, which means "can't fight back." That is why they have gutted the laws that protect workers. The laws that once gave us a level playing field with our bosses have been rendered useless, including our legal right to strike. That law said I had a right to strike, and could.

The American worker doesn't want a handout. Never did. We do want a hand up from our government. We still believe and have hope that this is a government of, by and for the people. We do want to know that our government will finally stand with us against this onslaught, this Robin Hood in reverse, being conducted by the bosses against the workers. The bosses know that W. and McCain have been on their side for the past eight years - and so do we workers. We just want our government to now stand on our side as we stand up against this corporate attempt to create third world working conditions right here in America. Restore our right to fight for a better living for ourselves and our families, and let the power of pissed-off workers, united in struggle, spread corporate America's stolen wealth back into the pockets of those whose pockets got picked these last eight years - the American worker.

Israel says will boycott U.N. forum on racism

2008-11-19T15:24:00.001-05:00

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Wednesday that Israel had made a final decision not to participate in a U.N. forum on racism and urged other countries to boycott what she termed an "anti-Israel tribunal."

The United Nations said it regretted the decision.

The World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, to be held in Geneva in April, is a follow-up to a 2001 summit in Durban, South Africa on the same issues.

Israel and the United States walked out of the first conference in protest over draft texts branding Israel as a racist and apartheid state -- language that was later dropped.

In a speech to visiting U.S. Jewish leaders, Livni said she announced last February that Israel would not participate in the 2009 meeting unless it was clear it would not be used "as a platform for further anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic" activity.

She said documents prepared for next year's forum showed it was "turning once again into an anti-Israeli tribunal, singling out and delegitimizing the State of Israel."

As a result, she said: "I decided that Israel will not participate and will not legitimize the Durban-2 conference."

"We call upon the international community not to participate in this conference, which seeks to legitimize hatred and extremism under the banner of the fight against racism," Livni added.

In August, officials from 21 African countries held talks ahead of the Geneva conference and adopted a text which recommended it discuss, among other issues, "the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupations."

Canada has said it will not take part in the Geneva meeting. The United States, Britain, the Netherlands and France have said they may stay away if Israel's relations with Palestinians stands to eclipse all else.

Some countries are also concerned that some Middle Eastern states will try to use the conference to push a declaration that could stifle free expression by labeling criticism of religions as defamatory.

The office of U.N. human rights commissioner Navi Pillay said it regretted Israel's decision.

"Given the critical importance of the issues under discussion at the conference, broad participation is essential," U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said in New York, speaking for the Geneva-based office.

"These ... are issues which affect all countries and millions of individuals around the world on a daily basis."

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Additional reporting by Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations; editing by David Wiessler)

Ron Paul: Republicans Have Lost All Credibility; But Obama’s Core Policies Mirror Bush

2008-11-06T17:09:00.000-05:00

You Tube
Thursday, November 6, 2008

Ron Paul tells CNN this morning that Republican support for endless wars, the Patriot Act and the stripping of civil liberties lost them credibility which will take a long time to regain, but that Obama’s core policies differ little from those of Bush.

Pentagon Fears Transitional Terror Attack

2008-11-06T17:06:00.000-05:00

Bill Gertz
Washington Times
Thursday, November 6, 2008

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday that the United States is vulnerable to attack or other incidents during the presidential transition period and that the military is ready to respond.

“When you go back and look at the number of incidents that have occurred three or four months before an inauguration to about 12 months out, back to the ’50s, it’s pretty staggering the number of major incidents which have occurred in this time frame,” Adm. Michael Mullen said, noting that the danger is compounded by current world conditions.

The Sept. 11 attacks, for example, occurred eight months after President Bush took office, at a time when many key appointments had not been made.

Recent preparations for the transition in the Pentagon were aimed at preventing any attacks, and if an attack or incident does take place, the military is ready to respond, Adm. Mullen told Sara A. Carter, national security reporter for The Washington Times.

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Shifts from old to new administrations are “always a challenging time in our country, always have been,” Adm. Mullen said.

“Transitions are always difficult,” he said. “We’ve put a lot of effort into it, and we’re ready.”

The chairman said he is concerned about the transition because of the global threats and opportunities facing the United States at the present time, namely in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I consider this a time of vulnerability, and I’ve worked this for months to have a transition team prepare for a new administration, mindful that this new administration, they don’t take charge until the 20th of January,” Adm. Mullen said.

The four-star admiral, who is the designated chief military adviser, stated that the military serves “one commander in chief always” while at the same time he will be going to “great lengths” to respond to the Obama transition team.

Obama Victory Sets Off Jubilation

2008-11-05T08:15:00.000-05:00

(Nov. 5) - They danced in the streets, wept,
lifted their voices in prayer and brought
traffic to a standstill. From the nation’s
capital to Los Angeles, Americans celebrated
Barack Obama’s victory and marveled
that they lived to see the day that a black
man was elected president.
“I was born in the civil rights time. To see
this happening is unbelievable. We’ve got
the first black president. A black president!”
said Mike Louis, a 53-year-old black
man who got teary-eyed as he watched the
election results on a giant video board in
Cincinnati’s Fountain Square. “It’s not
cured now, but this is a step to curing this
country of racism. This is a big, giant step
toward getting this country together.”
In Washington, hundreds of residents
spilled into the streets near the White
House, carrying balloons, banging on
drums and chanting, “Bush is gone!” Along
U Street, once known as America’s Black
Broadway for its many thriving blackowned
shops and theaters, men stood on
car roofs, waving American flags and Obama
posters.
Nearby, at historically black Howard University,
hundreds of students erupted in
cheers, broke into song and chanted, “Yes,
we did!”
In Philadelphia, thousands of blacks and
whites converged at City Hall shortly after
Obama was declared the winner. Under a
light rain, they danced to the music blaring
from car radios. Drivers stopped in the
middle of the street, opened their car doors
and broadcast Obama’s acceptance speech.
“Barack is in the house!” shouted Pamela
Williams, 46. “This is very important to me.
Change is about to happen.”
At Sadiki’s restaurant in Philadelphia, the
celebration poured out onto the sidewalk.
“Our parents left this planet thinking that
we would never, ever see this day, when an
African-American could be elected by all
the people to the highest seat in the land,”
said Bernard Smalley Sr. His wife, Jacquelyn,
wept.
The celebrations were both large big and
small, but the sentiment was the same —
pure joy over how far the country has come.
People honked horns, high-fived each other
and embraced. In Harlem, the roar of thousands
of people gathered in a plaza near the
legendary Apollo Theater could be heard
blocks away.
In Cleveland, supporters gathered at a
house party and held champagne flutes
above their heads for a toast. “To the first
African-American president in the history
of the United States!” they shouted.
In Chicago, Obama’s hometown, an estimated
125,000 people gathered on an unusually
warm November night to greet the
senator at a delirious victory rally at Grant
Park.
“It’s fantastic,” said Hulon Johnson, 71, a
retired Chicago public school principal.
“I’ve always told my kids this was possible;
now they’ll have to believe me.”
LaKeisha Williams, a 27-year-old laid-off
school nurse, who watched Obama’s victory
on a TV in a downtown Kansas City concert
hall, said: “People actually have finally
come together and realized that no matter
what his race is, he was the right person for
the job. I think it was destiny for him to
win. But now we still have to come together
to make sure things work.” In Miami’s predominantly
black Liberty City neighborhood,
Otoria Pitts, 30, suggested the significance
of Obama’s victory goes beyond
race.
“His election speaks volumes for a bunch of
people,” she said. “Children of single mothers,
people who put themselves through
college. It says, you can do it, you can do it.”
Joined by her sister, Susan, and niece, Akira,
the three women bought a few rockets
from a fireworks stand and lit up the night
sky with color.
On the other side of the country, others
were thinking how Obama’s election could
change their lives.
“I’m ecstatic,” said Jason Samm, a 33-yearold
business owner who was celebrating in
South Los Angeles. “I have three kids,
which means a lot of doors opening up for
them.” Obama’s victory also brought back
memories of hard-fought battles of generations
past. At Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist
Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr. preached, Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights
hero, said he was hardly able to believe that
40 years after he was left beaten and bloody
on an Alabama bridge as he marched for
the right for blacks to vote, he had cast a
ballot for Obama.
“This is a great night,” he said. “It is an unbelievable
night. It is a night of thanksgiving.”
As the news of a projected Obama victory
flashed across a TV screen, men in the
nearly all-black crowd pumped their fists
and bowed their heads. Women wept and
embraced their children. Screams of
“Thank you, Lord!” were heard throughout
the sanctuary. Surveying the scene, Mattie
Bridgewater whispered from her seat, “I
just can’t believe it. Not in my lifetime.”
Bridgewater said she went to the same elementary
school as Emmett Till, the boy
from Chicago whose murder in Mississippi
was one of the catalysts of the civil rights
movement. Both she and her 92-year-old
mother voted for Obama.
“I’m sitting here in awe,” she said. “This is a
moment in history that I just thank my God
I was allowed to live long enough to see.
Now, when I tell my students they can be
anything they want to be, that includes
president of the United States.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Tom Withers in Cleve-
http://news.aol.com/elections/article/obama-victory-sets-off-jubilation/238151
2
land; David Caruso in New York; Kathy
Matheson in Philadelphia; Errin Haines in
Atlanta; Christina Hoag in Los Angeles;
Joe Kay in Cincinnati; Andale Gross in
Kansas City; Ron Powers and Kamala
Lane in Washington; and Tamara Lush in
Miami contributed to this story.

Obama's Wins

2008-11-05T07:53:00.000-05:00

(CNN) -- Barack Obama told supporters that "change has come to America" as he claimed victory in a historic presidential election.

Sen. Barack Obama addresses a crowd of 125,000 people in Chicago, Illinois.

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"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America -- I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you -- we as a people will get there," Obama said in Chicago, Illinois, before an estimated crowd of up to 240,000 people.

With Obama's projected win, he will become the first African-American to win the White House.

Obama had an overwhelming victory over Sen. John McCain, who pledged Tuesday night to help Obama lead. Watch Obama pay tribute to McCain »

"Today, I was a candidate for the highest office in the country I love so much, and tonight, I remain her servant," McCain said.

McCain called Obama to congratulate him, and Obama told the Arizona senator he was eager to sit down and talk about how the two of them can work together.

President Bush also called Obama to offer his congratulations.

Bush told Obama he was about to begin one of the great journeys of his life, and invited him to visit the White House as soon as it could be arranged, according to White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Obama will be working with a heavily Democratic Congress. Democrats picked up Senate seats in New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina and Virginia, among others. Read about the Senate races

Don't Miss

"While the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress," Obama said. Watch more on the balance of power »

Flanked by American flags, Obama told the roaring crowd, "This is your victory."

"To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn -- I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president too," he said. Watch Obama tell voters 'all things are possible' »

Supporters in Chicago cheering, "Yes, we can" were met with cries of "Yes, we did."

More than 1,000 people gathered outside of the White House, chanting "Obama, Obama!"

Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama's former rival for the Democratic nomination, said in a statement that "we are celebrating an historic victory for the American people." iReport.com: Share your Election Day reaction with CNN

"This was a long and hard fought campaign but the result was well worth the wait. Together, under the leadership of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and a Democratic Congress, we will chart a better course to build a new economy and rebuild our leadership in the world."

Sen. Ted Kennedy said Americans "spoke loud and clear" in electing Obama.

"They understood his vision of a fairer and more just America and embraced it. They heard his call for a new generation of Americans to participate in government and were inspired. They believed that change is possible and voted to be part of America's future," the Massachusetts senator said in a statement.

As results came in Tuesday night, Obama picked up early wins in Pennsylvania and Ohio -- states considered must-wins for McCain.

Obama also won Virginia, a state that has not voted for a Democratic president since 1964.

Going into the election, national polls showed Obama with an 8-point lead.

Voters expressed excitement and pride in their country after casting their ballots in the historic election. Poll workers reported high turnout across many parts of the country, and some voters waited hours to cast their ballots. Read about election problems

Tuesday marks the end of the longest presidential campaign season in U.S. history -- 21 months.

Obama, 47, will now begin his transition to the White House. He will be sworn in at the 44th president on January 20, 2009.

Reversal of Fortune

2008-11-04T09:31:00.000-05:00

Saturday 01 November 2008

by: Joseph E. Stiglitz, Vanity Fair

A man waits in a breadline in San Francisco in 1933, the year unemployment hit 24.9 percent. (Photo: Dorothea Lange Collection / Oakland Museum of California)

Describing how ideology, special-interest pressure, populist politics, and sheer incompetence have left the US economy on life support, the author puts forth a clear, commonsense plan to reverse the Bush-era follies and regain America's economic sanity.

When the American economy enters a downturn, you often hear the experts debating whether it is likely to be V-shaped (short and sharp) or U-shaped (longer but milder). Today, the American economy may be entering a downturn that is best described as L-shaped. It is in a very low place indeed, and likely to remain there for some time to come.

Virtually all the indicators look grim. Inflation is running at an annual rate of nearly 6 percent, its highest level in 17 years. Unemployment stands at 6 percent; there has been no net job growth in the private sector for almost a year. Housing prices have fallen faster than at any time in memory - in Florida and California, by 30 percent or more. Banks are reporting record losses, only months after their executives walked off with record bonuses as their reward. President Bush inherited a $128 billion budget surplus from Bill Clinton; this year the federal government announced the second-largest budget deficit ever reported. During the eight years of the Bush administration, the national debt has increased by more than 65 percent, to nearly $10 trillion (to which the debts of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae should now be added, according to the Congressional Budget Office). Meanwhile, we are saddled with the cost of two wars. The price tag for the one in Iraq alone will, by my estimate, ultimately exceed $3 trillion.

This tangled knot of problems will be difficult to unravel. Standard prescriptions call for raising interest rates when confronted with inflation, just as standard prescriptions call for lowering interest rates when confronted with an economic downturn. How do you do both at the same time? Not in the way that some politicians have proposed. With gasoline prices at all-time highs, John McCain has called for a rollback of gas taxes. But that would lead to more gas consumption, raise the price of gas further, increase our dependence on foreign oil, and expand our already massive trade deficit. The expanding deficit would in turn force the U.S. to continue borrowing gargantuan sums from abroad, making us even more indebted. At the same time, the higher imports of oil and petroleum-based products would lead to a weaker dollar, fueling inflationary pressures.

Millions of Americans are losing their homes. (Already, some 3.6 million have done so since the subprime-mortgage crisis began.) This social catastrophe has severe economic effects. The banks and other financial institutions that own these mortgages face stunning reverses; a few, such as Bear Stearns, have already gone belly-up. To prevent America's $5.2 trillion home financiers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, from following suit, Congress authorized a blank check to cover their losses, but even that generosity failed to do the trick. Now the administration has taken over the two entities completely, a stunning feat for a supposedly market-oriented regime. These bailouts contribute to growing deficits in the short run, and to perverse incentives in the long run. Market economies work only when there is a system of accountability, but C.E.O.'s, investors, and creditors are walking away with billions, while American taxpayers are being asked to pick up the tab. (Freddie Mac's chairman, Richard Syron, earned $14.5 million in 2007. Fannie Mae's C.E.O., Daniel Mudd, earned $14.2 million that same year.) We're looking at a new form of public-private partnership, one in which the public shoulders all the risk, and the private sector gets all the profit. While the Bush administration preaches responsibility, the words are addressed only to the less well-off. The administration talks about the impact of "moral hazard" on the poor "speculator" who borrowed money and bought a house beyond his ability to pay. But moral hazard somehow isn't an issue when it comes to the high-stakes speculators in corporate boardrooms.

How Did We Get Into This Mess?

A unique combination of ideology, special-interest pressure, populist politics, bad economics, and sheer incompetence has brought us to our present condition.

Ideology proclaimed that markets were always good and government always bad. While George W. Bush has done as much as he can to ensure that government lives up to that reputation - it is the one area where he has overperformed - the fact is that key problems facing our society cannot be addressed without an effective government, whether it's maintaining national security or protecting the environment. Our economy rests on public investments in technology, such as the Internet. While Bush's ideology led him to underestimate the importance of government, it also led him to underestimate the limitations of markets. We learned from the Depression that markets are not self-adjusting - at least, not in a time frame that matters to living people. Today everyone - even the president - accepts the need for macroeconomic policy, for government to try to maintain the economy at near-full employment. But in a sleight of hand, free-market economists promoted the idea that, once the economy was restored to full employment, markets would always allocate resources efficiently. The best regulation, in their view, was no regulation at all, and if that didn't sell, then "self-regulation" was almost as good.

The underlying idea was, on the face of it, absurd: that market failures come only in macro doses, in the form of the recessions and depressions that have periodically plagued capitalist economies for the past several hundred years. Isn't it more reasonable to assume that these failures are just the tip of the iceberg? That beneath the surface lie a myriad of smaller but harder-to-assess inefficiencies? Let me venture an analogy from biology: A patient arrives at a hospital in serious condition. Now, it may be that the patient has simply fallen victim to one of those debilitating ailments that go around from time to time and can be cured by a massive dose of antibiotics. In this case we have a macro problem with a macro solution. But it could instead be that the patient is suffering from a decade of serious abuse - smoking, drinking, overeating, lack of exercise, a fondness for crystal meth - and that it has not only taken a catastrophic toll but also left him open to opportunistic infections of every kind. In other words, a buildup of micro problems has led to a macro problem, and no cure is possible without addressing the underlying issues. The American economy today is a patient of the second kind.

We are in the midst of microeconomic failure on a grand scale. Financial markets receive generous compensation - in the form of more than 30 percent of all corporate profits - presumably for performing two critical tasks: allocating savings and managing risk. But the financial markets have failed laughably at both. Hundreds of billions of dollars were allocated to home loans beyond Americans' ability to pay. And rather than managing risk, the financial markets created more risk. The failure of our financial system to do what it is supposed to do matches in destructive grandeur the macroeconomic failures of the Great Depression.

Economic theory - and historical experience - long ago proved the need for regulation of financial markets. But ever since the Reagan presidency, deregulation has been the prevailing religion. Never mind that the few times "free banking" has been tried - most recently in Pinochet's Chile, under the influence of the doctrinaire free-market theorist Milton Friedman - the experiment has ended in disaster. Chile is still paying back the debts from its misadventure. With massive problems in 1987 (remember Black Friday, when stock markets plunged almost 25 percent), 1989 (the savings-and-loan debacle), 1997 (the East Asia financial crisis), 1998 (the bailout of Long Term Capital Management), and 2001–02 (the collapses of Enron and WorldCom), one might think there would be more skepticism about the wisdom of leaving markets to themselves.

The new populist rhetoric of the right - persuading taxpayers that ordinary people always know how to spend money better than the government does, and promising a new world without budget constraints, where every tax cut generates more revenue - hasn't helped matters. Special interests took advantage of this seductive mixture of populism and free-market ideology. They also bent the rules to suit themselves. Corporations and the wealthy argued that lowering their tax rates would lead to more savings; they got the tax breaks, but America's household savings rate not only didn't rise, it dropped to levels not seen in 75 years. The Bush administration extolled the power of the free market, but it was more than willing to provide generous subsidies to farmers and erect tariffs to protect steelmakers. Lately, as we have seen, it seems willing to write blank checks to bail out its friends on Wall Street. In each of these cases there are clear winners. And in each there are clear losers - including the country as a whole.

What Is to Be Done?

As America attempts to work its way out of the present crisis, the danger is that we will listen to the same people on Wall Street and in the economic establishment who got us into it. For them, our current predicament is another opportunity: if they can shape the government response appropriately, they stand to gain, or at least stand to lose less, and they may be willing to sacrifice the well-being of the economy for their own benefit - just as they did in the past.

There are a number of economic tools at the country's disposal. As noted, they can yield contradictory results. The sad truth is that we have reached the limits of monetary policy. Lowering interest rates will not stimulate the economy much - banks are not going to be willing to lend to strapped consumers, and consumers are not going to be willing to borrow as they see housing prices continue to fall. And raising interest rates, to combat inflation, won't have the desired impact either, because the prices that are the main sources of our inflation - for food and energy - are determined in international markets; the chief consequence will be distress for ordinary people. The quandaries that we face mean that careful balancing is required. There is no quick and easy fix. But if we take decisive action today, we can shorten the length of the downturn and reduce its magnitude. If at the same time we think about what would be good for the economy in the long run, we can build a durable foundation for economic health.

To go back to that patient in the emergency room: we need to address the underlying causes. Most of the treatment options entail painful choices, but there are a few easy ones. On energy: conservation and research into new technologies will make us less dependent on foreign oil, reduce our trade imbalance, and help the environment. Expanding drilling into environmentally fragile areas, as some propose, would have a negligible effect on the price we pay for oil. Moreover, a policy of "drain America first" will make us more dependent on foreigners in the future. It is shortsighted in every dimension.

Our ethanol policy is also bad for the taxpayer, bad for the environment, bad for the world and our relations with other countries, and bad in terms of inflation. It is good only for the ethanol producers and American corn farmers. It should be scrapped. We currently subsidize corn-based ethanol by almost $1 a gallon, while imposing a 54-cent-a-gallon tariff on Brazilian sugar-based ethanol. It would be hard to invent a worse policy. The ethanol industry tries to sell itself as an infant, needing help to get on its feet, but it has been an infant for more than two decades, refusing to grow up. Our misguided biofuel policy is taking land used for food production and diverting it to energy production for cars; it is the single most important factor contributing to higher grain prices.

Our tax policies need to be changed. There is something deeply peculiar about having rich individuals who make their money speculating on real estate or stocks paying lower taxes than middle-class Americans, whose income is derived from wages and salaries; something peculiar and indeed offensive about having those whose income is derived from inherited stocks paying lower taxes than those who put in a 50-hour workweek. Skewing the tax rates in the other direction would provide better incentives where they count and would more effectively stimulate the economy, with more revenues and lower deficits.

We can have a financial system that is more stable - and even more dynamic - with stronger regulation. Self-regulation is an oxymoron. Financial markets produced loans and other products that were so complex and insidious that even their creators did not fully understand them; these products were so irresponsible that analysts called them "toxic." Yet financial markets failed to create products that would enable ordinary households to face the risks they confront and stay in their homes. We need a financial-products safety commission and a financial-systems stability commission. And they can't be run by Wall Street. The Federal Reserve Board shares too much of the mind - set of those it is supposed to regulate. It could and should have known that something was wrong. It had instruments at its disposal to let the air out of the bubble - or at least ensure that the bubble didn't over-expand. But it chose to do nothing.

Throwing the poor out of their homes because they can't pay their mortgages is not only tragic - it is pointless. All that happens is that the property deteriorates and the evicted people move somewhere else. The most coldhearted banker ought to understand the basic economics: banks lose money when they foreclose - the vacant homes typically sell for far less than they would if they were lived in and cared for. If banks won't renegotiate, we should have an expedited special bankruptcy procedure, akin to what we do for corporations in Chapter 11, allowing people to keep their homes and re-structure their finances.

If this sounds too much like coddling the irresponsible, remember that there are two sides to every mortgage - the lender and the borrower. Both enter freely into the deal. One might say that both are, accordingly, equally responsible. But one side - the lender - is supposed to be financially sophisticated. In contrast, the borrowers in the subprime market consist mainly of people who are financially unsophisticated. For many, their home is their only asset, and when they lose it, they lose their life savings. Remember, too, that we already give big homeowner subsidies, through the tax system, to affluent families. With tax deductions, the government is paying in some states almost half of all mortgage interest and real-estate taxes. But many lower-income people, whose deductions are meaningless because their tax bill is too small, get no help. It makes much more sense to convert these tax deductions into cashable tax credits, so that the fraction of housing costs borne by the government for the poor and the rich is the same.

About these matters there should be no debate - but there will be. Already, those on Wall Street are arguing that we have to be careful not to "over-react." Over-reaction, we are told, might stifle "innovation." Well, some innovations ought to be stifled. Those toxic mortgages were certainly innovative. Other innovations were simply devices to circumvent regulations - regulations intended to prevent the kinds of problems from which our economy now suffers. Some of the innovations were designed to tart up the bottom line, moving liabilities off the balance sheet - charades designed to blur the information available to investors and regulators. They succeeded: the full extent of the exposure was not clear, and still isn't. But there is a reason we need reliable accounting. Without good information it is hard to make good economic decisions. In short, some innovations come with very high price tags. Some can actually cause instability.

The free-market fundamentalists - who believe in the miracles of markets - have not been averse to accepting government bailouts. Indeed, they have demanded them, warning that unless they get what they want the whole system may crash. What politician wants to be blamed for the next Great Depression, simply because he stood on principle? I have been critical of weak anti-trust policies that allowed certain institutions to become so dominant that they are "too big to fail." The harsh reality is that, given how far we've come, we will see more bailouts in the days ahead. Now that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in federal receivership, we must insist: not a dime of taxpayer money should be put at risk while shareholders and creditors, who failed to oversee management, are permitted to walk away with anything they please. To do otherwise would invite a recurrence. Moreover, while these institutions may be too big to fail, they're not too big to be reorganized. And we need to remember why we're bailing them out: in order to maintain a flow of money into mortgage markets. It's outrageous that these institutions are responding to their near-monopoly position by raising fees and increasing the costs of mortgages, which will only worsen the housing crisis. They, and the financial markets, have shown little interest in measures that could help millions of existing and potential homeowners out of the bind they're in.

The hardest puzzles will be in monetary policy (balancing the risks of inflation and the risk of a deeper downturn) and fiscal policy (balancing the risk of a deeper downturn and the risk of an exploding deficit). The standard analysis coming from financial markets these days is that inflation is the greatest threat, and therefore we need to raise interest rates and cut deficits, which will restore confidence and thereby restore the economy. This is the same bad economics that didn't work in East Asia in 1997 and didn't work in Russia and Brazil in 1998. Indeed, it is the same recipe prescribed by Herbert Hoover in 1929.

It is a recipe, moreover, that would be particularly hard on working people and the poor. Higher interest rates dampen inflation by cutting back so sharply on aggregate demand that the unemployment rate grows and wages fall. Eventually, prices fall, too. As noted, the cause of our inflation today is largely imported - it comes from global food and energy prices, which are hard to control. To curb inflation therefore means that the price of everything else needs to fall drastically to compensate, which means that unemployment would also have to rise drastically.

In addition, this is not the time to turn to the old-time fiscal religion. Confidence in the economy won't be restored as long as growth is low, and growth will be low if investment is anemic, consumption weak, and public spending on the wane. Under these circumstances, to mindlessly cut taxes or reduce government expenditures would be folly.

But there are ways of thoughtfully shaping policy that can walk a fine line and help us get out of our current predicament. Spending money on needed investments - infrastructure, education, technology - will yield double dividends. It will increase incomes today while laying the foundations for future employment and economic growth. Investments in energy efficiency will pay triple dividends - yielding environmental benefits in addition to the short- and long-run economic benefits.

The federal government needs to give a hand to states and localities - their tax revenues are plummeting, and without help they will face costly cutbacks in investment and in basic human services. The poor will suffer today, and growth will suffer tomorrow. The big advantage of a program to make up for the shortfall in the revenues of states and localities is that it would provide money in the amounts needed: if the economy recovers quickly, the shortfall will be small; if the downturn is long, as I fear will be the case, the shortfall will be large.

These measures are the opposite of what the administration - along with the Republican presidential nominee, John McCain - has been urging. It has always believed that tax cuts, especially for the rich, are the solution to the economy's ills. In fact, the tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 set the stage for the current crisis. They did virtually nothing to stimulate the economy, and they left the burden of keeping the economy on life support to monetary policy alone. America's problem today is not that households consume too little; on the contrary, with a savings rate barely above zero, it is clear we consume too much. But the administration hopes to encourage our spendthrift ways.

What has happened to the American economy was avoidable. It was not just that those who were entrusted to maintain the economy's safety and soundness failed to do their job. There were also many who benefited handsomely by ensuring that what needed to be done did not get done. Now we face a choice: whether to let our response to the nation's woes be shaped by those who got us here, or to seize the opportunity for fundamental reforms, striking a new balance between the market and government.

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Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize–winning economist, is a professor at Columbia University.

McCain and the Hidden Keating Five!!!

2008-11-04T09:28:00.000-05:00

McCain First, Second, and Always

Saturday 01 November 2008

by: Sahil Mahtani, The New Republic

In this November 20, 1990 file photo, Senator John McCain, R-Arizona (left) sits with his attorney during a Senate Ethics Committee hearing on the Keating Five Savings and Loan Scandal. Carefully timed leaks during the investigation successfully deflected the blame from McCain to his other Senate colleagues. Evidence continues to surface that points to John McCain as the possible source of those leaks. (Photo: John Duricka / AP)

Should he have been expelled from the Senate? Exclusive evidence reveals the Keating Five story you've never heard.

One day in early March 1986, John McCain, an Arizona congressman, sat down to write a letter. McCain had heard that a long-time friend and donor, Charles Keating, was upset for being listed as a member of McCain's campaign finance committee when a more prominent position would seem more appropriate. So McCain apologized. Needlessly it turned out, for "Charlie," as he signed his letter, would reply a few days later: "John, don't be silly. You can call me anything...I'm yours until death do us part."

Three years later, McCain and four other senators would be called to the carpet for this loyalty, which was accompanied by a total of $1.3 million in contributions from Keating. Senators Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, John Glenn, John McCain, and Donald Riegle were being investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee for helping Keating's company, Lincoln Savings and Loan, resist regulators. That lack of regulation precipitated Lincoln's collapse that year - part of the larger savings-and-loan collapse - at a cost of about $3 billion to the federal government.

This episode has been invoked in the current campaign first as a parable against Reagan-era financial deregulation, which McCain supported and which was a significant factor in the collapse of savings and loans institutions; and second, as a reminder that McCain himself was rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for "poor judgment" after a 14-month investigation.

Yet the Ethics Committee's was not the only investigation into the scandal. There were two other probes at the time that got barely any public attention - both of which largely focused on McCain himself. These were probes into illicit leaks about the proceedings of the Ethics Committee - leaks that repeatedly benefited McCain and hurt his Keating Five colleagues. One of those senators described the leaks at the time as a "violation of ethical behavior at least as serious as anything of which we senators have been accused."

The leaks, if they were coming from a senator, were also illegal. All five senators - including McCain - had testified under oath and under the U.S. penal code that the leaks did not come from their camps. The leaks were also prohibited by rules of the Senate Ethics Committee; according to the rules of the Senate, anyone caught leaking such information could face expulsion from the body. These, then, were not the usual Washington disclosures: Discovered, they could have stopped the career of any Washington politician in his tracks.

The two investigations into the leaks suggested McCain's involvement but were officially inconclusive. New evidence, obtained in recent weeks, again points back to the McCain camp. The investigator of those leaks now says that he does not doubt that they came from McCain or his team. A reporter who possessed evidence in the Keating case now says he believes that McCain was the source and got away with it. Finally, a senator who has emerged as a key backer of McCain's presidential campaign turns out to have authored a letter stating flatly that McCain was the source of the damning leaks. Put together, a large record of evidence now points in the direction of Senator McCain. Far from McCain's reputation of putting "country first," these leaks depict a formidable politician willing to go through great lengths to maintain his standing. More than McCain's relationship with Keating, it is the story of the Keating investigation leaks that voters should know.

The Senate Ethics investigation into the Keating Five scandal would last over a year, between 1989 and 1991. But before the actual hearings even began, carefully timed leaks featuring information from Committee deliberations - which were secret - began to appear. Committee members were privy to the information that was ending up in the leaks, but so were the five senators and their staffs, who received Committee documents in order to safeguard their due process rights.

The leaks had instant impact. One source close to the case described them as "backfires lit in the beltway press and in the states where the five senators were from." There were nine in all, some correct, some incorrect. Almost all of them - eight to be precise - either exonerated McCain or implicated the other senators.

Essentially, the leaks deflected public attention away from McCain and toward his colleagues. One leak, the week of DeConcini and Riegle's appearances before the Committee in October, 1990, described the probe against them as having "broadened," and accused Riegle, then Banking Committee chairman, of improper regulatory intervention. Neither part was true, yet the leak ricocheted in the press instantly. One headline from the Washington Post blared, "Panel Reveals Riegle-Keating Meetings; Senator Said to Have Maintained Contact After Start of S&L Probe," and another from the Los Angeles Times read, "Panel Action is Seen as Prelude to a Full-Scale Investigation of Sens. Cranston, DeConcini and Riegle." Meanwhile, approval ratings for Riegle and DeConcini began to tank in their home states. Later on, the leaks investigation would conclude that the leak "[could] only be described" as an attempt to "influence the deliberations on DeConcini and Riegle."

Just five days after that October leak, McCain appeared on the Senate floor urging the Committee to recuse him from the rest of the hearings. It was an impassioned speech, laced with references to his Vietnam service. "I do not deserve ... to be strung out for week after week, month after month," he said. The Ethics Committee rejected that argument as undue political pressure, for the first time suggesting that there was an "organized campaign of leaks to gain some advantage for some cause or person to which the leakers are partisan."

There were other leaks. One occurred after McCain appeared before the Committee. Five days later, an article appeared in the Arizona Republic with the favorable headline, "Source: Nothing New Found Against McCain." Also leaked was a letter from Keating's son-in-law thanking DeConcini while expressing disappointment over McCain. In the Keating affair, there existed all manner of documents, some that hurt each senator, and others that helped. The leaked documents reoriented the entire direction of public scrutiny to McCain's benefit.

This reorientation was significant because McCain was in many ways a natural suspect in the entire affair. McCain and Keating had been friends as early as 1981. He was the only senator who took personal gifts from Keating, including nine trips to Cat Cay, Keating's island in the Bahamas. Cindy McCain and her father were also involved with Keating in an Arizona real estate development called the Fountain Square Project. "I always thought McCain had by far the worst case facts," said one senior government official. None of the other Keating Five senators had a close personal relationship with Keating.

Nonetheless, the leaks created "a presumption of guilt" among the others, said one government official. As DeConcini said at the time, "Those leaks were very damaging to me, and yet I did not respond in kind." Cranston, Riegle, and DeConcini retired from political life soon after.

To investigate those leaks, two investigations were convened: one private, by the Senate Ethics Committee and conducted by Clark "Bud" Hall; the other public, by the Senate's Temporary Special Independent Counsel, New York lawyer Peter Fleming. Howell Heflin, the Democratic Senator from Alabama who chaired the six-person Ethics Committee, consisting of three Democrats and three Republicans, took the matter very seriously. A former Chief Justice on the Alabama Supreme Court, he was respected enough to have been on Reagan's Supreme Court shortlist. After the leaks, Heflin was "madder than hell," according to Democratic Senator David Pryor of Arkansas, who was one of the other six senators on the Committee.

In October 1990, Heflin called in the General Accounting Office's Office of Special Investigations, which was staffed by some of the FBI's most accomplished agents. The investigative unit sent in Bud Hall, who had a distinguished career in the Bureau as a Supervisory Special Agent in the Organized Crime section and not long before had come off a stint as the lead House investigator in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Hall arrived with a colleague to McCain's office, sometime between 1990 and 1991, armed with a letter signed by Heflin and fellow Senator Warren Rudman - which he "carried like a pistol in [his] holster," according to Hall - urging cooperation with the investigation. By the time he reached McCain, Hall had spent three months on the investigation and had already interviewed approximately 60 people, including Senators Bob Dole, Rudman, and DeConcini. "In an investigation, when you have a target that looks good, so to speak ... you wait 'til the very end 'til you interview him because you want all the information you can get. Second, you want him to be a little nervous," said Hall.

Hall and McCain had never met, yet soon as Hall entered, he knew McCain was not glad to see him. "He looked at me hard, right in the eyes," said Hall. He believes McCain "felt like he was being forced. ... He was there because his attorney told him he had to [be there]." McCain would not respond to any of Hall's questions about the leaks, but every so often would say, "you're crazy," "you're crazy, man, you're crazy." This went on for about 15 minutes by Hall's estimation.

"It was one of the strangest things I've seen," says Hall. "And as a professional investigator, I've interviewed a lot of weird people. ... I am a professional investigator and he treated me like some guy off the street. I just came away with a very bad impression." Eventually Hall addressed McCain's lawyer and told him that because his client was not being responsive to the inquiry, the meeting was over.

The report Hall wrote after his investigation is privileged Ethics Committee information and is under permanent restrictions - Hall himself said he did not have a copy of it, having turned all notes and documents to the Committee, including his interview transcripts, which, according to one source, feature dozens of interviews with McCain associates, family members, and in some cases intimate friends. His final report was formally inconclusive but argued for a strong trail of circumstantial evidence that pointed in McCain's direction. In our interview, he was emphatic on this point. "There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that McCain made those leaks."

Hall was barred by Committee rules from discussing the evidence he had, but other evidence appeared during of the private investigation by Peter Fleming that also pointed to McCain. First, Washington Times reporter Jerry Seper told a congressional staffer that he heard a taped conversation between McCain and Paul Rodriguez, his colleague at the Times who wrote many of the stories containing the leaks, and that he had also received independent information confirming McCain as the source of the leaks. This would have been important evidence, except that Seper declined to testify under a subpoena, asserting first amendment privileges. However, Seper, now the chief investigative reporter at The Washington Times, recently told The New Republic about the leaks that McCain "got a walk on that." Seper said, "[H]e did what they said he did, no doubt."

A second episode in the Fleming report that pointed to McCain happened when the senator held his much-publicized "mea culpa" news conference in October 1989 to acknowledge his mistakes during the Keating affair. Even in this moment of contrition, McCain was simultaneously on the attack, releasing - according to the Fleming report - a heavy-handed memo that DeConcini's office sent to regulators. The next day, the Arizona Republic had two headlines that both benefited McCain: "McCain Meets the Press" and "DeConcini Staffer's Memo Bared." In his report, Fleming wrote that he had discovered the leaked memo had "come to press from Senator McCain's office, and the juxtaposition of the two articles is disturbing."

Finally, Fleming concluded in his report that partisanship was the motive for the leaks and that they were designed to hurt DeConcini, Riegle, and Cranston. A Republican spokesman, quoted in the Fleming report, explained the politics: If enough people pressured the Committee into releasing McCain - the only Republican - and Glenn, who still had a heroic aura around him from his astronaut days, from the investigation, then the Keating Five would become the "Keating Three," and the GOP could then use the whole affair against the Democrats. Fleming also concluded that while Glenn "presumably stood to benefit by disclosure[s] ... there is simply a total absence of evidence implicating Glenn."

Ultimately there was no smoking gun: from a legal point of view, that would have meant either an admission from the person who leaked, an admission from the reporter who received the leak, or a statement from someone who was told about the leak by the leaker directly. This is why neither the Hall nor Fleming reports were "conclusive," in the legal and technical sense.

Nonetheless, evidence continues to surface. A letter from Rudman to Heflin (now in Heflin's archives) that states unambiguously that McCain was involved with at least some of the leaks, according to Steve Raby, who was Heflin's chief of staff at the time and recently reread the later. (Raby is a close friend of the family and spoke to TNR from Alabama, where he lives and where Heflin's records are located.) This letter would square with what Rudman wrote in his 1996 autobiography, that McCain and his staff were among those responsible for the leaks. (When prodded by the Boston Globe in 2000, Rudman - who has been a strong backer and participant of McCain's 2000 and 2008 campaigns - denied this, saying, "When you're writing a book, sometimes you're not that careful.")

Finally, there are Hall's reflections on the leaks today: "When you look at these stories, you interview the people - I must have interviewed 50-60 people, and I didn't have one single person defend McCain. If and when they pointed, they pointed in his direction."

Had either of the leaks probes found McCain guilty, in all likelihood he would have been recommended for censure by the Ethics Committee, but also possibly faced expulsion by the Senate or charged with perjury for having lied under oath. As it was, the worst that happened is that those observing McCain reevaluated the senator. Said one source close to the leaks investigation, "It pricked the balloon I had that McCain might have had integrity."

--------

Sahil Mahtani is a reporter-researcher at The New Republic.

Homeland Security Assuming Broad Powers, Turning Vast Swaths of U.S. into “Constitution-Free Zone”

2008-10-24T06:24:00.000-04:00

Barry Steinhardt,
Director, ACLU Technology & Liberty Program
Thursday, Oct 23, 2008

You’re driving along a remote, dusty road, when suddenly you come upon a border patrol checkpoint. There, agents demand to see your identity papers, and search your car. You are taken by surprise, because you know you haven’t wandered across the Texas-Mexico border. In fact, you’re quite sure of that, because you’re driving through rural Wisconsin countryside west of Green Bay. Even the Canadian border is more than 90 miles away.

This scene is not as far-fetched as you might want to believe. The government is turning vast swaths of our country into a “Constitution-Free Zone” in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is allowed to exercise extraordinary authority that would not normally be permitted under the Constitution. The government says that “the border” — where there is a longstanding view that the Constitution does not fully apply — actually stretches 100 miles inland from the nation’s “external boundary.” And increasingly, we are seeing DHS vigorously utilize that authority.

Today we held a press conference at the National Press Club here in D.C. to try to draw attention to this problem — and the fact that, as we showed, nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population live within this “Constitution-Free Zone.” That’s 197.4 million people.

(Article continues below)

We calculated this using the most recent, 2007 numbers from the U.S. Census, and released a map showing the cities and states that are enveloped by this zone. It includes some of the largest metropolitan areas in the country: New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon. States that are completely within this Constitution-Free Zone include Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. When you say “border,” they think “all of New England.”

CBP has been setting up checkpoints far inland— on highways in states such as California, Texas and Arizona, and at ferry terminalsin Washington State. Typically, the agents ask drivers and passengers about their citizenship. People are also reporting that even after they provide passports or state driver’s licenses, CBP continues to interrogate them and try to pressure them into permitting a search.

At our press conference today in the National Press Club here in DC, two U.S. citizens described their experiences with CBP.

Vince Peppard, a retired social worker, told of being stopped and harassed by the border authorities at least 15 miles from the Mexico border with his wife, Berlant.

Craig Johnson, a music professor at a San Diego college, told how he participated in a peaceful demonstration near the border to protest against the destruction of a state park so that offense could be constructed along the U.S. border. CBP agents monitored the protest and collected the license plate information of those who participated. Since this protest, Mr. Johnson has twice crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and, each time, he has been pulled aside for additional screening. He was taken to another room, handcuffed and questioned. On his first crossing, he was also partially stripped and subjected to a body cavity search. A CBP agent also told Mr. Johnson that he was on an “armed and dangerous” list. Before the protest, Mr. Johnson crossed the U.S.-Mexico border numerous times without incident. It is difficult to believe that his subsequent harassment at the border is unrelated to his protest activity. If it is related, that would constitute a significant abuse.

Congress needs to hold hearings to investigate these egregious violations of Americans’ civil liberties, and then pass new laws protecting Americans’ rights.

I guarantee you that if these powers are not challenged, if the American people do not push back, sooner or later a factory worker in southern New Hampshire, a farmer in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, or yes, some guy driving across rural Wisconsin, will wake up to find that they have lost their right to go about their business, and travel around inside their own country, without interference from the authorities.

Cyber Security Expert: Hackers Planning To Steal Election For McCain

2008-09-30T10:03:00.000-04:00

Spoonamore says electronic voting machines represent national security threat, Israel, China and Russia have capability to rig presidential outcome

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Stephen Spoonamore warns in a new interview that electronic voting machines represent a national security threat and that hackers are already planning to steal the 2008 presidential election for John McCain.

Spoonamore is a GOP member and a lifelong Republican, having worked on election campaigns with Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. He also has 20 years worth of experience in encrypted and networked communications systems for banks, TV, telecommunications, EMS, Military and other uses.

In an ten part You Tube interview, Spoonamore warns that hackers are planning to steal the election on behalf of the McCain camp and even predicts the margin of victory, that McCain will make a “shocking recovery” and win 51.2 percent of the vote with three electoral votes over Obama.

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

“This is a national security threat,” said Spoonamore, “it is very possible for a foreign government to begin manipulating that transmission of code just as they attempt to do fairly often with our financial data….we deal with it every day on the commercial side,” he added, noting that China, and not the American people, has a greater chance of choosing the next U.S. president.

Spoonamore also fingered Israel as another foreign government that was planning to attempt to hack the 2008 election.

“We don’t know who’s changing the vote now - these weird results are coming in all over,” said Spoonamore, adding that the danger of the vote being hacked by Israel, China or Russia is an even greater threat than partisan vote fraud on behalf of the Democrats and Republicans.

“You’ve built a vulnerable system and many people would want to exploit that vulnerability and not all of them have the best interests of our nation at heart,” he added.

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In the interview, Spoonamore stresses how easy it is to hack an electronic voting machine and rig an election.

“If people think that a voting machine that calls in to a tabulator is any different than all those cash registers calling in to the central processor - it’s the same thing,” said Spoonamore. “If you put a man in the middle attack, a computer sitting in the middle that can change or capture or manipulate the information, it will do so,” he added.

“It’s valuable to be president….if you can steal it for a couple of million bucks why not,” said Spoonamore, adding that the last two presidential elections were stolen.

Spoonamore said that he had personally witnessed people attempting to hack election systems and since going public with his testimony had received threats not to talk about vote fraud because it would undermine American’s confidence in the voting process, to which Spoonamore responded that people should doubt their vote because “it’s being stolen”.

Spoonamore said that top Republican operatives had told him that election hacking was “just a different methodology” but they didn’t grasp the fact that if you build a hackable system, “there’s hundreds of sharks that want to hack it and you will not know who the final hacker was.”

Spoonamore said that the only way to prevent elections being stolen is a complete return to paper ballots, a “move back to what worked so well for 190 years,” and the elimination of electronic voting machines.

Watch a key clip below or watch the entire interview via this wmv link or via You Tube.

Royal Mail Honors Eugenicist & Nazi Sympathizer

2008-09-17T17:35:00.001-04:00

Family planning pioneer Marie Stopes advocated sterilization of non-whites & poor, sent love letters to Hitler; But respondents agree that most humans should be sterilized or killed

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Friday, September 12, 2008

Royal Mail is set to honor Marie Stopes, a feminist who opened the first birth control clinic in Britain in 1921 as well as being Nazi sympathizer and a eugenicist who advocated that non-whites and the poor be sterilized, by adopting her image for a new set of stamps.

Stopes, a racist and an anti-Semite, campaigned for selective breeding to achieve racial purity, a passion she shared with Adolf Hitler in adoring letters and poems that she sent the leader of the Third Reich.

The feminist also attended the Nazi congress on population science in Berlin in 1935, while calling for the “compulsory sterilisation of the diseased, drunkards, or simply those of bad character.” Stopes acted on her appalling theories by concentrating her abortion clinics in poor areas so as to reduce the birth rate of the lower classes.

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

Stopes left most of her estate to the Eugenics Society, an organization that shared her passion for racial purity and still exists today under the new name The Galton Institute. The society has included members such as Charles Galton Darwin (grandson of the evolutionist) , Julian Huxley and Margaret Sanger.

Ominously, The Galton Institute website promotes its support and funding initiative for “the practical delivery of family planning facilities, especially in developing countries.” In other words, the same organization that once advocated sterilizing black people to achieve racial purity in the same vein as the Nazis is now bankrolling abortions of black babies in the third world.

Several prominent individuals have expressed their outrage that Stopes is to be included on the 50p stamp in Britain.

Chaplain to the Stock Exchange Peter Mullen, who is Rector of St Michael’s in the City of London, branded Stopes a ‘Nazi sympathiser’.

He said: ‘She campaigned to have the poor, the sick and people of mixed race sterilised.

‘Stopes extended her vile doctrines even to her own family. She cut her son Harry out of her will after he married a near- sighted woman - actually the daughter of Barnes Wallis, inventor of the bouncing bomb deployed by the Dambusters.

‘She planned to adopt a child herself-but stipulated that “the boy must be completely healthy, intelligent and uncircumcised”.

‘The managers of the Royal Mail deserve to be condemned for their honouring Marie Stopes.’

Anthony Ozimic of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children said: “Praising Marie Stopes as a woman of distinction should be as unacceptable as praising Adolf Hitler as a great leader.”

“Both promoted compulsory sterilisation and thereby the eventual elimination of society’s most vulnerable members to achieve what they called racial progress.”

Others are now campaigning to return any items of mail with the new stamp on them.

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The fact that the image of Stopes was chosen by a group of female academics and historians underscores the very real foothold that eugenics-style thinking still maintains amongst 21st century elitists.

Alex Jones’ 2007 documentary End Game exposes how the origins of eugenics began not with Hitler and the Nazis, but in fact with the Anglo-American elite towards the end of the 19th century.

The same sentiments continue to be advanced, albeit under different guises such as the Optimum Population Trust movement and some aspects of environmentalism, such as the promotion of one child policies to reduce global warming.

Infamously, an Australian ABC News website aimed at children caused outrage back in May when it advised kids of “when you should die” by calculating their “carbon footprint.”

Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that many would still find common ground with Stopes’ disgusting Nazi ideology even today. Indeed, one of the first reader comments on a Daily Mail article on the subject in response to Stopes’ advocacy of sterilizing parents who the state decrees to be of “bad character” states, “I do not agree with many of her ideas but this one is probably not a bad idea for todays society.”

In fact - the majority of the respondents to the article agree that most humans should be sterilized and/or killed.

“A lot of people should be sterilized, IMO. It’s still true today,” writes another.

“Just imagine what a stable, well-ordered society we’d have if compulsory sterilisation had been adopted years ago for the socially undesirable,” states another respondent, calling for a “satellite-carried sterilisation ray” to be installed in space to zap the undesirables.

Shockingly, another compares sterilization and genocide of those deemed inferior to the breeding and culling of farmyard animals, and says that such a move is necessary to fight overpopulation and global warming. Here is the comment in full from “Karen” in Wales;

We breed farm animals to produce the best possible stock and kill them when they have fulfilled their purpose. We inter-breed pedigree animals to produce extremes that leave them open to ill-health and early death. It is only religion that says humans are not animals. The reality is that we are simply intelligent, mammalian primates.

The world population of humans has increased from 2 billion to 6.5 billion in the last 50 years. This planet can support 2 billion humans comfortably. 6.5 billion humans use too many resources and leads to global warming, climate change and a very uncertain future for all of us - humans and all other life sharing this planet with us.

Marie Stopes believed in population control and in breeding the best possible humans. So did Hitler. Neither of the aims are bad in themselves. It is how they are achieved that is the problem. The fact that we still remember Marie Stopes is an achievement in itself.

The nature of these comments is so fundamentally sick and twisted that one is tempted to dismiss them as a joke - but these people are deadly serious.

The kind of people who express such sentiments to ‘improve society by sterilizing the scum’ or to “save the planet’ are blissfully ignorant of the fact that to elitists we are all scum too. Anyone who is not a member of the elite, whether they are middle class or working class, are considered inferior and this is why the prevalence of such ideas is so dangerous to everyone.

In addition, those advocating the wholesale genocide of over 4 billion people and dismissing it as nothing more immoral than the culling of livestock seem to be somewhat reticent to offer themselves or their family members up as the first to be sacrificed ‘for the good of the earth’.

Remember, CIA saying Saddam Had no Link to Al Qaeda!

2008-09-09T17:51:00.001-04:00

Saddam 'had no link to al-Qaeda'

Democrats say the report weakens Mr Bush's case for war

There is no evidence of formal links between Iraqi ex-leader Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda leaders prior to the 2003 war, a US Senate report says.

The finding is contained in a 2005 CIA report released by the Senate's Intelligence Committee on Friday.

US President George W Bush has said that the presence of late al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq before the war was evidence of a link.

Opposition Democrats are accusing the White House of deliberate deception.

They say the revelation undermines the basis on which the US went to war in Iraq.

The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says that the US president has again and again tried to connect the war, which most Americans think was a mistake, with the so-called war on terror, which has the support of the nation.

The report comes as Mr Bush makes a series of speeches on the "war on terror" to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the 11 September attacks.

Requests rejected

The report is the second part of the committee's analysis of pre-war intelligence. The first dealt with CIA failings in its assessment of Iraq's weapons programme.

Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support,

Senate report

Senate report 6.8MB

Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader

Download the reader here

War rationale laid bare

'Terror war' loses direction

Quick guide: Al-Qaeda

The committee concluded that the CIA had evidence of several instances of contacts between the Iraqi authorities and al-Qaeda throughout the 1990s but that these did not add up to a formal relationship.

It added that the government "did not have a relationship, harbour or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates".

It said that Iraq and al-Qaeda were ideologically poles apart.

"Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support," it said.

The Senate report added that the Iraqi regime had repeatedly rejected al-Qaeda requests for meetings.

It also deals with the role played by inaccurate information supplied by Iraqi opposition groups in the run-up to the war.

'Devastating indictment'

Democrats said the White House was still trying to make the connection between the former Iraqi leader and al-Qaeda in an attempt to justify the war in Iraq.

Less than three weeks ago Mr Bush said in a speech that "Saddam Hussein...had relations with Zarqawi".

Democrat Senator Carl Levin described the report as a "devastating indictment" of these attempts.

White House spokesman Tony Snow told the Associated Press news agency the report contained "nothing new".

"In 2002 and 2003, members of both parties got a good look at the intelligence we had and they came to the very same conclusions about what was going on," he said.

Zarqawi, who is believed to be responsible for numerous killings and kidnappings in Iraq since the war, was killed in a US raid in June.

Saddam Hussein and several close associates are standing trial for the killings of Shias in the village of Dujail in the early 1980s and of more than 100,000 Kurds in 1988.

The Right Dictates MSNBC's Programming Decisions

2008-09-09T08:56:00.001-04:00

By Glenn Greenwald

08/09/08 "Salon" -- - MSNBC's announcement that it is replacing Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews with David Gregory as anchors for its main political events (the upcoming presidential debates and election) vividly illustrates several long-obvious facts. First, nothing changes the behavior of our media corporations more easily than vocal demands and complaints from the Right, which petrify media executives and cause them to snap into line. From today's New York Times article identifying some of the causes for MSNBC's decision:

The change -- which comes in the home stretch of the long election cycle -- is a direct result of tensions associated with the channel's perceived shift to the political left. . . . When the vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin lamented media bias during her speech, attendees of the Republican convention loudly chanted "NBC" . . . . Mr. Olbermann, a 49-year-old former sportscaster, has become the face of the more aggressive MSNBC, and the lightning rod for much of the criticism. . . . The McCain campaign has filed letters of complaint to the news division about its coverage and openly tied MSNBC to it. . . . Al Hunt, the executive Washington bureau chief of Bloomberg News, said that the entire news division was being singled out by Republicans because of the work of partisans like Mr. Olbermann.

This was preceded by an episode in May in which White House Counselor Ed Gillespie "sent a scathing letter to NBC News, accusing the news network of 'deceptively' editing an interview with President Bush on the issue of appeasement and Iran." Gillespie warned NBC as follows:

I'm sure you don't want people to conclude that there is really no distinction between the "news" as reported on NBC and the "opinion" as reported on MSNBC, despite the increasing blurring of those lines. I welcome your response to this letter, and hope it is one that reassures your broadcast network's viewers that blatantly partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Keith Olbermann at MSNBC don't hold editorial sway over the NBC network news division.

Yesterday, Gillespie got exactly the "response" that he demanded from a super-compliant MSBNC. There is no question whatsoever that the Bush administration, the McCain campaign, and the Right generally have recently made it a top priority to force MSNBC to remove Olbermann (and Chris Matthews) from playing a prominent role in its election coverage, and MSNBC has now complied with the Right's demands. Does it need to be explained why it is disturbing in the extreme that the White House and the McCain campaign can so transparently dictate MSNBC's programming choices?

Second, in response to media criticism that the press is insufficiently substantive and adversarial to political power, the claim is frequently made that media outlets are simply driven by the profit motive, and that their programming choices are nothing more than a by-product of ratings. But in MSNBC's case, that is plainly untrue. Back in 2003, they actually canceled their highest-rated program, Phil Donahue's show, for purely ideological reasons -- because, at a time when the establishment "liberal media" were systematically amplifying the Government's pro-war views and excluding anti-war views, that short-lived MSNBC show was one of the only venues in America where one could hear anti-war viewpoints, and NBC's fear of angering the Government and the Right clearly caused them, first, to impose extreme and unusual restrictions on the show's content, and then to cancel it altogether.

And now here is MSNBC publicly removing (and therefore diminishing) the person who is, by far, its most valuable asset: Keith Olbermann. The NYT article noted:

As Mr. Olbermann raised his voice, his ratings rose as well, and he now reaches more than one million viewers a night, a higher television rating than any other show in the troubled 12-year history of the network. As a result, his identity largely defines MSNBC. "They have banked the entirety of the network on Keith Olbermann," one employee said. . . . At an anniversary party for Mr. Olbermann in April, [NBC CEO Jeff] Zucker called "Countdown" "one of the signature brands of the entire company."

The irrefutable fact is that nothing attracts ratings for MSNBC -- and nothing has attracted ratings in the entire history of that channel -- the way that Olbermann does. Yet here is MSNBC removing him from the anchor position, reducing his role in its political coverage, and clearly diminishing his stature (and implicitly criticizing his coverage). That is extraordinary for a media company to publicly embarrass, diminish and tarnish its own principal asset. It is plainly doing so for ideological, not ratings-based, reasons: namely, it fears doing anything to anger the White House, the McCain campaign and the Right in this country.

Third, this episode demonstrates what Eric Alterman documented several years ago: that the greatest and most transparent myth in American politics is that the U.S. has a "liberal media." That is a myth that is maintained, first and foremost, by defining anyone who isn't Rush Limbaugh as a "liberal." Hence, people such as the wife of Bush official Dan Senor (Campbell Brown) is a "liberal," as is Alan Greenspan's wife (Andrea Mitchell), along with establishment-worshipers such as Rush-Limbaugh-admirer Brian Williams, right-wing-talking-points-spouting Charlie Gibson, and anyone who writes for the war-enabling New York Times and Washington Post.

Perhaps nothing demonstrates this absurd dynamic more than the painfully inane perception that Chris Matthews -- for years a prime target of liberal media critics -- is some sort of "liberal." That's the same "liberal" Chris Matthews who, over the years, has said things like this:

I like [George Bush]. Everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs, maybe on the left . . . We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. . . . Why don't the damn Democrats give the president his day? He won today. He did well today. . . . Thank you very much. James Jeffrey, assistant to Condoleezza Rice. We're huge fans [of Rice] -- bring her back with you next time.

Or see the "liberal" Matthews fawning over Fred Thompson's attractive manliness and Rudy Giuliani's powerful authority and the charming masculinity of Republicans versus the "geekier, nerdier" Democrats. That is who is deemed to be a "liberal" in our political culture because the reality, as Atrios frequently puts it, is that the only hard and fast rule is: "Your liberal media: no liberals allowed."

This has been going on for years. As I wrote in response to the uproar generated at places like The New Republic over the fact that MSNBC has now given an actual liberal, Rachel Maddow, her own show and is thereby jeopardizing non-partisan, objective, high-minded journalism:

Over the past seven years, the following people have hosted prime-time cable news shows: Joe Scarborough (MSNBC), Michael Savage (MSNBC), Glenn Beck (CNN), Tucker Carlson (MSNBC), Nancy Grace (CNN), Bill O'Reilly (Fox) and Sean Hannity (Fox). None of that seemed to bother the likes of [TNR's Sacha] Zimmerman. None of that was depicted as the downfall of objective journalism or the destruction of civil, elevated, high-minded discourse.

Several of those hosts had and continue to have atrocious ratings (Carlson, Beck, Scarborough), yet were kept for years.

Beyond that, network and cable shows routinely convene panels filled with right-wing views and devoid of anything remotely approaching liberalism, and that creates no controversy. Just this past weekend, I subjected myself while traveling to ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and the panel discussing Sarah Palin was composed of right-wing ideologue George Will, establishment-spokesperson Cokie Roberts, and reporter Sam Donaldson. That is typical for television panels: right-wing partisans such as Will are "balanced" not by any liberals but by allegedly "neutral journalists" such as Roberts or Donaldson. That's because the Right has created a reality where anyone who isn't explicitly Rush Limbaugh is deemed to be a "liberal" (hence, Donaldson likely qualifies) and no actual liberal ever needs to be included. That's how we have a "liberal media" where the principal rule is that actual liberals are systematically excluded, and it's why the ascent of Olbermann (who is, in fact, far more of a Bush critic than a doctrinaire liberal) has created such turmoil -- because it violates that central rule prohibiting liberals from appearing in the Liberal Media.

Finally, and perhaps most notably of all, Olbermann's role as anchor somehow destroys the journalistic brand of both MSNBC and NBC, while Fox News continues to be deemed a legitimate news outlet by our political and media establishment. Fox does this despite (more accurately: due to) its employing Brit Hume as its main anchor -- someone who is every bit as partisan and ideological as Keith Olbermannn is (at least), who regularly spews the nastiest and most vicious right-wing talking points, yet because he's not a liberal, is deemed to be a legitimate news anchor.

The Washington Post's Howie Kurtz -- while repeatedly lamenting the ascent of Olbermann (and Maddow) as a threat to objective journalism -- proclaims that "Hume is no partisan brawler" while Charlie Gibson gushes: "He has a wonderful style which makes you want to hear what Brit has to say, in an age when so many people are in your face." The Associated Press recently declared that Fox News has never gone as far as MSNBC in producing partisan news coverage, asserting that "Olbermann's popularity and evolving image as an idealogue (sic) has led NBC News to stretch traditional notions of journalistic objectivity" and that "Fox has never done that, perhaps mindful of the immediate controversy that would result." Even the NYT article this morning echoed this view of Fox, noting:

While some critics argued that [Olbermann's] assignment was akin to having the Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly anchor on election night -- something that has never happened -- MSNBC insisted that Mr. Olbermann knew the difference between news and commentary.

The proper analogy to Olbermann as anchor is not O'Reilly as anchor, but Brit Hume as anchor. Hume explicitly acknowledges his political conservatism. His entire show relentlessly promotes a right-wing narrative. Every night, he convenes panels composed of right-wing partisans such as Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Fred Barnes, and Mort Kondracke, and -- at most -- sometimes "balances" that with one of those allegedly neutral journalists such as Mara Liasson. Everything Brit Hume touches is designed to promote a right-wing perspective, yet he continues to be held out as some sort of legitimate news anchor -- he actually hosted a Democratic Party presidential debate in 2004 -- while MSNBC's promotion of Keith Olbermann is some unique threat to the profession of journalism.

The single dumbest claim in our political culture is that the huge corporations which own our establishment media outlets promote a "liberal" ideology. Why would General Electric ever use NBC and its other media assets to promote political liberalism? They lavishly benefit from the whole panoply of right-wing policies -- from endlessly expanding defense spending to deregulation. Their multiple businesses depend upon maintaining good relations with the right-wing ideologues who run our Government. Even ignoring all of the above-documented empirical facts, the very idea that a corporation like GE -- or Viacom (CBS), Disney (ABC) and Time Warner (CNN) -- would actively promote a left-wing agenda in its news divisions and undermine the very Government power centers on which they rely has been the most self-evidently moronic premise one can imagine. As Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone confessed in 2004:

Senator Kerry is a good man. I've known him for many years. But it happens that I vote for Viacom. Viacom is my life, and I do believe that a Republican Administration is better for media companies than a Democratic one.

And yet the myth of the large-corporation-owned "Liberal Media" persists, and even intensifies.

This decision by MSNBC is as alarming as it is illustrative. They just implicitly chided and overtly demoted their most popular and valuable news personality because the White House, the McCain campaign and the Right demanded that they do so. It's fine for Brit Hume to host a "news program" and for hard-core right-wing ideologues to dominate cable news. The fact that Dick Cheney (understandably) viewed Tim Russert's Meet the Press as the ideal forum to allow the White House to "control the message" bothered nobody outside of a few online critics, and didn't remotely impede the perception of Russert as the Beacon of Tough and Objective Journalism. But MSNBC's ratings-based decision to feature Keith Olbermann is a grave threat to modern journalism and must be stopped. So decrees the White House and the McCain campaign, and so the GE-owned MSNBC complies.

UPDATE: There's one other point really worth making here. Throughout the primary season, Clinton supporters were furious at what they endlessly complained was MSBNC's biased coverage in favor of Obama and, more so, its intensely hostile coverage of Hillary Clinton. Whatever one's views on the primary war were, there is no question that Olbermann and Matthews in particular were extremely hostile to Clinton and supportive of Obama. But MSNBC executives ignored those complaints, even derided and mocked them, with MSNBC executive Phil belittling angry Clinton supporters in The New Yorker as nothing more than abused, disillusioned girlfriends with nowhere else to go:

[J]ust as Obama must work to win Clinton supporters for the fall campaign, Phil Griffin has to repair a fractured audience base, a portion of which saw sexism in his network's Clinton coverage and vowed to boycott MSNBC. Griffin knows that some of that anger is aimed at his star anchor. "It was, like, you meet a guy and you fall in love with him, and he's funny and he's clever and he's witty, and he's all these great things," Griffin said of the relationship between Olbermann and the Clinton supporters among his viewers. "And then you commit yourself to him, and he turns out to be a jerk and difficult and brutal. And that is how the Hillary viewers see him. It's true. But I do think they're going to come back. There's nowhere else to go."

Again, regardless of what one thought of the primary wars or even MSNBC's coverage of the Clinton/Obama race, the contrast between (a) MSNBC's dismissive reaction to complaints of bias from Clinton supporters and (b) its obedience to similar complaints from the Right is stark and revealing. The overriding attribute of the Liberal Media is a deep and abiding fear of angering the Right.

Relatedly, I'll be on Rachel Maddow's radio show tonight (exact time posted once I know it) to discuss the Right's complaints about media bias in the context of the presidential campaign. Local listings and live audio feed are here. Rachel's MSNBC show debuts tonight.

Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book "How Would a Patriot Act?," a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, released in May 2006. His second book, "A Tragic Legacy", examines the Bush legacy.

Video Shows US Carnage In Afghanistan

2008-09-09T08:23:00.000-04:00

Harrowing video film backs Afghan villagers' claims of carnage caused by US troops

By Tom Coghlan in Kabul

08/09/08 "The Times" -- - As the doctor walks between rows of bodies, people lift funeral shrouds to reveal the faces of children and babies, some with severe head injuries.

Women are heard wailing in the background. “Oh God, this is just a child,” shouts one villager. Another cries: “My mother, my mother.”

The grainy video eight-minute footage, seen exclusively by The Times, is the most compelling evidence to emerge of what may be the biggest loss of civilian life during the Afghanistan war.

These are the images that have forced the Pentagon into a rare U-turn. Until yesterday the US military had insisted that only seven civilians were killed in Nawabad on the night of August 21.

If video fails to load please try this link.

Last night the Pentagon announced that it was reopening the investigation in the light of “emerging evidence” and was sending an officer to Nawabad to review its previous inquiry. Villagers and the UN insist that 92 were killed, including as many as 60 children. Locals say that the US and Afghan troops who came into the village looking for a Taleban commander, with US air support, used excessive force.

In the video scores of bodies are seen laid out in a building that villagers say is used as a mosque; the people were killed apparently during a combined operation by US special forces and Afghan army commandos in western Afghanistan. The film was shot on a mobile phone by an Afghan doctor who arrived the next morning.

Local people say that US forces bombed preparations for a memorial ceremony for a tribal leader. Residential compounds were levelled by US attack helicopters, armed drones and a cannon-armed C130 Spectre gunship.

However, US commanders and Pentagon officials have said repeatedly that seven civilians died alongside 35 Taleban militants during a legitimate combat operation, the target of which was a meeting of Taleban leaders.

The villagers’ accounts have been supported by separate investigations conducted by the UN, by Afghanistan’s leading human rights organisation and by an Afghan government delegation. Two Afghan army officers involved in the operation have been dismissed.

The Pentagon’s original investigation concluded last week that US forces used close air support after coming under heavy fire during a mission to seize a Taleban commander named Mullah Sadiq. They allege that he died in the operation.

The US military said that its findings were corroborated by an independent journalist embedded with the US force. He was named as the Fox News correspondent Oliver North, who came to prominence in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair, when he was an army colonel.

Sources close to one of the investigations said that a video film was shot by Afghan officials the morning after the attack. It corroborates the doctor’s footage but has not been made public.

In a statement released on Saturday, the commander of Nato forces, General David McKiernan, appeared to back away from previous US accounts. He said: “Following the recent operation in Azizabad, Shindand district, we realise there is a large discrepancy between the number of civilian casualties reported by soldiers and local villagers. I remain responsible to continue to try and account for this disparity in numbers, but above all I want to express our heartfelt sorrow to all families that lost loved ones in this firefight.”

A Human Rights Watch report due to be published today is highly critical of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan for the number of civilians killed in airstrikes. It gives warning that repeated instances of Western forces killing Afghan civilians have led to a collapse in popular support for the international presence.

Taking what it says are the most conservative figures available, Human Rights Watch has calculated that civilian deaths as a result of Western airstrikes tripled between 2006 and 2007 to 321. In the first seven months of this year the figure was 119. In the same period, 367 civilian deaths were attributed to Taleban attacks. It accuses US officials of routinely denying reports of civilian deaths.

Maulavi Gul Ahmad, an Afghan MP who was part of a government delegation that investigated the Nawabad attack, told The Times: “We are not only blaming America – this is destroying the reputation of the international community and undermining their presence in Afghanistan.”

Other Afghan investigators alleged that US forces had been duped into attacking the village by tribal figures involved in a local feud.

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan

December 2001
US aircraft attack a convoy taking tribal leaders to the inauguration of new Afghan Government. About 60 killed; US claims al-Qaeda leaders among them

July 2002
46 die, many from same family, when a wedding party in Uruzgan province is bombed in error

October 26, 2006
Between 40 and 85 civilians are killed in airstrikes and mortar bombardments around the settlement of Zangawat in Kandahar province

March 2007
19 people are killed and 50 wounded when US Marine Special Forces fire on civilians after a suicide attack in Shinwar, eastern Afghanistan. The US military apologises and pays compensation to the families

July 6, 2008
47 civilians, including 39 women and children attending a wedding party, are killed by a US airstrike in Nangarhar province, an Afghan government investigating team claims

Sources: Times archive, agencies

16 US troops commit suicide in Iraq

2008-09-08T22:18:00.000-04:00

Press TV
Monday, Sept 8, 2008

Sixteen US troops from the 57th Unit of the Airborne Division have committed suicide inside a military base in Iraq, security sources say.

Iraqi security sources have revealed that 21 US troops had committed suicide inside a former Iraqi air force base 27 days ago, Fars News Agency reported on Monday.

According to the sources, the 21 troops were treated in a hospital but only five soldiers have survived and they are in a critical condition. Security officials said they used potent narcotics to kill themselves.

(Article continues below)

The troops’ motivations for suicide are not known but according to Iraqi sources the servicemen belonged to the 57th Unit of the US Airborne Division that was behind the massacre of several Iraqi families– mostly women and children– in northern Baghdad, said Ali al-Baghdadi an Iraqi security official.

The suicides took place in the soldiers’ dormitory after the dinner time.
“The bodies of the US troops became misshapen such a way that they looked like 5000-year mummies,” said a witness.

According to Iraqi officials’ estimates, some 600 US troops, including senior officers, have committed suicide in Iraq since the invasion of the country in 2003. Half of the suicide attempts have been successful.

Rage Guitarist: Government Sponsored Terror "Embedded in the DNA" Of American Politics

2008-09-04T15:51:00.000-04:00

Tom Morello speaks to We Are Change on false flag terrorism

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Thursday, Sept 4, 2008

Tom Morello, guitarist with rock protest band Rage Against the Machine, spoke out against false flag terrorism on the same day an impromptu performance by the band was shut down by police outside the RNC.

Morello spoke briefly to members of We Are Change Tuesday just before appearing at an event being held by independent candidate Ralph Nader in St. Paul, Minnesota.

"When the media speaks of terrorism it tends to be in the context of lone bandits from middle eastern countries when most of the terrorism that occurs in the world is government sponsored." Morello told Change reporters.

"Whether it's the Bush administration or the Putin administration, terror is not something that is unfamiliar to governments."

"It is nothing new," Morello continued, "From Gulf of Tonkin to the Maine, in the Spanish American war, it is something that is embedded, unfortunately, in the DNA of American politics."

Watch the video:

(Article continues below)

Earlier in the day Rage announced they would make an unscheduled appearance and perform at the Ripple Effect Day Festival at the Capitol in St. Paul.

However, as soon as police got wind of the plans, state troopers were dispatched to the scene, the power was cut and the band were barred from the stage.

An official quoted in reports claimed that Rage were prohibited from performing because they were not included on the festival's permit, however the Ripple Effect website insisted that permit "held no artist-specific provisions."

As the crowd grew restless, Morello and frontman Zack de la Rocha took to a megaphone and led the protesters in a sing-a-long of some of their hits anyway:

Last night the band were allowed to play a pre-arranged show at the Target Center in St. Paul. After the concert ended at 10.30pm riot police had surrounded the building in waiting for protesters who emerged and took to the streets to march and chant.

Police reportedly used batons, pepper spray and fired bean bag rounds and tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, in scenes more akin to the streets of communist China. After whittling the crowd down to around 75, police surrounded them, ordered them to the ground and arrested them all.

"We are free citizens of America, and we are here because we love our country," said a girl who was leading the crowd, who refused to give her name. 102 people in total were arrested.

The activity marked a second night of indiscriminate police crackdowns throughout the city on innocent protesters.

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