Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Barak Obama. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Barak Obama. Mostrar todas las entradas

viernes, marzo 12, 2010

AIPAC of Raving Lunatics


Friday, 12 March 2010 Keith Johnson

Without regard for the severe economic devastation and loss of life that a war with Iran would create, Israel’s agents in the United States continue to aggressively stoke the fires of anti-Iranian rhetoric and mobilize their minions on the floor of the House. The Brzezinski-Soros machine failed in their attempt to effect regime change in Iran by way of a “color revolution” in the summer of 2009. This has only emboldened the Israeli lobby to pursue more drastic measures. There is only one card left for them to play before provoking conflicts that will most certainly catapult the United States into direct military action against the Islamic state.

Tuesday, the American Israeli Political Action Committee gave their marching orders to their congressional War Hawks. The message was short, concise and clear. Here is the text of the letter AIPAC sent to members of Congress:

Dear Congressman XXXX,

We are writing to every member of Congress to express outrage at the U.S. government’s continuing relationship with dozens of companies doing business with Iran. These ongoing financial dealings undermine longstanding American efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.

As the New York Times reported on Sunday, the federal government during the past decade has awarded $107 billion in contracts and grants to more than 70 companies that are doing business in Iran. More than two-thirds of these contracts have gone to companies involved in Iran’s energy industry despite American law to discourage such involvement.

The time has long since passed this policy to change. Unfortunately, as the Times points out, three successive American administrations have failed to enforce the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996, which mandates U.S. sanctions on firms investing more than $20 million in Iran’s energy sector. While Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama may have discouraged some investment in Iran through their rhetoric, the United States has sent the American and international business community a contradictory message by failing to enforce the law.

Despite publicly acknowledged investments by several companies of hundreds of millions of dollars in Iran’s energy sector, the U.S. Government has inexplicably failed to make even one determination of an investment of $20 million during the course of the past decade. Yet, throughout this entire time, Iran has pursued a nuclear weapons capability, flouting its international obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and presenting the international community with a growing, and now urgent, threat.

As Iran continues to reject U.S.-European engagement efforts and to defy U.N. Security Council resolutions requiring that it halt its illicit uranium enrichment efforts, the United States must take action now.

We call on Congress to:

1. Investigate why successive administrations have failed to implement the law by failing to determine what companies have invested in the Iranian energy sector;

2. Enact—without delay—the Iran sanctions legislation currently before Congress, which, inter alia, contains provisions barring federal contracts to companies which are investing in Iran’s energy sector or providing sensitive technology, and their parents or subsidiaries who are engaged in such activity;

3. Demand that the U.S. Government enforce existing sanctions law and impose crippling new sanctions on Iran.

In addition to these actions, we hope you will join with us in urging the administration to impose tough new multilateral sanctions with like-minded states without delay while continuing to pursue the widest possible sanctions through the U.N. Security Council.

Sincerely,

David Victor
President

Howard Kohr
Executive Director


These are pretty strong words coming from an organization which has stood in defiance of U.S. law that requires them to register as agents of a foreign power. It proves once again that the “A” in AIPAC really should be removed from their acronym. There is nothing “American” about them. This is the Israeli lobby, plain and simple. They represent Israel first and last. The United States is nothing more than a host to their endless parasitism. This letter should be an insult to anyone familiar with the State of Israel and it’s long history of refusing to comply with International laws and treaties. It reeks of hypocrisy. It’s an exercise in contempt. There is no country on the face of this earth with less justification to level these charges or make such demands.

First of all, Iran has no nuclear weapons capability. As recently as February 11, 2010, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded to a claim by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Iran had produced the first stock of 20 percent enriched uranium. Gibbs said, “The Iranian nuclear program has undergone a series of problems throughout the year. We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree to which they now say they are enriching.” The enriched uranium that Ahmadinejad was referring to was not for building a nuclear weapon but rather for medical isotopes used to treat cancer patients. And even if they did have the capability of enriching to 20 percent, it still falls far short of the nearly 98% that is required for building a weapon of mass destruction. As a signer of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has a legal right to enrich uranium in the manner that they are claiming. On the other hand, Israel has refused to sign the NNPT and has no right to make demands of anyone pertaining to nuclear technology.

While the author of this letter points out that “the federal government has awarded $107 billion in contracts and grants to more than 70 companies that are doing business in Iran,” it fails to recognize that 14 of those companies have already pulled out and that 11 plan no future investment. Of the 49 remaining, only 3 are suspected of being in violation of the “Iran Sanctions Act”. Those three companies are Daelim (South Korea), Dutch Royal Shell (Netherlands) and Total (France). Of the $174 million that Daelim received in contract money from the U.S., $111 million was used to build family housing towers for the U.S. Army. Dutch Royal Shell received $11.2 billion in contracts and that investment was instrumental in supplying a significant amount of gasoline to the U.S. military. Not one American company currently doing business and planning future investment in Iran is suspected of being in violation of the “Iran Sanctions Act”.

The author demands that Congress enact current legislation that bars companies from investing in Iran’s energy sector. But this is in direct conflict with Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran is a signer of that treaty, and that obligates the United States to help them build power plants and other facilities for non-military purposes.

If anyone should be barred from receiving federal contracts or aid it is the State of Israel, who has refused to sign the NNPT and have illegally pursued a nuclear weapons program of their own. The 1976 Symington Amendment to the Foreign Appropriations Bill of 1961 forbids the United States from giving foreign aid to any nation that is developing nuclear technology outside the NNPT. Despite this, approximately 1/3 of the total foreign aid budget of the United States is annually sent to Israel even though they comprise less than .001 of the world’s population and has one of the world’s highest per capita incomes. Former Congressman James Traficant rightly pointed out recently that between the direct foreign aid grants to Israel, along with all of the other benefits including trade compacts, economic and military assistance, “Israel gets approximately $15 billion a year from the American taxpayers. That $15 billion is $30,000 for every man, woman and child in Israel.”

In his list of demands, the author urges Congress to “pursue the widest possible sanctions through the U.N. Security Council.” This is the height of hypocrisy. Neither the State of Israel nor its agents have any standing with the United Nations in this regard. Since its inception, the State of Israel has been in violation of more UN resolutions than any other nation on earth.

Who else but a raving lunatic would even dare to write such a letter in light of the insurmountable evidence that contradicts each and every line of their text? There is no other explanation; a lunatic wrote this letter. And if Congress acts in lock step to their demands, then it should be abundantly clear to all of us that the lunatics, have indeed, taken over the asylum.

Source : Rebel News

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martes, marzo 02, 2010

Gaza in Plain Language



Photo by DALIDA

The article "Gaza in Plain Language", by Joe Mowrey, first published by Dissident Voice was brought to my attention by Robert H. Stiver, and I immediately agreed to do a video treatment of it. Joe and I shared the research effort, and we would like to thank all of those whose video and photographic work is included in this chilling tale of a fledgling nation gone mad. We have used this material in good faith; as fair comment; for no personal gain and in the interests of truth and justice.

We have not been able to contact and thank every contributor, personally, but we do so now. Without your efforts, which were so much more harrowing than ours, because you saw the slaughter, the devastation and the grief first hand, this video would not have been possible. We dedicate this video to the people of Gaza, and to all of those decent people who are trying to help them.

Although some people will attempt to characterised it as such, what I have read and the pictures put to Joe Mowrey's words do not amount to anti-Semitism. If it needs an "ism", call it anti-Nasty-Peopleism. Which is an ism that decent people, the world over, should adopt and develop, because if we don't, the nasty people will always win.

Many thanks to Kim Petersen, Joshua Frank and Sunil K. Sharma of Dissident Voice, where one will always find unflinching commentary in support of human rights and social justice. Also thanks to the Coalition for Prisoners' Rights (CPR), in Santa Fe, New Mexico

http://www.realcostofprisons.org/coal...
The seed for "Gaza in Plain Language," as well as other articles by Joe Mowrey, was originally planted in the form of a brief commentary called, "Crime of the Month" in the monthly CPR newsletter.

Source links for the statistics relayed in this presentation are available on request from Joe Mowrey,
jmowrey@ix.netcom.com
Or better yet, do your own research. You will discover documentation for many more horrors concerning the fate of the children of Gaza than have been elucidated in this video.



Source for researce and video by alawson911

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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jueves, febrero 12, 2009

Obama's Legal Team Copies Bush's 'State Secrets' Trick to Cover Up Torture and Renditions



Attorneys representing the Obama administration are defending one of the most controversial practices of the Bush administration.

On Monday in San Francisco, attorneys representing the Obama administration did what many of the president's supporters would have considered unthinkable on election day: they arrived in a federal courtroom and defended one of the most controversial practices of the Bush administration.

"Eric Holder's Justice Department stood up in court today and said that it would continue the Bush policy of invoking state secrets to hide the reprehensible history of torture, rendition and the most grievous human rights violations committed by the American government," Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union said in an impassioned statement. "This is not change. This is definitely more of the same."

The case was Mohamed et al. v. Jeppesen Dataplan, a lawsuit originally brought in 2007 by the ACLU on behalf of five victims of extraordinary rendition, the notorious CIA program in which terror suspects are kidnapped, thrown on a plane and flown to another country to be tortured and interrogated.

Jeppesen Dataplan, a subsidiary of Boeing, is said to have provided the logistical support for the rendition of all five plaintiffs, among them, Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian national who, in July 2002, was taken from Pakistan to Morocco, where for 18 months he was imprisoned and brutally tortured, including being cut with razorblades on his testicles. Mohamed was later sent to Guantanamo Bay, where he supposedly awaits imminent plans for his release. He has never stood trial.

Under Bush, the ACLU's lawsuit was thrown out multiple times on "state secrets" grounds -- a bogus excuse according to human rights lawyers who have long argued that the real goal was to keep evidence of the sort of torture endured by Mohamed away from a courtroom.

"To date, not a single torture victim has had his day in court in the United States," ACLU attorney Ben Wizner told reporters last week. Thus, the objective of yesterday's hearing was simple: the ACLU was asking that the lawsuit move forward. But to the dismay of many who believed Obama would open the door to justice for torture victims in the so-called war on terror, it appears his administration is instead following in Bush's footsteps.

"This case cannot be litigated," Department of Justice lawyer Douglas Letter said on Monday. "The judges shouldn't play with fire in this national security situation."

For those who spent the past eight years fighting back against cynical claims of "national security" to justify illegal and inhumane practices, the words smack of the Bush era.

"If the Obama administration, so early on, is toeing the Bush line," Romero warns, "that speaks volumes for where we might end up years from now."

The Debate Over Rendition

The Jeppesen hearing came on the heels of a week that saw the topic of extraordinary rendition -- and Obama's approach to it -- under particular scrutiny. On Feb. 1, the Los Angeles Times ran a story that caused a stir around the issue in the media, the blogosphere and the human rights community.

"The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered," the article began. "Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.

"But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counterterrorism tool.

"Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States."

The article quoted an anonymous administration official, who said,

"Obviously you need to preserve some tools -- you still have to go after the bad guys.

"The legal advisors working on this looked at rendition. It is controversial in some circles and kicked up a big storm in Europe. But if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice."

The official's statement was backed up with a quote from a representative from Human Rights Watch: "'Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place'" for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch."

The article sparked anger and controversy from op-ed pages to the blogosphere. ("So, it would appear that we will not see the end of torture under this administration after all," lamented blogger Digby.) But backlash against the LA Times quickly followed.

In a post titled "Renditions Buffoonery," attorney Scott Horton, who writes the Harpers blog "No Comment," called it a "breathless piece of reporting," which, among other problems, "misses the difference between the renditions program, which has been around since the Bush 41 administration at least … and the extraordinary renditions program which was introduced by Bush 43 and clearly shut down under an executive order issued by President Obama in his first week."

The earlier renditions program regularly involved snatching and removing targets for purposes of bringing them to justice by delivering them to a criminal justice system. It did not involve the operation of long-term detention facilities and it did not involve torture. There are legal and policy issues with the renditions program, but they are not in the same league as those surrounding extraordinary rendition.

The LA Times, said Horton, "got punk'd."

Constitutional lawyer and blogger Glenn Greenwald had his own criticisms about the article, and got into an e-mail debate with its author, Greg Miller, whose response defending his report was posted on Greenwald's blog.

"The story made clear that Obama intends to administer the rendition program in a very different way," Miller argued. "… This is not a story saying it's business as usual under Obama."

"Nevertheless, the rendition program is controversial. Even if administered in the most enlightened manner, it is a program that involves the use of the CIA in secret abductions and prisoner transfers."

Even as some backpedaled on their initial reactions ("You'd think I'd know better than to take a newspaper article about the intelligence community at face value by now," Digby wrote), for some who have closely followed the Obama administration's handling of torture in his first days in office, the discussion was far from over.

"Liberal bloggers have jumped on the bandwagon defending President Obama's executive order calling for a review of the practices of transferring individuals to other nations in order to ensure that such practices comply with the domestic laws, international obligations, and policies of the United States," wrote psychologist and blogger Jeffrey Kaye, who has spent the past few months waging a one-man crusade against the torture loophole embedded in the Army Field Manual. "Forget that Obama did not outlaw the practice of rendition. But this is because, according to certain liberal bloggers, and a few human rights spokespeople (like Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch), 'Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place' for renditions."

According to Horton et al., extraordinary renditions are war crimes, because the government sends prisoners to foreign countries to be tortured. (That is certainly correct, so far as that goes.) "Legal" renditions -- as defined by Richard Clarke in a recent article … are examples of "renditions performed by the American government [and] are legal, effective and done within the scope of human rights" (emphasis added). And if you think differently, then you are "ridiculously misinformed," a "buffoon," a "moron" (the latter by a Daily Kos commenter to yours truly).

Like other defenders of Obama's right to maintain some version of the policy in place, Clarke, a counterterror advisor to Bill Clinton, sought to clear up "the confusion over rendition." Rendition "proved workable before the Bush administration," Clarke wrote, "And it need not be something to fear in the future."

What Is Really at Stake

The differences between Bush-era rendition and its precursors are not insignificant -- in fact, Horton and Center for Constitutional Rights President Michael Ratner debated them on Democracy Now! last week. But, given that they largely boil down to what the CIA did as a matter of policy under Bush (torture) versus what was allegedly done under Clinton unofficially (torture), neither are they the most urgent issue at hand. Obama's much-lauded executive orders are vague enough to elicit endless speculation when it comes to rendition and other intelligence policies. But the actions of his Department of Justice on Monday were not.

"This was an opportunity for the new administration to act on its condemnation of torture and rendition, but instead it has chosen to stay the course," Ben Wizner said. "Now we must hope that the court will assert its independence by rejecting the government's false claims of state secrets and allowing the victims of torture and rendition their day in court."

Indeed, at stake in the Jeppesen case is not only justice for the victims of a hideous policy -- one that, in whatever form, should not be exercised by a country that claims to be a beacon of democracy and human rights -- but a changing of course when it comes to the flagrant abuse of the state-secrets doctrine, which was repeatedly used by the Bush administration to stamp out lawsuits against the government for its myriad abuses, from torture to illegal spying.

Both Obama and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, have vowed to review the Bush administration's use of the state secrets privilege. As a DOJ spokesperson told the Washington Post yesterday. "It is vital that we protect information that if released could jeopardize national security, but the department will ensure the privilege is not invoked to hide from the American people information about their government's actions that they have a right to know."

But as Romero told reporters last week, the actions of the Obama administration "are unfortunately speaking louder than their words."

"What this is clearly about is shielding the U.S. government and Bush officials from any accountability," wrote Glenn Greenwald following the Jeppesen hearing Monday. "Worse, by keeping Bush's secrecy architecture in place, it ensures that any future president -- Obama or any other -- can continue to operate behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy, with no transparency or accountability even for blatantly criminal acts.

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted February 10, 2009.


FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Feel free to repost but be polite and include an active link back to the original blog post on Malteseken , please.

sábado, junio 28, 2008

Dahr Jamail: Iraq and U.S Military expansion

Posted on by dandelionsalad

talkingsticktv

Talk by independent journalist Dahr Jamail author of “Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq” given June 7, 2008 in Seattle.



see

Iraq

Israel Lobby

Jamail-Dahr

GI Resistance

It’s March 19 and Blogswarm Day! Posts on Iraq War by Lo (list of Winter Soldier posts)