Bush’s Approval Rating Drops to New Low of 27% against the backdrop on bailout failure.

In the wake of yesterday’s congressional meltdown over the bailout bill, President Bush gave a speech this morning, meant to reassure the public and the volatile financial markets. The address expressed disappointment in Congress and warned that “the consequences will grow worse each day if we do not act.”

The Bush Administration and Secretary Paulson have fallen into a trap of their own making. They have made it clear to everyone that the financial system is doomed, that all their past bailout operations have failed, and that only a massive injection of taxpayer cash into the financial system will stop it from collapsing completely. Paulson initially demanded that he be given the power to do whatever he saw fit, with no interference from the courts or other government agencies. Meanwhile, a number of other important developments have occurred. Wachovia, the fourth-largest bank in the U.S., effectively failed this morning, when the FDIC arranged an assisted takeover by Citigroup. Citigroup is buying the banking functions, including deposits, of Wachovia, and making Citigroup the largest bank in the U.S. by deposits. As with the failure of Washington Mutual late last week, the deal was structured in a way which avoided the FDIC's having to take over and run the bank, and immediately eat the losses, something the FDIC has neither the manpower nor the funds to do.

Banks are also failing in Europe, where the Belgian, Dutch and Luxembourg governments announced a partial nationalization of Fortis, a trillion-dollar Belgian-Dutch bank, the British government has seized Bradford & Bingley, and Iceland seized Glitnir.

Coinciding with these developments, Gallup has released a new poll today showing that Bush’s approval rating has dropped to the lowest point in his tenure:



Bush's approval rating has declined from 31% in the previous Gallup Poll, conducted before the crisis intensified with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the near-collapse of Merrill Lynch, and the federal government bailout of AIG. It is down 6 points from 33% just after the Republican National Convention early this month. Bush's previous low had been 28%, measured at several points earlier this year.


Text taken partially from here and here.

Iraqis debate US troop presence - 27 Sep 08

There is even less tolerance for a long term foreign troop presence among ordinary Iraqis, thousands of whom have lost relatives to US military operations. Aljazeera English reports on the death of a respected Iraqi academic in Baquba, shot at a US checkpoint.

Watch the clips.



It is not just Iraqis. About 60 percent of Americans want a timeline for US troop withdrawal from Iraq.

LaRouche: There IS a Plan B!

September 27 2008 (LPAC)--Lyndon LaRouche today reiterated that the trillion dollar taxpayers bailout scheme, being peddled by Hank Paulson, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, et al. is doomed to fail.

"If the bailout is passed, this will not solve anything. It will trigger Weimar hyperinflation immediately, will bring down the whole banking system, and, contrary to Gordon Brown's fantasies, will not save the hopelessly bankrupt British banking system.''

LaRouche emphasized, "However, as many people inside Washington and on Wall Street perfectly well know, there is a Plan B. Plan B is my three-step solution, which begins with bankruptcy reorganization, rather than hyperinflationary bailout. First, pass my Homeowners and Bank Protection Act (HBPA). This viable proposal has been out there since Sept. 2007, and everyone serious, who has studied it, knows it will work. Had Congress shown the guts to pass my HBPA in 2007, this crisis would have been averted, and we would have already been on the road to a new, viable international financial order.

"Second, Congress, in coordination with the Fed, must establish a two-tiered credit system. The Fed must immediately increase short-term rates to 4 percent, to send a clear signal that the U.S. government is behind a strong dollar. At the same time, Congress, using its Constitutional authority, must issue trillions of dollars in low-interest credit for earmarked infrastructure projects, in the vital interest of the nation. We need high-speed rail and maglev, nuclear power, water management, new hospitals, repairs on our bridges and roads. These kinds of projects should be financed through capital budgeting, authorized by Congress at 1-2 percent interest.''

LaRouche said, "And at the same time, the United States, Russia, China and India must take the lead in convening a treaty conference to establish a new international financial system, based on fixed exchange rates, along the conceptual lines of what Franklin Roosevelt did in 1944 with the original Bretton Woods System. We can and must put the bankrupt current international financial system through bankruptcy reorganization, and launch, on a global scale, what I have proposed with the domestic capital investment in massive infrastructure.''

LaRouche noted that prominent Italian officials have voiced their support for the convening of such a New Bretton Woods conference, and Russian leaders, including President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, have voiced similar support, particularly if the United States takes the lead.

"So no one in good faith,'' LaRouche concluded, "can honestly claim that the current bailout scheme on the table of Paulson, Frank and Dodd is the only option. It is not the only option. It is the option of a dark age for civilization. My Plan B is available, is viable, and can and must be acted upon now. This week.''

Text taken from here.

Economist Michael Hudson: The bailout is a giveaway that will cause hyperinflation and dollar collapse. Dr. Michael Hudson is a Wall Street financial analyst and historian.



Dr. Hudson was Dennis Kucinich’s Chief Economic Advisor in the recent Democratic primary presidential campaign, and has advised the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments, as well as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City, he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire and of Super-Imperialism and of The Myth of Aid.

Bailout sparks anger, protesters take to the streets to condemn Wall Street bailout plan. Watch the clip.



Read further.
'Un-American' Bailout, Paulson Should Have Quit, Gingrich Says.
Trouble in Banktopia: The financial system is blowing up.
Financial Bailout: Thanks but No Thanks.

Six Years in Guantanamo

Sami al-Haj, an Al Jazeera cameraman, was beaten, abused and humiliated in the name of the war on terror. He tells about his struggle to rebuild a shattered life.

Sami al-Haj walks with pain on his steel crutch; almost six years in the nightmare of Guantanamo have taken their toll on the Al Jazeera journalist and, now in the safety of a hotel in the small Norwegian town of Lillehammer, he is a figure of both dignity and shame. The Americans told him they were sorry when they eventually freed him this year – after the beatings he says he suffered, and the force-feeding, the humiliations and interrogations by British, American and Canadian intelligence officers – and now he hopes one day he'll be able to walk without his stick.

The TV cameraman, 38, was never charged with any crime, nor was he put on trial; his testimony makes it clear that he was held in three prisons for six-and-a-half years – repeatedly beaten and force-fed – not because he was a suspected "terrorist" but because he refused to become an American spy. From the moment Sami al-Haj arrived at Guantanamo, flown there from the brutal US prison camp at Kandahar, his captors demanded that he work for them. The cruelty visited upon him – constantly interrupted by American admissions of his innocence – seemed designed to turnal-Haj into a US intelligence "asset".

"We know you are innocent, you are here by mistake," he says he was told in more than 200 interrogations. "All they wanted was for me to be a spy for them. They said they would give me US citizenship, that my wife and child could live in America, that they would protect me. But I said: 'I will not do this – first of all because I'm a journalist and this is not my job and because I fear for myself and my family. In war, I can be wounded and I can die or survive. But if I work with you, al-Qa'ida will eliminate me. And if I don't work with you, you will kill me'."

The grotesque saga began for al-Haj on 15 December, 2001, when he was on his way from the Pakistani capital Islamabad to Kandahar in Afghanistan with Sadah al-Haq, a fellow correspondent from the Arab satellite TV channel, to cover the new regional government. At least 70 other journalists were on their way through the Pakistani border post at Chaman, but an officer stopped al-Haj. "He told me there was a paper from the Pakistani intelligence service for my arrest. My name was misspelled, my passport number was incorrect, it said I was born in 1964 – the right date is 1969. I said I had renewed my visa in Islamabad and asked why, if I was wanted, they had not arrested me there?"

Read further here.

Legal status
In April 2004, Cuban diplomats tabled a United Nations resolution calling for a UN investigation of Guantanamo Bay (reference here).

In May 2007, Martin Scheinin, a United Nations rapporteur on rights in countering terrorism, released a preliminary report for the United Nations Human Rights Council. The report stated the United States violated international law, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, that the Bush Administration could not try such prisoners as enemy combatants in a military tribunal and could not deny them access to the evidence used against them (Judge Says Detainees' Trials Are Unlawful). However, on July 15, 2005, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in overturning Robertson ruled that al-Qaeda members could not be classified as prisoners of war and upheld military tribunals in U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay for al-Qaeda members. This ruling does not necessarily authorize all military tribunals as the case only dealt with the POW status of al-Qaeda members.

Prisoners held at Camp Delta and Camp Echo have been labeled "illegal" or "unlawful enemy combatants," but several observers such as the Center for Constitutional Rights and Human Rights Watch maintain that the United States has not held the Article 5 tribunals required by the Geneva Conventions (U.S. Officials Misstate Geneva Convention Requirements). The International Committee of the Red Cross has stated that, "Every person in enemy hands must have some status under international law: he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention, [or] a member of the medical personnel of the armed forces who is covered by the First Convention. There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can fall outside the law." Thus, if the detainees are not classified as prisoners of war, this would still grant them the rights of the Fourth Geneva Convention as opposed to the more common Third Geneva Convention which deals exclusively with prisoners of war. A U.S. court has rejected this argument, as it applies to detainees from al Qaeda. Henry King, Jr., a prosecutor for the Nuremberg Trials, has argued that the type of tribunals at Guantanamo Bay "violates the Nuremberg principles" and that they are against "the spirit of the Geneva Conventions of 1949."

Many supporters have argued for the summary execution of all unlawful combatants, using Ex parte Quirin as the precedent, a case during World War II which upheld the use of military tribunals for eight German soldiers caught on U.S. soil. The Germans were deemed to be saboteurs and unlawful combatants, and thus not entitled to POW protections, and six were eventually executed for war crimes on request of the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt. The validity of this case, as basis for denying prisoners in the War on Terrorism protection by the Geneva Conventions, has been disputed.

A report by the American Bar Association commenting on this case, states that the Quirin case "...does not stand for the proposition that detainees may be held incommunicado and denied access to counsel." The report notes that the Quirin defendants could seek review and were represented by counsel (reference here, a pdf file).

On June 12, 2008 the United States Supreme Court ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that the Guantanamo captives were entitled to the protection of the United States Constitution (High Court: Gitmo detainees have rights in court).

Anti-Bush Graffiti from around the world

Curitiba, Brazil

Granada, Spain

Lisbon, Portugal

London, England

Painted on a wall facing East London’s members-only Shoreditch House is this poignant portrait.

Sofia, Bulgaria

Faded from foot traffic, the sidewalk mugshot reads: Wanted Dead: George W. Bush, for crimes against humanity and the planet.

Berlin, Germany

Bush faces off with Osama bin Laden outside a record store in Berlin. War is terror, the caption reads.

Colonia, Uruguay

This makeshift banner welcomed Bush to Uruguay in March of 2007, when Bush met with President Tabaré Vasquez. Translated, the greeting reads: Your dead, hungry, unemployed, disappeared [illegally imprisoned], lying cronies salute you.

Wellington, New Zealand

Give Bush an inch, and he’ll bomb a country, one stencil remarks.

Gullbringusysla, Iceland

Flanked by missiles, could Bush be folding his hands in prayer?

San José, Costa Rica

Translation: Mentally ill in service of capital.

Rome, Italy

Melbourne, Australia

Rosario, Argentina

Mito, Japan

Johannesburg, South Africa

A donkey-eared Bush and his toy tank ponder their next move.

Israel

Bush is pictured here with Ariel Sharon, Israeli Prime Minister when this photo was taken in 2006.

Bethlehem, West Bank, Palestine

Bush, a United Methodist, tries on some Devil horns in the city of Jesus’ birth. On June 10, 2000, the President declared Jesus Day in Texas.

Riga, Latvia

Victoria, BC, Canada

On a brick wall in Victoria, British Columbia, Bush discusses world domination with Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper.

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Lyrics to the United States national anthem take on a less hopeful meaning.

Wrocław, Poland

Styria, Austria

Palestinian parties and organizations to Abbas: Right of return non-negotiable

The following letter was presented to Palestinian Authority President and PLO Chairperson Mahmoud Abbas's office on behalf of 78 Palestinian organizations on Wednesday, 22 September 2008.






Dear Mr. President,

Greetings of Return

We, the undersigned Palestinian refugee organizations, civil society movements and institutions in the Palestinian homeland and in exile are national organizations working to defend the right of return. We appeal to you now because we are convinced that the alignment of the official Palestinian position and the position of the Palestinian people with regards to the final status negotiation issues is of the highest priority. Foremost among these issues is the cause of the Palestinian refugees.

We are convinced that the alignment of popular and official positions is the main guarantee of a strong Palestinian position in the current negotiation process, which is taking place in a local, regional and global context that jeopardizes the national rights of the Palestinian people. In this context, we are concerned in particular about the rights of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons to return to their original lands and properties, restitution of their homes, lands and properties and compensation for damages incurred over the past 60 years. Based on the fact that all of these rights are guaranteed under international law, and based on our awareness of the enormous pressures faced by Palestinian negotiators and the tactics of negotiations, such as secrecy with regards to the negotiation proceedings, we call upon you to adopt a negotiation strategy that is based on openness with the entirety of the Palestinian people -- irrespective of their current place of residence -- regarding all aspects and details of the negotiation process. Implementation of the Palestinian refugees' right of return was and continues to be the main purpose for which the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was established, a purpose which forms the central pillar of the PLO's legitimacy as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Transparency and candidness of our representatives with all sectors of our society will guarantee that our rights are best defended, and strengthen our position in the face of enormous pressures.

It has been clear at all stages of the negotiations that this process aims to eliminate the core issue of the Arab/Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice: the Palestinian refugees and their rights of return and restitution. In fact, elimination of these central Palestinian/Arab demands form the centerpiece of both Israeli and US policies. It is also no secret that during the so-called "Oslo Peace Process" these policies have employed insidious tactics in order to nullify these rights altogether. Such tactics include attempts to substitute the return and restitution of the refugees with monetary compensation; to reduce the number of those entitled to exercise these rights from over 7 million Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons to a tiny minority, including so-called "hardship cases" that would be arbitrarily defined by Israel; to suggest that the refugees return to homes located in the areas administered by the Palestinian Authority; and other humiliating "trade offs" whereby Palestinians are expected to surrender the right of refugees to return to homes, lands and properties of origin in exchange for other rights and demands, such as self-determination, borders, the reclamation of Jerusalem and removal of the illegal settlement-colonies. The Palestinian leadership has rejected such degrading bargaining tactics in previous negotiations, notably those known as the second Camp David summit and the Clinton initiative. The late President Yasser Arafat rejected these tactics, and he was made to pay for that with his liberty and his life.

Whereas the rights of return, restitution and compensation are enshrined in international law and specifically affirmed in UN General Assembly Resolution 194 and UN Security Council Resolution 237;

Whereas we see that increasing US pressure aims to force Palestinian negotiators to agree to an obscure framework for a solution that is to be achieved by any means and at the soonest date, and that such a framework is largely for internal US consumption in the context of a US Presidential election;

Whereas it has become clear that the US administration is working on other fronts to market its obscure framework for a solution in the September 2008 session of the UN General Assembly;

Whereas we realize, as a result of our movement's long and difficult experience with Israeli politics, that Israeli political actors seek to solve the internal Israeli political crisis by venting destruction on the Palestinian front through various policies and practices, all of which work to entrench Israeli occupation, colonialism, and apartheid, and aim to attain international recognition of Israel as a "Jewish State";

Whereas Western and Israeli election platforms must not be employed to put pressure on the Palestinian negotiators, who should in no way be a party to the political maneuvers of US and Israeli political candidates, particularly in order to protect the legality, legitimacy, and sanctity of Palestinian national rights regardless of who emerges victorious in foreign elections;

Whereas we perceive the retreat of the once principled European position, and the transformation of this position into one that conforms to the US policy of total complicity and support for Israel;

Whereas we clearly see the weakness and inability of the Arab countries to take action or play any effective role;

Whereas we witness the sharp, painful and unprecedented deterioration in the internal Palestinian political arena;

Whereas it has become plain and obvious that powerful external pressures aim to annul Palestinian refugee rights, particularly the right to return to their original lands and properties and the restitution of these lands and properties;

Whereas Israel and the US, according to Israeli officials, are intensifying their efforts to reach a framework for a solution that is acceptable to both Israel and the US and will be viable regardless of the ruling party;

Whereas the primary measure of the legitimacy of any solution remains the extent to which it will lead to the exercise of the right of self-determination by the Palestinian people, including foremost the right of Palestinian refugees to choose to return to their original homes and lands regardless of their current place of refuge,

We approach you with this statement based on our strong desire to chart a way forward that is built on the highest levels of clarity and candidness with the Palestinian people; a way forward that aims to strengthen the Palestinian position in this sensitive stage of the Palestinian struggle; a way forward that ensures that any framework for a solution will include the following principles in clear and immutable language:

1. The rights of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons to return, restitution and compensation are fundamental rights under international law and relevant UN resolutions -- particularly UN General Assembly Resolution 194 and UN Security Council Resolution 237. The content of these rights is non-negotiable irrespective of the manner in which they will be exercised;
2. The right of return is an individual right held by every Palestinian refugee and internally displaced person. This right is passed on from one generation to the next, based on the individual's choice on whether or not to return, an inalienable and indivisible right, and not affected by any bilateral, multilateral, or international treaty or agreement. Any such agreement must respect the fundamental precepts and principles of international law;
3. The right of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons to return is a collective right that is not limited to one group or another, and it is an integral part of the Palestinian right of self-determination;
4. The right of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons to return is not subject to referendum.

May you remain steadfast in our struggle for freedom and dignity.

The various signatories found here.

Will International Law Reach Bush?

By Peter Dyer
September 21, 2008

Q: What do Radovan Karadzic, former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, and George W. Bush have in common?

A: Each lives under the slowly growing shadow of a body of international criminal law.

This law is evolving towards the ultimate goal of holding even the most powerful leaders personally accountable for crimes committed by the State.

It is manifested in international agreements and statutes such as the Geneva Conventions, case law, two ad hoc war crimes tribunals (Yugoslavia and Rwanda), and a permanent International Criminal Court.

Radovan Karadzic, former Bosnian Serb President, has been arrested and now awaits trial in The Hague before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (I.C.T.Y.) on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Dominique de Villepin is one of 33 French military and political leaders who have recently been accused in a report released by the Rwandan government of arming and advising Hutu leaders in the genocide and crimes against humanity of 1994.

(At the time Rwanda was a French client state and de Villepin was chief aide to French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe. The 500-page report, based on a two-year investigation, accuses both men of crimes including enabling the genocide by violating a United Nations Security Council Arms Embargo against Rwanda.)

George W. Bush in March 2003 ordered “Operation Shock and Awe” (though officially dubbed “Operation: Iraqi Freedom”) – the unprovoked invasion and occupation of Iraq – presenting the world with a clear prima facie case of aggression.

Aggression, in the words of the judgment delivered at the first Nuremberg Trial, is “the supreme international crime” because it unleashes all the other devastation and inhumanity of war.

Personal accountability by state leaders for the crime of aggression – initiating an unprovoked war – is the most profound as well as the most difficult goal of the continuing evolution of international criminal law.

For this reason, and because President Bush is head of the world’s most powerful state, clearly the shadow of the law is at present less ominous to him than to Karadzic or perhaps to de Villepin.

But there is no statute of limitations for any of these crimes. Things change over time, often unpredictably. And the international community has been working steadily towards this difficult goal for decades.

No doubt the work will continue.

Nuremberg Precedent

Although the effort to hold leaders personally responsible for crimes of state goes back to the late 19th century, the first significant watershed was the 1946 judgment of the first Nuremberg trial.

A panel of judges from the U.S., U.K., France and the Soviet Union held German leaders personally responsible and punished them for crimes of state, including aggression.

The roots of the Yugoslavia and Rwanda Tribunals are largely in Nuremberg as are those of the International Criminal Court, although neither ad hoc tribunal charter included aggression.

One of the most significant achievements of the Yugoslavia Tribunal was the first ever indictment of an acting head of state, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, for crimes committed while still in office.

According to the I.C.T.Y. Web site, “the question is no longer whether leaders should be held accountable, but rather how can they be called to account.”

A major problem with the two courts was that they were each temporary responses to a specific set of separate circumstances which had considerable legal overlap.

The ad hoc approach was clearly limited by issues of logistics, expenses and repetition, many of which could have been more effectively addressed by a permanent court.

The achievements of the two tribunals as well as their limitations gave new impetus to the decades-old effort to establish a permanent International Criminal Court.

On July 17, 1998, the great majority of countries of the world voted in Rome, 120 to 7 with 21 abstentions, to establish the International Criminal Court. With the signature and ratification of 60 states the International Criminal Court came into being on July 1, 2002.

Six years later, as of last June 1, 106 countries have ratified the Rome Statute. Written into the Statute is a provision for member states to meet seven years after the entry into force (2009) to consider amendments.

Because the Statute is the result of decades of evolution and five weeks of intense negotiations between 148 countries, it is full of compromises. Even so, it is remarkable.

Never before has the world community united to create an institution invested with legal authority to write, adjudicate and enforce international criminal law. And, despite compromises, it is remarkable for the degree to which so many were able to agree on some basics.

Most important among these is a set of “core crimes” over which the Court has jurisdiction. These are: 1) genocide, 2) crimes against humanity, 3) war crimes and 4) aggression (the waging of aggressive war).

Conflict over Definition

Unfortunately, the Rome conference was unable to agree on a definition of aggression.

Unwilling to leave out “the supreme international crime” containing within itself the “accumulated evil of the whole,” the conference compromised, including aggression among the ”core crimes” but leaving it undefined in anticipation of a future amendment defining the crime and setting out conditions for jurisdiction.

One of the weaker aspects of the Statute is, of course, enforcement. As American Professor Leila Nadya Sadat, a delegate to the Rome conference wrote: “Here classic paradigms of sovereignty in which each state is master of its territory prevail. …The I.C.C.’s ability to effectively enforce international criminal law remains an open question.”

Unfortunately, a major obstacle to the I.C.C., enforcement and otherwise, has been the United States. The U.S. was one of seven countries which voted against the Statute — part of a list which included Iraq, Libya, Israel, Qatar and Yemen. Despite the vote, President Clinton signed the Statute on Dec. 31, 2000.

Less than two years later President George W. Bush “unsigned it.”

Other countries such as Russia and Egypt have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute. Still others such as China and India remain opposed.

If major countries such as Russia, China, India and especially the U.S. ever do decide to join and throw their considerable weight behind the I.C.C. here are a few examples of what the organization may eventually be capable of:

• ”Treaty crimes” such as hijacking and narcotics trafficking, while not yet covered by the Statute, are slated to be discussed and possibly defined and amended into the Rome Statue as early as 2009. There would be an international institution with the legal power to apprehend, try and punish future Osama Bin Ladens without the catastrophic destruction and waste of war.
• The genocide visited by Saddam Hussein upon the Iraqi Kurds (1984-1991) perhaps could have been stopped, or at least punished upon authorization by the Security Council.
• There will be a venue for resolving murky situations such as the recent violence in Georgia, where a court of law could be the only place to finally decide if and when aggression and/or other crimes occurred and who was responsible.
• Assuming that aggression is eventually defined and fully included in the Rome Statute, those who initiate wars of aggression, such as the U.S. invasion of Iraq, will do so knowing there is at least the legal possibility of arrest, trial and prison.

Ironically the United States led the way in establishing the precedent for this when the Allies at Nuremberg tried and punished Germans for aggression and other crimes.

At the moment, the prospect of an American president sitting in the dock of the International Criminal Court seems remote.

It should be remembered, however, that in 1973, nobody would have believed that 33 years later General Augusto Pinochet would die under house arrest in Chile, facing trial on charges of human rights abuses, including kidnapping and murder, committed during the dark days of Chile’s military government.

A lot can happen in three decades. Leaders come and go. Power ebbs and flows. National and international perspectives and relationships change.

Imagine the chilling effect the real prospect of arrest, trial and prison for starting a war would have on a head of state considering aggression. Such a simple and powerful deterrent could move humanity significantly closer to realizing the original vision of the United Nations: a world without war.

There simply can be no lasting peace without justice.

To quote Professor Sadat, “As humanity struggles to overcome its darkest impulses in this new millennium, impulses that led not only to the slaughter of hundreds of millions during the 20th century, but threaten our very survival, the creation of effective international institutions and regimes is essential … to transform the prohibitions on the commission of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and aggression into real tools to deter the cruel and powerful.”

Next year in New York, the I.C.C. Special Working Group on the Crime of Aggression is scheduled to conclude their work on a definition of aggression for inclusion as an amendment to the Rome Statute.

A review conference of the full I.C.C. Assembly will convene in 2010 to consider this and other amendments.

The work continues.

Peter Dyer is a freelance journalist who moved with his wife from California to New Zealand in 2004. He can be reached at p.dyer@inspire.net.nz.

What a week of reported violence in Iraq looks like

Jeff Severns Guntzel, Electronic Iraq, Sep 22, 2008

McClatchy does a daily roundup of violence in Iraq. Read it every day and the words begin to blur together like the lives lost or forever changed. With the help of Wordle, here's a text visualization of the past seven days of reported violence in Iraq:

Live and let die

William Parry, The Electronic Intifada, 22 September 2008

Imagine John Lennon is still alive and touring, and is asked to play Tel Aviv as Israel celebrates turning 60. Picture him publicly telling the Israelis where to stick their offer. Instead, he chooses to play Bethlehem to mark 60 years of dispossession of the Palestinian people. While the world's press cover the gig, a few hundred locals turn out, bemused to see the old bespectacled former Beatle on stage in a kuffiyeh performing "Power to the People," "Happy Xmas (War is over)," and "Give Peace a Chance." Millions of people in the West get a rare dose of invective from a celebrity about the catalogue of crimes being perpetrated with impunity by one of our allies. "Instant Karma's gonna get you, Israel," he wails!

Paul McCartney, on the other hand, will be giving the first performance by a Beatle in Tel Aviv on 25 September -- receiving an alleged $4.3 million -- despite efforts by various groups in Palestine and internationally calling on him to boycott Israel, including the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Barrie Marshall, from Marshall Arts, a company representing Sir Paul, has replied to such concerns by saying: "[P]lease rest assured that Paul's 'Friendship First' concert is about his music and its inherent message of friendship."

What will McCartney open with, "Pipes of Peace" or "Ebony and Ivory"? Given the reality on the ground, which he refuses to acknowledge, why not open with "Live and Let Die" to a rapturous Israeli audience?

"Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see," the Beatles once sang. This is what Israel is about -- denial. Denial regarding its responsibility for creating 750,000 Palestinian refugees in 1948 through massacres and a campaign of terror. Denial of its legal obligations over six decades toward these refugees, who now exceed 7 million people, comprising the largest refugee population in the world. Denial concerning the ongoing dispossession and ethnic cleansing that is blindingly obvious to anyone who wishes to see it.

Take Jerusalem: Israelis are bent on living normal lives like other Western citizens, in cafes, restaurants, parks, bars, shopping malls, or going to school or to work or to pray. The facade can be -- and should be -- smashed by stepping into a car and driving into occupied East Jerusalem, surrounded by a wall, cutting it off from its Palestinian context, or just 15 minutes in virtually any direction.

From the Old City you can reach the Qalandiya or Bethlehem checkpoints in 15 minutes. Just beyond these are overcrowded and poor refugee camps inhabited by the those who were forced to flee their ancestral villages in 1948 and their descendants as Jewish militias ransacked villages and killed civilians in a campaign to grab as much land as they could to form the eventual borders of Israel. Declared "absentees," their homes and property were seized by the nascent Israeli state. They lost everything six decades ago and continue to wait for justice and the implementation of UN Resolution 194, which guarantees their right to return to their homes and compensation.

More numerous than the refugee camps are Israeli settlements, or "colonies," huge concrete towns and cities built on stolen land. These heavily protected settlements are illegal under international law, and there are more than 450,000 Jewish settlers living illegally in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Over recent decades, while Israel has publicly negotiated for peace, it has simultaneously put effort and money into establishing as many settlements as it could, and continues to do so, contrary to its public commitments to the moribund road map for peace. These settlements and their associated infrastructure grant settlers easy and rapid access to Israel, while insidiously fragmenting the West Bank into cantons, thereby isolating Palestinian cities and towns from one another and seriously compromising movement. (Add to this over 500 West Bank checkpoints, which further disrupt movement for Palestinians.) Palestinians who own homes a stone's throw from a settlement are restricted from expanding their houses because Israel wants "to preserve the agricultural or rural nature" of the land. It is a blatant and unabashed policy of ethnic cleansing designed to restrict Palestinian growth and give Palestinians little choice but to abandon their land and move abroad.

Fifteen minutes from almost anywhere in Jerusalem, McCartney can visit Israel's Apartheid Wall with his Israeli fans and speak to Palestinians whose land has been annexed to create an alleged "security" buffer to protect the settlers already living illegally on Palestinian land. Together they can read why the International Court of Justice deemed the wall's route illegal in 2004 and see how the wall has more to do with annexing fertile agricultural land and aquifers of ever increasing importance, and stealing land for settlement growth, than security. They can witness how its design and execution are fragmenting communities and families, impeding farmers from accessing their crops and greenhouses, strangling businesses and rendering thousands of previously self-sufficient Palestinians destitute and reliant on food assistance. They can see how, as Israel's settlements and the wall spread, there is a cause-and-effect strangulation of Palestinian cities and towns such as Qalqiliya, Nazlat Isa, Tulkarm and dozens of others, with once prosperous and buzzing high streets now rendered desolate ghost towns, lifeless.

But they refuse to -- and apparently so does McCartney.

Forty years ago Israel boycotted the Beatles, saying they would morally corrupt Israeli youth. Forty years on, most of Israeli society has morally blinkered itself, yet McCartney still seems determined to rock Tel Aviv.

William Parry, a freelance writer and photographer, is a life-long Beatles fan. He is currently based in Jerusalem, working on a book about the impact of Israel's wall in the West Bank on Palestinian lives, livelihoods and communities.

German Left Stands up to anti-Muslim Fascists

Left-wing protesters set fire to barricades in clashes with police

3,000 progressives in Cologne clashed Saturday with far rightwing protesters trying to stop the building of a mosque. There are about 3.3 million Muslims in Germany, about 4 percent of the population. The Jewish population of the US is 2%, so this would be as though American rightwingers tried to stop a synagogue from being built. The far right said they were upholding the 'Western values and Christian traditions' as the heritage of Europe.

The mosque is not due to be completed until 2009

Isn't that where we came in? That sort of blinkered thinking, whereby Europe just has one master tradition, is not only wrong, it led to genocide. Europe has been multicultural. It has been pagan and Jewish, Christian and Muslim. Muslim Spain was some 800 years of European history (more if the history of the Moriscos is taken into account). Muslims were for some time in Sicily, Sardinia and southern Italy. Muslims of Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria and Greece were 600 more centuries, in the eastern reaches of the continent (There were Muslim villages even in Hungary and Poland). The Ottoman Empire was in important respects a European empire, even though it stretched deeply into the Middle East as well. If anything Istanbul was more intertwined with Europe than was Kiev and the Ukraine, or St. Petersberg & Russia. It is no accident that even today, Turkey is in NATO.

For that matter, why reify Europe? When was Egypt not a source of grain for 'Europe'? When were not her ports dominated by Europeans? Did the French in Algeria not declare it 'European soil'? Why is the Right so fickle? Either Algerians are European or they are not. Is it only when they are firmly under the jackboot that they count as such?

Text taken from here.

There'll Never be a Street Named for Bush in Baghdad

Monday, September 22, 2008

Baghdad Mayor: US Tanks Run Amok and There'll Never be a Street Named for Bush in Baghdad

The USG Open Source Center translates a recent interview with Baghdad mayor Sabir al-Isawi in a Czech newspaper. The mayor

1. denies that the US troop 'surge' is the major reason for the reduced violence in Iraq; 
   
2. complains bitterly that US armored corps drivers continually run their tanks over lampposts, gardens and other things in Baghdad streets instead of going around them; and
   
3. says that that the US military too often goes in with guns blazing unnecessarily and arbitrarily detains too many Iraqis, treating them in ways that contravene human rights standards.

He also says plainly that there will never be a street in Baghdad named after George W. Bush!

"They shoot more than necessary," Baghdad's mayor on the American occupation".

"As Iraqis, we should feel gratitude that the Americans brought down the hated Saddam regime for us. But -- and I wish to say it very strongly -- so long as the Americans continue to be stuck in their ruts, the last remainder of gratitude will evaporate. They ought to be able to be liberators and not act as occupiers."

"During detentions, they do not heed human rights. They carry out raids without reason. They shoot more than necessary. They shrink from quickly determining the exact relations between the two states so that the situation no longer is that one occupies while the other obeys."

"They are driving their heavy vehicles and tanks insensitively, through people's gardens. They crush sidewalks. They demolish lampposts. They are driving, there is a post, but they will not go around it."

Read more the interview here.

Democracy Not At Work in America too.

Incredible Documentary Footage of Mass Arrest in St. Paul.

By Laura Flanders, Firedoglake

Newly released footage, which was buried to avoid confiscation, shows riot cops arresting and abusing a giant group of people for nothing.



My personal favorite moment in the tape is an off-camera exchange. Police in riot gear have surrounded loungers in a waterfront park. They announce, "Ladies and Gentlemen, You're Under Arrest" and you hear one young woman say incredulously "Are you serious?"

Yep, I'm afraid they are.

Here's the press release that came with the video, from the Glass Bead Collective:

BURIED TAPE REVEALS USE OF FORCE AND AN UNWARRANTED MASS ARREST OF BYSTANDERS DURING THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (September 18, 2008) Video released today shows the indiscriminate arrest of a crowd of two hundred at the waterfront across from a concert on Harriet Island Regional Park during this month's Republican National Convention in St. Paul. The video includes multiple angles of the event as well as an interview with the cameraman who buried his footage and was one of almost two hundred people arrested for rioting without probable cause.

More than eight hundred people were arrested in St. Paul during the Republican National Convention. This video shows that at least twenty percent of the eight hundred plus arrested were seized without due cause.

Taken from here.

And Bush pushed or asked others to be democratic. Read the followings.
Bush urges Mideast leaders to advance democracy.
Bush vows decades of war for "democracy" in the Middle East.
Defining Democracy Down: Bush’s meddling in foreign elections undercuts his stated principles
News - North America: 'Replace Castro with democracy'
Freedom, Democracy, Bush's Road to Fascism - Ronald D. Glotta
Bush's War is Not About Democracy.

The Root of Capitalism

Here how capitalism begins.

PRIVATE HIRING: A private person with money hires a person without money for the lowest possible wage in order make as much profit as possible for the person who already has money. The core axiom repeated over the decades by thousands of private employers, created a small very rich and politically powerful elite group of employers6 while it produced millions and millions of employees who remain relatively poor with no wealth or power. The employers’ imperative to get employees at the lowest possible wage lead to the closing of productive jobs in the US and the outsourcing of those jobs and production to Mexico, then to China, and then to India. We did not vote or choose to stop being producers. We do not choose or vote to become a nation of consumers… We did not vote or choose to create global warming. The dynamics of capitalism make the choice for us, and for our employers. The profits of the capitalist employers give them means to make campaign contributions to our elected officials and to lobby them so as effectively to control them. The meager wages of employees gave us at most the right to vote which capitalist money and power then trumps. Democrats are especially guilty of lying to us when they repeatedly promise to protect the “the little guy” and give him health care and then invariably vote as the drug and insurance companies demand.

This private hiring twists into:

MONOPOLY: Competition among capitalist-employers inevitably leads to the elimination of small employers, to price fixing, and to a monopoly of a few large firms, with capacity to produce more than they can sell at a profit. Henry Ford recognized this characteristic in the 1920s when he unilaterally raised the wages of his employees so that they could buy his Fords. Almost all other employers pay us employees such low wages that we cannot afford to buy what we have produced. We would lose our jobs and economic depression would result if nothing was done Capitalism thus needs public money to provide the necessary purchasing power to consume the products of capitalism. We never voted that our economy based on private hiring and competition should change into monopoly.

Monopoly then swirls to:

AN ALLIANCE BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND CAPITALIST EMPLOYERS: Capitalism badly needs our tax money to keep going. Our Government becomes a critical component of capitalism and to an ever increasing degree, capitalism and capitalist employers control the government. We employees have less and less voting power to get what we need from our government because of the increasing power of employers’ money over our elected officials. Capitalist employers get more and more of what they want such as tax relief for the wealthy and cutting social spending for us so as to make more and more of us desperate to work for ever lower wages. We never voted for this alliance.

This moves into:

IMPERIALISM: When profit making opportunities dwindle at home, capitalists, using the Government, the CIA and the Military go abroad to seek new profit opportunities, new resources, additional customers, and employees willing to work for lower wages. Capitalism at home tends to move inevitably toward capitalism abroad: an American Empire, Imperialism and sometimes War. We have never voted to send or protect capitalism in other countries.

At the same time capitalism destroys our planet home by

USING UP OIL AND RESOURCES, POLLUTION, AND GLOBAL WARMING: In its relentless search for profit, capitalist employers devour oil, minerals, timber, soil, and water, and dangerously pollute the earth and atmosphere. Good places to live, and to fish and to hunt are ruined. Al Gore fails to recognize that the dynamics of capitalism compel capitalist employers to seek profit as their sole motive lest they perish in the competition with other employers. We have never voted to plunder the planet.

Voracious capitalism moves yet again to:

FINANCIALIZATION: The capitalist elite, finding too few profit making opportunities making things that humans need began increasing investment in speculation by buying, selling, and spinning off existing companies to produce the short term profit upon which the survival of capitalism depends. Capitalism, in this phase thus produces nothing new: no jobs, no food, no medical care, and no highways. It produces nothing except more profit and more political power for capitalists. We never voted for this innovation of capitalism.

Capitalists use this money and political power to create:

CORPORATE STATE CAPITALISM: Capitalism mutates so as to merge corporate power with state power so that we now have corporate state capitalism whose powers are exercised solely to create socialism for the global elite at the expense and starvation of the rest of us. As we now see from the bailouts, the elite causes the government to print massive amounts of paper money to rescue the businesses of the elite. It does nothing for us except to impose the burden of taxation and inflation on us employees. We suffer the loss of our jobs, houses and things we need cost more and more, due to uncontrolled inflation. We live in a constant state fear. We are approaching what Wolin calls “totalitarianism posing as democracy.” We certainly have never voted for this.

During all of this, in order to control our thoughts, Capitalists have been creating:

THE PROPAGANDA ARM OF THE CORPORATE CAPITALIST STATE: The power elite control the main sources of information that we citizens and voters need wisely to govern ourselves. They will tell us nothing about the features of capitalism that destroy both our planet and our democracy. The capitalist elite own and control all the major print and electronic media, public relations and advertising agencies. The mainstream media is owned by those who profit from things as they are, and provide uncritical support of war, imperialism, and all activities that contribute to keeping things as they are. This includes the NYT, Washington Post, PBS and NPR as well as TV and radio. The media have the power to inflame, to manipulate, to fail to cover, to deny and to ridicule. The capitalist elite thus impose the ideas, ideology and taboos that benefit the elite upon us. Through research grants and endowments, corporate capitalism controls universities and college professors and what they research and teach. It controls reporters and journalists. It controls even what we citizens think about. We thus get no information analyzing capitalism and its effects on us. We never voted that the media should have this power. The market economy at this stage makes us employees powerless, frustrated, restless, angry, and unhappy. Lacking the truth about the causes of our plight, some of us employees turn toward racism, bigotry, jingoism, evil enemies and other false solutions. There is a risk that we employees would act negatively toward the capitalist elite.

To preserve its power and privilege the Capitalist Elite moves toward:

CONTROL OF ELECTIONS, DECLARATION OF MARTIAL LAW, and FASCISM WITH A FRIENDLY FEMININE FACE: The power elite entertain and divert us with a non-serious circus-like election process. The government and the capitalist elite can then ignore the plunder of our planet home, ignore our lack of jobs, ignore our hunger, ignore our illnesses, and ignore our needy old ages. We employees are in effect placed into wage slavery if we have any jobs at all. If we riot, we are placed in detention camps. If we starve nobody in control cares. If we march and protest at political conventions, we are arrested as terrorists.

Original article written as Cross Examining Capitalism in Dissident Voice.

Does the Economic Meltdown need a New War?

By Rev. Richard Skaff

Historically, the US has gone to war every time the value of the greenbacks plummeted or the economy drastically slumped. Is today’s economic disaster and weakened dollar a symptom for a new war?

The US government/the military industrial complex plans to sell once again Israel 1,000 buster-bunker bombs which Israeli experts said last Monday could provide a powerful new weapon against underground arsenals in Lebanon or Gaza . [1]. However, the alleged experts doubted the bombs could be used to deliver a devastating blow against Iran 's nuclear program.

In announcing the proposed $77 million deal, which still needs Congressional approval, the U.S. Defense Department said the sale of the Boeing GBU-39 smart bombs would be consistent with the U.S. interest of assisting Israel "to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability." The Pentagon issued a release on the planned sale on September 9, 2008. Because it is a precision weapon that generates far less collateral damage than heavier munitions, "this bomb is going to be the general-purpose bomb of the next generation," said Yiftah Shapir, a military analyst at Tel Aviv's Institute of National Security Studies . He said possible targets would include "Katyusha launchers in Lebanon or Qassam (rocket) launchers in Gaza ." [1].

Past U.S. sales of bunker-buster bombs to Israel have been interpreted by many experts as a disguised threat against Iran 's nuclear program. However, Israeli officials denied that these weapons could be used against Iran ’s nuclear facilities such as the uranium enrichment underground plant at Nantanz.

The whole US-Israeli weapon deal is ironic considering that Israel receives almost 7 billion dollars a year in military aid from the US, and already has 200 nuclear warheads pointed at the heart of every Arab c ity in the Middle East . Why do they need additional buster-bunker bombs, when they actually are the proxy of the US military might in the region, and can annihilate any country in the Middle East or in Europe at any time? Is there a plan for escalation in Lebanon and Gaza that will justify the attack on Iran before this November election, which ensue in a victory for the Machiavellian hawk and neocon John McCain and his alleged Christian Zionist vice president Sarah Palin? Will an attack on Iran by Israel supported by the US military distract the American public from their economic woes, loss of jobs, foreclosures, inflation, and their huge bailout of big business with taxpayers’ money? Will pseudo-patriotism and flag waving suppress and appease once again people's anger toward a government that has betrayed them over and over again, and has taken away most of their liberty, hard working money, and the future of their children? Is this the last straw that will impoverish and eliminate the middle class in the US , while the MIC and their cronies in government become wealthier and more powerful?

Text taken here.

Pressure Mounts On The U.S. As Italians Call For A New Bretton Woods

Delegation at Bretton Woods

September 19, 2008 (LPAC)-- Italian Economics Minister Giulio Tremonti brought the fight for a New Bretton Woods (NBW) to the national industrialists association yesterday. At a conference of Confindustria in Rome, Tremonti repeated everything he had said about the crisis and the NBW in the Corriere interview published the same day, adding an attack against economists. "The intellectual capital of the category [of economists] has been cancelled", he said. "They did not understand what has happened, and now they look at the effects instead of the cause." He used a famous sentence by Carl Schmitt against jurists who could not see Nazism coming, against the economists. "Today I say: economists, be silent." Currently, only forecasts "based on large numbers developing on the long term" have a sufficient margin of credibility. Tremonti's call for a NBW initiative at the G-8 was endorsed by a spokesman of the opposition present, former minister Enrico Letta.

The head of the industrialists association, Emma Marcegaglia, painted a gloomy economic picture, saying Italy is already in a recession. She supported Tremonti's idea to have the European Investment Bank finance large infrastructure projects. The democratic party-friendly newspaper Il Riformista freaked out at Marcegaglia, saying that she speaks like Tremonti.

That same day, the financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore (owned by the Industrialists Association) ran an article entitled "We need a new Bretton Woods to change rules", written by an economist at the neoliberal Bocconi university in Milan, Donato Masciandaro. Masciandaro writes: "American finance needs a New Deal: a new set of rules, of oversight, of the leadership that has mis-governed such a system. The possibility of this happening depends much on how much the costs of the current U.S. instability will push other countries to push in this direction. In sum, we need a New Bretton Woods of rules and of financial oversight."

Masciandaro says that "The existence of external [repercussions] of financial instability could unleash mechanisms of prohibitionism and protectionism. Better, then, [to have] a New Bretton Woods on rules, to unleash the New Deal of finance."

On Sept. 17, the Swiss daily Corriere del Ticino has an article by economics commentator Alfonso Tuor, calling for "a new Bretton Woods to establish the world economic, financial and commercial rules".

Text taken here.

As a note:

The chief features of the Bretton Woods system were an obligation for each country to adopt a monetary policy that maintained the exchange rate of its currency within a fixed value—plus or minus one percent—in terms of gold and the ability of the IMF to bridge temporary imbalances of payments. In the face of increasing strain, the system collapsed in 1971, following the United States' suspension of convertibility from dollars to gold. This created the unique situation whereby the United States Dollar became the "reserve currency" for the Nations who signed.

26th Anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila

This week marks the 26th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the second half of the twentieth century. A Google search for recent news reports on this year's commemoration of the atrocity, however, brought up very little. Yes, there were some emotional blog posts, as well as a link to the BBC's "On this Day" page, featuring quick facts and figures about the massacre, alongside an archival, and iconic, photograph of twisted corpses lying in a heap next to a cinderblock wall, the victims of an execution-style killing.

It has been more than a quarter of a century since more than 1,000 unarmed men, women, and children were raped, maimed and slaughtered. The massacre occurred at the dividing point of the 1975-1990 Lebanese war. Some might say that the killings were the marker or the catalyst of the war's horrible turning point. Before the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and siege of Beirut in the summer of 1982, the Lebanese civil war had taken many lives and introduced new images and phrases into the Arabic and English languages. The Lebanese war involved many players and funders, not all of them local. But with the entry of the Israeli army and air force, Lebanon witnessed more death and destruction in three months than it had suffered during the previous seven years. Sabra and Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut, marked the site of the Israeli-Palestinian and the internal Lebanese conflicts' intersection. The front lines of these conflicts slashed through the refugee camps for three dark days and three eerily bright nights illuminated by flares that the surrounding Israeli army fired over the camps to assist their Lebanese client militia, the Phalange, in their gruesome tasks.

The Butcher of Sabra and Shatila.

Where were the murderers? Or to use the Israelis' vocabulary, where were the "terrorists"?

In 2001 lawyers attempted to have Ariel Sharon (Israel's defence minister at the time) tried for the massacre under Belgian legislation, which grants its courts "universal jurisdiction" for war crimes.

There had been great enthusiasm about the case in the camps. Mr Sharon, after all, had already been found to bear "personal responsibility" in the massacres by an Israeli commission of inquiry (which concluded he shouldn't hold public office again).

But the all hopes were dashed again in June 2002, when the Belgian judges ruled that the case was inadmissible.

The fact that Mr Sharon had got off on a technicality (thanks to his absence from Belgium) is of little comfort to people who have spent every day of the last 26 years living with the consequences of the massacres.

Read further the following articles.

The Massacre
After 25 years, who remembers?, Franklin Lamb (14 September 2007)
Book Review: Sabra and Shatila 1982, Victor Kattan (21 May 2005)
Remembering Sabra and Shatila -- and Atoning, Ellen Siegel (4 October 2003)
Massacres Don't "Just Happen", Laurie King-Irani (18 September 2002) 

The Legal Case
2003: A year of US and Israeli defiance of International Law, Laurie King-Irani (2 January 2004)
Belgian court to rule whether Sabra and Shatila plaintiffs can proceed, Nicholas Blanford (17 September 2003)
On learning lessons: Belgium's universal jurisdiction law under threat, Laurie King-Irani (24 June 2003)
The Sabra and Shatila Case in Belgium: A Guide for the Perplexed, Laurie King-Irani (16 June 2003)
Sharon Trial: 12 February 2003 decision of Belgian Supreme Court explained (19 February 2003)
Putting Sharon on Trial: Why Belgium is doing the right thing, Ali Abunimah (14 February 2003)
Open letter to Netanyahu from massacre survivors' legal team (13 February 2003)
International justice for Sabra and Chatila victims, Amnesty International (25 September 2002)
Dismay at Sharon case decision, Amnesty International (26 June 2002)
Prevent another Massacre: End Ariel Sharon's Impunity for War Crimes Now, Laurie King-Irani (12 March 2002)

The U.S. Administration Was Behind 9/11

Former Syrian Information Minister: The U.S. Administration Was Behind 9/11

In an article in the Syrian government daily Teshreen, former Syrian information minister Dr. Mahdi Dakhlallah wrote that the U.S. intelligence agencies were behind the 9/11 attacks, and that their aim in this was to pave the way for implementing a previously readied plan to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

Following is a translation of the main points of Dakhlallah's article.

"On the Seventh Anniversary of 9/11, The Truth is Still Not Unequivocal, And the Mystery Remains"

"On the seventh anniversary of the September 11 events, the truth is still not unequivocal, and the mystery remains. The immediate and simple explanation according to the official version of the events is, to this day, the object of criticism and sometimes even of derision.

"The world may have to wait 25 years for the truth to come to light and for the secret documents and information about what happened to be presented. But who cares about the truth?

"What is important, always, is the use of the events in order to carry out a strategy planned in advance - which raises the possibility that the injured party itself carried out the deed, especially if the matter concerns a country with great strategic interests such as the U.S.

"Many are the instances of violence and terror in the land of Uncle Sam, and no one knows what is behind them. Who killed President Kennedy? To date, no one knows the truth. Who is behind the Oklahoma [City] bombing? Who is behind the many instances of violence that made possible [the implementation of] aggressive strategies and policies prepared in advance?...

"Today too, there are still those who seriously raise [the possibility] that American intelligence agencies were behind the September 11 events - whether directly by means of facilitating Al-Qaeda's plot or [indirectly] by means of involving [Al-Qaeda] in the events."

"The Mere Fact That These Questions Are Being Raised Means That There Is Doubt Regarding the Official Version [Of Events]"

"French journalist Thierry Meyssan was the first to raise this possibility and to try to prove it. [The Syrian government] newspaper Al-Ba'th published [Meyssan's] book in serial form in early 2002. After that, this possibility was also raised by Michael Moore in his famous film 'Fahrenheit 9/11.' Likewise, recently one of the Arab satellite channels showed a documentary film called 'September 11 - Another Story.'

"The mere fact that these questions are being raised means that there is doubt regarding the official version [of events], [even] without real proof that American intelligence agencies were involved [in the attacks]. But a logical analysis of the instrumentalist 'pragmatic' philosophy that leads the thinking of American politicians reinforces the possibility that the American establishment is involved in this act of terror."

"These Plans Were Ready and Prepared [In Advance] - And All That Was Needed Was to Find a Pretext to Begin Their Immediate Implementation"

"The American instrumental approach is based on the Machiavellian principle of 'the end justifies the means.' The aim was to invade Afghanistan... to get close to the Caspian Sea gas and oil pipelines, and then to invade Iraq and to fix the poles of the tent of unipolarity in the ground.

"These plans were ready and prepared [in advance] - and all that was needed was to find a pretext to begin their immediate implementation. Indeed, the shock following 9/11 created an American public opinion that supported the war, aggression, and madness of our time, to which Afghanistan, Iraq, and all global stability fell victim.

"No one believes that it was possible to invade Afghanistan and Iraq in the same way and so fast had it not been for the 9/11 attacks. That's how it always is: the end justifies the means."

Text taken from here.

What is the cause of this financial mess?

Last month, I provided a short answer:

“At the center of current financial problems is the failure to adapt standard financial regulation to new financial institutions, such as broker-investment banks, off-shore based hedge funds and large derivatives markets that remain, for the most part, outside of the traditional authority of regulators. However, when things go wrong, as they did with Bear Stearns last March, their demise threatens to destabilize the entire financial system and handy government bailouts are quickly called in.”

Today I say that this major crisis has to be placed at the very feet of the Washington establishment. This is a politico-financial establishment that has pushed to the limits its ideology of deregulation of financial markets and stretched the working of unregulated corporate market capitalism to the breaking point. Now, the system is imploding under our very eyes and financial institutions are falling like dominos. As I wrote last August, and repeated in April of this year, the U.S. financial problem is not one of liquidity, (there is plenty of liquidity provided by the Fed when banks and brokers can borrow at will newly printed dollars from the Fed’s discount window) but one of solvency, weak balance sheets, risky assets and debt liquidation. That's a horse of a different color.

Over the last twenty-five years, beginning with the Reagan administration and culminating with the current Bush-Cheney administration, the Washington establishment dismantled piece by piece the system of protection that had been built since the 1930's economic depression and removed nearly all government regulations that could stand in the way of greed and gouging on the part of unscrupulous market operators.

And that's where the rubber hits the road. Short of bankruptcies is the nationalization of the over-leveraged banks by the government. And the Bush-Cheney administration took a big step in that direction when it came to the rescue of the two largest mortgage financing institutions, Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association: FNM) and Freddie Mac, (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation: FRE) which were close to being insolvent. This step was initiated after foreign central banks (in China, Japan, Europe, the Middle East and Russia) threatened to stop buying U.S. bonds and debentures issued by the two shaky financial institutions.

But the Bush-Cheney administration, while providing public money to keep the two lenders in operation, stopped short of nationalizing them. Indeed, the U.S. government committed to invest as much as $200 billion in preferred stock and extend credit through 2009, to keep the two mortgage lenders solvent and operating.

But instead of taking them over by placing them into administrative receivership, in order to change their business model, as they should have done since the government is now guaranteeing their outstanding debts, (more than $5 trillion US) the U.S. government chose rather to keep the appearance that these were still two privately run banks and only appointed a legal conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Even when they bail out what can be called two Government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), their market ideology prevents them from doing the right thing.

After years of irresponsible public deregulation and private mismanagement and irresponsible, pyramiding risk taking, the American financial system is now in serious trouble, and it may draw the U.S. economy further down with it in the months and years to come.

In the coming weeks, however, as other American financial institutions teeter on the brink of bankruptcy, the U.S. government will have to consider creating a Bank Resolution Trust under the model of the 1989 Resolution Trust Corp. which took over the savings and loans banks that were then in financial difficulties. For example, as recently as February 16 of this year, the British government did not hesitate to nationalize the Northern Rock bank and rescued this large British bank with about £55 billion ($107 billion) in public loans and guarantees. Sooner or later, the American government will have to do the same, in order to stabilize the financial system, because the financial problems in the U.S. are systemic and much more serious than elsewhere.

By the same token, maybe the U.S. government should correct an anomaly of the 20th Century, that is the semi-private status of its central bank. Indeed, the American Federal Reserve, is a semi-public and semi-private central bank organization that is as much responsible to large private banks as it is to the U.S. government and the population. This creates an unhealthy conflict of interests that is not fair to the American public. Indeed, the American practice of privatizing profits and socializing losses would be considered unacceptable in most other democracies.

What we are witnessing these days in the U.S. is a massive wealth transfer from taxpayers, savers and retirees to banks, their creditors and their managers. On the one hand, the Fed has pushed real interest rates deep into negative territory to help troubled banks, and, on the other hand, the American taxpayers have foot the bill for bailing out very large financial institutions.

Read further The U.S. Financial System in Serious Trouble by Prof. Rodrigue Trem. Rodrigue Tremblay is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Montreal.

38 Retired Military Leaders Call on Congress to End Secret Prisons

In Afghanistan, the largest CIA covert prison was code-named the Salt Pit, at center left above. (Space Imaging Middle East)

WASHINGTON - September 15 - Thirty-eight retired generals and admirals today appealed to the United States Senate to enact legislation ending the practice of holding "ghost detainees" by requiring that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) be notified of and given access to all prisoners in the custody of the U.S. intelligence community, including those held in secret prisons.

The retired military leaders, convened by Human Rights First, wrote in support of a bipartisan amendment to the pending defense authorization bill. The amendment (#5369), co-sponsored by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), would bring the intelligence community in line with U.S. military practices regarding ICRC access to detainees, effectively ending the current policy permitting the CIA to hold "ghost prisoners."

The full text of the letter and list of signers can be found here.

The letter from retired generals and admirals underscores the importance to the safety of American military personnel of upholding the norm of ensuring Red Cross access to all prisoners held in international armed conflict. It states: "When we violate this norm ourselves, by holding prisoners in secret-‘off the books' - denying that they are in our custody and refusing to permit the Red Cross access to them to monitor their treatment, we dangerously undermine our ability to demand that our enemies adhere to it, now and in future wars."

Under the Geneva Conventions, the ICRC has the responsibility of visiting detention facilities around the world to ensure that prisoners of war and other detainees are treated humanely as required by international humanitarian law. The ICRC's findings regarding conditions and treatment are confidential and are communicated only to the detaining authority. In order to ensure humane treatment, many countries - including the United States - have provided ICRC access to their prisoners and prisons even outside the sphere of international armed conflict.

The bipartisan amendment reaffirms long-standing and binding U.S. commitments - under the Geneva Conventions, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other provisions of international and domestic law - to refrain from holding prisoners in secret and hiding them from the ICRC, the independent international body entrusted with oversight of compliance with the laws of war. The amendment is intended to create a check against torture and other cruel and inhuman treatment under the CIA's secret detention program. After years of refusing to deny or confirm the existence of an executive order authorizing this program, the President finally acknowledged in September 2006 that that the U.S. government was operating a secret detention system in which prisoners were held without official acknowledgement, even to the ICRC.

"Holding people in secret facilities as ‘ghost prisoners' sets the stage for torture and other forms of cruelty," stated Elisa Massimino, executive director of Human Rights First. "That is why the United States in the past has always condemned the practice when other governments engaged in it. Mandating Red Cross access to prisoners in the custody of the U.S. intelligence community stops short of requiring public disclosure of the locations or conditions of these facilities, but it would provide a prudent measure of outside oversight on a detention program that continues to be shrouded in secrecy and has resulted in the torture and deaths of detainees in U.S. custody."

The United States government has not acknowledged the exact number of people in the CIA detention and interrogation program. Since the inception of the program, the CIA has reportedly operated detention centers in Afghanistan, the island of Diego-Garcia, Djibouti, Thailand, Jordan, Morocco, Eastern Europe, including Poland and Romania, and Guantánamo Bay. It is unclear where the CIA is currently detaining prisoners.

Text taken from here.

POSTER IMAGE : THE BUSH YEARS 2001-2008

The "Demonization" of Muslims and the Battle for Oil

America's Crusade in Central Asia and the Middle East

In the eyes of public opinion, possessing a "just cause" for waging war is central. A war is said to be Just if it is waged on moral, religious or ethical grounds.

America's Crusade in Central Asia and the Middle East is no exception. The "war on terrorism" purports to defend the American Homeland and protect the "civilized world". It is upheld as a "war of religion", a "clash of civilizations", when in fact the main objective of this war is to secure control and corporate ownership over the region's extensive oil wealth, while also imposing under the helm of the IMF and the World Bank, the privatization of State enterprises and the transfer of the countries' economic assets into the hands of foreign capital. .

The Just War theory upholds war as a "humanitarian operation". It serves to camouflage the real objectives of the military operation, while providing a moral and principled image to the invaders. In its contemporary version, it calls for military intervention on ethical and moral grounds against "rogue states" and "Islamic terrorists", which are threatening the Homeland.

Possessing a "just cause" for waging war is central to the Bush administration's justification for invading and occupying both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Taught in US military academies, a modern-day version of the "Just War" theory has been embodied into US military doctrine. The "war on terrorism" and the notion of "preemption" are predicated on the right to "self defense." They define "when it is permissible to wage war": jus ad bellum.

Jus ad bellum serves to build a consensus within the Armed Forces command structures. It also serves to convince the troops that the enemy is "evil" and that they are fighting for a "just cause". More generally, the Just War theory in its modern day version is an integral part of war propaganda and media disinformation, applied to gain public support for a war agenda.

The Battle for Oil. Demonization of the Enemy

War builds a humanitarian agenda. Throughout history, vilification of the enemy has been applied time and again. The Crusades consisted in demonizing the Turks as infidels and heretics, with a view to justifying military action.

Demonization serves geopolitical and economic objectives. Likewise, the campaign against "Islamic terrorism" (which is supported covertly by US intelligence) supports the conquest of oil wealth. The term "Islamo-fascism," serves to degrade the policies, institutions, values and social fabric of Muslim countries, while also upholding the tenets of "Western democracy" and the "free market" as the only alternative for these countries.

The US led war in the broader Middle East Central Asian region consists in gaining control over more than sixty percent of the world's reserves of oil and natural gas. The Anglo-American oil giants also seek to gain control over oil and gas pipeline routes out of the region.

Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, possess between 66.2 and 75.9 percent of total oil reserves, depending on the source and methodology of the estimate.

In contrast, the United States of America has barely 2 percent of total oil reserves. Western countries including its major oil producers ( Canada, the US, Norway, the UK, Denmark and Australia) control approximately 4 percent of total oil reserves. (In the alternative estimate of the Oil and Gas Journal which includes Canada's oil sands, this percentage would be of the the order of 16.5%).

The largest share of the World's oil reserves lies in a region extending (North) from the tip of Yemen to the Caspian sea basin and (East) from the Eastern Mediterranean coastline to the Persian Gulf. This broader Middle East- Central Asian region, which is the theater of the US-led "war on terrorism" encompasses according to the estimates of World Oil, more than sixty percent of the World's oil reserves.

Iraq has five times more oil than the United States.

Muslim countries possess at least 16 times more oil than the Western countries.

The major non-Muslim oil reserve countries are Venezuela, Russia, Mexico, China and Brazil.

Demonization is applied to an enemy, which possesses three quarters of the world's oil reserves. "Axis of evil", "rogue States", "failed nations", "Islamic terrorists": demonization and vilification are the ideological pillars of America's "war on terror". They serve as a casus belli for waging the battle for oil.

The Battle for Oil requires the demonization of those who possess the oil. The enemy is characterized as evil, with a view to justifying military action including the mass killing of civilians. The Middle East Central Asian region is heavily militarized. (See map). The oil fields are encircled: NATO war ships stationed in the Eastern Mediterranean (as part of a UN "peace keeping" operation), US Carrier Strike Groups and Destroyer Squadrons in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian deployed as part of the "war on terrorism".

Text taken here.