- Signs of the Times for Wed, 20 Sep 2006 -


Sections on today's Signs Page:


Signs Editorials


Editorial: 9/11 Conspiracy Doodles

Joe Quinn
Signs of the Times
20/09/2006

Roosevelt was a doodler, so was LBJ, Nixon and a host of other presidents. So says the author of a new book called "Presidential Doodles", an analysis the scribblings of various American presidents in an attempt to plumb the depths of their often depraved psyches: "Just as our dreams and little Freudian slips can mean something about us, doodles can be indicative of the person and issues and things that he is dealing with" according to the editor in chief of the book's publisher, Perseus Books.

Had he been given the chance, Freud would probably have authoritatively proclaimed Theodore Roosevelt's rugged doodle sketch of two dogs staring across a campfire to be evidence of an oedipus complex (or some other myopic interpretation) but one particular scribbling by one of America's most famous presidents would certainly have left him stumped.

JFK was apparently wont to etch the odd box or circle with a few numbers inside, yet among the scraps of presidential paper relinquished by the Kennedy estate to the author's of the book is one particular 'scrawl' that defines the term "presidential foreknowledge". Apparently, at some point during his short tenure, Kennedy had drawn a small circle on a piece of paper with the numbers "9-11" contained within it. Just below and to the left, the word "conspiracy" was underlined.

Of course, there is no particular reason why we should think that Kennedy's subconscious threw up to him, 40 years in advance, the date of the plot by a section of the American and Israeli governments to attack the American people and blame it on a bunch of Arabs; but we can't rule it out. Perhaps the truth is more mundane; perhaps this particular doodle was simply a peronal memo by John Kennedy to remind himself to put the 'kabosh' on the plan by his Joint Chiefs of Staff to hijack American airliners and blow them up over Cuba as a way to precipitate war with Castro, aka "Operation Northwoods":

According to secret and long-hidden documents now released under the freedom of information act, the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962 drew up and approved plans for what may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government. In the name of "antiCommunism", they proposed launching a secret and bloody war of terrorism against their own country in order to trick the American public into supporting an ill-conceived war they intended to launch against Cuba. [Ed: Sound familiar?]

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plan, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war. [Ed: any clearer now?]

As the Kennedy brothers appeared to suddenly "go soft" on Castro, Lemnitzer could see his opportunity to invade Cuba quickly slipping away. The attempts to provoke the Cuban public to revolt seemed dead and Castro, unfortunately, appeared to have no inclination to launch any attacks against Americans or their property Lemnitzer and the other Chiefs knew there was only one option left that would ensure their war. They would have to trick the American public and world opinion into hating Cuba so much that they would not only go along, but would insist that he and his generals launch their war against Castro. "World opinion, and the United Nations forum," said a secret JCS document, "should be favorably affected by developing the international image of the Cuban government as rash and irresponsible, and as an alarming and unpredictable threat to the peace of the Western Hemisphere."

Operation Northwoods called for a war in which many patriotic Americans and innocent Cubans would die senseless deaths, all to satisfy the egos of twisted generals back in Washington, safe in their taxpayer financed homes and limousines.

One idea seriously considered involved the launch of John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth. On February 20,1962, Glenn was to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on his historic journey. The flight was to carry the banner of America's virtues of truth, freedom, and democracy into orbit high over the planet. But Lemnitzer and his Chiefs had a different idea. They proposed to Lansdale that, should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof that...the fault lies with the Communists et al Cuba [sic.]"

Among the most elaborate schemes was to "create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner en route from the United States to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama or Venezuela. The destination would be chosen only to cause the flight plan route to cross Cuba. The passengers could be a group of [American] college students off on a holiday or any grouping of persons with a common interest to support chartering a non-scheduled flight."

Lemnitzer and the Joint Chiefs worked out a complex deception:

An aircraft at Elgin AFB would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CJA proprietary organization in the Miami area. At a designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded with the selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases. The actual registered aircraft would be converted to a drone [a remotely controlled unmanned aircraft]. Take off times of the drone aircraft and the actual aircraft will be scheduled to allow a rendezvous south of Florida.
Note particularly this part of the plan where a duplicate aircraft would be used and the original aircraft and its occupants replaced with a remote controlled "drone".

If such a plan was feasible in 1962, with today's "modern technology", including mass media communication and control, just imagine the relative ease with which a similar "false flag" operation could be carried out today. While "Operation Northwoods" was not actually implemented, it serves as an excellent insight into the thinking of a select group of our "leaders", and while today their names may have changed, their attitude towards this planet and the people on it have not.

Despite the lengths that certain members of government are prepared to go to deceive the masses, some members of the public still credit themselves with the ability to easily recognise a government cover up. Yet the glaring contradiction in such a stance is that many of these same members of the public are unwilling to allow for the possibility that their governments would even attempt to deceive them, regardless of the historical evidence pointing to the fact that governments themselves understand that they must deceive the masses in order to remain in power.

When a person precludes the possibility that their government would ever lie to them, no amount of factual evidence will ever convince them of the contrary, much less apparently prescient scribblings by a much-loved American president who was later shot to death in Dallas by shadowy members of his own government.


Comment on this Editorial

Editorial: Imperialism 101 - The US Addiction to War, Mayhem and Madness - Part II

by Stephen Lendman
Sepember 2006

Part I of this article explained that the US was always a warrior, imperial nation, building it in steps and addicted to its madness. First we took it from its original inhabitants; then we expanded it beyond our borders by seizing the half of Mexico we wanted; later we established colonies abroad; and now, our method of choice is to rule the world through compliant leaders in client states everywhere serving our interests. We began doing it gradually following WW II when we emerged as the only dominant nation left standing, unchallengeable as the world's only economic, political and military superpower. Even before the war ended, we planned to take full advantage of that indomitable status once it did. We pursued it throughout the "cold war" and in the 1990s when it was over. Then came 9/11, the gloves came off in the Bush administration, and top officials in it ended any pretense of what our real aims are. The rest, as they say, is history, and the nations we target in our quest for world dominance and our own people at home pay a dreadful price. Below is a case study of our imperial madness in Iraq documenting how painful that price is.

A Case Study In Imperial Mayhem and Madness and Its Disasterous Consequences - First the Victims

If the US had a slogan or motto on how best to fight wars it might be "all's surely fair in war as well as love." The only rules we observe are the ones we make up as we go along. With that code of conduct and with total disregard for the rule of domestic or international law, designated targets can only expect their earth scorched followed by a living hell delivered in the name of democracy and liberation. Iraq, like Southeast Asia in the sixties and seventies and Nicaragua and El Salvador in the eighties, is a classic example with Afghanistan being more of the same. The people on our receiving end of our gunsights know democracy American-style is none at all.

For anyone paying attention to events unfolding in Iraq from the few credible sources available (meaning unembedded journalists, reports from our disillusioned military and leaks including high level ones), there's little doubt the situation on the ground is disastrous and getting worse - for us as well as the Iraqis. From these reports on the ground, we continue learning more of what the Pentagon and administration try to suppress, always with the full cooperation of the corporate-run media. But the truth can't be hidden, the lies are unravelling, and the charade of progress is being seen as a shamless myth.

For 26 million Iraqis, liberation American-style is none whatever. For them it's an endless living hell nightmare since the US first attacked and invaded in January, 1991. At that time we deliberately and illegally destroyed essential infrastructure like power generating stations and clean water facilities vital to the health, welfare and safety of the people. We also wontonly slaughtered many thousands of defenseless civilians and Iraqi military who had given up the fight they wanted no part of in the first place. The likely toll was at least 100,000 killed in just a few weeks of brutal one-sided combat mostly inflicted from the air against a target country we knew was defenseless. Our initial cost was modest for an operation involving 580,000 military personal - 146 killed (including by friendly fire) and 467 wounded. A far greater cost to US forces would show up later that's discussed below.

What followed Operation Desert Storm was a dozen years of continued air-assault bombings along with oppressive and unjustifiable economic sanctions. Combined they destroyed all the institutions of a modern civil society which Iraq was prior to 1991. They left in their wake an epic humanitarian disaster by every measure imaginable including median Iraqi income creating mass poverty. Because of the country's oil wealth, Iraq was once the most advanced and developed country in the Middle East with a per capita income of $2,313 in 1979. By 2003, that income had declined to $255 per capita and in 2004 it had fallen further to about $144. It's easy to understand why based on a study by the college of economics at Baghdad University that estimated the unemployment rate to be about 70%. Even the so-called "oil for food" program did little to relieve the crisis prior to the current invasion and war. It wasn't intended to as the US plan was to inflict the greatest possible hardships on the people hoping it would encourage them to rise up and topple Saddam. In fact, it had the opposite effect despite the severity of the toll. Instead of blaming Saddam, Iraqis relied on him for whatever relief they could get. It wasn't much or nearly enough because the US allowed him little to give.

The combination of war and economic sanctions likely caused the death of at least one million by even conservative estimates including 500,000 children. Other estimates put the number as high as 1.5 million in total by the end of the nineties. When Denis Halliday resigned in 1998 as UN head of Iraqi humanitarian relief he said he did so because he "had been instructed to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over one million individuals, children and adults." He went on to say 5,000 Iraqi children were dying needlessly every month.

Conditions got far worse following the US illegal aggression beginning in March, 2003. The daily toll of death and destruction from the ongoing endless conflict is unknown precisely, but even honest conservative estimates are appalling and shocking despite efforts by the Pentagon to suppress them. The British Lancet reported in October, 2004 by their "conservative assumptions" an Iraqi toll of about 100,000 "excess deaths" post March, 2003. They then updated their earlier estimate in February, 2006 to a likely 300,000 that seven months later is considerably higher. Other assessments suggest an even greater number, up to 500,000 according to one estimate a few months ago. Whatever the true number, the US inflicted disaster on Iraq and its people is one of epic proportions in all respects.

It's destroyed a once prosperous nation and left in its wake today a surreal lawless armed camp wasteland with few or no essential services like electricity, clean water, medical care, fuel or most everything else needed for sustenance and survival. It shows up in Baghdad's morgue that can't cope with the number of corpses it gets daily while those still living can't get desperately needed care at hospitals unable to provide it. It's also there in the US-run torture-prisons where anyone can be brutalized in a kind of a ritual foreplay for no reason at all. Thing's aren't improving. They get steadily worse as the occupation grinds on and death squads room at will including the US "Salvador option" ones modeled after the types used in the Reagan era against the leftist guerrilla resistance in El Salvador in the 1980s that murdered many thousands. This is what life in most of Iraq is now like, and it clearly warrants the label genocide. It also makes all US officials at the highest levels responsible for it guilty of egregious war crimes and crimes against humanity. Will they ever be held to account for what they've done? Never, as long as the US occupier lives by the rules of victor's justice that insures none at all for the victims.

A notable sign of US-style justice happened at the end of July when the Pentagon awarded the Distinguished Service Medal (DDSM) to retiring General Geoffrey Miller who supervised the infamous US torture-prisons at Guantanamo and later Abu Ghraib. The DDSM was established by Richard Nixon's 1970 Executive Order so the Secretary of Defense could award it to officers of the US Armed Forces "whose exceptional performance of duty and contributions to national security or defense have been at the highest levels." Clearly generals or other officers in charge of torture now qualify for the award.

The Toll of Mayhem and Madness On Our Own Military Forces On the Ground and Reporters

No one should ever believe anything from government sources, especially our own. We practically invented and defined the art of disseminating lies and practicing deceit. We're at it daily, particularly in how and what we report on the war in Iraq. The military holds update briefings at its media nerve center for the war - CentCom. It's a worthless exercise there and whenever else US officials report on the war. Anyone expecting to get a true picture of conditions on the ground won't ever because the most important information known is censored or suppressed. In times of war, the first casualty is truth, and the corporate-run media is always willing to oblige to keep it that way.

The Pentagon is also ready to use its muscle to censor, shut down, or destroy any news source in the country that may reveal what it wants suppressed. It repeatedly harasses and assaults Al-Jazeera closing it down and in 2003 attacked its Baghdad offices by air killing one of its correspondents and injuring another. Previously in Afghanistan in November, 2001, Al-Jazeera's Kabul offices were destroyed by a US missile in a deliberate attempt to stop unfavorable news reports from coming out. Another time a US tank with no provocation fired point blank at the Palestine Hotel in the capitol where most non-embedded international journalists are based killing reporters from Reuters and the Spanish network Telecino. These are just a few examples of the deadly effects of US efforts to silence honest news reporting from the country. The International Press Institute (IPI) keeps a journalist death watch count and reports that including all of 2003 76 journalists have been killed in Iraq by all assailants making this country by far the most dangerous venue in the world for members of the fourth estate. That number has now been updated by other sources that report since March, 2003 to the present 107 journalists and other media workers have been killed in this most dangerous of all places for them to work.

In spite of the danger and toll its taken, much of what Washington and the corporate-run media conceal is being reported from unembedded journalists and a growing number of unofficial accounts emerging or leaking out. They show what conditions are really like on the ground and the effect the conflict has had on US ground forces in the country. They're being increasingly stressed and terrified out of their minds, most are physically and/or psychologically traumatized or ill, many quite seriously from the deadly effects of depleted uranium (DU) poisoning and other toxins that have already disabled as many as 350,000 or more Gulf war veterans according to what can be pieced together from the little information the Veterans Administration (VA) reports (they don't explain from what or make a serious effort to find out). The psychological toll is also growing from witnessing or obeying orders to participate in the daily barbaric slaughter of Iraqi civilians including women, children, the elderly and infirm. The result is the rate of suicides is believed to be rising to alarming levels as is the number of desertions the Pentagon reports to be about 40,000 since 2000 from all branches of the military, half of them from the Army. Over 5,500 of them are Iraq related (the Pentagon keeps this very quiet) with many dozens more joining their ranks each month. In addition, many others are refusing to return to Iraq for another tour of duty after serving there one or more times. Those who do it unannounced are being quietly discharged in most cases, while the ones going public to denounce the war saying they won't serve in it any longer face courts martial, dishonorable discharge and possible prison terms.

Little of the above information has been reported, but most disturbing of all is the true unreported daily death and injury toll of US military personnel that's far higher than the official numbers. Department of Defense (DOD) reports are now being quietly circulated indicating over 12,000 dead, not the current announced total approaching 2,700. That figure includes thousands of previously unreported deaths of US military personnel who died en route to German or other hospitals or after arriving there. There's also evidence from Military Air Transport Service (MATS) manifests that show many more bodies shipped to Dover Air Force Base than are officially reported when there are any reports at all.

The true number of serious injuries has also been grossly understated. It could be twice as high as the official numbers based on reports from the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany alone that has treated over 25,000 wounded military patients even as the DOD only officially acknowledges around 15,000 in total and then quietly at first increased the number to about 19,000. These injuries, rarely discussed, include loss of limbs, brain damage and other debilitations that will scar those affected by them for the rest of their lives if after treatment and recovery they even survive. And there's never any mention of the later physical and/or psychological pain and suffering veterans endure or how many of them had or likely will have their lives shortened as a result of the time they spent in combat theaters "serving their country."

In addition to the stress of trauma, possible death or serious injury US forces face, they must also cope with the problems of daily life on the ground making their lives difficult or too often unbearable. Many of their Forward Operations Bases don't get enough daily drinking water and other necessities such as proper food to eat regularly. It makes an intolerable situation even worse. For many there's also a lack of basic amenities like clean clothes, a daily shower and a comfortable bed to sleep in. In addition, the equipment on the ground is being consumed and not replaced including weapons, vehicles, ordinance, body armor and most everything else. Despite the multi-billions spent on this imperial adventure, too little of it is going to "the boots on the ground," because too much of it is budgeted for corporate friends of the administration feasting on huge no-bid contracts. The situation isn't improving. In fact, it's steadily deteriorating despite official denials.

By the time our forces are finally withdrawn from Iraq, as one day they will, the human disaster will be almost incomprehensible. From just a short one-time deployment during the 1991 Gulf war, hundreds of thousands of our forces sent there are now on some form of disability either from the deadly effects of DU poisoning, the stew of other toxins they were exposed to, the physical injuries they received or the permanent psychological scars they may take to the grave. But the worst is yet to come. Beginning with the Afghanistan war in late 2001 and the Iraq war from March, 2003, over 1.3 million of our military forces have served one or more tours of duty for extended periods in what are beyond question the most dangerous and toxic environments on earth. The best estimates (because the VA won't say) are that between 30 - 70% of Gulf war vets so far are now on some kind of disability. If only that same range is applied to the 1.3 million of our military now serving or having served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, between 400,000 and 900,000 of them may end up on disability or die from exposure to the DU munitions used in these wars which we've learned are vastly more toxic than the ones used in the Gulf war. And if they manage to avoid DU poisoning, they may succumb to the effects from the many other toxic pollutants they had to live with or become scarred or maimed for life from the violent environments they had to serve in or the acts they had to commit fulfilling their duty there.

In simple terms, it's likely we can expect an eventual overall catastrophic human disaster and one being covered up because of its enormity. US high officials and Pentagon brass that planned this holocaust to both sides likely knew the human cost to our forces alone would be high but decided anyway the innocent mostly young people we sent to fight were expendable and could be written off to be replaced by new and fresh equally innocent recruits - as long as their dirty secret never gets out. The lives lost or ruined on both sides are dismissed as "collateral damage" or just a "price that has to be paid." It's a human price and one that's paid to enrich well-connected big corporations that love wars because they're so profitable.

The Madness of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution gives the power to declare war solely to the Congress. The Founding Fathers rightfully believed that authority so important they codified it. They wanted to assure that for the single most important issue a nation ever faces, that awesome power would never be placed in the hands of a single individual like the president. They wanted only the legislative branch to have it and only exercise it after careful, deliberative debate. That branch still has it, but for the last 65 years it's abrogated its authority and allowed Presidents from Harry Truman to George W. Bush to usurp it. The result has been the many wars we've fought since WW II along with the many we encouraged, supported and financed plus all the CIA covert mischief and abuse going on at all times.

The result is that every war this country fought in since WW II from Korea to Iraq to the one now planned and "signed off" on by George Bush against Iran and possibly Syria and Venezuela as well to oust President Hugo Chavez to begin on future so far unknown dates was and will be acts of illegal aggression. In each case the US either committed the first overt hostile act or goaded its designated target country enough to do it to provide us with a casus belli for the war we planned and intended to wage. We provoked the North Koreans (through our South Korean proxies) enough in 1950 to get them to respond to give us an excuse to enter a civil conflict between the North and South. We did the same thing again to Iraq (through our Kuwaiti proxies) in 1990-91. In each case, from Korea to the present, we did it against adversaries that never threatened to attack us or had any intention to. Our actions each time were planned, willful acts of illegal aggression, which is what the Nazis were tried for at Nuremburg.

The Tribunal called their crime the "supreme international crime" and specifically said: "To initiate a war of aggression....is not only an international crime, it is the supreme crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." For the last 55 years, the US has repeatedly committed "supreme international crimes" but has yet to be held to account for any of them. In a just world, those in power during each of those illegal wars would have been put in the dock, tried, convicted and either hanged like the most egregious Nazis or given appropriate prison terms for their crimes. The US has also violated the UN Charter that allows a nation the right to use force in its self-defense only under two conditions: when authorized to do it by the Security Council or under Article 51 that permits the "right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member....until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security." By attacking another nation without provocation and with no Security Council authorization, the US violated this sacred covenant. It also violated the US Constitution that says...."all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land." The Bush administration continues to remind us of its disdain for all laws that conflict with its policies.

It should also remind responsible people that's why the International Criminal Court was established by the Rome Statute of 1998 to which the US is a signatory. The Court's authority became effective after receiving its required number of ratifying signatures in 2002 to be a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide as defined by the Nuremberg Charter of 1945. However, the Bush administration refuses to participate in the Court unless its military personnel are given immunity from prosecution - an outrageous demand made for obvious reasons. As a result, no US official or military offender will be held to account before the court unless brought there against their will which isn't likely. That's not how things work in a world ruled by victor's justice. Only losers pay the price in that kind of world, even when they're victims.

Besides committing the supreme international crime of illegal aggression, the US is a serial offender in other ways. It violated international law by waging war without restraint using every weapon it chooses including illegal chemical and possibly biological agents. During the 1950s the effects of such agents were ilicitly tested in selected US cities including New York and San Francisco on our own unwitting population. However, through the years post WW I, the 1925 Geneva Convention Gas Protocol and various succeeding Geneva Weapons Conventions outlawed the use of chemical and biological agents in any form for any reason in war. In addition, under various UN Conventions and Covenants that are binding international law for its signatories, the use of any weapons that cause harm after the battle including away from the battlefield, harm the environment, or kill, wound or cause harm inhumanely are illegal and banned.

Since the Gulf war in 1991, the US has routinely used illegal weapons including depleted uranium munitions in four wars that spread deadly toxic irremediable radiation over the target sites attacked and a vast area beyond them. These DU weapons are poisonous under international law and violate all the above conditions. Even the respected Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is legally non-binding to its signatories, implies a moral duty never to use any weapons as potentially harmful as DU ones or any chemical or biological agents.

In all its wars the US has also willfully violated international law by deliberately attacking non-military targets as a tactical strategy against area "resistance." It's also been callously indifferent to heavy civilian "collateral damage" (words that signify war crimes for some) in attacking military ones. The choice of weapons has been indiscriminate as well and include ones judged illegal and outlawed. In Iraq these have been chemical gases, questionable cluster bombs and a terror weapon called "flashettes" which explode and shoot out 1000s of nails in all directions with deadly results. Two even more deadly terror weapons have been indiscriminately used in Iraq including in civilian areas. One is the napalm-like white phosphorous bombs and shells, known as Willy Pete, that burn flesh to the bone and can't be extinguished by water that only makes it worse when used. The other is an updated version of napalm called Mark 77 firebombs which do about the same thing to flesh.

One other terror weapon likely also is used called a thermobaric bomb which is a modification of still another prohibited weapon called fuel air explosives (FAE) that in their original form are enormously powerful and destroy and incinerate structures and people. The thermobaric update contains polymer-bonded or solid fuel-air explosives in its payload. It's also able to penetrate buildings, underground shelters and tunnels creating a blast pressure great enough to suck the oxygen out from the spaces and lungs of anyone in the vicinity. Used against civilians, these weapons are illegal under the 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. However, George Bush arrogantly dismisses the Geneva Conventions claiming they don't apply in the "war on terror." He echoed the sentiment of his then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales (the current Attorney General) whose memo in early 2002 stated: "The nature of the new war (on terror) places a high premium on other factors such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists.....In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions." Such is the language of tyrants and those around them in high places. The Pentagon also acts with disdain for the law and freely uses whatever terror weapons it chooses against any target.

The sum of these actions and policies is that the George Bush's legacy will based on the notion of endless illegal aggression in the "permanent state of war" his administration declared after 9/11 that now has been rebranded as "the long war" against "Islamo-fascism." It also sanctions the use of banned weapons against civilians, and it believes the most sacred international law is quaint, obsolete and out of date. Is it any wonder this administration has laid waste to scores of villages, towns and cities across Iraq and Afghanistan and done it not just to destroy targets but to send a message that no restraint will be shown to crush all resistance against imperial aggression. This scorched earth policy is called the "Fallujah model" which, of course, was the city in al-Anbar province of 350,000 US ground and air forces attacked full-force in November, 2004. It was done using most every terror weapon they had, other than nuclear ones, to inflict maximum destruction including to essential infrastructure like water, electrical power and hospitals to wipe out whatever resistance was there. Now the same model is being used against the people of Ramadi, the capitol of al-Anbar and a city larger than Fallujah that was surrounded and attacked by a large combined US and proxy Iraqi force beginning on June 9. The assault is still ongoing, and in the words of its US commander, it's unclear how long it will take to "pacify" the city.

What the commander meant but left unsaid was that US style pacification means mass killing and destruction like what was done to Fallujah or alternately following the "Leningrad", "Ben Tre" or "Jenin" model. Whether the plan is to break the will of the people and starve it to submission, "destroy the town to save it" or just inflict barbaric retribution in an act of vengeance and do it against innocent people there, these acts are outrageous war crimes and crimes against humanity. What the commander also didn't say is what's been coming from unembedded and leaked reports on the ground - that despite the intense and protracted effort to suppress the resistance, the US military has effectively lost control over all of al-Anbar province west of Baghdad that comprises about one-third of the country. This assessment was confirmed in August by Col. Pete Devlin, the Marine Corps chief of intelligence, who characterized the situation there as beyond repair and that US forces have lost the battle in al-Anbar. It's happened in spite of the intense fighting across areas under US control including the tactical strategy of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The latter crimes are those the Nuremburg Charter cited to explain what Hitler did to the Jews. The UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) ruled these actions are the historical and legal precursors to the international crime of genocide as defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. From the 15 year unrelenting assault against the Iraqi people beginning with the Gulf war, the devastating economic sanctions, continued bombings throughout the 1990s up to the 2003 illegal war, occupation and daily crimes committed under it, the US is as guilty of genocide as were the Nazis against the Jews and all others they sought to eliminate.

Add to that the systematic use of torture at the hellhole prisons with names now well-known and many others around the world the CIA and military run or "rendition" victims to so they can learn how American justice works. It's the same way it worked in Nazi Germany and under all other regimes run by tyrants. Victims have no rights and can be treated any way their oppressors choose. International laws that are the supreme law of the land are quaint and ignored, the notion of innocent unless or until proved guilty is a nonstarter, and knowing torture isn't an effective way to break resistance and obtain credible information hardly matters. When you're the world's only superpower, can decide alone what's lawful or not, and are on the rampage, who'll be brave or foolish enough to challenge you? Few, in any, dare.

Is Justice Possible in A World Where Might Makes Right

The rule of law is sacred and should protect us from oppression and injustice. It doesn't because a greater force prevails - the power of the strong over the weak, to write the laws it wants and ignore all others, to recklessly pursue its ends, to pillage and plunder because it can get away with it. It's called the law of might makes right, ruled by the code of victors' justice where only the vanquished are held to account and no one has rights except the powerful who make their own. It's a world of lawlessness, disorder and endless conflict, our world, and it's brought to us by a rogue superpower posing as a model democratic state. Those under its oppressive heel, now and in the past, know it well. For many of them it's the curse of having too much of a valued natural resource the US wants to control and exploit. It was true for Iraq and is no different for Iran and Venezuela that also are on the US target list.

What's clear abroad is also true in the US where sacred constitutional law and the political process are effectively dead letters. So too are long-established international laws and norms that interfere with the plans of the new rulers of the world. The power of the Executive declared it so, and the Congress (a Greek chorus posing as a legitimate legislative body) went along - while a modern-day Rome slowly burns and threatens all humanity with its fallout.

It never should have been this way nor was it intended to following WW I. Because of the frightening horror from that conflict, 63 nations, including the US, were signatories to the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 that renounced war as an instrument of foreign policy and said never again. The Pact failed to prevent WW II that began 11 years later nor has the UN formed in its aftermath been able to do be any more successful. This world body was established to maintain international order and security and to develop friendly relations among nations to strengthen universal peace. Its stated mission in its Charter was that it was to be an international body "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind." It hasn't done it and never will as long as it's a wholly owned subsidiary of the reigning superstate (aka predator) that co-opts it to serve its interests and prevents it from functioning as it should. What can all humanity look forward to if the institutions established to protect us don't work, and the only rule of law is the one of the jungle and survival of the fittest and most powerful. More on this below.

A Possible Hidden Economic Connection to the Iraq War and Future Ones Planned

The clear connection to the Iraq war, and likely ones in some form planned against Iran and Venezuela, is the ocean of oil each country literally floats on. Saddam became a target for regime change when he refused to submit and cede control of it to the US demanding he do it. Now the Iranian mullahs and its President Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez may be next in our target queue for the same reason. Like Iraq, with only conventional weapons for defense, these two countries are no match militarily against an all out US assault unlike North Korea that may have a nuclear deterrent giving that country a degree of invulnerability only states with that type weapon have against an aggressive superpower. The US picks its targets judiciously, and like a schoolyard bully never attacks an adversary that can put up a decent fight - at least by its military.

There also may be another motive behind our belligerence besides the clear oil related one. It's much less visible, not discussed, and well concealed beneath the radar. It relates to the notion believed by some economists that flawed and/or out of date methodologies are used to compute some of our key economic data like the gross domestic product (GDP), the total employment and unemployment figures known as the monthly jobs report, and the federal deficit. The reasoning goes that if the unemployment rate today was computed by the same methodology used during The Great Depression when it rose to 25% of the working population, the true current figure would be about 12% instead of the reported 4.7% which includes part-time workers and anyone working as little as one hour during the reporting period. It also excludes all those who wish to work but have stopped looking (discouraged workers) because they can't find any.

A cover story just out in the September 25 issue of Business Week magazine lends credence to the notion that official published government data is manipulated and flawed to look better than, in fact, it is. The article is titled: "What's Really Propping Up The Economy." It states since 2001, all newly created private sector jobs (1.7 million) came from one source - the health care industry which includes the drug companies and insurers offering health insurance. This one industry today represents 12% of the workforce and $2 trillion in annual spending (about one-sixth of the nation's GDP and growing). The story goes on to explain that without the private sector jobs from this one source "the nation's labor market would be in a deep coma" so that while some other sectors like construction and areas related to it added 900,000 jobs since 2001, that gain was offset by "the pressures of globalization and new technology (that) have wreaked havoc on the rest of the labor market" resulting in factories closing and shrinkage in other areas. Even information technology, "the great electronic promise of the 1990s," turned into a bust as far as its ability to generate new jobs. Instead of creating any, it lost 1.1 million of them since 2001 and now employs fewer people than in 1998 "when the Internet frenzy kicked into high gear."

This kind of data doesn't reflect a healthy, expanding economy and clearly is a strong indication of one showing very disturbing signs. The current situation is still further complicated by a failing policy of imperial overreach, massive and out-of-control federal deficits discussed below, and the greatest housing boom in history that propped up the economy, became a bubble, and is now unwinding and likely to become painful before it ends. Just how much and how fast won't be known until a future time when an assessment is made of the amount of damage done and what economic conditions are in its wake. It may show things to be lots different than the rosy way they're portrayed now by most analysts.

It may be why at least one economist (maybe an honest one) believes a more accurate calculation of the real GDP indicates it's contracting and not expanding in a healthy fashion as is now reported each quarter. And most disturbing of all is an analysis of the federal deficit, the computation of which has been miscalculated since the Johnson administration began using accounting gimmicks to hide the true costs of the Vietnam war. If the deficit were calculated based on GAAP methodology (the accounting rules required of all publicly traded corporations in preparing their financial statements), the true figure would have been $665 billion for fiscal year 2003 and $760 billion for 2005 instead of the reported $375 billion 2003 figure and $318 billion for 2005. But that greater figure expands to an astonishing $3,700,000,000,000 ($3.7 trillion) for 2003 and a similarly frightening one for 2005 if the annual increase in the net amount of unfunded Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and government pension obligations are included. This shadow deficit has been mounting since the Johnson years and shows that the US government in fiscal year 2003 had a negative net worth of $34,000,000,000,000 ($34 trillion) by one estimate.

Another economist paints an even grimmer picture than the one above. That economist, Boston University Professor Laurence Kotlikoff, prepared a recent detailed report for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in which he stated, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt and unable to pay its creditors (the ones holding its debt instruments and due its entitlement payments). Professor Kotlikoff wrote that a country's solvency depends on its ability to honor its lifetime fiscal obligations which are the difference between all required future spending and the revenue expected to be received to do it. That gap will widen exponentially as the accumulated US sovereign and other debt obligations plus the amount of revenue needed to cover the bill for retiring Baby Boomers' unfunded liabilities of social security, medicare, medicaid, government pensions and all else rises to an incomprehensible and unmanageable $65,900,000,000,000 ($65.9 trillion) by the calculations he used from a study by two other professors. Professor Kotlikoff explained this figure is over five times the current US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and double the national wealth. He added that if his analysis is right, it means the US is bankrupt, will face a fiscal calamity ahead and will have to default on its debt, entitlements and other obligations.

Professor Kotlikoff had more to say on this matter in a recent extended essay he wrote for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review July/August issue titled "Is the United States Bankrupt?" In it he stated that future US workers would need to be taxed at the rate of 55 - 80% over their working lifetimes to pay for the estimated $80 trillion in unfunded future entitlement liabilities or more than six times the current US GDP. Whichever of his two numbers is more accurate (if either one is), Professor Kotlikoff is beginning to be heard and is gaining some adherents. They believe the US faces a potential future fiscal meltdown even though it's understood the nation's balance sheet isn't static and includes increasing assets as well as liabilities that must be figured into any bottom line calculation of net obligations. So as dire as the current and future situation may be, the true state of the problem likely won't be known precisely until the inevitable day of reckoning arrives revealing how ugly it is.

What is known is that whichever analysis of the problem is right, the future consequences eventually will likely shake the world and change our way of life at home irrevocably at the least. So how does that relate to this country's addiction to war and the current notion of permanent or long ones. Simple. Hot wars stimulate the economy and make it grow - especially extended ones. They require lot's of spending, but so far the funding's there for them from institutional and foreign investors willing to buy our sovereign debt and the Federal Reserve always cooperative by printing up lots of ready cash. But all this comes at a price. Along with shamless tax cuts for the rich and massive corporate welfare subsidies and war-related contracts, it's caused the federal budget and current account deficits to balloon exacerbating an unmanageable fiscal problem since 2001 alone the result of George Bush's reckless policies of excess greed and imperial overreach. The latter is his new "long war" policy, and the more of them we wage, the more positive it is for the economy and corporate profits - in the short run. Without them and their spoils, the economy might not be as healthy or could even be in trouble.

So the nation may face a Hobson's choice: continue our profligate spending ways or see our fiscal house of cards collapse - a conundrum with no solution. The larger our economy gets, the more dependent it is on wars and militarism for economic stimulus. It results in more debt to get the same bang for the bucks we now spend like drunken politicians. It's an unending cycle requiring increasingly greater capital infusions without end in a sort of fiscal game of musical chairs, but one where we dare not let the music stop. Because our economy is so large, we need huge amounts of capital to maintain growth. But finding it becomes harder, and our addiction to it is like being on a treadmill we can't get off of. As a result, we may heading for an eventual day of reckoning, like the one Professor Kotlikoff envisions, no one wants to imagine or confront. It's the same problem a drug addict has needing bigger fixes for the same effect. That behavior guarantees a bad ending, eventually killing the addict. In the same way, no nation can spend and borrow beyond its means forever and always need more for the same results. Nations doing it are like out of control drug addicts and face the same unavoidable fate. They can delay the inevitable but not forever. The penalty for the sins of excess are high, painful and certain. The day eventually comes when the "piper" must be paid. It may not be next month or next year, but "pipers" are very patient and always have the final say. Richard Nixon's former chief economic advisor, Herb Stein, said it well: "Things that can't go on forever, won't." He might have added how unpleasant it is when the day of reckoning comes.

The Road to Hell Is Paved with Endless War, Its Fallout and A Future No One Wants

The US is now at a dangerous watershed moment struggling to save the tattered republic and our sacred constitutional rights. Unless we reverse the present course, our future may be the one Orwell foresaw when he wrote: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face....forever...." Like the totalitarian state of Oceania led by Big Brother in his best known book 1984, we're waging a permanent long war; no one is safe anymore - from our own government; we're all being illegally surveilled; anyone may be forcibly taken away, detained, tortured or murdered - all to make the world safe for a brave new world order ruled ruthlessly by capital that's called democracy. It's one without a political process because the Congress gave it up to a "Unitary Executive" with the power to abrogate the separation of powers doctrine, bypass the lawmakers and courts and act as he chooses to protect the nation's security or for whatever other reason he decides.

We're now nearing a crisis because George Bush chose to invoke the wartime contingency "national security initiatives" established during the Reagan years that gives the President the power to suspend the Constitution and declare martial law. Bush did it by signing executive orders post 9/11 giving himself absolute power in times of whatever he alone decides is a "national emergency." If he assumes it, he'll become a dictator, accountable to no one, which he claims the right to do on his say alone. The only sensible recourse is for mass people action (like now ongoing for weeks in the streets of Mexico against authoritarian rule) to prevent our crossing the Rubicon and passing from a shaky republic to the tyranny of a full-blown national security police state and a future no one wants. It can happen here just as it did in ancient Rome and in Weimar Germany when the good people there lost their model democratic state. They allowed Hitler to steal it while they weren't paying attention. They bought into his demonic appeal to his divine mission as the nation's savior (sound familiar?) and his pretense to be protecting them from an outside threat that didn't exist. That history should remind us how fragile our sacred liberties are and how easily they're lost when tyrants are allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged. We're at a moment now when there's still time to act before it's too late to save a nation conceived in liberty that may soon no longer have it. Edmund Burke explained it long ago when he said: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." I'm sure today he'd remember the importance of women.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog address at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
Comment on this Editorial

Editorial: Banned in Washington - Where's the Free Speech?

by Ann Wright
CommonDreams.org
Sunday, September 10, 2006

So much for free speech in the nation's capital and capitol. On July, 11, 2006 I was arrested for offering a citizen's voice in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing against the nomination of one of the Bush administration's architects of torture, William Haynes, former Department of Defense General Counsel (chief civilian lawyer) for a life-time appointment to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Yesterday, September 7, I appeared in the Criminal Division of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on charges of "Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct on the United States Capitol Grounds on July 11, 2006." During that appearance, I was ordered by the court to "Stay Away" from the US Capitol, all Senate and House Office Buildings and committee hearing rooms and the streets surrounding the Capitol area.

The court papers state that I must abide by this order until my case is disposed of and that "any violation of this condition (order) could result in your prosecution for Contempt of Court, the revocation of your release and/or your detention pending final disposition of this case." I was released on my personal recognizance but instructed in writing that "a warrant for your arrest will be issued immediately upon any violation of a condition of this release. And shall subject you to revocation of the release; an order of detention and prosecution for contempt of court (a fine of not more than $1000 or imprisonment not more than 6 months or both.)

Another paragraph said that "if you are convicted of an offense committed while released, you shall be subject to the following penalties: imprisonment of not less than one year and not more than 5 years if convicted of committing a felony while released; and imprisonment of not less than 90 days and not more than one year if convicted of committing a misdemeanor while released; such to be consecutive to any other sentence of imprisonment."

All of these prohibitions are because I stated in the US Congress that I am opposed to torture and that the Congress should not confirm a person associated with the Bush administration's torture policy. These court orders definitely curtail my ability to voice to the US Congress my concerns and the concerns of much of the American people about important issues they are considering, like the following the Congress will consider next week:

Bush's demand that Congress authorize greater warrantless wiretap authority;

Bush's demand that Congress agree to military tribunals where defendants can be tried and convicted without seeing the evidence; that classified evidence can be used with neither defendants nor their lawyers told about such information; that prosecutors could rely on hearsay or evidence obtained indirectly and evidence obtained by coercion if the panel's chief deemed it reliable and directly related to the accusations;

Bush's demand that Congress agree to keep CIA secret detention sites in other countries operational;

Bush's demand that Congress confirm John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations;

Don't you believe these are issues that we the people must instruct our Congress on how we feel? Of course, you can call, write or email your Senators and Congresspersons.

But I like to go into the committee rooms and look our elected officials in the eyes and tell them what I think. It doesn't take long to tell them because the Capitol police officer in the hearing room usually arrives at your side quickly when you speak out. When you speak out in a committee room, our elected officials, those who serve us, are left with a succinct statement of concerns about the issue. Hearings would probably be a lot better if the Congresspersons had the same police at their elbows demanding shorter statements!

I do understand that committees not take the time generally to hear from the public in their committee rooms; lobbying for an issue is done in the halls and offices. But, I think there is a role for a lightning comment-but it comes with the risk of being arrested for "disrupting" the hearing or at a minimum being escorted out of the hearing and later released.

Now that I am banned from the Capitol area, I hope others will come to the Congress and express their views. We the people must tell the Congress to be brave and courageous in these perilous times-now of all times, we need strong character and moral courage from our Congress. We the people must give them courage.

But tomorrow, Veterans for Peace is marching around the capitol area as a stop the war, treat our veterans right march. I am banned from the area. But what about peaceful, nonviolent marches? Are all rights withdrawn because one speaks out against torture?

Well, this has been a "banner" week for being banned. Besides from being banned from the Capitol area, yesterday the Commanding Officer of Fort Myer, VA denied my request for reconsideration of a one-year ban from Fort Myer, VA and Fort McNair, DC, a ban he ordered in May, 2006 after I placed a few 3"X5" postcards on Fort McNair concerning the limited showing in Washington, DC of "Sir, No Sir," the documentary about GI resistance to the Vietnam war.

I had asked for a reduction to "time served" (two months that I had not been on the base-I didn't know I had been banned as his letter went to my home in Hawaii and I only got the letter once I arrived there in June.). The Commander denied my request and commented that my conduct "clearly violated common standards of good order and discipline on a military installation." As a US Army retired 29 year Colonel, I now am prohibited from entering the two military bases nearest to Washington, DC until May 25, 2007! I would say that's quite remarkable treatment for a three decade veteran!

I am now banned from the Capitol area and from two military bases in the DC area as well as also banned for life (along with Codepink Women for Peace Medea Benjamin) from the National Press Club. In April, 2006 we dared to question to a Press Club speaker and were banned for life for our questions. The speaker was Senator Hillary Clinton and we asked why in her 50 minute energy policy speech she never mentioned the war on Iraq and Iraqi oil.

It surely seems that freedom of speech and the right to question our elected officials in our nation's capital is a dangerously endangered right.

But that's what its all about. If we don't stand up for our freedoms, they will be taken away.

So in the spirit of they can't take our country away from us, I will see you in Congress, the National Press Club and on the military bases---or in jail or detention camps!

You can't ban speech and thought.

It is our country and they are our freedoms. Let's take them back!

Ann Wright is a 29 year retired US Army Colonel and a 16 year US diplomat who resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq.

Original
Comment on this Editorial

Editorial: Bush's Empty Words to the U.N.

By Robert Parry
September 20, 2006

One of the most striking features of George W. Bush's presidency has been his proclivity to use soaring, idealistic rhetoric that is totally at odds with reality, a tendency that was on display again in his address to the United Nations General Assembly.

Bush framed his Sept. 19 speech in the context of the U.N.'s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "The words of the Universal Declaration are as true today as they were when they were written," Bush declared.

But it's hard to believe that Bush had the faintest idea what principles he was embracing - or perhaps he has grown so self-confident in never being challenged on his hypocrisies that he believes he can say anything he wants, no matter how false or deceptive.

Among the 30 rights proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are these:

--"Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."

--"No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

--"Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law."

--"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."

--"Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him."

-- "Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense."

--"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

--"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

--"Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein."

Though Bush is arguably in violation of many if not all the above-cited human rights tenets, he unblushingly cites the Universal Declaration as the foundation for his international policies, from the invasion of Iraq to his handling of the "war on terror."

Even as Bush criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court for stopping his planned kangaroo courts for terror suspects and as he battles members of Congress over his desire for harsh interrogation of detainees, he invokes principles that bar exactly what he seeks to do.

How does subjecting detainees to simulated drowning by "waterboarding" not violate the prohibition on torture? How does stripping suspects naked and soaking them with cold water in frigid rooms not go against the ban on "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment?"

How does imprisoning an estimated 14,000 people without trial or even charges - and arranging "extraordinary renditions" of others to countries that torture - fit with the U.N. principle barring "arbitrary arrest, detention or exile?"

What about the U.N. mandate that a suspect must get a public trial before an independent tribunal and receive "all the guarantees necessary for his defense?" Instead, Bush wants U.S.-run military tribunals to convict and even execute defendants based on secret evidence that can be withheld from both the public and the defendants.

Bush also insists that his "plenary" - or unlimited - powers as Commander in Chief allow him to tap telephones and spy on Americans and non-Americans without obtaining any form of court warrant. Yet, the Universal Declaration objects to "arbitrary interference with [a person's] privacy, family, home or correspondence."

Bush's hostility toward dissent - even declaring some thinking "unacceptable," as he did at a press conference on Sept. 15 - and the eagerness of his supporters to smear anyone who opposes the President also don't match with the principle that human rights include the "freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information."

So, why would Bush invoke the Universal Declaration of Human Rights when he is flouting many of its core principles?

There would seem to be two possible explanations for Bush's chutzpah: either he's just reading a script without regard to the words or he's confident that he can speak the opposite of the truth knowing that few people of consequence will call him on it.

Either way, Bush's cavalier attitude in hailing human rights while simultaneously trashing human rights represents another classic case of Bush's hubris, which is becoming the defining characteristic of his presidency.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

Original
Comment on this Editorial

Palestine, Oh!, Palestine


Gaza: The children killed in a war the world doesn't want to know about

19 September 2006
UK Independent

Nayef Abu Snaima says his 14-year-old cousin Jihad had been sitting on the edge of an olive grove talking animatedly to him about what he would do when he grew up when he was killed instantly by an Israeli shell.

He says he clearly saw a bright flash next to the control tower of the disused Gaza international airport, occupied by Israeli forces after Cpl Gilad Shalit was seized by militants on 25 June. "I went two or three steps and the missile landed," said Nayef, 24. "I thought I was dying. I shouted 'La Ilaha Ila Allah' [There is no God but Allah]."

When Jihad's older brother Kassem, 20, arrived at the scene: "My brother was already dead. There was shrapnel in his head. Nayef was shouting 'Allah, Allah'. The missile landed about four metres from where Jihad had been standing. There was shrapnel in his body as well, his legs, everything. He had been bleeding a lot everywhere."
Jihad Abu Snaima was just the most recent of more than 37 children and teenagers under 18 killed [out of a total death toll, including militants, of 228] in the operations mounted by the Israeli military in Gaza since 25 June, according to figures from the Palestinian Centre of Human Rights (PCHR).

Of these, the PCHR classifies 151 as "civilian", although beside non-combatants and bystanders, that total also includes militants or faction members not involved in operations against Israel at the time ­ for example those deliberately targeted in Israeli air strikes because of their involvement in previous attacks. The Israel Defence Forces have always maintained that being under 18 does not automatically exclude a person from taking part in action against them.

The conflict in Gaza has attracted relatively little international attention, not least because for five weeks it was overshadowed by that in Lebanon. But the death toll has continued to rise.

Nayef, who was speaking from his hospital bed, has multiple shrapnel-inflicted cuts on his plaster-covered arms and legs. But he was lucky compared with Jihad. A school caretaker with a five-year-old daughter, Nayef insists the evening of Jihad's death was just a family get-together. It is normal, he said, in this Bedouin community in the Al Shouka hamlet outside the southernmost Gaza town of Rafah to socialise at each other's homes on a summer evening, and that he and Jihad were especially close.

"I was always with him. He was an innocent person, kind. He was talking to me about how he was going to inherit part of his father's land and farm it and how he was going to get married and stay here." Nayef added tearfully: "He was a boy who had hopes. He wanted to live his life." He added: "What is my daughter going to think? She is going to grow up hating the Israelis."

The family say there was no shelling in the area at the time either before or after the incident; and that they therefore presume Jihad and Nayef were targeted by a tank crew. They insist there was no activity by militants against Israeli positions on the day of the attack. "This is an open area," said Nayef. "The resistance would not go there because they would be seen."

By contrast, the Israel Defence Forces said, without specifying Al Shouka, that on 10 September it had identified and hit "two men" moving near its forces in southern Gaza crouching on the ground, and " apparently planting explosives". Nayef is adamant that on the night in question he and Jihad were merely pausing on an evening stroll to his own house.

The PCHR, which seeks to monitor every violent Palestinian death, does not only focus on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It has, for example, repeatedly condemned the killing and injuring of growing numbers of civilians, also including children, during mounting inter-Palestinian disputes in Gaza; shootings by Palestinian security forces themselves; attacks on Christian churches by Muslims protesting against the Pope; the injury of civilians, including children, by Palestinian-fired Qassam rockets which fall short of targets in Israel; and the kidnapping last month of two Fox TV employees which has deterred journalists from visiting Gaza.

But Hamdi Shaqqura of PCHR's Gaza office ­ which accuses Israel of using repeated closures and destruction of the power supply to operate a policy of "collective punishment" in breach of international law in Gaza, argues that the excuse of "collateral damage" cannot justify the " very high" death toll in the operations since 15 June. He adds: " Israel's forces have been acting excessively and disproportionately, and this explains the high figures for the number of innocent civilians killed by them."

At the other, northern end of Gaza, close to the al-Nada apartment blocks between Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, Aref Abu Qaida, 16, was killed by an artillery shell on 1 August. Sharif Harafin, 15, said: "We had been playing football and we had just finished. I was carrying the ball. I was going to my home, and [Aref] was going to his home. I heard a loud boom and then I saw him cut to pieces."

As his family displayed Aref's shredded red baseball cap, Sharif said he saw his friend's severed head on the ground, adding: "His chest was torn out by the rocket. People were collecting parts of his body. I was crying a lot."

The IDF says that on 1 August it had fired and hit "a number of Palestinians" in "the area of Beit Lahiya" who had " approached a number of rocket launchers placed in the area". Both PCHR and local residents, including Mohammed Abu Qaida, 39, the dead boy's uncle, say that, while three other civilians were wounded, the only other death in this incident was that of Mervat Sharekh, 24, a woman who was visiting relatives from Rafah and who died in hospital an hour later.

Although the area had been shelled before, and some residents had fled in response to Israeli warnings the previous week, Mr Abu Qaida said the area had been quiet on the day ­ except that Qassam rockets had been fired about four hours earlier from northern settlements more than a kilometre away from the flats.

The IDF said last night that, of those killed in Gaza, it had the " positive identities of over 220 gunmen killed in fighting, and can confirm their affiliation with terror organisations". The 220 figure ­ said to be "unbelievable" by Mr Shaqqura ­ coupled with another 20 dead which the military acknowledges as genuine civilians, is all the more strikingly at variance with PCHR figures since it produces a total exceeding the centre's own records.

Mr Shaqqura said that, at the absolute minimum, the IDF figures do not take into account the casualties under 18 ­ which PCHR estimates at 44 and from which he said every effort is made to exclude the "rare" teenagers with militant connections ­ or eight women killed since 25 June. " We do not believe their figures. We do not believe their investigations."

The IDF said: "Since the abduction of Cpl Gilad Shalit by the Hamas and PRC terror organisations, the IDF has been operating in the Gaza Strip against terrorist infrastructure and in order to secure the release of Cpl Shalit. In the course of the operations, the IDF engaged in intense fighting with Palestinian gunmen, who chose heavily populated areas as their battlegrounds. The IDF takes every measure to prevent harm to civilians, often at a risk to its soldiers."

The forgotten war in the Middle East

* 25 June: Palestinian gunmen from the Hamas-linked Izzedine al-Qassam brigades cross from Gaza into Israel and launch a raid on an Israeli military patrol. Two Israeli soldiers are killed, four wounded and one, Cpl Gilad Shalit, is captured and taken back into Gaza.

* 28 June: Israel masses troops before launching a reoccupation of the Gaza Strip under the codename Operation Summer Rains. Civilian casualties mount as Israeli forces search the Khan Younis refugee camp for Cpl Shalit.

* 12 July: Mimicking the tactics of Palestinian militants, Hizbollah launches mortars and rockets into northern Israel from southern Lebanon to divert attention from a cross-border raid that ambushes an Israeli military patrol, killing three soldiers and capturing two others. The raid threatens to draw the whole Middle East into conflict.

* 13 July: International attention is diverted from Gaza as Israel launches a full military invasion of southern Lebanon in response to Hizbollah's attack. The mounting civilian death toll across Gaza pales in comparison to Lebanon as Israeli jets pummel infrastructure.

* 24 July: As world powers frantically search for a UN-backed ceasefire in Lebanon, Israel increases its bombardment of the Gaza Strip in an attempt to force Palestinian militants to release Cpl Shalit. Under the codename Operation Samson's Pillars, Israeli jets pound Gaza's roads and buildings, including the power station.

* 14 August: UN approves a ceasefire for Lebanon after four weeks of fighting which has left approximately 1,500 Lebanese and 150 Israelis dead. International community continues to ignore the conflict in Gaza over fears that Lebanon could slip back into warfare unless a UN peacekeeping force arrives in the region.

* Mid-August-present: Israel continues to carry out air strikes and raids in Gaza. At least 33 civilians have been killed since the beginning of August, 10 of whom were under the age of 18.

Names of children under the age of 18 killed during the operations mounted by the Israeli military in Gaza since 25 June, according to the Palestinian Centre of Human Rights

Bara Nasser Habib, 3 (hit by shrapnel to the head and body, Gaza City, 26 July)
Shahed Saleh Al-Sheikh Eid, 3 days old (bled to death after airstrike, Al-Shouka, 4 August)
Rajaa Salam Abu Shaban, 3 (died of fractured skull in air raid, Gaza City, 9 August)
Jihad Selmi Abu Snaima, 14 (killed by a shell, Al-Shoukha, 10 september)
Khaled Nidal Wahba, 15 months (died of wounds from an airstrike, 10 July)
Rawan Farid Hajjaj, 6 (killed with his mother and sister in an airstrike, Gaza City, 8 July)
Anwar Ismail Abdul Ghani Atallah, 12 (shot in the head, Erez, 5 July)
Shadi Yousef Omar 16 (shot in the chest by IDF, Beit Lahya, 7 July)
Mahfouth Farid Nuseir, 16 (killed by missile while playing football, Beit Hanoun, 11 July)
Ahmad Ghalib Abu Amsha, 16, (killed by missile while playing football, Beit Hanoun, 11 July)
Ahmad Fathi Shabat, 16 (killed by missile while playing football, Beit Hanoun, 11 July)
Walid Mahmoud El-Zeinati, 12 (died of shrapnel wounds, Gaza City, 11 July)
Basma Salmeya, 16 (killed in Israeli airstrike, 12 July, Jabalia)
Somaya Salmeya, 17 (killed in Israeli airstrike, 12 July, Jabalia)
Aya Salmeya, 9 (killed in Israeli airstrike, Jabalia, 12 July)
Yehya Salmeya, 10 (killed in Israeli airstrike, Jabalia, 12 July)
Nasr Salmeya, 7 (killed in Israeli airstrike, Jabalia, 12 July)
Huda Salmeya, 13 (killed in Israeli airstrike, Jabalia, 12 July)
Eman Salmeya, 12 (killed in Israeli airstrike, Jabalia, 12 July)
Raji Omar Jaber Daifallah, 16 (died of shrapnel wounds from missile, Gaza City, 13 July)
Ali Kamel Al-Najjar, 16 (killed by Israeli tank shell, Al-Maghazi refugee camp, 19 July)
Ahmed Ali Al-Na'ami, 16 (killed by Israeli tank shell, Al-Maghazi refugee camp, 19 July)
Ahmed Rawhi Abu Abdu, 14 (killed by drone missile, Al Nusairat refugee camp, 19 July)
Mohammed 'awad Muhra, 14 (killed by Israeli bullet to the chest, Al-Maghazi refugee camp, 20 July)
Fadwa Faisal Al-'arrouqi, 13 (died from shrapnel wounds, Gaza City, 20 July)
Saleh Ibrahim Nasser, 14 (killed by artillery fire, Beit Hanoun, 24 July)
Khitam Mohammed Rebhi Tayeh, 11 (killed by artillery fire, Beit Hanoun, 24 July)
Ashraf 'abdullah 'awad Abu Zaher, 14 (shot in the back, Khan Younis, 25 July)
Nahid Mohammed Fawzi Al-Shanbari, 16 (killed by artillery fire, Beit Hanoun, 31 July)
'aaref Ahmed Abu Qaida, 14 (killed by artillery fire, Beit Hanoun, 1 August)
Anis Salem Abu Awad, 12 (killed by airstike, Al-Shouka, 2 August)
Ammar Rajaa Al-Natour, 17 (killed by drone missile, Al Shouka, 5 August)
Kifah Rajaa Al-Natour, 15 (killed by drone missile, Al Shouka, 5 August)
Ibrahim Suleiman Al-Rumailat, 13 (killed by drone missile, Al Shouka, 5 August)
Ahmed Yousef 'abed 'aashour, 13 (killed by missile fire, Beit Hanoun, 14 August)
Mohammed 'abdullah Al-Ziq, 14 (killed by drone missile, Gaza City, 29 August)
Nidal 'abdul 'aziz Al-Dahdouh, 14 (killed by rifle fire, Gaza City, 30 August)
Jihad Selmi Abu Snaima, 14 (killed by artillery fire, Rafah, 10 September)




Comment on this Article

Fatah lawmaker: Hamas fails to meet needs of people

www.chinaview.cn 2006-09-20 20:10:40

RAMALLAH, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- A lawmaker from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement on Wednesday termed the governance of the ruling Hamas movement as a failure and called for a change in the Palestinian political prospect.
"Hamas and its government have failed to meet minimum needs of the people while they still abide by unrealistic factional slogans," Eissa Qaraqe told the Voice of Palestine.

"It is time to make changes in the Palestinian political prospect," he said.

Qaraqe also warned against a possible Hamas retreat from an agreement with Abbas on forming a national unity government, saying "there are many discussions over precautions against what is happening on the ground."

"We are awaiting Abbas to come back from New York and will find solutions if Hamas keeps its stance," he said.

After months of on-and-off talks, Abbas and Prime Minister Is mail Haneya announced an accord last week to form a coalition government, which is to be led by Haneya.

The move was seen as an effort to end international isolation and the West's aid blockade of the Hamas-led government.

According to the deal, incumbent Hamas-led government will be dismissed and replaced with a coalition government consisting of at least Hamas and Fatah, the biggest Palestinian faction. Before heading to New York to attend the UN General Assembly, Abbas has suspended talks on forming a new government until his return.

A spokesman for Fatah legislators threatened on Wednesday to seek a no-confidence vote against the Hamas-led government if it did not resign to pave the way for the formation of the proposed coalition government.

However, a spokesman for Hamas lawmakers said the Fatah parliamentary bloc can not topple the government.

"Practically, Fatah needs 67 votes to pass the vote, but they only have 42 members," said Salah Bardaweel, spokesman for Hamas legislators.

He said that even if Fatah allied with independent lawmakers and smaller blocs, they could only get 51 votes.

Hamas has 70 seats in the parliament, but nearly 30 of them have been taken hostage by Israel in response to kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Palestinian militants in late June.

Comment: In democratic elections last January, Hamas was democratically elected by the Palestinians. The US, Israel, and Europe immediately shut off funding for this democratically elected government, doing their utmost to put the screws to them.

Moreover, Israel has kidnapped 30 Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament! And then, this guy from Fatah has the gall to come out and say that Hamas isn't doing the job!

Comment on this Article

Israeli Army kills two Palestinians one of them a pregnant woman

IMEMC & Agencies
19 September 2006

Two West Bank residents were killed by the Israeli army on Tuesday morning, one of them a pregnant woman who was delayed at an army checkpoint.

Bushra Sultan, 27, from the Saflit region of the West Bank, died at an Israeli military checkpoint - East of Saflit - which had been closed by Israeli soldiers on Tuesday morning. Medical teams tried to revive Sultan but all attempts failed, leading to her death due to being unnecessarily held at the checkpoint.

Israeli soldiers stationed at checkpoints located all over the West Bank delay ambulances for hours as they search Palestinian vehicles. This action often leads to the death of patients in ambulances waiting to cross checkpoints.

Elsewhere Nabile Hanini, 25, from Sanour village south of the West Bank city of Jenin was shot and killed and another four taken prisoner by the Israeli army on Tuesday morning. In the early morning hours more than 20 armored vehicles stormed the village of Sanour and surrounded the house of Mohammed Abdul Latif before showering it with live rounds, when soldiers left the area Hanini was found dead in the house, local sources said he was originally from Beit Fourik near Nablus city.

Medical sources reported that Hanini was killed due to being hit by several live rounds in the chest and head, local residents reported that soldiers had arrested Hanini before killing him.

Abdul Latif, the owner of the house, was taken along with his three sons, by Israeli troops to an unknown location.




Comment on this Article

Palestinian woman dies at the Rafah Crossing

IMEMC & Agencies
19 September 2006

Palestinian sources reported on Monday at night that a woman died at the Egyptian side of the Rafah Border Crossing.

The woman, Aghfra Mohammad Al Arja, died as a result of the bad condition the stranded residents at the crossing face after Israeli decided to close it.

The Rafah Border Crossing was closed ton June 25, and was only opened for several short periods enabling some residents to cross back into the Gaza Strip.

At least eight residents died at the Rafah Border Crossing since August after they were stranded there for several weeks due to the Israeli closure and siege imposed on the Gaza Strip after Palestinian fighters captured an Israeli soldier in a raid that targeted a military post near the Gaza borders.




Comment on this Article

National boycott action targets Irish stores selling Israeli goods

Electronic Intifada
Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
19 September 2006




IPSC's Raymond Deane addresses shoppers in front of Dunnes Stores on North Earl Street.

Shops and supermarkets across Ireland were picketed on Saturday as the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) commemorated the anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacres with a National Boycott Israel Day.

IPSC members targetted retail outlets in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Sligo, to send a message to Irish retailers that continuing to trade with Israel while it obliterates Palestine is grossly unethical and gives both financial support, succour and legitimacy to Israel's escalating and unchecked violations of Palestinian human rights. The National Boycott Day was also intended to educate consumers as to the extent of Israeli goods in their shops.


Irish supermakets, all year round, stock a wide range of Israeli fruit and vegetables. Disgracefully, over the last six years, as Israel has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians and devastated the Palestinian economy and society, Irish trade with Israel has increased exponentially. A full 3,000 tonnes of Israeli vegetables have been imported to this country since Israel escalated its violent crackdown on the Palestinian civilian population starting in 2000.

Yet there are impressive precedents for a successful boycott movement in Ireland. Indeed, in 1880, the first person to be placed in this "moral Coventry", to be isolated "from the rest of his kind as if he were a leper of old," was an Irish landlord named Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott. A century later, the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement led a hugely popular boycott campaign against Apartheid South Africa.

This movement originated in 1984 with the refusal of Dunnes Stores workers to handle South African goods. Today, many of the stalwarts of that campaign, including a number of past chairmen of the IAAM, and some of the original Dunnes Stores strikers, have lent their support to the campaign to isolate Apartheid Israel.

For its associations with this first Anti-Apartheid movement, and because it is the larget Irish-owned supermaket chain, Dunnes Stores has been chosen as the symbolic focus of the IPSC's efforts to remove Israeli goods from Irish shelves. On Saturday the campaign to boycott Israeli goods was re-launched, with guest Palestinian and Israeli speakers, outside a Dunnes Stores outlet in the centre of Dublin.

Speaking at the event, the IPSC's Raymond Deane recalled the example of the courageous strikers of 1984, and called on workers again to refuse to deal with goods tainted by racism and oppression. Ali Abunimah, co-founder of EI, said that nearly 200 Palestinian civil society organizations, including trade unions, professional associations, women's organizations and student bodies had appealed to the world to stand in solidarity with them by taking boycott actions. Abunimah pointed out that there are over 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners including many of their democratically-elected representatives kidnapped and held hostage by Israel, as millions of Palestinians live under Israeli siege and curfew, deprived of food, employment, medical care and other basic freedoms. He said that people in Ireland could through peaceful, principled actions and individual choices help bring freedom to Palestine for all Israelis and Palestinians, just as they helped bring freedom and reconciliation to South Africa.

Finally, Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, stressed that there was no movement within Israel capable of forcing Israel to relinquish its oppressive control over Palestinians, and that while Israel enjoys impunity from world governments, it falls on civil society to boycott and isolate it in order to ensure its compliance with international law. She added that once this system of oppression is dismantled, there is no obstacle to Palestinians and Israelis living together in harmony and cooperation.

As well as this re-launch, other shops across Dublin and throughout the country were picketed all day by IPSC supporters. Some pickets simply involved leafletting customers as they went into the shops, while others took the form of boycott actions, with volunteers filling baskets and trolleys with Israeli goods, bringing them to the till, and loudly demanding that they no longer be sold.

IPSC members have been encouraged by the sympathetic response to such actions, not only from customers, but in many cases also from staff and even management. Coinciding with a call by Irish academics for a moratorium on EU aid to Israeli academia, National Boycott Day was yet another indication that people are beginning to listen to the call from Palestinians, and that Apartheid Israel is finally en route to isolation.



Comment on this Article

Arab MK suspended for calling Peretz 'murderer'

Ynet
20/09/2006

The Knesset Ethics Committee decided on Tuesday to suspend United Arab List-Ta'al MK Ibrahim Sarsur for one day after he refereed to Defense Minister Amir Peretz as a "murderer." Arab MK Jamal Zahalka (National Democratic Assembly) was suspended from the Knesset for three days for making similar remarks.




Comment on this Article

Israel's Jewish population decreasing

Ynet
20/09/2006

According to Central Bureau of Statistics data published on Tuesday, the population of the State of Israel at the end of 2005 was comprised of 6,990,700 people, of which 5,313,800 were Jewish (76 percent of the entire population), and 1,377,100 were Arab (19.7 percent) according to data published by the Central Bureau of Statistics.

The data also showed that since 2000, the Jewish population has decreased by 1.8 percent, while the Muslim population has increased during the past five years by 1.1 to 1,140,600.




Comment on this Article

Terror Inc


Sources: August terror plot is a 'fiction' underscoring police failures

Nafeez Ahmed
Published: Monday September 18, 2006

British Army expert casts doubt on 'liquid explosives' threat, Al Qaeda network in UK Identified

Lieutenant-Colonel (ret.) Nigel Wylde, a former senior British Army Intelligence Officer, has suggested that the police and government story about the "terror plot" revealed on 10th August was part of a "pattern of lies and deceit."
British and American government officials have described the operation which resulting in the arrest of 24 mostly British Muslim suspects, as a resounding success. Thirteen of the suspects have been charged, and two released without charges.

According to security sources, the terror suspects were planning to board up to ten civilian airliners and detonate highly volatile liquid explosives on the planes in a spectacular terrorist operation. The liquid explosives -- either TATP (Triacetone Triperoxide), DADP (diacetone diperoxide) or the less sensitive HMTD (hexamethylene triperoxide diamine) -- were reportedly to be made on board the planes by mixing sports drinks with a peroxide-based household gel and then be detonated using an MP3 player or mobile phone.

But Lt. Col. Wylde, who was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for his command of the Belfast Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit in 1974, described this scenario as a "fiction." Creating liquid explosives is a "highly dangerous and sophisticated task," he states, one that requires not only significant chemical expertise but also appropriate equipment.

Terror plot scenario "untenable"

"The idea that these people could sit in the plane toilet and simply mix together these normal household fluids to create a high explosive capable of blowing up the entire aircraft is untenable," said Lt. Col. Wylde, who was trained as an ammunition technical officer responsible for terrorist bomb disposal at the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in Sandhurst.

After working as a bomb defuser in Northern Ireland, Lt. Col. Wylde became a senior officer in British Army Intelligence in 1977. During the Cold War, he collected intelligence as part of an undercover East German "liaison unit," then went on to work in the Ministry of Defense to review its communications systems.

"So who came up with the idea that a bomb could be made on board? Not Al Qaeda for sure. It would not work. Bin Laden is interested in success not deterrence by failure," Wylde stated.

"This story has been blown out of all proportion. The liquids would need to be carefully distilled at freezing temperatures to extract the required chemicals, which are very difficult to obtain in the purities needed."

Once the fluids have been extracted, the process of mixing them produces significant amounts of heat and vile fumes. "The resulting liquid then needs some hours at room temperature for the white crystals that are the explosive to develop." The whole process, which can take between 12 and 36 hours, is "very dangerous, even in a lab, and can lead to premature detonation," said Lt. Col. Wylde.

If there was a conspiracy, he added, "it did not involve manufacturing the explosives in the loo," as this simply "could not have worked." The process would be quickly and easily detected. The fumes of the chemicals in the toilet "would be smelt by anybody in the area." They would also inevitably "cause the alarms in the toilet and in the air change system in the aircraft to be triggered. The pilot has the ability to dump all the air from an aircraft as a fire-fighting measure, leaving people to use oxygen masks. All this means the planned attack would be detected long before the queues outside the loo had grown to enormous lengths."

Government silent on detonators

Even if it was possible for the explosive to have been made on the aircraft, a detonator, probably made from TATP, would be needed to set it off. "It is very dangerous and risky to the individual," Wylde said. "As the quantity involved would be small this would injure the would-be suicide bomber but not endanger the aircraft, thus defeating the object of bringing down an aircraft."

Despite the implausibility of this scenario, it has been used to justify wide-ranging new security measures that threaten to permanently curtail civil liberties and to suspend sections of the United Kingdom's Human Rights Act of 1998. "Why were the public delicately informed of an alleged conspiracy which the authorities knew, or should have known, could not have worked?" asked Lt. Col. Wylde.

"This is not a new problem," he added, noting that 'shoe-bomber' Richard Reid had attempted to use this type of explosive on a plane in December 2001. "If this threat is real, what has been done to develop explosive test kits capable of detecting peroxide based explosives?" asked Wylde. "These are the real issues about protecting the public that have not been publicised. Instead we are going to get demands for more internment without trial."

Lt. Col. Wylde also raised questions about the criminal investigation into the 7th July terrorist attacks in London last year. He noted that police and government sources have maintained "total silence" about the detonation devices used in the bombs on the London Underground and the bus at Tavistock Square. "Whatever the nature of the primary explosive materials, even if it was home-made TATP, the detonator that must be used to trigger an explosion is an extremely dangerous device to make, requiring a high level of expertise that cannot be simply self-taught or picked-up over the internet," Wylde stated.

The government's silence on the detonation device used in the attacks is "disturbing," he said, as the creation of the devices requires the involvement of trained explosives experts. Wylde speculated that such individuals would have to be present either inside the country or outside, perhaps in Eastern Europe, where they would be active participants in an international supply-chain to UK operatives. "In either case, we are talking about something far more dangerous than home-grown radicals here."

Spy slams police inaction against terrorists

Wylde's concerns are echoed by others familiar with British terrorism-related intelligence operations, such as Glen Jenvey, who is profiled in the bestselling book, The Terror Tracker, by terrorism investigator Neil Doyle. Jenvey worked for several military attaches monitoring terrorist groups in London and obtained crucial video and surveillance evidence used by British police to arrest radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, who was convicted last February.

"I've been closely monitoring the internet communications of extremist Muslim groups inside the UK both before and after 7/7, and they are intimately interconnected," said Jenvey, who is affiliated with the London-based terror watch group VIGIL. "We've identified a coordinated leadership of at least 20 and up to 60 people, extremist preachers with blatant international al-Qaeda terrorist connections."

Jenvey noted that even though they are known to the authorities and are monitored while breaking the law with impunity, particularly in their private sermons, the police have failed to take appropriate action against them. "The police don't need to round up and detain thousands of British Muslims. If they only arrested, charged and prosecuted these 20 key terrorist leaders, they will have a struck a fatal blow against the epicentres of al-Qaeda extremism in the UK. But they're sitting on this."

Jenvey points to Omar Bakri Mohammed, a colleague of convicted terrorist Abu Hamza who headed the now-banned Islamist group al-Muhajiroun in the United Kingdom. Despite being exiled to Lebanon, Omar Bakri continues to communicate with UK-based extremist groups which are believed to be successors of al-Muhajiroun operating under new names, including the Saved Sect and al-Ghurabaa. British security sources have confirmed that the 7/7 bombers were associates of Omar Bakri's network, and Bakri himself publicly boasted a year before the London bombings that an al-Qaeda cell in London was planning a terrorist strike.

An investigation by the counterterrorism unit in the New York Police Department found that Bakri's al-Muhajiroun had formed 81 front groups and support networks in six countries, most of them based in London, the home counties bordering London, the Midlands, Lancashire and West Yorkshire. By the time Home Secretary Dr. John Reid moved in July to proscribe the latest incarnation of al-Muhajiroun, al-Ghurabaa, this sprawling interconnected network was fully functioning and continues to operate namelessly, despite proscription. Bakri's network has recently adopted the name "Al Sabiqoon Al-Awwaloon".

Jenvey complains that, despite the arrest in early September of radical cleric Abu Abdullah, convicted terrorist Abu Hamza's successor at the Finsbury Park Mosque, a "hardcore group of 20 or more extremists operating around Omar Bakri" remains at large. "The police have every reason to act, and they know who these people are. Their failure to do so has only exacerbated unjustified demonization of Muslims. These extremists are not Muslims in any meaningful sense, they are simply terrorists obsessed with violence."

MI5, MI6 recruiting extremists?

Even the arrest of Abu Abdullah only occurred after his support for terrorism was widely reported in the British and American media in late August. On 23rd August, he justified the killing of Westerners and told CNN correspondent Dan Rivers that Tony Blair is a "legitimate target" of jihad. The Sunday Times remarked that he "is apparently being allowed to operate unchecked by the authorities five months after a law was passed making it a criminal offence to glorify terrorism."

Torture may have been used to extract evidence for the weekend police raids which resulted in the arrest of 14 British Muslims, including Abdullah. Sources confirm that information came from detainees at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo, where interrogation techniques classified as torture under international law are routinely used.

The reluctance to take decisive action against the leadership of the extremist network in the UK has a long history. According to John Loftus, a former Justice Department prosecutor, Omar Bakri and Abu Hamza, as well as the suspected mastermind of the London bombings Haroon Aswat, were all recruited by MI6 in the mid-1990s to draft up British Muslims to fight in Kosovo. American and French security sources corroborate the revelation. The MI6 connection raises questions about Bakri's relationship with British authorities today. Exiled to Lebanon and outside British jurisdiction, he is effectively immune to prosecution.

Other London-based radical clerics with terrorist connections also had a relationship to the security services. Abu Qatada, described as al-Qaeda's European ambassador, was, according to French sources a long-time MI5 informant. Pakistani government insiders similarly believe that Ahmed Omar Sheikh Saeed, the British al-Qaeda finance chief from Forest Gate, not only worked with the ISI, Pakistani's military intelligence service, but was also recruited by the CIA as an informant. Saeed, who reportedly wired several hundred thousand dollars to alleged chief 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, is currently in Pakistani custody for the murder of Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl.

Omar Bakri regularly uses the internet to communicate from Lebanon with his followers in Britain. On Sunday evening, 3rd September, Omar Bakri told participants in an online chat forum that he had been pulled in by the Lebanese authorities at the request of the US and British governments and questioned in relation to the "terror plot". Although he denied involvement in the plot, he claimed that some of the 24 British Muslim suspects were known to him. When asked to confirm or deny whether Bakri had indeed been arrested at the request of the British, the Foreign Office had no comment. Bakri said that he was regularly questioned by Lebanese officials on behalf of the British government.

The official reluctance to act against Bakri and his active associates in the UK does not match the government's willingness to act pre-emptively to foil a plot of doubtful reality. Official reluctance to acknowledge the significance of the detonators used in the 7/7 terrorist operation suggests that the threat is far more sophisticated than authorities have admitted, and that emphasis on home-grown amateurs is mistaken. Lt. Col. Wylde's observations would seem to indicate that the terror-threat narrative is being manipulated for reasons of political expediency.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Graham Ennis, Nigel Wylde and Glen Jenvey for their research assistance and contribution to this story. They bear no responsibility for any errors therein. An abridged version of this story will be printed in The Muslim News, UK on 29th September 2006.

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is the author of The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry (Duckworth, £9:99) and The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism (Arris, £12:99). He testified in the US Congress about his research on international terrorism in July 2005. He teaches International Relations at the University of Sussex, Brighton.



Comment on this Article

Innocent Man Sent to Syria and Tortured; Canada may file protest against US

Sept. 19 2006
AP

TORONTO - The United States "very likely" sent a Canadian software engineer to Syria, where he was tortured, based on the false accusation by Canadian authorities that he was suspected of links to al-Qaida, according to a new government report.

Syrian-born Maher Arar was exonerated of all suspicion of terrorist activity by the 2 1/2-year commission of inquiry into his case, which urged the Canadian government to offer him financial compensation. Arar is perhaps the world's best-known case of extraordinary rendition -- the U.S. transfer of foreign terror suspects to third countries without court approval.

"I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada," Justice Dennis O'Connor said Monday in a three-volume report on the findings of the inquiry, part of which was made public.

Arar was traveling on a Canadian passport when he was detained at New York's Kennedy Airport on Sept. 26, 2002, on his way home from vacation in Tunisia.

Arar said U.S. authorities sent him to Syria for interrogation as a suspected member of al-Qaida, a link he denied.

He spent nearly a year in prison in Syria and made detailed allegations after his release in 2003 about extensive interrogation, beatings and whippings with electrical cables.

O'Connor criticized the U.S. and recommended that Ottawa file formal protests with both Washington and the Syrian government over Arar's treatment.
"The American authorities who handled Mr. Arar's case treated Mr. Arar in a most regrettable fashion," O'Connor wrote. "They removed him to Syria against his wishes and in the face of his statements that he would be tortured if sent there. Moreover, they dealt with Canadian officials involved with Mr. Arar's case in a less than forthcoming manner."

The U.S. is already under intense criticism from human rights groups over the practice of sending suspects to countries where they could be tortured.

U.S. and Syrian officials refused to cooperate with the Canadian inquiry.

The commission found the Royal Canadian Mounted Police shared information about Arar with American anti-terrorist agencies both before and after he was detained.

The RCMP asked the U.S. to put Arar on a watch list as an "Islamic extremist individual" suspected of links to the al-Qaida terrorist movement, the report said.

The request was issued after Arar met with another man who was under surveillance, a meeting Arar has said was about how to find inexpensive computer equipment.

"The RCMP had no basis for this description, which had the potential to create serious consequences for Mr. Arar in light of American attitudes and practices," the report said.

The RCMP described Arar as the "target" of a domestic anti-terrorist investigation in Canada when in fact he was a peripheral figure who had come under suspicion only because he had been seen in the company of the man who was under surveillance, the report found.

O'Connor said that much of the material shared with U.S. authorities had not been double-checked to ensure its accuracy and reliability -- a violation of the RCMP's usual rules for divulging information to foreign agencies.

O'Connor concluded that the inaccurate information passed by Canadian police to U.S. authorities "very likely" led to their decision to send Arar to Syria.

"It's quite clear that the RCMP sent inaccurate information to U.S. officials," Arar said at a news conference in Ottawa. "I would have not have even been sent to Syria had this information not been given to them."

"I have waited a long time to have my name cleared. I was tortured and lost a year of my life. I will never be the same," Arar said. "The United States must take responsibility for what it did to me and must stop destroying more innocent lives with its unlawful actions."

The commission concluded there was no evidence Canadian officials participated in or agreed to the decision to send Arar to Syria. But O'Connor recommended that in the future, information should never be provided to a foreign country where there is a credible risk that it will cause or contribute to the use of torture.

Most of the judge's 23 policy recommendations centered on the RCMP and emphasized the need to improve the force's internal policies for national security investigations and the sharing of information with other countries.

Arar's case has been regularly featured on the front pages of Canadian newspapers and public outcry led to the government calling an inquiry. Canada's federal government established the inquiry in 2004 to determine the role Canadian officials played.

O'Connor also found "troubling questions" about the role played by Canadian officials in the cases of three other Canadians of Arab descent -- Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin. All claim they were tortured in Syria after traveling there on personal business, and all suspect that the RCMP, Canadian intelligence or both collaborated with their captors.

O'Connor said he could not get to the bottom of those cases because of the limited nature of his mandate. But he urged the government to appoint an independent investigator -- something short of a full-fledged public inquiry -- to look into those cases.

O'Connor sifted through thousands of pages of documents and sat through testimony from more than 40 witnesses. He delivered two versions of his report to the government: one classified, the other public. But portions of even the public edition of the long-awaited document were withheld due to security concerns.



Comment on this Article

US Police Storm into Wrong House

News Channel 5
19/09/2006

A case of mistaken identity turns a Brownsville family's world upside down.

Lupe Cuellar and his wife Pilar were startled at 1:30 in the morning by a knocking at their door.

The men at the door said they were cops, but Lupe wasn't sure. He said he'd heard about some burglaries in the neighborhood.

He told his wife to call police. She called 911.

Pilar says the 911 operator told her, "We got a call that your husband was beating you."

The officers tried to kick down the door. She told her husband it was the police and he opened the door.

Lupe says the police officer put him in a choke hold, dragged him to the kitchen, and threw him on the floor.

He said officers asked him why he didn't open the door and Lupe says he tried to explain he didn't know who they were.

Lupe's wife and kids watched officers cuff him and haul him outside in nothing but his underwear.

"It's really embarrassing. I feel like a criminal," he says.

Pilar says she pleaded with the police.

"My husband doesn't abuse me," she says, "He doesn't beat me."

Pilar says, "I couldn't believe this was going on."

The police quickly realized there was no domestic violence at this house.

"They looked at me and said, 'Yeah, you're alright.' And they took off," Lupe recalls.


He went to a hospital, where a nurse called police to report what happened. A sergeant showed up and told the Cuellars' what had happened.

"He told me the dispatcher gave police the wrong address," says Lupe.

The real domestic violence call was two houses down. Officers arrested another man for assault. Lupe says his daughter is now frightened by police.

NEWSCHANNEL 5 tried to talk to the Brownsville police chief. We're told he's gathering information and will comment tomorrow.

The department is reportedly investigating the incident.



Comment on this Article

U.K. Police Deny Breaking Law Over Terror Shooting, Court Hears

Sept. 19 2006
Bloomberg

London's Metropolitan Police denied breaching a health and safety law when its officers shot dead an innocent Brazilian electrician who was mistaken for a suicide bomber.

Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was gunned down by police on the London Underground on July 22, 2005. Police subsequently established that he was innocent and had no connection to terrorism. [Ed: after lying about the case]

The shooting happened a day after an alleged attempt to cause explosions on the London transport system and two weeks after the July 7, 2005, attacks which killed 56 people, including four suicide bombers, on three underground trains and a bus.

The police force was charged under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The force is alleged by prosecutors to have failed to ensure the health and safety of de Menezes.
A formal plea of not guilty was entered in front of senior district judge Timothy Workman at London's City of Westminster Magistrates Court today, the police force said in an e-mailed statement.

The case was adjourned until the next hearing on Jan. 16 at the Central Criminal Court, commonly known as the Old Bailey. The force faces an unlimited fine if found guilty.

At the time of the shooting police were operating a controversial policy called Operation Kratos, which was developed after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S. and authorized officers to shoot suspected suicide bombers.

De Menezes was shot seven times in the head by anti- terrorist officers at Stockwell Tube station in south London. The incident was investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The Crown Prosecution Service then decided there was not enough evidence to prosecute any individual police officer and to pursue the health and safety case against the police force as a whole.

The mistaken shooting happened in the "extraordinarily difficult circumstances'' of July 22, 2005, and there were "compelling evidential grounds'' to defend the case, the Metropolitan Police said following its Not Guilty plea today.

It also questioned whether a law drafted more than 30 years ago, to protect employees in the workplace, was the right way to evaluate the actions of police officers in an emergency situation.

Last week Commander Cressida Dick, a senior officer who was involved in events on the day of the shooting, was promoted to Deputy Assistant Commissioner, the Metropolitan Police Authority announced Sept. 12.



Comment on this Article

Revealed: the tough interrogation techniques the CIA wants to use

Ed Pilkington in New York and Clare Dyer
Monday September 18, 2006
The Guardian

Details emerged yesterday about the seven interrogation techniques the CIA is seeking to be allowed to apply to terror suspects. Newsweek magazine reported that a New York lawyer, Scott Horton, who has acted as an adviser to the US senate on interrogation methods, had acquired a list of the techniques. The details were corroborated by information obtained by the charity Human Rights Watch.

The techniques sought by the CIA are: induced hypothermia; forcing suspects to stand for prolonged periods; sleep deprivation; a technique called "the attention grab" where a suspect's shirt is forcefully seized; the "attention slap" or open hand slapping that hurts but does not lead to physical damage; the "belly slap"; and sound and light manipulation.
Several of those techniques chime with information gleaned about interrogation methods used against some serious terror suspects. The New York Times recently reported that Abu Zubaydah, the first al-Qaida member captured after the September 11 attacks, was kept in a freezing cell until he went blue, and later assailed with loud Red Hot Chili Peppers music.

The debate on how far the CIA should be allowed to go in aggressively questioning suspects has divided the Republican party after prominent senators led by John McCain of Arizona rebelled against the administration's plans to change Geneva Convention to meet the CIA's demands. Mr McCain told ABC television yesterday that "there is a war we are losing in some ways and that's our standing in the world because of our treatment in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo".

The British attorney general warned the US that its plans would face international condemnation. Speaking to lawyers in Chicago at the weekend, Lord Goldsmith said he had thought hard about interfering in a "sensitive, domestic political debate", but had concluded that the Geneva Convention was "an international standard of very considerable importance and its content must be the same for all nations". Guantánamo Bay had become "a symbol" which "the long American tradition of justice and liberty deserves to see removed at the earliest moment".



Comment on this Article

Terror suspect zips lip; fears retribution from Pakistani ISI (aka CIA)

Sept. 18 2006
UPI

LONDON -- Claimed fear of retribution by Pakistani security agents has brought a temporary halt to terror trial proceedings in London.

Omar Khyam, accused with six others of plotting a bombing campaign in Britain, stopped testifying at the Old Bailey after saying his family in Pakistan had been threatened by Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Service Intelligence, or ISI. "I just want to say the ISI in Pakistan has had words with my family relating to what I have been saying about them," The Evening Standard quoted Khyam as telling the court Monday. "I think they (ISI) are worried I might reveal more about them, so right now ... the priority for me has to be the safety of my family so I am going to stop (testifying).

"I'm not going to discuss anything related to the ISI anymore, or to the evidence."
Khyam, said to be a member of an al-Qaida-related terror cell, was arrested in March 2004 after more than half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer that could be used as an explosive was found in a London storage facility.

Khyam has denied charges of conspiracy to cause an explosion.

In earlier testimony he described how he had traveled to Pakistan to receive military training and how he had raised money through fraud for Islamists in Afghanistan.



Comment on this Article

Asian cycle: An election, then a coup

By Seth Mydans International Herald Tribune
Published: September 20, 2006

The generals billed it as a pro-democracy military coup, and although they had ousted one of the most popular prime ministers in Thailand's history, most commentators here Wednesday tended to agree.

During the night, top military commanders deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a nonviolent coup while he was in New York, concluding a debilitating political standoff that was increasingly dividing the country.
On Wednesday, the coup's leader, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, said that he had acted "to bring back normalcy and harmony" and that he intended to "return power to the Thai people as soon as possible."

That, in so many words, was the hope of Thailand's elite, who had accused Thaksin of corruption and of destroying democratic institutions, even as he continued to enjoy the overwhelming support of rural voters, who had given him Thailand's first outright majority in Parliament.

But whatever the hopes and intentions, Thailand is in a dangerous limbo as the generals work to consolidate control in a fragmented political field and Thaksin, now with his family in London, considers his next moves.

And one more Southeast Asian nation has reinterpreted democracy in undemocratic terms, either manipulating or sidestepping constitutional processes to achieve political ends.

"The crisis in the immediate term has been resolved," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University.

"Thaksin is out of the picture for now," he said. "We can move forward with political reforms. But in the medium and longer term he is still around and his supporters