AS THE WORLD SQUIRMS

Monday – December 11, 2006

Trenchant Political Comment, Videos and More…

~Note: Articles & commentaries contained herein may have hotlinks, emphasis and formatting added to afford an additional perspective.~

~Favorite Quotes~

American Conservative: Bush’s Torture/Dictatorship Scandal

Bush’s Torture Ticking Time Bomb: Sins of Commission

George Bush’s Military Commissions Act [MCA] “…grants fewer rights to defendants than the Nazis got at Nuremberg.”

James Bovard

The American Conservative

12.18.06 Issue

(Excerpt)

Have Republicans become the party of torture, secret prisons, and indefinite detention? In his speech last month on signing the Military Commissions Act [MCA}, President Bush declared that the bill “sends a clear message… We will never back down from the threats to our freedom.” “Rough interrogation” (a.k.a. torture) in the name of freedom may be Bush’s clearest ideological legacy.

Bush endlessly reminds listeners that “the U.S. does not torture” and that “torture is not an American value.” But “What is torture?” is the Bush version of the Pontius Pilate question. Bush appears to be using the definition of torture crafted by Justice Department official John Yoo: if detainees weren’t maimed or killed, they weren’t tortured. And the Justice Department acts as if, even if detainees are killed during interrogations, it is best to treat the deaths as harmless errors.

The MCA was rushed through Congress in September to overturn a Supreme Court decision that struck down Bush’s military tribunals and scorning of the Geneva Conventions. The new law - far more dangerous than the more controversial Patriot Act - is perhaps the biggest disgrace Congress has enacted since the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Stephen Gray, the author of Ghost Plane, notes, “The act grants fewer rights to defendants than the Nazis got at Nuremberg.”

Something's Gotta Give

James Baker Versus the Israel Lobby

Mike Whitney

Counterpunch.org

12.9-10.06

(Excerpt)

An AP poll conducted this week shows that only 9% of Americans believe that "victory" in Iraq is possible. Even the hard-core Bush loyalists have abandoned the sinking ship. The only group left touting Bush's failed policy is the "Israel first" camp which continues to wave the bloody shirt of incitement from their perch at the Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute. These same diehards are leading the charge for a preemptive attack on Iran; a criminal act which will have catastrophic effects on America's long-term energy needs.

An article which appeared in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz shows how confident Prime Minister Olmert is in the ability of the Jewish Lobby to torpedo the Baker-Hamilton report and steer the US away from changes in Iraq:

"On his way home from Los Angeles, the Prime Minister calmed' the reporters and perhaps even himself" by saying there is no danger of the US President George Bush accepting the expected recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton panel, and attempting to move Syria out of the axis of evil and into a coalition to extricate America from Iraq. The Prime Minister hopes the Jewish Lobby can rally a Democratic majority in the new Congress to counter any diversion from the status quo on the Palestinians. (Akiva Eldar, "The Gewalt Agenda")

Olmert has good reason to be "calm". While the new Congress is being apprised of its duties to Israel, the Brookings Institute is convening a forum at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy entitled: "America and Israel: Confronting a Middle east in Turmoil". The meeting will be attended by Israeli right-wing extremist, Avigdor Lieberman, as well as political big-wigs, Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The context of the meeting suggests that right-leaning Israelis will be informing their friends in the Democratic Party about the anticipated attack on Iran, as well as discussing strategies for sabotaging Baker's report. If we see the Democrats lambasting the ISGs recommendations next week; we'll know why.

So, the battle lines have been drawn. On one side we have James Baker and his corporate classmates who want to restore order while preserving America's imperial role in the region. And, on the other side, we have the neo-Trotskyites and Israeli-Jacobins who seek a fragmented and chaotic Middle East where Israel is the dominant power. (see "A Clean Break")

~ VIDEO: Jimmy Carter on ‘Hardball’ ~

Former U.S. President’s Bestselling Book Denouncing Israel 'Apartheid' Draws Bitter Attack From U.S. Israel Lobby

By Karen DeYoung

Washington Post Staff Writer

12.7.06
(Excerpt)

A veteran Middle East scholar affiliated with the Carter Center in Atlanta resigned his position there Monday in an escalating controversy over former president Jimmy Carter's bestselling book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," traces the ups and downs of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process beginning with Carter's 1977-1980 presidency and the historic peace accord he negotiated between Israel and Egypt and continuing to the present. Although it apportions blame to Israel, the Palestinians and outside parties -- including the United States -- for the failure of decades of peace efforts, it is sharply critical of Israeli policy and concludes that "Israel's continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land."

Speaking frankly about Israel and Palestine

Jimmy Carter says his recent book is drawing

knee-jerk accusations of anti-Israel bias.

Opinion: Op Ed

Jimmy Carter

Los Angeles Times

12.8.06

(Excerpt)

With some degree of reluctance and some uncertainty about the reception my book would receive, I used maps, text and documents to describe the situation accurately and to analyze the only possible path to peace: Israelis and Palestinians living side by side within their own internationally recognized boundaries. These options are consistent with key U.N. resolutions supported by the U.S. and Israel, official American policy since 1967, agreements consummated by Israeli leaders and their governments in 1978 and 1993 (for which they earned Nobel Peace Prizes), the Arab League's offer to recognize Israel in 2002 and the International Quartet's "Roadmap for Peace," which has been accepted by the PLO and largely rejected by Israel.

The book is devoted to circumstances and events in Palestine and not in Israel, where democracy prevails and citizens live together and are legally guaranteed equal status.

Although I have spent only a week or so on a book tour so far, it is already possible to judge public and media reaction. Sales are brisk, and I have had interesting interviews on TV, including "Larry King Live," "Hardball," "Meet the Press," "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," the "Charlie Rose" show, C-SPAN and others. But I have seen few news stories in major newspapers about what I have written.

Book reviews in the mainstream media have been written mostly by representatives of Jewish organizations [Context] who would be unlikely to visit the occupied territories, and their primary criticism is that the book is anti-Israel. Two members of Congress have been publicly critical. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for instance, issued a statement (before the book was published) saying that "he does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel." Some reviews posted on Amazon.com call me "anti-Semitic," and others accuse the book of "lies" and "distortions." A former Carter Center fellow has taken issue with it, and Alan Dershowitz called the book's title "indecent."

Out in the real world, however, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I've signed books in five stores, with more than 1,000 buyers at each site. I've had one negative remark — that I should be tried for treason — and one caller on C-SPAN said that I was an anti-Semite. My most troubling experience has been the rejection of my offers to speak, for free, about the book on university campuses with high Jewish enrollment and to answer questions from students and professors. I have been most encouraged by prominent Jewish citizens and members of Congress who have thanked me privately for presenting the facts and some new ideas.

The book describes the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine's citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank. An enormous imprisonment wall is now under construction, snaking through what is left of Palestine to encompass more and more land for Israeli settlers. In many ways, this is more oppressive than what blacks lived under in South Africa during apartheid. I have made it clear that the motivation is not racism but the desire of a minority of Israelis to confiscate and colonize choice sites in Palestine, and then to forcefully suppress any objections from the displaced citizens. Obviously, I condemn any acts of terrorism or violence against innocent civilians, and I present information about the terrible casualties on both sides.

The ultimate purpose of my book is to present facts about the Middle East that are largely unknown in America, to precipitate discussion and to help restart peace talks (now absent for six years) that can lead to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbors. Another hope is that Jews and other Americans who share this same goal might be motivated to express their views, even publicly, and perhaps in concert. I would be glad to help with that effort.

News & Comment

“Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder

respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

~George Orwell~

Land of the Free???

“Tough Laws” Give US Most Prisoners in World and Highest Rate of Incarceration

Reuters

12.10.06

(Excerpt)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tough sentencing laws, record numbers of drug offenders and high crime rates have contributed to the United States having the largest prison population and the highest rate of incarceration in the world, according to criminal justice experts.

According to the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College in London, more people are behind bars in the United States than in any other country. China ranks second with 1.5 million prisoners, followed by Russia with 870,000.

The U.S. incarceration rate of 737 per 100,000 people in the highest, followed by 611 in Russia and 547 for St. Kitts and Nevis. In contrast, the incarceration rates in many Western industrial nations range around 100 per 100,000 people.

“The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”

~ John Stuart Mill – Essay: On Liberty

2 Million Protest Lebanese Government

Crispian Balmer

Reuters

12.10.06

(Excerpt)

There were no official estimates of the crowd size on Sunday but one security source said it was the largest such gathering ever seen in Lebanon. Opposition sources said the crowd was 2 million strong -- roughly half Lebanon's population.

Speakers told the throngs that the government was in the thrall of the United States, repeating accusations that Siniora's allies had hoped Israel would crush the Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah in its recent war with Israel.

"I tell you that after the (Israeli) aggression ... there is no place for America in Lebanon," said Hezbollah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Kassem, speaking behind bullet proof-glass.

The crowd responded: "Death to America, death to Israel, long live a dignified Lebanon."

Rabbi Moishe Ayre Friedman, left, from Austria, give his business card to a Muslim clergyman, as Rabbi Ahron Cohen from England, looks on, at a conference on the Holocaust, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, Dec. 11, 2006. Iran on Monday opened a conference that it said would examine whether the Holocaust took place, claiming the meeting was an opportunity to discuss the World War II genocide in an atmosphere free of what it termed Western taboos. Even before it opened, the gathering was condemned by Germany, the United States and Israel.

(AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iran Opens Holocaust Conference

By Nasser Karimi
Washington Post (via AP)
Monday, December 11, 2006; 6:41 AM

(Except)

The organizers, the [Iranian] Foreign Ministry's Institute for Political and International Studies, say the two-day conference has drawn 67 foreign researchers from 30 countries.

In his opening speech, the institute's chief, Rasoul Mousavi, said the conference provided an opportunity to discuss "questions" about the Holocaust away from Western taboos and the restrictions imposed on scholars in Europe.

In Germany, Austria and France, it is illegal to deny the Holocaust.

"This conference seeks neither to deny nor prove the Holocaust," Mousavi said. "It is just to provide an appropriate scientific atmosphere for scholars to offer their opinions in freedom about a historical issue."

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki dismissed the foreign criticism as "predictable," telling conference delegates in a speech that there was "no logical reason for opposing this conference."

"The objective for organizing this conference is to create an atmosphere to raise various opinions about a historical issue. We are not seeking to deny or prove the Holocaust," Mottaki said.

Mr. Lieberman Comes to Washington

Brookings Hosts an Israeli Ethnic Cleanser

Will Youmans

Counterpunch.org

12.8.06

(Excerpt)

When far-right leader Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party joined the Israeli government, pro-peace Israelis expressed outrage. The Brookings Institution extended an invitation.

Brookings' Saban Center for Middle East Policy is holding the third annual Saban Forum in Washington, D.C. from December 8 through the 10th. This year's forum is entitled "America and Israel: Confronting a Middle East in Turmoil" "turmoil," meaning pissed off Arabs, of course.

In his new book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, Jimmy Carter charges that we lack a national discussion about our nation's support for Israel.

Gulf states announce nuclear plan

Six oil-rich Gulf nations have said they are considering seeking nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

BBC-London

12.10.06

(Excerpt)

Officials from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE also urged a peaceful settlement to the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme.

The six Arab states said they were exploring the possibility of creating a shared nuclear programme.

They stressed their right to nuclear energy and emphasised that any programme would be peaceful.

Officials from the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) - a grouping of regional states - have been meeting in Riyadh.

A GCC statement released on Sunday said: "The states of the region have a right to possess nuclear technology for peaceful purposes."

The neocons have finished what the Vietcong started

Vietnam traumatised the US but left its power intact; Iraq, however, will be far more serious for the superpower

Martin Jacques
Friday December 8, 2006
The Guardian-London

(Excerpt)

Before our eyes, the neoconservative position is disintegrating. Its foreign-policy tenets have been shown to be false. As is now openly admitted, they have brought the US to the verge of disaster in Iraq, which is why the American version of the "men in grey suits" has ridden to the rescue. After less than six years in office, elected at a time when the US was unchallenged as the sole superpower, the Bush administration has managed to deliver the country to the edge of what can only be compared to a Vietnam moment: the political and military defeat of the central and defining plank of American foreign policy…

... From a longer-term perspective, moreover, it is already clear that it will be im-possible for the Americans to restore the status quo ante in the region. The failure of the occupation has shown the limitations of its power - which every country, from Iran and Syria to Israel and Saudi Arabia (not to mention Hizbullah and Hamas), will have noted. The US has been the decisive arbiter in the Middle East since the end of the Suez crisis in 1956, albeit with the Soviet Union playing a secondary role until 1989. The American era is now over.

In future the US will be forced to share its influence with regional powers such as Iran, with the EU - and no doubt in time, with emerging global players such as China and perhaps even Russia. Such a scenario may well mean that the key alliance that has shaped the Middle East since 1956 - between the US and Israel - will no longer be so pivotal and could be increasingly downgraded. From a regional standpoint, it is clear that the Iraq moment is far more serious for the US than the Vietnam moment.

What is true regionally is also the case globally. We are reminded of how even the most powerful and, indeed, the most knowledgeable can get things profoundly wrong. It is worthwhile recalling the longer-term global context of the American defeat in Vietnam. It did not signal any serious upturn in the fortunes of the Soviet Union; this was already in a state of economic stagnation and growing political paralysis that was to become terminal in the 80s, leaving the US as the sole superpower. It was this that encouraged the neoconservatives to utterly misread the historical runes at the end of the 90s. They believed that the world was ripe for a huge expansion of American power and influence.

“Hearts and Minds…”

Iraqis: New US Raid Killed Children, Women

By Ibon Villelabeitia

Reuters

12.8.06

(Excerpt)

Police and officials in Ishaqi, 90 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, said the bodies of 17 civilians, including six women and five children, were found in the rubble of two homes.

"The Americans have done this before but they always deny it," Ishaqi Mayor Amer Alwan told Reuters by telephone. "I want the world to know what's happening here."

Complaints that unjustified killings by U.S. troops are common have soured Iraqis' sentiment toward the U.S. presence in Iraq and prompted Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki earlier this year to say he was losing patience over such reports.

“Hearts & Minds…”

4 Afghan Civilians Killed in NATO Airstrike

Zeenews.com - India

12.10.06

(Excerpt)

Kabul, Dec 10: At least four Afghan civilians were killed and one was wounded in a NATO-led airstrike against Taliban insurgents in eastern Afghanistan, a police commander said on Sunday.

The civilians were killed yesterday in an airstrike that was part of a "mid-scale" operation launched this week against militants in Laghman province just east of Kabul, local police chief, Abdul Karim Omeryar said.

"Yes, a house was bombed by NATO planes. I know four people were killed and one was injured -- they were civilians," the police chief said.

Karzai Cries, Says Children Are Dying From Terror and NATO Bombs

International Herald Tribune (IHT)

12.10.06

(Excerpt)

In a heartfelt speech that brought audience members to tears, Karzai said the cruelty imposed on his people "is too much" and that Afghanistan can't stop "the coalition from killing our children."

Afghanistan War Nears "Tipping Point"

Government support is flagging, NATO is split on strategy, and Taliban fighters are revitalized.

By Laura King and David Holley, Times Staff Writers

Los Angeles Times
12.9.06

(Excerpt)

The conflict in Afghanistan has entered a dangerous phase, and the next three to six months could prove crucial in determining whether the United States and its NATO partners can suppress a revitalized enemy - or will be dragged into another drawn-out and costly fight with an Islamic insurgency, according to senior military and security officials and diplomats.

Pentagon Fomenting the "Civil War" in Iraq?

La Voz del Aztlan

Global Research

12.7.06

The Pentagon's "Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)" is behind many of the terrorist attacks in Iraq. The car bombings, assassinations, sabotage, kidnappings and attacks on mosques are designed to cause violence and discord between Sunnis and Shiites. P2OG in collusion with Israeli IDF and MOSSAD operatives are responsible for a series of secret covert operations whose purpose is to create an all out civil war in Iraq. The ultimate purpose is to dismember the country, achieve complete control and make it easier for the USA and Zionist Israel to profit from Iraq's vast oil resources.

As part of the Pentagon's well funded programme, the CIA and Israeli MOSSAD have been training and arming the Kurds for terror raids inside Iraq. The Israeli operatives are also helping train US special forces in aggressive counter-insurgency operations, including the use of assassination squads against guerrilla leaders, prominent Iraqi academics, scientists, politicians and religious leaders. .

Their first major operation was the bombing on February 22, 2006 of the Shiite Askariya shrine in Samarra, also known as the Golden Mosque. The mosque was a very well thought out target that holds the tombs of two revered 9th-century imams of the Shiite branch of Islam. The attack on the Golden Mosque began at 7 a.m., when a dozen men dressed in paramilitary uniforms entered the shrine and handcuffed four guards who were sleeping in a back room. The attackers then placed a bomb in the dome and detonated it, collapsing most of the dome and heavily damaging an adjoining wall.

The covert operation against the Golden Mosque was designed to provoke Shiite groups into committing violent acts and retaliations against the Sunnis. Sunni political leaders said retaliatory attacks hit more than 20 Sunni mosques across Iraq with bombs, gunfire or arson. Authorities reported at least 18 people killed in the aftermath, including two Sunni clerics. In one incident, in Basra in southern Iraq, police said gunmen in police uniforms broke into a jail, seized 12 Sunni men and later killed them. These attacks against the Sunnis were also carried out by operatives under the Pentagon's "Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group".

The Pentagon blamed the bombing of the Golden Mosque on al-Qaeda but cleric Abdul Zara Saidy had another explanation. He said the mosque attack was the work of "occupiers," or Americans, "and Zionists".

Rainer Hachfeld, Berlin, Germany, Neues Deutschland

Hugo Chavez: 'I Doubt US Gov't Is Sincere'

NewsMax.com, FL

12.5.06

(Excerpt)

"They want dialogue but on the condition that you accept their positions," Chavez said at his first news conference since his overwhelming re-election.

President Hugo Chavez snubbed a U.S. overture for dialogue on Tuesday, saying he is always willing to talk but doubts Washington sincerely wants to improve relations.

Chavez, who overwhelmingly won another six-year term in elections Sunday, said if the U.S. really wants to take meaningful steps, it would halt the war in Iraq and extradite a jailed Cuban militant who is wanted in Venezuela for a 1976 airliner bombing.

"If the government of the United States wants dialogue, Venezuela will always have its door open," he said. "But I doubt the U.S. government is sincere."

The comments from Chavez came shortly after U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield congratulated Venezuelans on a peaceful vote and expressed Washington's willingness to seek a less conflictive relationship with Chavez.

(Speaking of the CPA, UK investigators now say they've found traces of Polonium 201, the radioactive isotope believed to have killed Litvinenko, in the London offices of Erinys, a private security company. As I noted in Counterpunch back in December 2003, Bush's CPA gave Erinys's Iraqi branch - formed as a joint venture with business cronies and family members of big-time shadowlander Ahmad Chalabi - $80 million to guard oil pipelines in the conquered land. This has grown into an armed force of 16,000 men - something of a militia, one might say. The freebooters also bagged big money riding shotgun for Halliburton and Bechtel in those palmy CPA days of yore. And as the Guardian reports, Erinys is also active in Russia. You pull at one string in the shadowlands, and a whole tangled nest of other dark business starts shaking somewhere else.)

The leaping lord's PR shop has also represented Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko, another victim of a spectacularly ham-handed poisoning laid at the Kremlin's door. Yet another client was former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, whose "miraculous" 1996 election victory - in the face of single-digit approval ratings - was engineered by a small group of oligarchs who were later given carte blanche to plunder Russia's state-owned enterprises and vast natural resources for private profit. The acknowledged leader of this clique - which had muscled its way to riches and power in the brutal, Hobbesian free-for-all that characterized the Yeltsin years - was of course a certain Boris Berezovsky.

An extraordinarily prescient TV interview with General Norman Schwarzkopf and Robert Gates - Deputy National Security Advisor to Former President George Bush Sr.

Why Invading Iraq Was A Very Stupid Idea…

(Click on blinking dot above for video)