Peace and Justice Post

Granma Internascional, August 4, 2007

Because of its importance, I am prioritizing this subject, among others.

I am not going to deny that the prerogatives of power, whether real, relative or fictitious, have an influence on human beings, because they were all educated this way, right from the remotest of times of the species.

I did not arrive in just a minute at what I am thinking today about power, but I consider that this is a matter of consistent thinking. I attribute the modest contribution of our Revolution to the fact that our responses to questions have never regressed, despite the harsh reality imposed upon us by the empire’s brutal blockade.

In the reflection published on July 31^st, I explained what it meant for me to have spent a year gathering information and meditating in depth on the vital problems which today threaten our species as never before.

On July 24^th , the Russian news agency Ria Novosti published the following information:

Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, a defense expert, stated that the main instrument of the US policy is the economic, financial, technological and military dictate.

By implementing this, the US is trying to secure the world’s hegemony for itself. Its national security strategy explicitly indicates the necessity of guaranteeing sustainable access, in other words, controlled access, to the key regions of the planet, strategic communications and global resources. It is a strategy that has been turned into a law, and this brings us to the conclusion that in the future the United States will face even tougher conflicts with Russia, China and India.

Washington insists on building a system capable of neutralizing the nuclear potential of Moscow and Peking, its strategic rivals, in order to achieve military superiority. The United States wants to deploy its anti-missile shield not just in Europe but also in other parts of the world, to see what is going on in Russia and China. Likewise, it is seeking to increase its offensive arsenal at a pace that surpasses even that which was followed during the Cold War.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO lost the status it had as a defensive organization when it was founded in 1949, and was transformed into a powerful and aggressive instrument at the service of the world oligarchy, eager to dominate the world. The new strategic concept of the Alliance, approved on April 1999 as a result of the efforts made by the United States, comprises new functions and expands its sphere of responsibilities to include the entire world, not just the North Atlantic. The current Secretary General of NATO, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, frequently visits Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The Alliance has started to ignore International Law and the UN Security Council. Meanwhile, the United States promotes the expansion of NATO and refuses to ratify the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), taking on the right to act outside of any limitations and disposing of troops as it wishes.

The United States would do anything in its power to prevent Russia from being an autonomous player. The debates on anti-missile defence, Iran and Kosovo, have not generated any formulas for compromise.

It is important for Russia to consolidate its positions and recover its geopolitical potential. Early on the 1970’s, when Moscow had achieved nuclear parity with Washington, the latter became aware of the fact that it could not beat Moscow militarily and accepted to negotiate on equal terms. Consequently, in 1972, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABMT) as well as all other subsequent Strategic Arms Limitations Treaties (SALT) were signed. Strength is the only thing that the United States cares about. If it feels to be in a stronger position, it will never make concessions to anyone.

In order to neutralize the plans for world hegemony it is necessary to build an alternative pole, and we already have the foundations to do so: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

In fact, it appears to be rather incorrect to speak about the United States strength. The United States has military power, a vigorous economy and an enormous amount of hard currency which it can mint in unlimited quantities, but the geopolitical level of the country is extremely low. The United States inspires very little political confidence in the rest of the world.

In 1999, China and Russia stated before the UN General Assembly the need to preserve the Anti Missile Defense Treaty of 1972. All nations voted in favour of the proposal except for four: the United States, Israel, Albania and Micronesia. The result bears witness to the United States’ total international isolation.

Without the participation of Russia, it would be impossible to resolve the situation that has taken shape in the Middle East, the Balkans, the Korean Peninsula and other regions of this planet. This also holds true for China, which is able to put up to the pressures exerted by the United States. China enjoys great prestige in the world; it has a powerful economy and a strong currency.

The SCO ought to recruit new allies and combine the potential of those countries which want to and are capable of implementing an autonomous policy. First, it is necessary to officially proclaim the rejection against the United States world hegemony. Second, China and Russia must denounce the deployment of the US anti-missile defense system before the UN Security Council, as an action altering the architecture of global security and threatening the entire international community. China, India and Russia could form a united front in the face of the United States’ dictates. It is also possible to propose the stabilization of the global financial system as a task. Within the SCO framework, a novel philosophy could be formulated, based on the harmony among civilizations and on the rational use of natural resources. The majority of States will surely support such measures, of that I am convinced. Thus, a new political pole will come into being, the pole of peace. The SCO mission is to create a new model of development for human civilization.

Only an alliance of civilizations could oppose the United States’ empire: the Russian civilization whose orbit includes the Community of Independent States (CIS); the Chinese, the Indian, the Islamic and the Latin American civilizations. It is an immense space where we could create more equitable markets, our own stable financial system, our collective security mechanisms and our philosophy, giving priority to the intellectual development of man in the face of western modern civilization, which emphasizes material goods, and measures success by the amounts of mansions, yachts and restaurants people have. Our mission is to reorient the world towards justice and intellectual and spiritual growth.

So much for Ivashov’s essential thoughts, as published by Ria Novosti.

We have been able to find out that General Leonid Ivashov is Vice President of the Academy on Geopolitical Affairs; he was Secretary of the Council of Defence Ministers of the Community of Independent States (CIS) and Chief of the Military Cooperation Department at the Russian Federation Ministry of Defence. On September 11, 2001, the day when the tragic events in New York occurred, which served as a pretext to define the basis of the genocidal policy of the United States almost 6 years ago, General Ivashov was the Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. He is a truly well-informed man. It is worthwhile that our people know about his views.

The concern which the Cuban Revolution has always had about the education of the people is obvious. Judging by my own experience, I soon came across the idea that only conscience could prevail over the instincts that govern us. Technological advances today speak of the possibility of manipulating the functions of the cells in the human brain. What good would all this do in a world ruled by the commercial value of goods and services? Who will have the final say in this regard? By this means and through the shameless brain drain, a phenomenon we should adamantly continue to discuss, the most valuable part of the human being could be destroyed: a human being’s education via its conscience.

Laboratories can produce medicines to save lives, which could be something of great social value provided such products are available to all. But laboratories are also manufacturing all kinds of weapons that could put an end to human life.

Commercial advertising and consumerism are incompatible with the survival of the species. After all possible calculations, you will realize that natural resources, space, climate, weather, and the system cannot yield any other outcome, given their pace and the direction in which they are moving.

Fidel Castro Ruz

August 3, 2007.

7:15 p.m.

Dissident

August 2nd, 2007 /

By Matthew Rothschild

August 2007 Issue

You don’t have to dust for long before finding Dick Cheney’s grimy fingerprints all over the Bush crime scene. It’s becoming clearer by the day that behind every one of Bush’s illegal actions lurks the shadow of the Vice President. Never in our history have we had a Vice President who grabbed so much power. And never have we had a President so lazy that he was willing to divest so much power to such a man.

Cheney has said that it is his mission to aggrandize the Executive Branch. And then he notoriously argued that he was not part of the Executive Branch, placing himself on a new twig all by his lonesome.

This is a man who has no respect for our system of checks and balances. It is high time he was impeached.

Bush, too, should be impeached, for they are partners in crime. But there is a certain logic in impeaching Cheney first. After all, who would want to impeach Bush and be left with Cheney? And secondly, the path of criminality, time after time, leads back to Cheney.

Full article

The Nation, July 30, 2007

The Deadly Occupation

One day in January 2005, an elderly couple was driving down a road in Mosul, Iraq, when without realizing it they passed through a makeshift US military checkpoint. The checkpoint, recalled a sergeant who came upon the scene, was “very poorly marked.” Yet, he said, the soldiers “got spooked” and opened fire. The bodies of the couple sat in the car for three days, the sergeant said, “while we drove by them day after day.”

That incident was no Haditha or Abu Ghraib. It was a fairly typical day for Iraqis under US occupation. As Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian make clear in their exhaustive investigation in this issue, the degradation and killing of civilians by US troops have become commonplace in Iraq. At tense checkpoints, in futile house-to-house searches, as convoys and patrols hurtle down the roads, the official rules of engagement and unofficial day-to-day practices of the occupation often add up to shoot first and ask questions never. The results make for tough reading: a family’s dog gunned down for barking, a 2-year-old shot in a spray of gunfire, the terrified scream of a father awakened in a midnight raid. Few such incidents were reported, according to most of those interviewed; even fewer resulted in discipline.

Full article

 August 2nd, 2007

Pakistanis Disappeared

by Geezer Power …7:23 PM PDT

Have Pakistan’s security forces secretly detained hundreds of suspected terrorists? Reports are growing that the government is using the war on terror as an excuse for a general clampdown.

“We want our husbands and sons back”, laments one woman. Human Rights groups claim hundreds of people have been arrested and their detention officially denied. “The government has been using the war on terror as an excuse to suppress political opposition”. Relatives of the missing are now trying to use the courts to find out info about their loved ones.

VIDEO

Source: Canoe.ca

By ANDREW O. SELSKY   SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees told a U.S. appeals court Wednesday the United States violated its own rules when it branded hundreds of prisoners as enemy combatants – and based the argument on statements by two U.S. military officers. The lawyers asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to order the immediate release of Mohammed Sulaymon Barre, a Somali among some 360 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Barre was arrested in Pakistan in November 2001 after he obtained refugee status from a UN agency. Shane Kadidal, a New York City lawyer, said petitions will be filed for other Guantanamo detainees, alleging the military violated rules of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals – military panels that determine whether someone was an enemy combatant who should be held. Barre’s lawyers said a navy rear admiral who was in charge of the tribunal system noted in an affidavit the military, at least in some cases, did not present all exculpatory evidence. In his May 31 statement, Rear Admiral James McGarrah acknowledged “if certain information which suggested that the detainee should not be designated as an enemy combatant was duplicative” then that “duplicative information” might not have been presented to the tribunals at Guantanamo. Evidence indicating a detainee was not an enemy combatant may also have been excluded “if it did not relate to a specific allegation being made against the detainee,” McGarrah said. Combatant Status Review Tribunals have been held for about 570 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, a U.S. naval base in southeastern Cuba. The military determined all but 38 were “no longer enemy combatants.” Rules issued by deputy secretary of defence Gordon England in July 2006 stipulate any “evidence to suggest that the detainee should not be designated as an enemy combatant” must be presented to the tribunal. A Pentagon spokesman defended the process Wednesday, referring to a statement by U.S. Justice Department lawyers that said: “It is manifestly reasonable not to fill the administrative record with duplicative material.” Furthermore, presenting exculpatory evidence unrelated to a specific allegation against the detainee “would be useless at best and confusing at worst,” the Justice Department lawyers argued. Wednesday’s petition was filed by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many of the Guantanamo detainees. It did not file the petition on behalf of other detainees because the court previously requested cases be presented individually, Kadidal said. The petition also cited a statement by Army Reserve Lt.-Col. Stephen Abraham, a 26-year veteran of military intelligence who served as a main liaison between the Combatant Status Review Tribunals and intelligence agencies. Abraham’s affidavit, submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in June, said Combatant Status Review Tribunal members relied on vague and incomplete intelligence, while under pressure to rule against detainees. Wednesday’s petition said Abraham’s statements show the Combatant Status Review Tribunals “were an irremediable sham.” It said among the exculpatory evidence the military failed to present was that Barre was recognized by the United Nations as a refugee from war-torn Somalia. His lawyers maintain he was never a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer. He is accused of having links to al-Wafa, a charity the U.S. State Department classifies as a terrorist organization. Barre has consistently denied that.

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uruknet.info

Khalid Amayreh

Hebron, August 1, 2007 Israel occupation soldiers have vandalized and desecrated Palestinian graves near the southern West Bank town of Hebron, locals and human rights activists said. According to relatives, hundreds of soldiers and as many as 20 military vehicles stormed the small village of “Marah al- Baqqar” on Tuesday, 31 August, terrorizing locals and vandalizing property. The forces reportedly stormed the village shortly after midnight Monday amid intensive shooting. The village was placed under military curfew, locals said. At one point, a military bulldozer destroyed two graves, exposing the remains of the dead. “I don’t know if Hitler did this to the Jews, but look how they are treating us. This is the same people who make a big outcry whenever someone touches a Jewish grave in Europe ,” said Aziz Amer. Taleb Hasan Amr, an 80 -year-old, whose son’s and mother’s graves were desecrated said he never saw such a brutal ugliness in his life. “I lived under many states, but never saw some thing like this. Imagine, they are after the dead. Where is the conscience of the world? These people are worse than the Nazis.” Amr, whose son was imprisoned by Israel and eventually died of torture at the hands of Israeli interrogators fifteen years ago, said Israel gives no weight and has no concern for non-Jews whether dead or living. “Imagine how they would react if something like this happened to Jewish graves in Warsaw or Leon.” It is not clear why the Israeli army desecrated the graves at the small hamlet. An Israeli army spokesperson refused to answer questions in this regard, saying “I can’t comment on military operations by the Israeli Defense Forces.” A high-ranking Palestinian Islamic Wakf official described the desecration as “an evil act reflecting the brutal ugliness of the Zionist mentality.” “I am 100% sure that the Israeli army wouldn’t do this if the graves were of Jews, not non-Jews. Maybe Jews should reflect why they are hated so much around the world. Maybe they should understand that respect is a two-way street, maybe they should realize that the actions and behaviors of Jews cause anti-Semitism,” said Sheikh Taysir Tamimi, the PA supreme judge. The Israeli occupation army has been carrying out daily raids against Palestinian population centers all over the West Bank during which young people are arrested, locals terrorized, humiliated and beaten and private and public property is vandalized. Israel is holding as many as 11,000 Palestinian activists in squalid conditions in several detention camps. The largest and most notorious detention camp is known as Ketziot in the heart of the Negev desert. Many of the prisoners are held without charge or trial, and used as hostages to blackmail the Palestinian Authority and Hamas into giving political concessions to Israel . Hundreds of Sudanese refugees from the troubled region of Darfur are also languishing in the Ketziot jail, next to the Palestinians. However, the Sudanese prisoners are separated from the Palestinians and are not allowed to intermix or speak with them.

LewRockwell.com

By Eric Margolis

WASHINGTON – The capital may be buzzing with talk about the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, but the US Air Force appears to be planning for a long stay in Mesopotamia and Central Asia.

The USAF is reported to be expanding its air bases in Iraq, including lengthening a second 11,000-ft runway at Balad Airbase, a nerve center for American air operations. There are persistent reports from the Pentagon that the US intends to keep four to six major military bases in Iraq, each with a powerful air component, and a 3,500-man helicopter-mobile, rapid reaction infantry brigade. Other US operating air bases in Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Pakistan, and Central Asia are being steadily improved.

Bush Administration hawks hope to retain control of oil-rich Iraq, and sharply decrease the number of US battle casualties, by using American air power and Iraqi troops. Iraqi “native” troops, or “sepoys,” as the British used to call its local mercenaries, will do all the dirty work on the ground and keep the populace under control.

US air power and infantry will only intervene when Iraqi sepoys get into trouble. This is precisely the same formula use by the British Empire to rule Iraq after World War I. Winston Churchill even authorized use of mustard gas by the RAF against rebellious Kurdish tribesmen – and troublesome Pashtun tribesmen on India’s Northwest frontier.

Full article

Torture -The Guantanamo

Guidebook

Channel 4’s programme examines torture in the war on terror by exposing seven volunteers to methods reported to have been used by American interrogators on alleged terrorists at the Guantanamo Bay camp.

The Guantanamo Guidebook reconstructs the regime at the US’s Cuban base. For 48 hours, seven volunteers are subjected to interrogation techniques known to be used in the camp, ranging from harassment and abuse to sensory deprivation – with shocking results.