Peace and Justice Post

RINF.com, January 13, 2008

S President George W. Bush claims Iran is a threat to global security, calling on Arab allies to join the US to confront the nation.

“Iran is today the world’s leading state sponsor of terror,” Bush alleged in his speech in the capital of the UAE, Abu Dhabi.

He said that Washington and Arab countries must join together to deal with the danger ‘before it’s too late’.

Bush alleged that Iran funded terrorist extremists, undermined peace in Lebanon, and provided arms for the Taliban.

Iran’s actions threaten the security of nations everywhere; it seeks ‘to intimidate its neighbors with missiles and bellicose rhetoric’, Bush continued.

US allies in the region have expressed concern that Bush’s war of words against Tehran may be aimed at drumming up support for military action against Iran.

The oil-rich Arab countries say any conflict could lead to insecurity in the whole region.

Senior Arab officials have repeatedly said that they will not allow the United States to use their countries as a launch pad for any strike against Iran.

“Mr. President, the region needs smart initiatives not smart bombs,” wrote Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai in a front-page editorial, following Bush’s trip to the country.

CS/DT/RE

Opednews.com,

Bhutto’s assassination by gun men was a pre-emptive strike! She might have exposed the CIA as the World’s number one terrorist organization. Pakistan Dictator Pervez Musharraf, Bush’s man in Pakistan, blames the victim. In some perverted sense, he may be right. Bhutto may have signed her own death warrant with the famous statement (censored by the BBC) that Bin Laden was murdered by Saeed Sheikh. [Her remarks found here]

Bhutto pulled the rug from under Bush’s official 911 conspiracy theory. We must chalk up to official fraud and exploitation several “video tapes” that Bushies attributed to the world’s arch fiend, Osama bin Laden, the Lex Luthor of terror. Bush critics are now confirmed; there is no reason to suppose that bin Laden ever stopped being a CIA asset. While alive, that is.

Continued . . .

RINF.com, January 12, 2008

By John Catalinotto

In an attempt to limit political damage and protect the highest officials, the new U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has ordered a special investigation of the decision in 2005 to destroy tapes of CIA interrogations made in 2002 of two alleged high-level Al-Qaeda officials. The investigation is limited to how the decision was made and who made it. It is not supposed to probe the content of the tapes, which are said to show brutal interrogations using torture.

Washington often claims to be the champion of “human rights” and uses an alleged lack of human rights to attack or impose sanctions on those it considers its enemies. Since the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, however, Washington and especially the CIA have become identified with torture of prisoners, from Baghram in Afghanistan, to Abu Ghraib in Iraq, to Guantánamo on the U.S.-occupied eastern tip of Cuba.

Keep reading . . .

The New York Times,

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Demonstrators wearing orange jumpsuits intended to simulate prison garb were arrested inside and outside the building in the early afternoon. ”Shut it down,” protesters chanted as others kneeled on the plaza in front of the court.

They were charged with violating an ordinance that prohibits demonstrations of any kind on court grounds. Those arrested inside the building also were charged under a provision that makes it a crime to give ”a harangue or oration” in the Supreme Court building.

The maximum penalty is 60 days in jail, a fine or both.

The court is considering whether prisoners still detained at Guantanamo Bay have a right to challenge their confinement in U.S. courts.

Officials briefly closed the court building during the protest. It reopened around 2 p.m. EST.

Protests were also held some other world capitals.

In Manila, Philippines, about 30 activists picketed the U.S. Embassy to demand the camp’s closure. ”We are appealing to President Bush and the U.S. government to close Guantanamo Bay now,” said Aurora Parong, director of Amnesty International in the Philippines.

Small demonstrations by Amnesty supporters, also in orange jumpsuits, were held in Rome; Prague, Czech Republic; Brussels, Belgium; and Budapest, Hungary.

Consortiumnews.com, January 12, 2008

By Ray McGovern

When the Tonkin Gulf incident took place in early August 1964, I was a journeyman CIA analyst in what Condoleezza Rice refers to as “the bowels of the agency.”

As a current intelligence analyst responsible for Russian policy toward Southeast Asia and China, I worked very closely with those responsible for analysis of Vietnam and China.

Out of that experience I must say that, as much as one might be tempted to laugh at the bizarre theatrical accounts of Sunday’s incident involving small Iranian boats and U.S. naval ships in the Strait of Hormuz, this is—as my old Russian professor used to insist—nothing to laugh.

The situation is so reminiscent of what happened—and didn’t happen—from Aug. 2-4, 1964, in the Gulf of Tonkin and in Washington, it is in no way funny.

At the time, t0 of whom were killed—not to mention the estimated two million Vietnamese who lost their lives by then and in the ensuing 10 years.

Ten years. How can our president speak so glibly about 10 more years of a U.S. armed presence in Iraq? He must not rememhe U.S. had about 16,000 troops in South Vietnam. The war that was “justified” by the Tonkin Gulf resolution of Aug. 7, 1964, led to a buildup of 535,000 U.S. troops in the late Sixties, 58,00ber Vietnam.

Keep reading . . .

Wiredispatch.com

REUTERS
Reuters North American News Service

Jan 11, 2008 16:53 EST