Peace and Justice Post

By Robert Parry | Consortiumnews. com, March 26, 2008

Two weeks ago, I wrote a story that observed a disturbing trend in Hillary Clinton’s campaign – her growing tendency to stretch the truth, twist what her chief rival was saying and then rely on her supporters to go on the offensive against you if you spoke up.

These tendencies were troubling, in part, because they mirrored what had become so common during George W. Bush’s years: to declare that a fantasy is the truth and then to attack the patriotism or sanity of anyone who thinks otherwise. I wrote:

“Throughout history, it’s been common for politicians to shade the truth when caught in a tight spot. But sometimes politicians push the limits, crossing the line into an Orwellian world where up is down, where bullies are victims, where people objecting to the lies are shouted down.”

The article cited a number of examples of Clinton turning reality inside out and repeating false attack lines against Barack Obama, such as claiming that he wanted to “bomb Pakistan” when he really advocated attacking al-Qaeda targets inside Pakistan if the government there refused to act. [See “Clinton’s Up-Is-Down World.”]

Continued . . .

By Penny Coleman, AlterNet. Posted March 26, 2008

There are at least 60,000 of them, but they’re not on the DoD’s list of soldiers missing in action.

Sgt. Kristofer Shawn Goldsmith was one of the many soldiers and Marines, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, who gave testimony at last weekend’s Winter Soldier investigation. They spoke from personal experience about what the American military is doing in those countries. They gave examples of what they had done, what they had been ordered to do, what they had witnessed, how their experiences had wounded them, both physically and psychically, and what kind of care and support they have, or most often have not gotten since coming home. The panel Goldsmith was on was called “The Breakdown of the U.S. Military,” so he surprised the audience when he said that he was going to talk about prisoners of war.

He was not, however, going to talk about the three soldiers listed as missing in action on the Department of Defense website. He was referring to those who have been the victims of stop-loss, the device by which the president can, “in the event of war,” choose to extend an enlistee’s contract “until six months after the war ends.” The “War on Terror” is this president’s excuse for invoking that clause. Because that war will, by definition, continue as long as we insist that there is a difference between the terror inflicted on our innocents and the terror inflicted on theirs, American soldiers are effectively signing away their freedom indefinitely when they join the military. They are prisoners of an ill-defined and undeclared war on a tactic — terrorism — that dates back to Biblical times and will be with us indefinitely.

Continued . . .

Declan Walsh in Islamabad

The Guardian, Thursday March 27, 2008

The Bush administration is scrambling to engage with Pakistan’s new rulers as power flows from its strong ally, President Pervez Musharraf, to a powerful civilian government buoyed by anti-American sentiment.Top diplomats John Negroponte and Richard Boucher travelled to a mountain fortress near the Afghan border yesterday as part of a hastily announced visit that has received a tepid reception.

On Tuesday, senior coalition partner Nawaz Sharif gave the visiting Americans a public scolding for using Pakistan as a “killing field” and relying too much on Musharraf.

Yesterday the new prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, said he warned President George Bush in a phone conversation that he would prioritise talking as well as shooting in the battle against Islamist extremism. “He said that a comprehensive approach is required in this regard, specially combining a political approach with development,” a statement said.

But Gilani also reassured Bush that Pakistan would “continue to fight against terrorism”, it said.

Since 2001 American officials have treasured their close relationship with Musharraf because he offered a “one-stop shop” for cooperation in hunting al-Qaida fugitives hiding in Pakistan.

Continued . . .

Nasir Khan

The publication of the memoirs of Indian revolutionary Dada Amir Haider Khan in India and Pakistan has been a momentous event.

Professor Hasan N. Gardezi edited and supervised the work of publication of Dada’s memoirs with great diligence and a sense of duty to preserve the historical role of a truly great and unique revolutionary who emerged from the part of the world now called Pakistan. I offer my thanks to Professor Gardezi for his tireless efforts to publicise the work of Dada, and also thank other friends who have in one way or the other contributed to the task. I believe all the progressive people who have known Dada or those who will come to know about him through the publication of his memoirs will highly appreciate the work of Professor Gardezi. He has preserved the legacy of the great revolutionary for the coming generations of radical and progressive people. I was lucky to have known Dada as a close friend since my student days in Rawalpindi.

Volume 1 was first published in New Delhi in 1989, prefaced by my esteemed Comrade V.D. Chopra. Now the memoirs in two volumes are available from Karachi.

Historians and scholars in Marxist tradition may also find the following references to Dada Amir Haider Khan useful:

• Harry Haywood, Black Bolshevik, Liberator Press, Chicago, Illinois, 1978, pp. 164-5, 509.

• Santimoy Ray, Freedom Movement and Indian Muslims, People’s Publishing House, New Delhi, 1978, p. 82.

• S.S. Mirajkar, ‘Reminiscences’, Marxist Miscellany No. 15, March 1979, New Delhi, pp. 21-22.

• (Marxist Miscellany No. 15 also contains a memorable article by Dada Amir Haider Khan)

• Dada Amir Haider – Wikipedia

I republish below an excellent book review by Sarwat Ali.
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Book review by Sarwat Ali

Apart from being a political and historical document of personal nature, the text of the memoirs of Dada Amir Haider puts real meaning into the Marxist dictum that the world ought to be changed for the better

CHAINS TO LOSE
Life and Struggles of A Revolutionary
Memoirs of Dada Amir Haider Khan

Published by Pakistan Study Centre, Karachi University 2007
Pages: 767 (Two volumes), price: Rs 800 (Two volumes)

Dada Amir Haider, for my generation, was a legendary figure. He was often mentioned in admiration by the elders that I looked up to and his name aroused much curiosity. But other than oral references and anecdotes no adequate account of the man and deeds were available in black and white.

All this has changed with the publication of his autobiography which has been painstakingly put together by Hasan N. Gardezi. When Dada Amir Haider was arrested for the second time in 1939 he started to write about himself, his struggles and his vision which was simple. The role of the progressive writer was to expose everything bad in society, no matter how ugly it might be and those who did not like it let them change it.

His writings were interrupted in 1942 by his release from Nasik Jail made possible by the Soviet Union joining the way to defeat Germany. After his release a jail inmate Senior Apte put together his prison writings and made six typed copies. Each typed copy comprised 952 pages. Of the six copies passed from hand to hand at least one was kept by Mrs. Indora Renu and Mr. Ladli Lal Renu who had gone over it with the author in Bombay and had inserted some corrections and subtitles. It was mailed to Dada in 1975 when he was in Pakistan, unable to leave the country due to official restriction on his travel abroad. It is from this weather-beaten Nasik Jail manuscript that the entire first volume has come except for the last portion of the manuscript which had been shifted to volume two as the first chapter.

This first volume then was published in India but the second volume which was also sent to India got lost and was not published. This is the first time that both the volumes have been published together. The credit for compiling and editing goes to Dr Gardezi for it was his commitment that preserved these memoirs. The first volume covers the phase from 1922 to 1926 and the second volume covers the time period till 1936.

Broadly speaking there were four strands in the freedom struggle. Reformative organisations and societies like the one started by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan were established where even government support was accepted for it was perceived that the struggle they had started would last a long time and antagonising the government would be detrimental to the realisation of the objectives. Then certain organisations employed peaceful means to acquire gradual concessions for the Indians. Both the Muslim League and the Congress relied on these constitutional devices which were made available by the British rulers themselves. The third strand was represented by the ulemas who regarded British rule as objectionable from religious point of view and decreed the launch of jihad against foreign rule. The fourth strand comprised radical organisations operating in India which received their impetus from the socialist revolution in Russia. In subsequent years many Indians went to Soviet Russia to see for themselves the formative phase of the revolution the working classes were mobilised, organisations and unions were established and political work started. It operated through underground networks as the political rule of the game as delineated by the British Government seldom allowed dissent beyond a particular level.

Dada Amir Haider was born in a village in Gujjar Khan in difficult circumstances, made more difficult by the loss of his parents. He was forced into a bigger wider world prematurely and looking for better opportunity he travelled to cities far away from his native village where he learnt fast on the class rooms that were laid out on the roads, the dockyards and the storehouses. He became street-smart and quickly learnt to face up to the many challenges that life had thrown at him. He got employment on the merchant and military navies that afforded him the opportunity to travel all over the world, imbibing the affairs at the international level, the condition of the colonies and the plight of the working classes.

He returned to India in 1928 after his exposure to the world including the Soviet Union with some plans and priorities. He set to organise the workers of the textile industry in Bombay. The authorities sensing trouble clamped down on the incipient movement under trumped up changes commonly known as the ‘Meerut Conspiracy Case’ in 1929 and passed orders for his arrest. But Dada by now a shrewd and seasoned political worker, sensing trouble escaped on a forged passport by sea, a route that he knew too well and travelled the world mobilising international proletarian support against British rule in India. He was labelled as the most dangerous individual by the British authorities. He was finally arrested on his return in disguise in 1932. He was arrested again in 1939.

After his release from jail in 1942 he immersed himself in organisational work. After partition [1947] Dada was imprisoned repeatedly. This entire period took a heavy toll of his health but his old colleagues and comrades Dr. Adijkari, P.C. Joshi, S.S Mirajkar and Sohan Singh Josh encouraged him to follow up on his memoirs. He resumed updating his earlier work from 1926 to 1936.

Apart from being a political and historical document of personal nature the text of the memoirs puts real meaning into the Marxist dictum that the world ought to be changed for the better. The real emancipation of working class people lies through the socialist transformation of society, the primary value of the work as a guide to put that belief into practice.

Dada Amir Haider was not formally educated but his observations are very clear and concise. It encompasses a whole lot more than just political analysis. His book is about cultural and social history of the time that it covers rather than a strict political analysis. According to the editor, being uneducated he used the English language as a native would, and probably was a precursor to the usage of English now with much great deference to the local idiom. The published version it seems has been straightened out considerably by the translator [editor].

Information Clearing House, March 25, 2008
By Charles Sullivan

Neoconservatives derive much of their political strength from the portrayal of big government as the enemy of the people: a belief that plays only too well in America. Big government is indeed the enemy of the people when it does not serve the people’s interests, or when it betrays them.

Where the neoconservatives and the chicken hawks have been spectacularly successful is in the field of perception management. The super rich—or the ruling clique—constitutes no more than 0.1 percent of the US population. Yet they control the mainstream media, every branch government, the electoral process and the country’s major financial institutions.

Thus, 99.9 percent of the people are being manipulated and cannibalized by a tiny but powerful minority. It is the interests of this powerful minority that are served by government and it is their interests that are defined as the national interest or as national security; and it is hardly benign. Robbing the poor to pay the rich causes irreparable harm to the victim.

Continued . . .

The Sacramento Bee (California), March 25, 2008

By Nat Hentoff

Immediately after 9/11, Colin Powell said the terrorists were clearly engaged in a war on civilization itself. Soon after, as secretary of State, he prophetically warned the president — and the lawyers drafting and justifying “torture memos” in the Justice Department — that this country’s rejecting the Geneva Conventions and our own laws on the treatment of terrorism-related prisoners would “undermine public support among critical allies, making military cooperation more difficult to sustain.” Increasingly, as Powell predicted, while the president strongly insists that the CIA be allowed to continue practicing what Bush calls “its specialized interrogations” in its secret prisons, and “renditions” (kidnapping Europeans to be tortured elsewhere), we have lost the trust and respect of many our allies’ citizens.

Significant, moreover, is the refusal of FBI Director Robert Mueller to permit his agents to engage in such “coercive” CIA-style interrogations that often involve torture.

Also opposing the tortured use of language by high officials of the administration to disguise this lawless treatment of prisoners, which would make any such “evidence” thrown out of our federal courts, are Gen. David Petraeus and Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Nonetheless, on March 8, George W. Bush vetoed a bill that includes a mandate that there be a single standard of interrogation by all our forces — very intentionally including the CIA.

As a result of Bush’s veto, the United States, by validating torture as a tool of interrogation, has become a less civilized nation. The bill the president disdained (thereby staining his legacy) would have made the Army Field Manual the standard of all interrogations. Among the practices it prohibits are: placing hoods or sacks over prisoners’ heads (as in CIA “renditions”); exposing them to extreme heat or cold (as often reported); and waterboarding (as disclosed about CIA prisoners at “black sites”), a procedure that makes the prisoner believe he is about to drown — and he will drown if it’s not stopped.

Continued . . .

Dr Maxtor’s Analysis, March 22, 2008

Another example of why the media cannot be taken seriously. “Pope baptizes prominent Italian Muslim” screamed Yahoo’s start page. Upon reading the article we find that the “prominent Muslim” is somebody called Magdi Allam, who has never practiced Islam in his life, nor does he have any links to the Italian Muslim community. So what makes the obscure Allam so “prominent”? He’s a Zionist, or better yet a shabbos goy on the payroll. Well, that would explain a lot, including why so many of the usual suspects are praising this sock puppet. I guess the neocon “Sheikh” Palazzi(self-proclaimed Zionist “Khalifah of Rome” with a MySpace account) will now have some company. The Jewish propaganda machine is sure getting desperate and sloppy, and I thought they hit rock bottom when they started carting Wafa Sultan around. Oh, and Pope Ratzinger, thanks for taking Magdi Allam, not that he was ever a part of the Ummah or anything like that but you’re not doing Catholicism any favors by adding a charlatan to its ranks.

Amnesty International, March 24, 2008

Over 400 people were arrested in Nepal on Monday as the authorities clamped down on peaceful demonstrations against Chinese human rights abuses in Tibet.

“Nepal is sending a message of no-tolerance of dissent by arresting peaceful demonstrators,” said Amnesty International, cautioning that the latest wave of repression extends beyond Tibet-related protests. “This is the latest in a series of clampdowns on peaceful demonstration as elections approach.”

In one incident in the capital Kathmandu, activists were detained ahead of an Amnesty International Nepal vigil on Tibet. At 13:55 local time, 17 activists were detained in Maitiyala Mandala and taken to Singha Durbar Police Station. No reason has been given for their arrest.

Continued . . .