Peace and Justice Post

The Independent, April 5, 2008

Westerners assume that anyone with a Canadian passport is safe

I was given the chance to talk to 600 Muslim Canadians a few days ago. The dinner was in an Ottawa banqueting room and the guests also included the imam of the Ottawa mosque, the Ottawa chief of police and sundry uniformed Canadian army officers.

The imam sat between me and the Canadian capital’s top cop – a genuinely decent guy who wanted Muslim Canadians to regard him as a friend – and we were even able to joke about the reality of those “random checks” which Muslims of Middle Eastern origin and a certain R Fisk seem to receive at North American airports. All well and good, then, until I got up to speak.

I warned the audience they might not like all they heard from me. And sure enough, when I told the audience that they were perfectly at liberty to condemn Israel and America – indeed, that they should condemn both when they abuse human rights, occupy other people’s countries and shoot innocent civilians – but that I wanted to know why I so rarely heard them condemn the vicious police states in the Middle East and other areas of south-west Asia from which they originally came, I was greeted with silence. A smattering of Muslim diplomats sat like statues, thus identifying the cruelty of their regimes. The only immediate applause came when I remarked that the moment Western soldiers started shooting at Muslims in Muslim lands, it was time for the soldiers to withdraw.

Two interesting phenomena emerged from this remark. The first was that, when I finished, both the police chief and the Canadian army officers joined the applause. Canada’s hopeless military involvement in Afghanistan is a subject of considerable controversy within the Canadian military. When the politicians have had their say, I’ve discovered, soldiers usually let us know their views.

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Palestinian News Network, April 5, 2008

“It is necessarily a racist ideology if you think about it, but most people aren’t allowed to think about it thanks to powerful Zionist repression. Typically, when you gain such a state through violence and illegal means, you then have to make it seem legitimate..the best way of doing that is to claim that you are conquering an inferior people who weren’t entitled to full human rights, or who are barbarians, who are not civilized, or who are terrorists by nature…it involves imposing a kind of degraded human nature to the people you are displacing and conquering, and that’s the essence of racism. Racism plays out in the entire history of the state of Israel, which entails a continuous project of ethic cleansing…”

The following is an interview between Revolution Magazine and Dr. Joel Kovel, the author of, “Overcoming Zionism,” which created a censorship struggle when the University of Michigan Press temporarily banned its distribution.

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Will They Signal an Iran Attack?

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS | CounterPunch, April 5 / 6, 2008

April 5, 2008. Today the London Telegraph reported that “British officials gave warning yesterday that America’s commander in Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the US-backed Baghdad government. A strong statement from General David Petraeus about Iran’s intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a US attack on Iranian militiary facilities, according to a Whitehall assessment.”

The neocon lacky Petraeus has had his script written for him by Cheney, and Petraeus together with neocon warmonger Ryan Crocker, the US governor of the Green Zone in Baghdad, will present Congress next Tuesday and Wednesday with the lies, for which the road has been well paved by neocon propagandists such as Kimberly Kagan, that “the US must recognize that Iran is engaged in a full-up proxy war against it in Iraq.”

Don’t expect Congress to do anything except to egg on the attack. On April 3 the International Herald Tribune reported that senators and representatives have made millions of dollars from their investments in defense companies totaling $196 million. Rep. Ike Skelton, the Democrat chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is already on board with the attack on Iran. The London Telegraph quotes Skelton: “Iran is the bull in the china shop. In all of this, they seem to have links to all of the Shi’ite groups, whether they be political or military.”

All Skelton knows is what the war criminal Bush regime tells him. If Iran really does have all these connections, then it behooves Washington to cease threatening Iran and to make nice with Iran in order to stabilize Iraq and extract the US from the nightmare.

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By David Cronin

BRUSSELS, Apr 4 (IPS) – Israel has been described as “closer to the European Union than ever before” by a leading Brussels official, even though a new EU report laments the ongoing killing of Palestinians by Israeli forces.

This week, the European Commission published a series of progress reports on its relations with countries neighbouring the 27-country bloc.

Benita Ferrero Waldner, the EU’s external relations commissioner, used the occasion to indicate that she is keener to foster closer ties with Israel than with almost any other country in the Mediterranean region.

As well as remarking that Israel is “closer to the European Union than ever before,” she said that a “reflection group” is studying how relations between the two sides can be upgraded to a “truly special status.”

Formed in March last year by Tzipi Livni, Israel’s deputy prime minister, and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister, the reflection group has been tasked with paving the way for Israeli participation in implementing EU policies.

But Ferrero Waldner’s upbeat assessment of EU-Israeli ties contrasts with the recognition her officials have given to how Israeli forces are responsible for much of the violence that blights the Middle East.

In a new report, the Commission notes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resulted in the deaths of 377 Palestinians during 2007. This was 29 times higher than the 13 Israeli lives lost.

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Ynetnews, April 4, 2008

Rabbi Eliyhau Photo: Gil Yohanan Mass Jerusalem service marks one-month anniversary of deadly attack on Mercaz Harav rabbinical seminary. ‘We do not seek vengeance, we seek retaliation,’ says yeshiva head says Some 1,000 people attended a memorial service at the Mercaz Harav rabbinical seminary Thursday, marking the one-month anniversary of the murderous attack which claimed the lives of eight young men. Also attending the service were many prominent rabbis of the Religious Zionist Movement, who were not shy about expressing their rage against the government’s policy. Rabbi Yaakov Shapira, head of the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, chose to explain the attack by saying that “the Torah and the land of Israel are acquired only through agony.” Former Sephardi chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu called on the government to decree that for every life lost in the attack another yeshiva and township will be formed. “Even when we seek revenge, it is important to make one thing clear – the life of one yeshiva boy is worth more than the lives of 1,000 Arabs. “The Talmud states that if gentiles rob Israel of silver they will pay it back in gold, and all that is taken will be paid back in folds, but in cases like these there is nothing to pay back, since as I said – the life of one yeshiva boy is worth more than the lives of 1,000 Arabs,” added Rabbi Eliyahu. Ramat Gan’s chief rabbi, Yaacov Ariel, chose to deliver a more moderate message: “We do not seek vengeance, we seek retaliation. The terrorist’s house should have been demolished immediately, regardless of the law. It should have been done because it was a matter of life and death – the deterrence could help save future lives.” “We are against killing innocent people or harming children,” he added, “but once terrorists hide behind children, we have to strike back. The blood of those living in Sderot is worth just as much as the blood of those the terrorists hide behind.” Mercaz Harav will be holding a vigil in memory of those killed in the attack all through Thursday night.

By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent | Telegraph, UK, April 5, 2008

British officials gave warning yesterday that America’s commander in Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the US-backed Baghdad government.

A strong statement from General David Petraeus about Iran’s intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a US attack on Iranian military facilities, according to a Whitehall assessment. In closely watched testimony in Washington next week, Gen Petraeus will state that the Iranian threat has risen as Tehran has supplied and directed attacks by militia fighters against the Iraqi state and its US allies. General Petraeus: recent attacks on the green zone used Iranian-provided, Iranian-made rockets The outbreak of Iraq’s worst violence in 18 months last week with fighting in Basra and the daily bombardment of the Green Zone diplomatic enclave, demonstrated that although the Sunni Muslim insurgency is dramatically diminished, Shia forces remain in a strong position to destabilise the country. “Petraeus is going to go very hard on Iran as the source of attacks on the American effort in Iraq,” a British official said. “Iran is waging a war in Iraq. The idea that America can’t fight a war on two fronts is wrong, there can be airstrikes and other moves,” he said. “Petraeus has put emphasis on America having to fight the battle on behalf of Iraq. In his report he can frame it in terms of our soldiers killed and diplomats dead in attacks on the Green Zone.” Tension between Washington and Tehran is already high over Iran’s covert nuclear programme. The Bush administration has not ruled out military strikes. In remarks interpreted as signalling a change in his approach to Iran, Gen Petraeus last week hit out at the Iranian leadership. “The rockets that were launched at the Green Zone were Iranian-provided, Iranian-made rockets,” he said. “All of this in complete violation of promises made by President Ahmadinejad and the other most senior Iranian leaders to their Iraqi counterparts.” The humiliation of the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki by the Iranian-backed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in fighting in Basra last week triggered top-level warnings over Iran’s strength in Iraq. Gen Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Baghdad, will answer questions from American political leaders at the US Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday before travelling to London to brief Gordon Brown. The Wall Street Journal said last week that the US war effort in Iraq must have a double goal. “The US must recognise that Iran is engaged in a full-up proxy war against it in Iraq,” wrote the military analyst Kimberly Kagan. There are signs that targeting Iran would unite American politicians across the bitter divide on Iraq. “Iran is the bull in the china shop,” said Ike Skelton, the Democrat chairman of the Armed Services Committee. “In all of this, they seem to have links to all of the Shi’ite groups, whether they be political or military.”

by Jacob G. Hornberger | The Future of Freedom Foundation blog, April 3, 2008

A snapshot of the opening scene in the U.S. invasion of Iraq provides an excellent insight into the immorality and horror of the entire operation, from start to whenever it finally finishes.

According to an article in yesterday’s New York Times, at the outset of the invasion the U.S. military dropped bombs on a palatial compound in which Saddam Hussein was hiding. The article states:

“But instead of killing the Iraqi dictator, they had killed Mr. Kharbit’s older brother, Malik al-Kharbit — the very man who had led the family’s negotiations with the C.I.A. to topple Mr. Hussein. The bombings also killed 21 other people, including children, and the fury it aroused has been widely believed to have helped kick-start the insurgency in western Iraq.”

Now, that episode has at least two important lessons.

First, prior to the invasion the popular mantra among U.S. officials and many private Americans was the need to “get Saddam.” But as we often pointed out here at The Future of Freedom Foundation, it was never going to be just a question of “getting Saddam.” Instead, it was going to be a question of how many Iraqi people, including children, U.S. forces would have to kill before they “got Saddam.”

The article doesn’t state whether the U.S. military had actual knowledge that there were innocent people, including children, in the compound that it bombed. But it is a virtual certainty that they did have such knowledge. After all, if their intelligence was sufficiently good to know that Saddam was hiding in the compound, it had to be sufficiently good to know that there were other people living in the compound, including children.

Thus, when the U.S. military dropped those bombs, it had to be with the full knowledge that they would be killing innocent people in the process, including the children. And even if they didn’t “know” that there were innocent people in the compound at the time they dropped the bombs, they knew that there were dropping the bombs in reckless disregard of whether there were innocent people there or not.

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Behold, a voice from out of the wilderness

And lo, but he was tanned. Tony Blair came before us yesterday not as a former Prime Minister but as a man of religion. The Vicar of St Albion is breaking free of his parish chains. He wants God to stop being so parochial. Tony Blair has decided that it’s time that God went global and he’s the man to do it.

He stood, light shining down on his golden face, in Westminster Cathedral almost directly beneath a huge red and gold encrusted cross hanging from the soaring ceiling. He spoke from a wooden pulpit before a congregation (sorry, audience) of hundreds. In the real pulpit, to the side, two TV crews were filming him. Outside, the Blair nonbelievers chanted and whistled. As I walked in a woman screamed like a banshee: “Arrest Tony Blair! This is the House of Satan!” Inside, powerful organ chords drowned out the noise of the nonbelievers. The audience was dotted with turbans, yamakas and robes.

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International Herald Tribune, March 3, 2008

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON: Members of the U.S.Congress have as much as $196 million (126.2 million) collectively invested in companies doing business with the Defense Department, earning millions since the start of the Iraq war, according to a new study by a nonpartisan research group.

The review of lawmakers’ 2006 financial disclosure statements, by the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics, suggests that members’ holdings could pose a conflict of interest as they decide the fate of Iraq war spending. Several members who earned the most from defense contractors have plum committee or leadership assignments, including Democratic Sen. John Kerry, independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman and House Republican Whip Roy Blunt.

The study found that more Republicans than Democrats hold stock in defense companies, but that the Democrats who are invested had significantly more money at stake. In 2006, for example, Democrats held at least $3.7 million (€2.3 million) in military-related investments, compared to Republican investments of $577,500 (€372,000).

Overall, 151 members hold investments worth $78.7 million (€50.6 million) to $195.5 million (€125.9 million) in companies that receive defense contracts that are worth at least $5 million (€3.2 million). These investments earned them anywhere between $15.8 million (€10.1 million) and $62 million (€39.9 million) between 2004 and 2006, the center concludes.

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Intimidation and Violence in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq

By RANNIE AMIRI | CounterPunch, April 3, 2008

Seasoned Middle East observers have long been familiar with the contempt the United States holds for genuine democracy in the region, despite the equally familiar rhetoric and platitudes to the contrary. One only needs to count the litany of Arab countries considered American allies to appreciate this; all are nations ruled by a collection of monarchs and dictators who have never stood for a legitimate election in their lives.

In 1953, a precedent was set: anyone who dared challenge Western interests or dictates would be unceremoniously deposed. Such was the case when the popular and democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, was overthrown in the CIA-orchestrated coup dubbed Operation Ajax after he nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The toppling of Mossadegh’s government (engineered by President Theodore Roosevelt’s grandson, Kermit Roosevelt Jr.) allowed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to become absolute monarch of Iran. Shortly thereafter, the nation’s oil reserves were opened up to a consortium of American and European companies.

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