Peace and Justice Post

Listen Font Size

GK NEWS NETWORK

Srinagar, Oct 27: Police on Monday arrested Nayeem Ahmad Khan, the provincial president of Hurriyat Conference (M) and chairman of National Front on Tangmarg-Varmul road. He was immediately taken to an unknown destination.
Khan was evading arrest since August this year when police cracked down heavily on Hurriyat leaders leading the fresh pro-freedom struggle triggered by Amarnath land row and economic blockade by extremists in Jammu.
Along with Shabir Ahmad Shah, Khan played a key role in bringing the two Hurriyats together. Shah has been sentenced to two years in prison for his role in the unification.
Nayeem Khan is one of the pioneers of the pro-freedom struggle in Kashmir. Born in 1965 in Pathanpora (Khas), of Pattan, Khan studied engineering in Srinagar. He formed Peoples League in 1979 as a student. In 1982 he was arrested while leading a students procession. He developed close links with Islamia Jamiat-u-Talba and Mahaz-i-Azadi.
In 1984 Khan was arrested when Maqbool Bhat was hanged in Tihar Jail and in 1986, along with Ishfaq Majeed Wani, Yaseen Malik and other pro-freedom leaders he formed a vibrant student organization, Islamic Students League (ISL). Nayeem Khan was elected its chairman and
Yasin Malik as general secretary.
The ISL gained popularity among students because of its socio-political agenda. In 1987 the ISL became a constituent of the Muslim United Front (MUF) which fought the massively rigged elections. In 1988 Nayeem Khan and his associates went underground, but he was arrested and booked under PSA. Though court quashed his detention and he was released, the police arrested him again and booked him under the same draconian law. He was shifted to sub-jail Reasi. He was released in August 1989.
On 17 October, 1989, Khan was arrested again along with Shabir Shah. Massive demos were held against their arrest. He was released from Madhya Pradesh jail.
In 1993 Khan was arrested for organizing huge processions and demonstrations against India and sent to infamous Kot Balwal Jail. After release, Nayeem played a pivotal role in the formation of APHC. He was arrested again in 2003 and released a year later.

Kashmir Watch

New Delhi, October 26:  It is innocents that had been victimized in all recent bombings said Ajit Sahi, Editor, Tehelka. He was delivering speech in Students Islamic Organisation of India conference held at Jamia Nagar, New Delhi  titled: ”Fascism, Extremism, State Terrorism: Students’ Resistance”.  All cases which have been charged till now in relation with recent bombings are based only on the basis of confessions which were acquired by brutal custodial torture. It is state terrorism which is the biggest menace of today. He reiterated that we as citizens must have minimum legal literacy as the law is being tampered by the authorities themselves. Living aside some exceptions, even the judiciary is acting on the basis of pre-conceived notions. He told that all religious groups must work united to uproot the menace of state terrorism.

SQR Ilyas, member, central advisory council, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, said in his speech that the recent happenings in the country were unfortunate. Bombings in major cities of the country, victimization of innocent Muslim youths and media propaganda against Islam are all part of international conspiracy to defame Islam which is on run, in the name of ‘global war on terror’. The tendency of the authorities to charge sheet and hunt Muslim youths on the basis of pre-conceived notion when ever a bombing takes place has to be stopped. As all the fact finding teams had unanimously opined, the ‘encounter’ and the entire police verdict on the Batla House (New Delhi) incident was fake and fully fabricated. Though there are enough reasons to believe that the saffron brigade has involvement in the recent bombings, it is condemnable that no investigations are being done on this direction. We fear that the ongoing Govt. terrorism and protection to Hindutva chauvinist forces will indeed worsen the situation. If the motto of Govt. is really to accomplish peace and harmony in the country and not to play petty politics, it needs to do something creative.

Prof M.K Ramakrishnan of Jamia Millia said in his speech that the fight against fascist forces can only be strengthened if the concept of ‘secular India’ is regained.

SIO National President, Bashiruddin Sharqy, in his speech said that any move is impossible in our country by sidelining religions and religious communities. Religion is the manifestation of dialogue and communication. The art of coexistence must be regained and communicated with in different religions. Muslim society, together with engaging in political and religious activisms, must renew themselves as a proactive society. Instead of being a responsive or reactive society Muslims must go forward with their own well planned agendas.

SIO general secretary, Hashmatullah Khan delivered the Inaugural speech.

By Cromwell, David | Z Space, Oct 28, 2008

Since starting Media Lens in 2001, we have learned that corporate journalists are very often ill-equipped, or disinclined, to debate vital issues with members of the public.

In 2004, the esteemed Lancet medical journal published a study showing that 98,000 Iraqis had most likely died following the US-led invasion (http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf). John Rentoul, chief political correspondent of the Independent on Sunday, responded with sarcasm when we challenged him about his dismissal of the peer-reviewed science:

“Oh no. You have found me out. I am in fact a neocon agent in the pay of the third morpork of the teleogens of Tharg.” (Email, September 15, 2005)

In 2006, a follow-up Lancet study estimated that the death toll had risen to 655,000. Today, the probable death toll exceeds one million. (Just Foreign Policy, http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html; ‘Update on Iraqi casualty data’, Opinion Research Business, January 2008; http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=88)

In 2003, Roger Alton, then editor of the Observer, also did not take kindly to a reader accusing him of peddling Downing Street propaganda on the eve of the invasion:

“What a lot of balls … do you read the paper old friend? … ‘Pre-digested pablum from Downing Street…’ my arse. Do you read the paper or are you just recycling garbage from Medialens?” (Email, February 14, 2003)

Last week, Matt Seaton, editor of the Guardian’s Comment is Free website, was asked why he dismissed readers of Media Lens as a mere “lobby”, but not readers who post comments on his website. Seaton replied:

“because, unlike MediaLens readers, users of Comment is free are not given directives to spam journalists and others – and would not mindlessly follow such directives if they were” (Email, October 15, 2008)

The constant journalistic refrain is that the public is made up of ill-informed idiots, mindless “blog-o-bots” (Robert Fisk, interviewed by Justin Podur, ‘Fisk: War is the total failure of the human spirit’, December 5, 2005; www.rabble.ca), launching “an attack of the clones” (BBC journalist Adam Curtis, email to Media Lens, June 18, 2002). A moment’s thought would tell these journalists that the people responding to our alerts are interested in our efforts precisely to +expose+ methods of public deception, manipulation and control. The whole point of what we are doing is to challenge all forms of psychological goose-stepping.

Little of this professional contempt for public challenge ever makes it into the open. The media sections of the press, where journalism ought to be scrutinised, are reserved for professional navel-gazing, ego-burnishing and insider gossip. At best, media commentary is inoffensive, rarely straying from the anodyne; and even then, only to mock easy targets like the Sun or the Daily Mail. At its worst, corporate media ‘analysis’ props up a brutal propaganda system in which “politics is the shadow cast on society by big business”, as the US social philosopher John Dewey observed.

Swooning Over The British Press

Consider Stephen Glover, media commentator in the Independent, who earlier this month (October 2008) gloried at the supposedly vibrant state of the British press. Glover, one of the founders of the Independent in 1986, described his pleasure in “fingering the redesigned Daily Telegraph” which “looks quite handsome”. Glover also liked the “much-improved Times”, while the “revamped Independent” positively “crackles with energy.” (Stephen Glover, ‘It has its faults, but we should be proud of the British press’, the Independent, October 6, 2008) As though in the pay of “the teleogens of Tharg”, Glover asked innocently, “Am I starry-eyed?”

Undoubtedly. He was also suffering from blinkered, power-friendly vision. It is only two months since Glover belatedly, and superficially, pointed to the failings of the UK press in challenging government propaganda on Iraq:

“I am still awaiting an apology from those newspapers that assured their readers, before the invasion of Iraq, that there was absolutely no doubt that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.” (Stephen Glover, ‘Press were wrong on Iraq’, August 11, 2008)

But media performance was far worse than Glover would have us believe, as we reminded him at the time (email to Stephen Glover, ‘No mea culpa from the British press’, August 19, 2008; http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9849#9849).

The British media were willing accomplices in the perverse political portrayal of Iraq as a threat to the West. And, because the media simply buried the facts, not many people know that Iraq had already been devastated by thirteen years of brutal United Nations sanctions leading to the deaths of over a million people. Around half of them were children under five.

The two Westerners who knew Iraq best – Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, senior UN diplomats in Baghdad who resigned over the “genocidal” sanctions – were virtually shut out of British press and broadcasting. (For more on their expert and excluded analyses, see Hans C. Von Sponeck, ‘A Different Kind of War’, Berghahn Books, New York, 2006; and Denis Halliday, interviewed by David Edwards, Media Lens, May 2000; http://www.medialens.org/articles/the_articles/articles_2001/iraqdh.htm)

The ideological role played by the corporate media, as faithful stenographers to power, continued up to and beyond the illegal 2003 invasion. This was a war of aggression, in contravention of the UN Charter, and recognised in law as the “supreme international crime”. If the British media had performed its fairy-tale role, and actually held power to account, perhaps there would have been no Iraq invasion, no cataclysm, no outpouring of grief and misery.

It is all too easy for media insiders to be seduced by the superficial glamour and “vibrancy” of newspapers, and to divert their eyes from the blood-soaked reality underneath.

At the Guardian’s website, an ostensibly rival media commentator, Roy Greenslade, noted that the Independent had ditched its media section. Greenslade, a Guardian veteran and now professor of journalism at City University in London, wrote:

“… ‘the media’ is a part of modern life that deserves to be monitored consistently. Its influence appears to grow rather than diminish. There needs to be public scrutiny of the people who own and control the various media platforms and of those who manage and operate it on behalf of those owners and controllers.” (Greenslade blog, Guardian website, October 6, 2008; http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2008/oct/06/theindependent)

As this paragraph suggests, Greenslade has mastered the art of saying very little. He could have observed that news operations, the BBC and Guardian very much included, operate as platforms for established interests in society: corporations, business investors and warmongering Western leaders. But such obvious, real-world facts are not allowed to intrude. He added:

“Despite its scant resources, The Independent has played, and is playing, a part in keeping the media honest.”

It is a bold judgement, one that can be made only by ignoring the actual content of the Independent’s media coverage. More crucially, it also overlooks what the paper reports, and does not report, in its news and business sections. In the age of the internet – when honest, non-corporate news sources are readily accessible – it is becoming ever harder to ignore the evidence before our own eyes.

Continued . .  .

by Jacob G. Hornberge, Oct 27, 2008

One of the popular post-9/11 sentiments has been the one that holds that Muslims are bent on conquering the world. The notion is that Muslims hate Christianity and Western freedom and values and that such hatred is rooted in the Koran and stretches back centuries. Thus, the United States has been drawn, reluctantly, into a war against Muslims. That’s why U.S. forces are in Iraq and Afghanistan, the argument goes — to defend our freedoms by killing Muslims over there before they get over here and kill us.

I sometimes wonder whether the people who have this mindset have reflected on the ramifications of their belief.

For example, if Muslims in general are at war with the United States, then why shouldn’t Americans be out killing Muslims here in the United States? After all, when a nation is at war, isn’t it permissible to kill the enemy? Isn’t that what war is all about?

The reason that proponents of this view don’t start killing Muslims here in the United States is very simple: Deep down, they know that the killers will be indicted by their very own government for murder. They will then be prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to serve time in a federal penitentiary for murder.

Let’s carry the ramifications overseas.

If the United States is at war against Muslims, then why not start with ousting the Muslim regime in Iraq and installing a Christian or Jewish regime in its place? Yes, I said Iraq. Believe it or not, the U.S. invasion of that country succeeded in installing an Islamic regime, a regime which, by the way, has closely aligned itself with the radical Islamic regime in Iran.

A second-choice candidate for invasion, occupation, and regime change would be Kuwait, another country run by an Islamic regime. Since Saddam Hussein’s forces were easily able to conquer the country, it should be a piece of cake for U.S. forces.

A problem arises however. Once the United States effects regime change in Iraq and Kuwait, installing Christian or Jewish regimes, what about the millions of Muslims in those two countries? Sure, their governments would no longer be Islamic but what about the millions of people living there? Wouldn’t they still be the enemy to Christians and the West? Wouldn’t they still be bent on world conquest? What should be done with them? Perpetual incarceration in concentration camps? Mass executions of all Muslims?

And what about Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and all the other countries in which people are predominantly Muslim. You know — the Islamic countries that are the recipients of billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid. Does the U.S. government invade those countries too, effect regime change, and incarcerate or execute the millions of Muslims living there?

During the Cold War, people used to say the same thing about the communists that we’re now hearing about the Muslims. The communists were coming to get us, and some Americans were even looking under their beds for communists. In fact, 58,000 American men were sacrificed in Southeast Asia because U.S. officials claimed that Vietnam was the central front in the war on communism. With a military loss in Vietnam, the dominoes would start falling, they told us, with the final domino being the United States.

Yet, the U.S. did lose in Vietnam, and yet the dominoes didn’t fall. It turned out that those 58,000 American men died for nothing. Today, U.S. officials even travel to Vietnam as tourists. Americans are freely trading with the people who were supposedly going to invade the United States and take over the IRS and the public schools.

Ironically, throughout the Cold War there was nary a mention of the Islamic threat to the West, even though proponents of that view today claim that the Muslim threat stretches back many centuries. In fact, the irony of ironies is that during the Cold War the U.S. government even entered into partnerships with Muslims, including Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and various Islamic regimes in the Middle East. No one accused U.S. officials of treason for entering into agreements with the enemy.

It’s true that Muslims have fundamental differences with Christians and the West, and vice versa. But those types of differences ordinarily do not cause people to kill people who have different values. Most Muslims are no different from Americans in the sense that they simply wish to live their lives in peace, practice their faith, raise their families, and be left alone. They don’t like it when some foreign government tries to interfere with their way of life, just as Americans don’t like it when some foreign government does that to them.

What all too many Americans, unfortunately, will not permit themselves to see is that that is precisely what the U.S. government did in the Middle East, especially when the Soviet communist bugaboo evaporated in 1989. As a result of U.S. interventionism in the Middle East, especially the interventionism that resulted in large number of deaths (e.g., the sanctions and the no-fly zones), what began as differences in values rose to the level of anger and rage that induced some people to seek vengeance through violence.

Thus, rather than ceasing its policy of interventionism after 9/11, which is what the U.S. government should have done even while pursuing the perpetrators through criminal-justice means, it did the very worst thing possible — it continued and even expanded its policy of interventionism in the hope of killing those whose differences with America’s values had risen to the level of rage as a result of U.S. interventionism. Not surprisingly, that only fueled more anger and rage.

So, what should the U.S. government do now? It should do what it should have done after 9/11: Exit Afghanistan and Iraq and the entire Middle East. Bring all the troops home.

Would this quell the anger and rage against the United States? Not all of it but certainly much of it. As I said above, most people simply want to live their lives in peace.

After all, look at Vietnam, where the U.S. government killed more than a million people. Once U.S. forces exited the country, the Vietnamese left the United States alone.

While there is the ever-present risk that there will still be some people who will still want vengeance, their numbers will be relatively small. While they will constitute an ever-present threat of terrorism, that’s the price that must be paid for past interventions. What’s important to note is that continued interventionism can never solve that problem — it can only make it worse.

When governments go awry, it is up to the citizenry to straighten out their course. The problem is not Muslims or Islam. The problem is the U.S. government and, specifically, its foreign policy of interventionism. Bringing an end to that policy will restore a sense of peace and harmony not only to the American people but also the people of the world.

The US is spending $300m to ‘engage and inspire’ Iraqis. That’s not the way to win hearts and minds

A Dismal Legacy. Part II

by Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay

Global Research, Oct 25, 2008

“Greed is good. Greed is right. Greed Works.”Gordon Gekko, corporate raider (played by Michael Douglas) in the movie Wall St.

“President [George W.] Bush will be remembered as the most fiscally irresponsible president in our nation’s history.” Sen. Kent Conrad, Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee

[The government’s decision to buy shares in the nation’s leading banks] “is not intended to take over the free market, but to preserve it.”President George W. Bush, October 14, 2008

“Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights. …We’ve said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we’ve said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused.” Jimmy Carter, former American president

“After [this] war [against Iraq] has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America’s image around the globe.”Sen. Robert Byrd, (D-W.Va), March 19, 2003

Economically, the Bush-Cheney administration is leaving behind a big financial and economic mess. In fact, this is an administration that has brought misery upon America by its misguided economic policies that have built a mountain of shaky debt and rendered dysfunctional large segments of the American banking industry and large sectors of the U.S. economy, through inappropriate deregulation to enrich greedy special interest characters, wheeler-dealers, corporate con men, professional short-sellers and other scam artists and swindlers. In so doing, it has empowered rich parasitic speculators and turned the financial sector into a giant casino, thus risking the health of the entire economy.

Indeed, and to complete the picture, the Bush-Cheney administration has emptied the public treasury, debased the U.S. currency and fueled deflation, inflation and, in the end, produced stagflation and what can turn out to be a very serious recession.

This is understandable. Over the last eight years, the Bush-Cheney administration has adopted a laissez-faire policy based on a let-them-eat-cake ideology. It has pushed for economic deregulation throughout the government, beginning with the de-fanging of the Securities and Exchange Commission. It has pursued an aggressive policy of deregulation of the large global investment banks, which were basically left to self-regulate themselves and allowed to build up the largest mountain of flimsy backed debt instruments and risky financial derivative products ever seen in history. It did the same thing for other regulatory agencies such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, worker safety and transportation agencies.

It is thus no accident that the Bush-Cheney administration has presided over one of the worst financial collapses and credit crises in U.S. history, by packing regulatory agencies with cronies whose mission it was to let rapacious speculators and market manipulators go wild. The result has been the creation of a casino-like speculative economy that is now crashing down before our very eyes.

Under Bush-Cheney, financial markets became manipulated by unscrupulous bankers and by rapacious hedge funds, as public regulation was reduced to a minimum. Millions of Americans lost their homes through foreclosure and many more saw their working and pension incomes eroded and destroyed by inflation and plant closings. And as what could be a protracted recession proceeds, many more will lose their jobs in the coming months, while some older employees may have to postpone their retirement because of the disappearance of their pension money.

In a parody of President Abraham Lincoln, we can say this has been an administration that deserved to be dubbed “a government of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy.” Some would not hesitate to say, also in parody, that it has been “a government of Goldman Sachs, by Goldman Sachs and for Goldman Sachs,” considering the ubiquitous political and economic role which that firm has played within the Bush-Cheney administration. President Bush’s own Chief of Staff, Mr. Joshua Bolten, comes from Goldman Sachs. And these days, everybody pretends not see the real and potential conflicts of interests of other public servants who are now on the giving public side of things, at the U.S. Treasury, and who are going to be on the receiving private side of public money, in a scant few months. It is the same thing with a lot of what the U.S. Treasury does. —Even the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mr. Mark Carney, is a former employee of Goldman Sachs!

In a related matter, for historical purposes, it will be remembered that, in the fall of 2008, the Bush-Cheney administration sponsored a huge rescue-plus-bailout of the largest speculative Wall Street investment banks (which the Bush SEC had deregulated on March 28, 2004) and of a host of other banking and insurance institutions which had engaged in alchemy or synthetic finance and made risky investments. To that effect, it is ready to place at risk close to $2.0 trillion of public money and let the public debt explode, with few conditions attached to protect the public interest. In fact, the Bush administration stood ready to advance hundreds of billions of dollars and only requested non-voting preferred shares in the troubled banks and insurance companies that it rescued from bankruptcy. As a consequence, contrary to what the Roosevelt administration did in the 1930s, the U.S. government has no direct say about the way the troubled financial institutions are managed and run, and thus, if the bail-out were to be successful, most of the benefits would go to bank owners and their executives; but, if things continue to deteriorate, taxpayers will be the ones left holding the bag.

Some have said this is an example of corporate socialism for the rich. In fact, this has nothing to do with socialism per se, but everything to do with legal and unapologetical extortionism on a high level. For all these reasons, if the ongoing recession and financial crisis were to turn into a full-fledged economic depression, as it could possibly do, and as it did in 1873-1880 and 1929-1939, it would have to be dubbed by historians “the Bush-Cheney Grand Economic Depression” of 2008-20(?).

George W. Bush will also be remembered for having financed his whimsical and ill-conceived three-trillion-dollar war of aggression against Iraq on credit, thus worsening the U.S. financial situation in the world, perhaps irrevocably. He is leaving behind him a financial mess like no one has seen since the great depressions following 1873 and 1929.

In all fairness, it must be said that some Democrats in Congress, the so-called Bush Democrats who usually vote with Republicans on foreign policy issues, have also been supporters of the Iraq War from the beginning and have invariably voted for the hundreds of billions of dollars required to finance it.

The Bush-Cheney administration has presided over economic dislocations and greed-fed financial bubbles, and it has been an agent of poverty and of financial and economic crises. This is an administration that will be sadly remembered for its huge tax cuts for the super rich, for its huge fiscal deficits bequeathed to future generations and for its huge and costly bailouts for speculators and high flyers, and very little for families and ordinary citizens.

As a consequence, on the whole, Americans are today poorer than when this duo took power eight years ago, while the gap between the very rich and the average American has never been wider. It has been a regime that has borrowed and borrowed, debased the currency, waged unnecessary wars and doled out defense contracts in the most reckless possible way, with a minimum of oversight and accountability.

• International Mess: An Irresponsible Attempt to rekindle the Cold War

Internationally, Bush and Cheney not only started a war against Iraq, a country that had never attacked the United States, but they also did their utmost to recklessly restart the Cold War with Russia. They did that by unilaterally abrogating the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, by transforming NATO into an offensive military alliance and by installing anti-missile sites, manned by American soldiers, in former Warsaw Pact countries, such as Poland and the Czech Republic, and in former Soviet republics, right next to Russia’s borders.

The Bush-Cheney administration designed a policy of encircling Russia by arming pro-U.S. European client states. That is why they have directly provoked Russia by incorporating six former Warsaw Pact nations and three former soviet republics in the now offensive and U.S.-controlled military alliance that is NATO. They went as far as to openly support and arm aggression-prone governments in some former Soviet republics, especially in Georgia, the birthplace of Stalin. All this reflects a pro-active and aggressive military stance against Russia designed to provoke Russia and restart the Cold War, thus dangerously increasing the chances of a nuclear world war.

Let us recall that when Khrushchev’s Soviet Union tried to install missiles in Cuba in 1962, it nearly started a world war. Now, half a century later, with Bush-Cheney, the brinkmanship is on the other side. They have acted irresponsibly in provoking Russia, as if they did not mind restarting a cold war with that country. Russian exasperation was well expressed by then Russian President Vladimir Putin when, in 2007, he said that “The United States [under Bush and Cheney] has overstepped its national borders in every way, and as a result, no one feels safe. . . . such a policy stimulates an arms race.”

• Disrespect of Military Advice

George W. Bush will be remembered as the man who brought within the walls of the White House not only corruption and incompetence in nearly every field of activity—as well as a lack of moral fortitude in approving torture—but also a quasi dictatorial gangster mentality in dealing with Congress, with the military, with other governments and with political opponents in general. For instance, Bush fired more generals and admirals than any other head of state since Adolf Hitler in Germany, some seventy years ago. Among others, Bush fired or forced into early retirement Gen. Eric K. Shinseki; Gen. John Abizaid; Gen. George Casey; and Adm. William J. Fallon, then top U.S. commander in the Middle East.

• A Propaganda-prone Administration

But perhaps one of the greatest indictments of the Bush-Cheney administration is the way it has used crude covert propaganda techniques worthy of a totalitarian regime. Indeed, it has launched a sophisticated propaganda campaign to manipulate information and public opinion that has had the effect of undermining democracy and the freedom of information. For one, it has subverted the major American TV and radio networks by provided them with false independent “analysts”.

Second, it has paid journalists to push surreptitiously for government programs. Third, it has intervened within news organizations, using the power of government to have journalists and producers fired when they didn’t toe the government line. Fourth, the Bush administration has embarked upon the business of censoring movies. And that is only the tip of the iceberg, considering how pervasive the Bush-Cheney administration’s direct and indirect control of the media has been. Never has American journalism and U.S. corporate media been so corrupt and complicit, and this is because the United States has never had such a corrupt administration, i.e. the 2001-2009 Bush-Cheney administration.

• Conclusion

To conclude, it should be obvious by now to anybody who has eyes to see that the Texan politician named George W. Bush, son of former President George H. Bush, was unqualified for high office. He has amply and tragically demonstrated it. This is a politician who presided over an administration that has acted as a wrecking crew, destroying most of everything it has touched. [For more analysis on that, see my book “The New American Empire”.]

In its countless failures, the Bush-Cheney administration has been an unhealthy mixture, rarely seen in a democracy, of immorality, lawlessness and incompetence. —It won’t be missed by most people, both in the U.S. and around the world.

Rodrigue Tremblay is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Montreal and can be reached at: rodrigue.tremblay@ yahoo.com.

He is the author of the book ‘The New American Empire’.

Visit his blog site at www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.

Author’s Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com/

Check Dr. Tremblay’s coming book “The Code for Global Ethics” at: www.TheCodeForGlobalEthics.com/

Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal

Recently, after a long wait, Indo-Pak LOC trade or “cross border trade” has opened between India and Pakistan, ostensibly to boost economic development of Kashmir and mutual tensions between India and Pakistan, but many Kashmiris do suspect of some hidden agenda of India. Although there has a sense of satisfaction among the business community in the state, Kashmiris do have apprehensions about the real motive behind this India sponsored trade exercise without any visible links to Kashmir resolution. Media reports suggest that basically it is an exercise in boosting Indo-Pakistan trade without in fact Kashmir getting anything tangible in return.

In effect the Loc trade should mean trade within Jammu Kashmir without any possible hindrance, and not just to boost trade between Kashmir’s neighbours while Kashmir remaining a transit corridor to promote the trade while not being able to redeem its lost independence and glory. But Indian intentions are gloomy and confusing to the world. Is India interested only in business or Kashmir freedom as well? Or, is USA and India are trying to use the region for advancing their oil interests?

India wants to use USA for advancing its regional interests and reduce the Chinese influence on Pakistan. A criminally silent India has not said the trade would eventually lead to Kashmir freedom and regional peace. Already badly hit by continuous torture and genocide by occupying Indian terror forces, innocent Kashmiris wonder if this is yet another ploy being employed by hegemonic India with the help of Pakistan to try yet another strategy to kill the remaining Kashmiris regularly, or they really means to boost Kashmir economy as a prelude to surrendering sovereignty back to struggling Kashmiris.

Pakistanis wish everything well for Kashmiris and they have done it by giving up their own precious lives in wars with India. India always wants to split the Pakistan-Kashmir bonds by using its anti-Muslim media both in India and Jammu Kashmir. Kashmiris are really weary of this Indian mischievous strategy to weaken Kashmir freedom movement.

It is an established fact India wants to keep Jammu Kashmir under its terror control for the obvious security purposes. Big powers like USA and Russia fight wars on alien lands so that their own lands and people are safe. While Russia keeps its former Soviet space as its outer security zone, USA considers every other country its legitimate security asset. New Delhi’s drive to keep Jammu Kashmir as its outer security zone as per its core military doctrine and hence it began heavy militarization drive in Jammu Kashmir with the help of the Hindus in the region as agents and pro-India Muslims as under –dogs on payment basis. India wants to fight wars with its neighbours Pakistan and China only in Jammu Kashmir so that “the enemy” does not reach New Delhi.

Cross-border terrorism was encouraged by India, though officially it criticizes, so as to keep the region under tension and use the opportunities to make Kashmir an extended military cantonment of India with all modern equipment. Indian military has been authorized to kill the Kashmiris demanding freedom from Indian hegemony, oppression and genocide.

Now both India and Pakistan have decided to replace the terrorism regime with trade across the borders. But in between Indo-Pakistan borders lay the Jammu Kashmir under Indian military occupation and the trade passes through Kashmir. In effect India is now using Kashmir as a tool to enhance its trade with Pakistan and vice verse.

Obviously, one does not know the hidden agenda of India in this economic project and what puzzles more is the suspicion if India is trying some more tricks to split the Kashmiris who stay in between the present trade route!

But how far the cross border trade between two neighbours on either side sandwiched by Kashmir would benefit Jammu Kashmir and in which way that trade would lead to freedom of Jammu Kashmir and its re-establishment as it existed before it was tactfully annexed by “democratic” India in 1947? Even in the LoC trade affairs talks, Kashmiri freedom leaders have not been involved at any level. But they should have been since Kashmir is the theme and subject the entire exercise. Nor UN was involved. This gives rise to suspicion among the Kashmiris about the Indian intentions.

Kashmiris have been demanding freedom form occupying India, but India is shamelessly keen to impose polls on unwilling Kashmiris and postpone the issue of independence almost indefinitely. Issue is quite clear: if India and Pakistan, especially India, wants to use the trade across the border to boost economy of Kashmir and clear ways for Kashmir re-independence, that would be a positive side and most welcome, but if it constitutes an Indian hidden exercise in retaining the control over both parts of Kashmir, then it would be bad for all the three parties, but can be disastrous for Kashmiris in particular. The problem is Pakistan is busy with killing Muslims in Pakistan in the company of USA supported by India through Afghanistan.

Since Indian leaders, including president, premier and UPA chairperson have not yet said a single word about Indian intention of surrendering sovereignty back to Kashmiris and the LoC trade is towards that direction. Indian criminal silence is in fact confusing Kashmiris who are otherwise badly hit by Indian terror forces and disappointed by the poll thrashing. Does it not indicate mal-intentions on the part of India as endorsed and supported by “new” Pakistani leadership? In fact the recent statement by Pakistan leadership about “terrorists” in Jammu Kashmir has stirred the psyche of Kashmiris fearing onslaught from terror India taking that statement as legitimacy to further kill the innocent Kashmiris, without even trying to understand what he said could also mean Indian terrorists killing Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir

Rightly so, Kashmiris over years of Indian oppression and genocide have developed zero faith in Indian actions. As Pakistan failed to use it US connections to get freedom for Kashmir, India, as per its hidden agenda, also has miserably failed to make Kashmiris go against Pakistan.

October 27 was observed a Black Day in Jammu Kashmir on both sides of the “great divide”, but in fact all the days the people of Jammu Kashmir have spent so far under Indian military occupation and genocide have also remained historical Black Days for Kashmiris who continue to fight for their sovereignty and encounter the Indian oppression bravely.

<!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:”Cambria Math”; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1107304683 0 0 159 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:””; margin-top:0cm; margin-right:0cm; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} .MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; margin-bottom:10.0pt; line-height:115%;} @page Section1 {size:595.3pt 841.9pt; margin:70.85pt 70.85pt 70.85pt 70.85pt; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0cm;
mso-para-margin-right:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0cm;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal has been a university teacher, and has worked in various Indian institutions like JNU, Mysore University, Central Institute of English FL, etc. He is also a political commentator, researcher, and columnist. He has widely published in India and abroad, and has written about state terrorism.

By Lt. General (U.S. Army, Retired) Robert G. Gard, Jr., PhD, War in Context, October 26, 2008

The economy has become the priority issue for voters. But my principal reason for refusing to vote for John McCain has nothing to do with his admitted lack of knowledge of economics, although I did not realize the extent of his ignorance prior to his comments regarding the re-distribution of income. Since presidents encounter considerable constraints on their freedom to control economic programs and policies, this shortcoming is not critical.

It is, rather, the fields of foreign and national security policies, generally regarded as Senator McCain’s strengths, that in my view are his disqualifying weaknesses; and a president has considerable leeway to operate in these areas to the detriment, or benefit, of the United States.

I deeply respect John McCain’s service to our country; and I admire his bravery as a prisoner of war, described by a fellow prisoner as similar to that demonstrated by hundreds of other U.S. prisoners in North Vietnam who also obeyed the code of declining release before those captured earlier.

Unfortunately, however, Senator McCain has demonstrated clearly that he is a dedicated ideologue in the foreign/security policy area, unwilling to consider opinions or even credible evidence contrary to his preconceived notions. In addition, his temperament, marked not only by impatience but also by rude and sometimes hostile behavior, would discourage advisers from bringing to his attention views that might not be consistent with his preconceptions. A president with this combination of significant shortcomings would be a dangerous commander-in-chief, posing an unacceptable risk to the security of the nation.

Senator McCain has adopted, promoted and sustained the position of the so-called neo-conservatives and ultra-nationalists who believed that the United States should capitalize on American military superiority to spread democracy abroad. Overthrowing the Iraqi government was seen as the first step in transforming the politics of the Middle East by converting governments in the region to democracies friendly to the United States and its interests. Senator McCain reportedly has bragged in private conversations that he was the first neocon.

Since Senator McCain has made his positions on U.S. policy and military operations in Iraq a central theme in his campaign, it is useful illustratively to examine his stated views on this central national security issue.

Iraq and Related Matters

• Consistent with the Project for a New American Century’s open letter to the President, Senator McCain co-sponsored the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act that changed the policy of the U.S. government from containing Iraq to overthrowing its regime. The Act also provided funds to Iraqi exile groups seeking regime change in Iraq.
• In September 2000, the Project for the New American Century published a manifesto entitled Rebuilding America’s Defenses. It advocated expanding democracy in seven countries in a five-year period: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan. Randy Scheunemann, then a director of the Project, is Republican candidate McCain’s chief foreign/national security adviser.
• Immediately following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack, well in advance of the Bush administration’s campaign to sell the American public on the invasion of Iraq, Senator McCain began a repetitive drumbeat promoting that course of action.
• On the day of the 9/11 attack, during an interview with Dan Rather of CBS, he said: “I don’t think there’s any doubt that there are other countries — Iraq, Iran, — who … involve themselves in state-sponsored terrorism.”
• The next day, 12 September 2001, he said “It isn’t just Afghanistan; we’re talking about Syria, Iraq, Iran, … and others.” He added: “There’s a network [of states sponsoring terrorism] that is going to have to be attacked.”
• Six days later, he said: “I think very obviously Iraq is the first country, but there are others – Syria, Iran, … who have continued to harbor terrorist organizations and actually assist them.”
• On 20 September 2001, the Project for a New American Century sent a letter to the President, signed by Randy Scheunemann, urging expansion of the war on terrorism beyond Al Qaeda to Iraq, Iran, Syria and other countries. It stated that failure to make a determined effort remove Saddam Hussein would be “the equivalent of decisive surrender.”
• On 3 October ’01, less than a month after 9/11, while speaking of military operations against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan on the Letterman Late Show, Senator McCain declared: “The second phase is Iraq.”
• Senator McCain advanced misleading and even false assertions not only on Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction but also Iraqi ties to international terrorists, including those who committed the 9/11 attacks. On 29 October, he stated: “The evidence is very clear” that the claim made by “Curveball,” an exile discredited by U.S. intelligence, was valid: the alleged meeting of an Iraqi intelligence agent with Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 attack.
• In December 2001, Senator McCain joined five other senators in signing an open letter to the White House stating: “In the interest of our own national security, Saddam Hussein must be removed from power.”
• Addressing the crew of a U.S. warship on 2 January 2002, he said: “Next up, Baghdad;” the following month, he warned: “A terrorist resides in Baghdad. A day of reckoning is approaching.”
• Along with Senator Joseph Lieberman, he agreed to serve as honorary co-chair of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a lobbying organization formed in 2002 by the chair of the Project for a New American Century to promote the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by military force. The president of the Committee was Randy Scheunemann.
• Senator McCain actively supported Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress exile group, who had been exposed as a charlatan not only by the CIA but also the Defense Intelligence Agency.
• In voting for the use of force against Iraq, he called Saddam Hussein “a threat of the first order.” He spoke in favor of removing all members of the Baath party from the Iraqi government and the Iraqi military, decisions generally recognized as disastrous errors. Demonstrating a simplistic misunderstanding of the profound differences, he went so far as to predict that the U.S. occupation of Iraq would be remembered in much the same way as the liberation and rebuilding of Germany and Japan after World War II.
• Speaking of the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Senator McCain said: “There is no doubt in my mind … that we will be welcomed as liberators.” This despite dire warnings to the contrary from the National Intelligence Council and reports from the CIA, the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and even from organizations within the Department of Defense: the National Defense University and the Army War College, both having held conferences of experts on the likely results of an invasion. He had “no doubt,” because he was unwilling to give any weight to evidence that did not support his ideological commitment. He assured Wolf Blitzer during an interview on CNN: “We’re not going to get into house-to-house fighting;” a flat assertion, without any reservation or qualification of probability, despite authoritative opinions of the likelihood of an insurgency.
• Underscoring his ideological commitment, Senator McCain said in retrospect that even had there been no claims of Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction or of Iraqi connection to Al Qaeda, “there’s no question” that he would have voted to authorize the use of military force against Iraq.