| Manipulation, propaganda, imagery & PR wizardry
by Andrew Hughes
|
|
 |
. |
|
Global Research, May 23, 2009
|
|
| After 8 years of the Bush-Cheney nightmare during which we saw the wanton destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, the cynical negation of centuries of Law designed to protect the most basic human rights and a foreign policy worthy of Genghis Khan, there came along the “Great Black Hope” in the persona of Barack Obama. The collective world consciousness turned uncritically to what was presented as a new era for peace, change and trust in Government.
Never before had one witnessed such an accomplished use of manipulation, propaganda, imagery and public relations wizardry to sell the public a man who was to take the baton from Bush and run with it in the race to destroy the economy, the rights of the people and help birth a nation totally controlled by those who have always lurked in the shadows of power. “Change” was promised and was delivered in the form of a deepening of the already Dystopic nightmare. Promises were broken with no apology, the same creative legalese that infested the Bush administration, in the form of John Yoo and Alberto Gonzalez, was again used to deny justice to the inmates of Guantanamo, It was used to justify more torture, more destruction of the Constitution and more illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens. The President that extended the hand of peace to the Muslim world has murdered hundreds of Pakistani men, women and children. The President who promised accountability in Government has filled his staff with lobbyists, banksters and warmongers. His Attorney General refuses to prosecute some of the worst war crimes committed in modern history and continues to give legal cover to criminals who tortured with impunity. The country has been further bankrupted by the continuing theft of taxpayer money as the Wall St. campaign donors receive their quid pro quo. Obama has stood by idly as Bernancke states that the private Federal Reserve is not answerable to either Congress of the American public. The U.S. taxpayer is now on the hook for $14.3 Trillion and rising. Foreclosures and unemployment are rising with no meaningful efforts by the administration to alleviate the symptoms, never mind the cause. The new image of America is one of tent cities, lengthening soup kitchen lines, sherrifs evicting countless thousands of young and old from their homes, once prosperous towns descending in to an eerie stillness and an increasingly disillusioned populace. The “War on terrorism” has mutated in to a control grid for an increasingly aware population. The foundation for this had already been put in place by Bush with the Patriot Act, Patriot Act 2, Military commissions act and numerous executive orders that strangled what was left of Posse Comitatus and the Constitution. Homeland Security now defines “Terrorists” as those who believe in the Constitution, the first, second and fourth amendments. Returning veterans are being targeted for a denial of their second amendment rights. A “Terrorist Watchlist” of more than a million and rapidly growing, is being used as the basis for denying citizens the rights to travel and to work. Obama is now mulling over the idea of indefinite detention without trial for U.S. citizens. This, from a teacher of the Constitution! Bills are in congress to criminalize free speech on the Internet via the Cyberbullying Act which will make hurting somebody’s feelings a felony. Just like the Patriot Act this will morph in to a criminalization of political free speech and any criticism of the Government. “Cyberterrorism” is being used as a pretext to bring government regulation to the the last stronghold of unbiased information. Washington has realized that it’s getting harder to get away with their Fascist agenda and are moving to control the field. The populace have become more aware of just what kind of “Change” Obama intended to deliver. There has been a growing resistance on a state level with several invoking their 9th and 10th Amendment rights in a valiant attempt to stop the Federal Vampire from draining the last drops of blood, the last vestiges of Freedom and Hope. This is the Dystopic Nightmare that America finds itself in today and each day brings new assaults on Freedom and Sanity. The framework for total control of the citizenry, the economy and the media is being built upon in a relentless aggrandization of Govermental power. Obama sits atop his new Empire still smiling that sickeningly disingenuous smile surrounded by his seasoned courtiers who have worked for decades to bring America in to this new era of the New World Order. |
|
Archive for May, 2009
Print this articleThe CIA’s Silent War in Pakistan
May 24, 2009
That was the bet President George W. Bush placed during his final months in office, when the CIA greatly increased drone sorties and strikes in Pakistan. The accelerated attacks have been stepped up under President Barack Obama. Nowadays, the low hum of the drones has become a familiar sound in Waziristan, where tribesmen call them machay, or red bees. Their lethal sting has been felt in villages and hamlets across the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA). The main objectives of the campaign: to take out al-Qaeda’s top tier of leadership, including Osama bin Laden, and deny sanctuary in FATA for the Taliban and those fighters who routinely slip across the border to attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Combining high-tech video surveillance with the ability to deliver deadly fire, drones allow joystick-wielding operators on the far side of the world–Creech Air Force Base, near Las Vegas–to track moving targets in real time and destroy them. All this, without spilling American blood and for a small fraction of the cost of conventional battle.
But is the drone war winnable? The White House routinely dodges questions on the subject, and neither the CIA nor the State Department would talk about the program on the record. But officials familiar with the CIA’s operations say at least nine of the top 20 high-value al-Qaeda targets identified last fall have been killed by drone strikes, along with dozens of lesser figures. Many bases and safe houses have been destroyed. On the other hand, Pakistani officials say the majority of strikes have either missed their targets or, worse, killed innocent civilians. The News, a Pakistani daily, reported recently that 60 strikes since early 2006 had killed 687 civilians and only 14 al-Qaeda leaders, a ratio few Pakistanis would find acceptable. The campaign, in fact, may be contributing to a swelling of anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and weakening the fragile government of President Asif Ali Zardari.
‘Israel won’t yield to U.S. demands, won’t halt settlement construction’
May 24, 2009
|
|
|||||||||||||
|
|||||
 |
|||||
|
|||||
| By Haaertz Service | |||||
|
|||||
| Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon spoke to Channel 2 on Saturday about the meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama, held earlier this week, saying that Israel’s government will not allow the U.S. to dictate its policy, and that “settlement construction will not be halted.””Settlements are not the reason that the peace process is failing, they were never an obstacle, not at any stage,” Ya’alon told Channel 2 News. “Even when Israel pulled out of [Palestinian] territory, the terror continued. Even when we uprooted [Jewish] communities, we got ‘Hamastan.’ That is why I propose that we think about it – not in slogans and not with decrees.”
According to Ayalon, “we will not halt the construction in the settlements within the framework of natural growth. There are people here who are living their lives, raising children. Housing is required ? it wasn’t housing that has prevented peace.”
In reference to the illegal West Bank outposts, which Israel has vowed to evacuate and has begun to do so, Ya’alon stressed that “the government will not permit illegal settlement, as we’ve proven with our actions this week.” Some believe that the evacuation of the outpost of Maoz Esther on Thursday morning, which came a day after Defense Ministry sources told Haaretz that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak had agreed on a plan to evacuate illegal outposts in the West Bank, was carried out in accordance with U.S. pressure. However, Barak denied any correlation between the Netanyahu-Obama meeting on Monday, and the evacuation. Ya’alon also addressed reports that the U.S. had upped its demands and was trying to dictate Israel’s next moves in the negotiations with the Palestinians. “What the U.S. is asking is not a demand, we’ll see whether their declaration become actual demands,” he said. “[U.S. envoy to the Middle East George] Mitchell will come, and we’ll talk to him. I suggest that Israel and the U.S. don’t set a timetable. We won’t let them threaten us,” Ya’alon added. “From the banks of the Potomac in Washington it is not always clear what the real situation here is,” Ya’alon concluded. “This is where Israel must step in and help her ally understand the situation.” Ya’alon also criticized Israel, saying that “the Israeli discourse paints us as hostile, the problem is within us.” |
|||||
US President Gives Green Light for Israel to Continue Its Nuclear Arms Program
May 24, 2009The Alternative Information Center, May 20, 2009
The Dimona nuclear reactor in the south of Israel.According to the Israeli press, US President Barak Obama promised Prime Minister Netanyahu that he would maintain the current understandings between the two countries regarding Israel’s nuclear program.
Before the Obama-Netanyahu summit, at an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Rose Gottemoeller, declared that Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea should sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. These are the only four recognized sovereign states that are not parties to the treaty.
In Israel, those declarations increased the public sense of insecurity regarding US-Israel relations. The press feared that the Obama administration would review its 40 year old nuclear ambiguity policy and demand international inspection of Israel’s nuclear facilities.
As part of its nuclear ambiguity policies, Israel does not need to confirm or deny the possession of nuclear weapons. However, Israel is believed to have begun full scale production of nuclear weapons following the war in 1967, although it may have had nuclear bomb parts earlier. According to Avner Cohen’s book Israel and the Bomb, a CIA report from early stated that Israel had the materials to construct a bomb in six to eight weeks.
The CIA believed that Israel’s first bombs may have been made with highly enriched uranium stolen in the mid-1960s from the US Navy nuclear fuel plant operated by the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation, where sloppy material accounting would have masked the theft.
The understandings between the US and Israel regarding Israel’s nuclear capabilities date back to 1969, when President Nixon pressed Israel to “make no visible introduction of nuclear weapons or undertake a nuclear test program,” in exchange, the US will not request Israel to joint the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli former nuclear technician revealed details of Israel’s nuclear weapons program in Britain to the press. He was subsequently lured to Italy and kidnapped by Israeli agents. He was transported to Israel and convicted of treason.
Although no official statistics exist, a report published on 14 March by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington based foreign policy think-tank, it is estimated that Israel possesses between 60 to 400 thermonuclear weapons.
Israeli military forces also possess land, air, and sea-based methods for deploying their nuclear weapons, thus forming a rudimentary nuclear triad.
The Israeli nuclear program is part of a deterrence military doctrine that assumes that Israel has to maintain its absolute regional military superiority. Israel’s long-range missiles, nuclear capable aircraft, and its submarines present effective second strike deterrence against unconventional and conventional attacks.
In order to maintain its absolute military superiority, Israel must prevent other Middle Eastern countries from acquiring nuclear capabilities. It also requires Israel to remain outside of the international nuclear non-proliferation system.
According to Haaretz, an Israeli daily newspaper, in the past, Netanyahu asked President Clinton and received a written promise that the US will help to maintain Israel’s strategic deterrent capabilities and make sure that weapons control initiatives will not damage it. President Obama has now ratified this commitment.
Concern mounts over US Predator covert killings
May 24, 2009May 23, 2009
Blackwater Operating in Afghanistan on Subcontract with Raytheon
May 23, 2009
After deadly shooting in Kabul, a new Blackwater subsidiary is revealed. The company is also accused of using AK47s seized from Afghan insurgents.
By Jeremy Scahill | RebelReports, May 19, 2009
For those of you who have been following the intricacies of the various ongoing Blackwater/Xe scandals (hard to keep up with indeed), the situation unfolding in Kabul is certainly on your radar. In short, four Blackwater/Xe operatives working for Paravant LLC, a subsidiary of Blackwater/Xe are alleged to have fired on a civilian car they say they saw as a threat, killing at least one Afghan civilian. According to The Wall Street Journal’s August Cole, “At least some of the men, who were former military personnel, had been allegedly drinking alcohol that evening, according to a person familiar with the incident. Off-duty contractors aren’t supposed to carry weapons or drink alcohol.”
The US military said the incident took place in Kabul on May 5. “While stopped for the vehicle accident, the contractors were approached by a vehicle in a manner the contractors felt threatening,” according to the military. At last one Afghan was killed and three others were wounded.
Now, there are many layers to this story, not the least of which is yet another allegation of Blackwater-affiliated personnel drinking and killing in a foreign war zone. (A drunken Blackwater operative was alleged to have killed a bodyguard to an Iraqi vice president on Christmas Eve 2006 inside Baghdad’s Green Zone).
What’s more, this represents the first public mention of the Blackwater/Xe subsidiary Paravant, but also the fact that its work was apparently buried in a subcontract with Raytheon, which in turn has a large US Army training contract in Afghanistan. “Raytheon’s use of Paravant is for a program called Warfighter Focus, a sweeping U.S. Army training effort valued at more than $11 billion over a 10-year period,” reports The Wall Street Journal.
“Warfighter Focus” is carried out by a Raytheon program the company describes in its contract handbook as such [PDF]:
The Raytheon-led Warrior Training Alliance (WTA) team is comprised of over 65 subcontractors with one common mission: to deliver unmatched training support services that cost-effectively meet the U.S. Army’s requirement for total warfighter readiness. The WTA’s ability to provide a comprehensive range of integrated training services will assist the Army in transitioning to a more collaborative, consolidated and streamlined training environment.
Now, the “Warfighter Focus” contract in and of itself is very intriguing and worthy of further investigation. But it is also particularly interesting given that Blackwater is under multiple investigations (DoJ, Congress, IRS, ATF, etc.) and continues to operate in Afghanistan (in part) on a subcontract through a subsidiary working for a massive defense Goliath. This is how the whole contracting scam works, particularly for companies in trouble. They hide under layers of subcontracts and subsidiaries. Blackwater/Xe of course still holds overt contracts in Afghanistan as well.
In addition to Raytheon/Paravant part of the Kabul story, there is yet another internal drama unfolding. According to the WSJ:
Paravant has terminated contracts with the four men “for failure to comply with the terms of their contract,” according to Xe spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell. “Contractual and or legal violations will not be tolerated,” she said.
The contractors were ordered not to leave Afghanistan without permission of the Defense Department, she said, and the company said it is cooperating with authorities.
A US military spokesperson confirmed this, saying, “The contracting company is cooperating with us. We have asked them to keep the individuals in-country until the investigation is complete.”
In light of all of this, I thought it appropriate to share a document that proves an interesting read. Late Friday night/early Saturday, I received an email from Callahan & Blaine— the law firm that represents the four families of the Blackwater men killed in Fallujah on March 31, 2004. That lawsuit, of course, was the first really big case against Blackwater.
Callahan & Blaine has now apparently decided to represent the four Blackwater/Xe/Paravant men involved with the May 5 Kabul shooting. The law firm claims that the men are being held against their will in Afghanistan by Blackwater/Paravant “in a safe house located in a mosque in Kabul in an 8’ x 8’ room.” The company’s alleged motivation for this according to Callahan & Blaine is as follows:
“[T]he Letter of Authorization issued by the Department of Defense to Blackwater specifically provided that the Blackwater personnel would not be armed in Afghanistan. This limitation presumably arose out of concern emanating from the September 16, 2007 shootings in Iraq which resulted in the deaths of 17 Iraqi citizens. Blackwater in knowing violation of the limited authorization issued AK47s to each of the four men. Blackwater acquired these AK47s from a cache of weapons taken from Afghan insurgents. The fact that these men had weapons probably saved their lives but also puts Blackwater’s future involvement in Afghanistan at risk.”
[…]
It is believed that Blackwater has already paid the families of the individuals that were injured or killed and is attempting to negotiate with Afghan authorities to allow Blackwater to remain in Afghanistan despite its breach of the Letter of Authorization in exchange for turning over these four Americans to the Afghanistan authorities, despite their being cleared for release.
I am providing the document below in-full for the public record and as a reference for journalists covering this case more closely than I am able to right now. I am not saying that this is what happened, but rather that it is a version that differs from that of Blackwater/Xe and publicly quoted US military spokespeople. It is from Callahan & Blaine:
FOUR AMERICANS HELD CAPTIVE IN KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
Blackwater USA, now known as Xe Company, is holding four Americans captive and against their will in Kabul, Afghanistan. The four men are being kept in a safe house located in a mosque in Kabul in an 8’ x 8’ room. These men, Mr. Chris Drotleff, Mr. Steve McClain, Mr. Justin Cannon and Mr. Armando Hamid, managed to access Blackwater’s Internet and make a Skype Internet telephone call to Dan Callahan of Callahan & Blaine, the attorney who represents the four Blackwater contractors murdered in Fallujah on March 31, 2004 and is actively involved in litigation against Blackwater.
The group has informed Mr. Callahan that the Letter of Authorization issued by the Department of Defense to Blackwater specifically provided that the Blackwater personnel would not be armed in Afghanistan. This limitation presumably arose out of concern emanating from the September 16, 2007 shootings in Iraq which resulted in the deaths of 17 Iraqi citizens. Blackwater in knowing violation of the limited authorization issued AK47s to each of the four men. Blackwater acquired these AK47s from a cache of weapons taken from Afghan insurgents. The fact that these men had weapons probably saved their lives but also puts Blackwater’s future involvement in Afghanistan at risk.
On May 5, 2009, Messrs. Drotleff, McClain, Cannon and Hamid were in the second vehicle of a two vehicle convoy going through Kabul when an insurgent vehicle passed the second of the two Blackwater vehicles and crashed into the first vehicle. The second vehicle, containing these four men, stopped, and two of the men exited their vehicle to attend to the injuries of the occupants of the first vehicle. The insurgent vehicle suddenly made a u-turn and attempted to run down these Blackwater contractors. At that point, all four Blackwater contractors opened fire on the insurgent vehicle. The driver of the insurgent vehicle was killed and a pedestrian located approximately 200 meters away was wounded and is last known to be in a coma. There were two other occupants in the insurgent vehicle. The men are not sure of those individuals’ medical status.
The United States Army Criminal Investigation Command (“CID”) has investigated this shooting and has freed the men for return to the United States. Blackwater has discharged them and likewise has discharged their team leader, Carl Newman, and project manager, Johnnie Walker. Carl Newman and Johnnie Walker were allowed to leave Afghanistan and have returned to the United States.
Although the four men have been cleared to leave Afghanistan, Blackwater has detained them in a safe house in a mosque in Kabul against their will and contrary to their clearance to leave Afghanistan. It is believed that Blackwater has already paid the families of the individuals that were injured or killed and is attempting to negotiate with Afghan authorities to allow Blackwater to remain in Afghanistan despite its breach of the Letter of Authorization in exchange for turning over these four Americans to the Afghanistan authorities, despite their being cleared for release.
The individuals presently holding the men in an 8’ x 8’ room in a safe house contained within a mosque in Kabul are Tom Adams and Mike Bush, the head of Blackwater’s Afghanistan operation.
The four men told Dan Callahan that special agent Rodriguez of the CID had cleared them for release on May 12, 2009. The men were terminated on May 13, 2009 and told they could leave and since that time have been detained.
The men managed to access Blackwater’s Internet and make Skype Internet telephone calls to Dan Callahan in a request to gain their release.
The men are presently calling Dan Callahan on the hour and will continue to do so until Blackwater discovers that they have acquired this ability to place telephone calls, at which time it is expected that telephone access will be terminated.
Obama’s AfPak war engulfs Pakistan’s Swat Valley
May 23, 2009By James Cogan |wsws.org, May23, 2009
A humanitarian catastrophe is taking place in areas of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), as a result of the Obama administration’s expansion of the occupation of Afghanistan into the so-called “AfPak war”.
Over the past seven years, ethnic Pashtun Islamist movements in NWFP and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) have lent assistance to the resistance being waged against the American-led forces in Afghanistan by the Pashtun-based Taliban, including by disrupting US and NATO supply routes through Pakistan.
On Washington’s insistence, the Pakistani government of President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has ordered the military to embark on operations to crush the militants. In late April, Pakistani forces deployed into the Lower Dir and Buner districts of NWFP to drive out a small number who had moved into the area from their strongholds to the north, in the Swat Valley district.
Since May 8, the operation, which now involves up to 18,000 Pakistani troops, backed by air support and heavy artillery, has extended deep inside the Swat Valley. Over the past two weeks they have engaged in a series of battles against the vastly outnumbered and outgunned Islamist fighters.
There is virtually no independent reporting from the conflict zone. Most information coming out of Swat is sourced directly from the military, making its accuracy questionable.
What is clear, however, is that the assault into Buner, Lower Dir and the Swat Valley has rapidly degenerated into the savage collective punishment of entire Pashtun communities. Hundreds of thousands of terrified civilians have taken to the roads to get out of the conflict zone. By the beginning of this week, the United Nations had registered 1.45 million internally displaced persons.
The exodus from just these three districts is becoming the greatest displacement of civilians on the Indian subcontinent since the 1947 partition of the British Raj into India and Pakistan. Tens of thousands of people have found themselves in squalid refugee camps, without adequate food, water and sanitation. Peasant farmers have had to flee right at the time when they need to harvest their crops, setting the stage for severe food shortages and malnutrition later in the year.
A factor in the mass evacuation is the sheer brutality with which the Pakistani military waged an offensive in the nearby tribal agencies of Bajaur and Mohmand last year. Scores of towns and villages, including the major town of Loe Sam, were indiscriminately reduced to rubble in order to dislodge Taliban fighters. The government claims that over 1,500 militants were killed, while relief agencies estimate that over 500,000 people were forced from their homes. There is no estimate on the number of civilian deaths.
The depopulation of the Swat Valley is a conscious policy aimed at creating the best conditions for the military to slaughter the anti-government guerrillas there as well.
Reports indicate that a three-pronged offensive is underway to trap as many militants as possible in the central Swat city of Mingora. Army columns have pushed through Buner and Lower Dir and entered Swat from the south. Another column is moving through Swat from the north, while special forces units were dropped deep in the mountains to force Islamists out of the western Peochar Valley. In one bloody two-week battle for control of a mountain ridge known as Biny Baba Ziarat, the military claims to have slaughtered 150 Taliban, including boys no older than 14.
While the details are sketchy, the military has also waged significant battles to take control of a number of Swat towns, as well as the strategic bridges and roads linking Mingora with the outside world. It is already claiming that it has killed over 1,100 militants, at the cost of some 60 soldiers. Over recent days, troops have been fighting street-to-street battles in the town of Kanju, on the outskirts of Mingora proper.
An Al Jazeerah video shot on May 16 near Mingora showed helicopter gunships attacking highways and other targets; children playing among partially demolished homes; and the potholes caused by the controlled explosion of mines placed by militants on the roads.
The description of the situation in Mingora is reminiscent of Fallujah in November 2004, prior to the murderous US assault that destroyed the Iraqi city and left thousands dead.
Mingora previously had a population of some 250,000. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has been told that as few as 10,000 people remain. The Pakistani government has provided a similar estimate, but declared those remaining are all “Taliban sympathisers,” in order to justify a massacre in advance.
HRW reported that Mingora has not had electricity since the offensive began, and hospitals and health facilities are not operating. Now, the army is cutting off food supplies. The city is believed to be defended by several thousand fighters, who have few heavy weapons and are being repeatedly pounded by air strikes and artillery bombardments.
Spelling out the intentions of the military, Major General Sajad Ghani told the Associated Press: “The noose is tightening around them. Their routes of escape have been cut off. It’s just a question of time before they are eliminated.”
The militants in Swat are followers of the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), or the Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law. While TNSM has ideological affinities with both the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban led by Baitullah Mehsud, it is a local organisation. It gained support in the district as a backlash against both Islamabad’s support for the US invasion of Afghanistan and anger over the endemic poverty that faces the majority of people in what was once one of the country’s premier tourist locations and playgrounds for Pakistan’s rich.
TNSM’s leaders, cleric Sufi Mohammad and his son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah, used a network of FM radio stations to combine Islamist preaching with populist calls for wealth redistribution and denunciations of the Pakistani government’s neglect of the poor. After several years of fighting, the Pakistani government agreed to a ceasefire with TNSM in February which accepted that its version of Islamic law could be imposed in the Swat Valley.
Over the following weeks, the TNSM sought to expand its influence to the neighbouring district of Buner, which is located only 100 kilometres to the north of Islamabad. This led to exaggerated claims by the Obama administration and in Western newspapers that the Pakistani government had allowed the “Taliban” to grow so strong that they were threatening to take over the country’s capital. The purpose of the accusation was to pressure Zardari and Gilani into unleashing the military to crush the spread of Islamist influence.
The government has made clear that the offensive to destroy TNSM is only the first stage of a campaign of military violence on behalf of the Obama administration. The Pakistani ruling elite fears being denied the international financial assistance they need to stave off economic collapse. At present, the Pakistani state is being kept afloat by loans from the International Monetary Fund and aid from the US and Japan.
Zardari told the British Sunday Times on May 17: “We’re going to go into Waziristan, all these regions, with army operations. Swat is just the start. It’s a larger war to fight.” He went on to appeal for $1 billion in emergency assistance aid. Thus far, the US and other powers have agreed to provide just $224 million.
The Pakistani Taliban strongholds in North and South Waziristan are of the greatest strategic concern to US occupation forces fighting in Afghanistan. Afghan fighters are known to use these tribal agencies, which are virtually outside the control of the Pakistani government, as safe havens and supply points.
The US military has launched repeated missile attacks on targets inside Waziristan using unmanned Predator drones. Illegal under international law, the strikes have resulted in the deaths of over 700 civilians but have only killed a handful of alleged Taliban leaders and had little impact on the cross-border movements of anti-occupation fighters.
A ground assault into Waziristan will see the Pakistani military in battle against the large Pashtun tribal forces loyal to Baitullah Mehsud and the Afghan Haqqani network. Periodic fighting since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan has resulted in the deaths of over 1,000 troops and unknown numbers of militants.
The Pakistani Taliban has responded to the threatened offensive with an ultimatum to the government that it has until May 25 to withdraw its troops from South Waziristan, end the Predator attacks and allow traffic in and out unchecked. Reports suggest Islamist fighters are strengthening defensive positions in anticipation of a military attack.
Fear of an offensive has triggered the beginnings of another mass civilian exodus. Several thousand Pashtun tribal families have arrived over recent days to take refuge in NWFP towns such as Tank, to the south of Waziristan. Officials cited by the Dawn newspaper on May 20 reported that 5,000 tents have been sent to the area in preparation for the influx of over 200,000 civilians.
Obama Orders Update to Iran Attack Plan
May 23, 2009On NBC’s Today Show this morning, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that President Obama has ordered him to update the plans for a US attack on Iran, plans which were last updating during the Bush Administration. Gates says the plans are “refreshed” and insists that “all options are on the table” with respect to the potential attack.
It was only a month ago that Secretary Gates was warning vigorously against the potential attack, saying that it would create a “disastrous backlash” against the United States to hit Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities. The Obama Administration has insisted it is intending to pursue the matter diplomatically with Iran, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has repeatedly said the administration doesn’t expect diplomacy to work, and the effort seems to be primarily to rally international support for more measures against Iran.
The US has also been sending secret missions to Israel in recent days, reportedly to caution them against launching any surprise military attacks against Iran of their own. It was unclear how successful the warnings were: Prime Minister Netanyahu said he remained confident that the US would respect Israel’s right to attack Iran.
It is unclear whether Gates’ revelation portends a serious potential for an imminent US attack on Iran, or whether the move is more international posturing. Still, it seems unlikely the news will be greeted warmly in Iran, which is in the middle of an election campaign in which potential US talks are a major issue.
Related Stories
Israel accused of ‘colonialism and apartheid’
May 23, 2009Middle East Online, First Published 2009-05-22
When will these walls be brought down?
Study finds Israeli practices in occupied Palestinian territories resemble those of apartheid South Africa.
LONDON – The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (HSRC) has released findings that Israel is practicing both colonialism and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).
The 307-page report, co-authored by Arab Media Watch adviser Victor Kattan, will be found online on the HSRC website (www.hsrc.ac.za).
Titled “Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid?: A re-assessment of Israel’s practices in the occupied Palestinian territories under international law,” the study represents 15 months of research by a team of experts in international law from South Africa, the UK, Israel and the West Bank.
The team was commissioned by the HSRC to review Israel’s practices in the OPT according to definitions of colonialism and apartheid provided by international law.
The executive summary was first presented by members of the research team at the School for Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) on Monday.
Regarding colonialism
The team found that Israel’s policy is to fragment the West Bank and annex part of it permanently to Israel, which is the hallmark of colonialism.
Israel has appropriated land and natural resources in the OPT, merged the Palestinian economy with Israel’s, and dominated the Palestinian people to ensure their subjugation to these measures.
Israel has also denied the Palestinians their right to govern their own natural resources and economic affairs.
These practices violate the prohibition on colonialism which the international community developed in the 1960s during the great decolonisation struggles in Africa and Asia.
Regarding apartheid
The team found that Israel’s laws and policies in the OPT fit the definition of apartheid in the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.
In brief, Israeli law defines the Jewish people as a distinct group with special rights and privileges.
These laws are then channelled into the OPT to convey privileges to Jewish settlers and disadvantage Palestinians on the basis of their identities, which function as racial identities in the sense provided by international law.
A policy of apartheid is especially indicated by the demarcation of geographic ‘reserves’ in the West Bank to which Palestinian residence is confined and which they cannot leave without a permit.
The system is very similar to the policy of ‘Grand Apartheid’ in South Africa, in which blacks were confined to black Homelands (Bantustans).
From the executive summary
“A troika of key laws underpinned the South African apartheid regime…The first pillar was formally to demarcate the population of South Africa into racial groups…and to accord superior rights, privileges and services to the white racial group…The second pillar was to segregate the population into different geographic areas, which were allocated by law to different racial groups, and restrict passage by members of any group into the area allocated to other groups,” the report read.
“The third pillar was ‘a matrix of draconian ‘security’ laws and policies that were employed to suppress any opposition to the regime and to reinforce the system of racial domination, by providing for administrative detention, torture, censorship, banning, and assassination,” it added.
“Israel’s practices in the OPT can be defined by the same three ‘pillars’ of apartheid. The first pillar derives from Israeli laws and policies that establish Jewish identity for purposes of law and afford a preferential legal status and material benefits to Jews over non-Jews…The second pillar is reflected in Israel’s grand policy to fragment the OPT [and] ensure that Palestinians remain confined to the reserves designated for them while Israeli Jews are prohibited from entering those reserves but enjoy freedom of movement throughout the rest of the Palestinian territory,” it continued.
“[The third pillar] is Israel’s invocation of ‘security’ to validate sweeping restrictions on Palestinian freedom of opinion, expression, assembly, association and movement [to] mask a true underlying intent to suppress dissent to its system of domination and thereby maintain control over Palestinians as a group,” it said.
Research
This study was researched and written by scholars and international lawyers based at the SOAS in London, the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal in Durban, the Adalah/Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, and the West Bank Affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists.
Consultation on the study’s theory and method was provided by eminent jurists from South Africa, Israel and Europe.
The Middle East Project of the HSRC is an independent two-year project to conduct analysis of Middle East politics relevant to South African foreign policy.
Its funding was provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Government of South Africa.
The analysis in this report is entirely independent of the views or foreign policy of the Government of South Africa, and does not represent an official position of the HSRC.
It is intended purely as a scholarly resource for the Department of Foreign Affairs and the concerned international community.
Peace and Justice Post 