Archive for June, 2011

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P C Roberts: Conspiracy Theory

June 21, 2011
By Paul Craig Roberts, opednews.com,  June 20, 2011

While we were not watching, conspiracy theory has undergone Orwellian redefinition.

A “conspiracy theory” no longer means an event explained by a conspiracy. Instead, it now means any explanation, or even a fact, that is out of step with the government’s explanation and that of its media pimps.

For example, online news broadcasts of RT have been equated with conspiracy theories by the New York Times simply because RT reports news and opinions that the New York Times does not report and the US government does not endorse.

In other words, as truth becomes uncomfortable for government and its Ministry of Propaganda, truth is redefined as conspiracy theory, by which is meant an absurd and laughable explanation that we should ignore.

When piles of carefully researched books, released government documents, and testimony of eye witnesses made it clear that Lee Harvey Oswald was not President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, the voluminous research, government documents, and verified testimony was dismissed as “conspiracy theory.”

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Humans against Israeli strangulation of Gaza

June 21, 2011

by Jane Hirschmann, Dissident Voice,  June 20th, 2011

People often ask me why I am part of a team to organize a U.S. Boat to Gaza that will be sailing this month with the next International Flotilla to break the siege of Gaza. They often make clear they are asking because I am an American Jew, whose family survived the Holocaust with some surviving family members ending up in Israel. And my only answer is: How could I not?

My parents raised me with stories about what happened in Germany and their family’s escape. I came to see that Israel represented for them a safe haven should there be another attempt at annihilating Jews. And yet, at the same time, they worried it was not so safe a haven given the animosity and physical threats and violence in the area.

But no one ever mentioned the displacement of 750,000 Arabs that was the result of the creation of Israel. . . .

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US missile attacks hit vehicle, house in northwest Pakistan, killing 12

June 20, 2011

The Washington Post, June 20, 2011

Source: Associated Press,

PARACHINAR, Pakistan — Suspected U.S. drones fired missiles at a vehicle and a house in northwest Pakistan, killing 12 people Monday in a rare attack in an area where some of NATO’s fiercest enemies have reportedly traveled, Pakistani officials said.

The first attack in the Kurram tribal area hit a vehicle, killing five people, said Noor Alam, a local government official. As tribesmen rushed to the scene, the vehicle was struck again, killing two more people, he said.

Minutes later, a suspected U.S. drone attacked a nearby house, killing five people, Alam said.

Seven of the 12 people killed in the attacks were Afghan militants whose bodies were taken across the border to be buried, Alam said. The attacks were confirmed by two Pakistani intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

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The Super Rich Sabotage The Arab Revolutions

June 20, 2011

By Shamus Cooke, Countercurrents.org, June 20, 2011

With revolutions sweeping the Arab world and bubbling-up across Europe, aging tyrants or discredited governments are doing their best to cling to power. It’s hard to over-exaggerate the importance of these events: the global political and economic status-quo is in deep crisis. If pro-democracy or anti-austerity movements emerge victorious, they’ll have an immediate problem to solve — how to pay for their vision of a better world. The experiences thus far in Egypt and Greece are proof enough that money matters. The wealthy nations holding the purse strings are still able to influence the unfolding of events from afar, subjecting humiliating conditions on those countries undergoing profound social change.

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Gaza and American ‘Security’

June 20, 2011

Exclusive: Despite opposition — and even warnings — from the U.S. government, a group of Americans will join a small flotilla of boats challenging Israel’s blockade of the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains why he is joining this protest.

By Ray McGovern, Consortium News, June 18, 2011

Stuffing my backpack before setting out to board “The Audacity of Hope,” the U.S. boat to Gaza, I got a familiar call from yet another puzzled friend, who said as gently as the words allow, “You know you can get killed, don’t you?”

I recognize this caution as an expression of genuine concern from friends. From some others — who don’t care about Gaza’s plight or who do not wish us well – the words are phrased somewhat differently: “Aren’t you just asking for it?”

That was the obligatory question/accusation at the end of a recent interview taped for a BBC-TV special scheduled to air this coming week as we put to sea to break — or at least draw attention to — Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza and the suffering it inflicts on the people there.

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Uri Avnery: ‘Jewish State’ Nonsense

June 19, 2011

Uri Avnery, MWC News, June 18, 2011

Jewish State

I am fed up with all this nonsense about recognizing Israel as the “Jewish State”.

It is based on a collection of hollow phrases and vague definitions, devoid of any real content. It serves many different purposes, almost all of them malign.

Binyamin Netanyahu uses it as a trick to obstruct the establishment of the Palestinian state. This week he declared that the conflict just has no solution. Why? Because the Palestinians do not agree to recognize etc. etc.

Four rightist Members of the Knesset have just submitted a bill empowering the government to refuse to register new NGOs and to dissolve existing ones if they “deny the Jewish character of the state”.

This new bill is only one of a series designed to curtail the civil rights of Arab citizens, as well as those of leftists.

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Haaretz: Netanyahu is dooming Israel to live eternally by the sword

June 19, 2011

By declaring the conflict insoluble, Netanyahu is leaving no opening for reconciliation and understanding with the Palestinians and the Arab and Muslim world.

Haaretz Editorial,  Haaretz,June 17, 2011

Author Etgar Keret, on assignment from Haaretz, accompanied the prime minister on his trip to Italy this week and reported on Benjamin Netanyahu’s perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“This is an insoluble conflict because it is not about territory,” Netanyahu said. “It is not that you can give up a kilometer more and solve it. The root of the conflict is in an entirely different place. Until Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] recognizes Israel as a Jewish state, there will be no way to reach an agreement.”

 On Wednesday, Netanyahu reiterated this position in the Knesset. “The reason for the conflict, and for its continuation, is the refusal to recognize the Jewish people’s nation-state in any borders,” he said.
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The Syrian Peoples Rebellion, They Are On Their Own

June 19, 2011

By Dave Lefcourt, opednews.com,  June 18, 2011


(source)

You have to feel for the Syrian people up against the relentless brutality of Bashar Assad.

The people continue to resist and refuse to back down against Assad’s crackdown that has killed hundreds, perhaps thousands even in the face of snipers and tanks using live fire and killing scores. Their quest for freedom seems unshakeable.

In Syria the army and the security forces come mainly from the minority Shiite Alawite sect while the majority of the Syrian people are Sunni and thus the sectarian divide of the ruler and the ruled.

So when we hear of Assad and his forces firing on his “own” people the great qualifier is the people are not represented in Assad’s inner circle or those in the military and security forces having allegiance to him.

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Syria: They came at dawn, and killed in cold blood

June 19, 2011

As Syrians flee, conditions worsen in Turkey’s border camps

By Kim Sengupta in Idlib province, The Independent, June 19, 2011

A Syrian woman sits with her children in a camp in a Turkish border town in Hatay province. More children are falling ill as basic medical supplies start to run out
REUTERSA Syrian woman sits with her children in a camp in a Turkish border town in Hatay province. More children are falling ill as basic medical supplies start to run out

The houses looked abandoned, windows and doors locked, a broken shutter clattering in the wind. Then, one by one, they began to appear from their hiding places, mainly women and children, a few elderly people. The residents of this village had learned to their cost that being caught unawares in this violent conflict could have lethal consequences.

The raid by the secret police – the Mukhabarat – and the Shabbiha militia had come at dawn. The killings had been cold-blooded and quick, three men shot dead as, barely awake, they tried desperately to get away. A search for others had proved fruitless; they had fled the day before. The damage to homes vented the frustration of the gunmen at missing their quarries.

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“Don’t Look Away—The Siege of Gaza Must End”

June 19, 2011

by Kathy Kelly, CommonDreams.org, June 17, 2011

In late June 2011, I’m going to be a passenger on “The Audacity of Hope,” the USA boat in this summer’s international flotilla to break the illegal and deadly Israeli siege of Gaza. Organizers, supporters and passengers aim to nonviolently end the brutal collective punishment imposed on Gazan residents since 2006 when the Israeli government began a stringent air, naval and land blockade of the Gaza Strip explicitly to punish Gaza’s residents for choosing the Hamas government in a democratic election. Both the Hamas and the Israeli governments have indiscriminately killed civilians in repeated attacks, but the vast preponderance of these outrages over the length of the conflict have been inflicted by Israeli soldiers and settlers on unarmed Palestinians. I was witness to one such attack when last in Gaza two years ago, under heavy Israeli bombardment in a civilian neighborhood in Rafah.

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