Peace and Justice Post

Facts are the best antidote against poisonous media propaganda. Nuclear-free Iran is militarily weaker than nuclear-Israel, backed by the mighty US; based on the disparity of military capabilities, any impartial observer would identify the likely aggressor. In this case, this is corroborated with a substantive track record of invading and attacking other nations. Unlike Israel, Iran has not invaded anyone in the last 300 years or more; it lives peacefully with all its neighbours.

From the 1950s, Iran was virtually colonised through the CIA installed puppet, Reza Shah Pahlavi, who was eventually ousted by the popular revolution in 1979, led by the late Ayatollah Khomeini. In response the US, in collusion with the other western powers, initiated a proxy war through Saddam Hussein of Iraq that lasted for almost a decade. The country is now surrounded by hostile US military bases, and there is constant talk of bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, largely incited by the neo-conservatives, the far right and the Zionist commentators.

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When it comes to shooting a Palestinian, pulling the trigger does not come with a real fear of having to answer to the law.

Haaretz Editorial, Dec 13, 2011

The pictures from Friday’s events in Nabi Saleh are hard to swallow: An Israel Defense Forces soldier opens the back door of an armored military jeep and, from a distance of just a few meters, fires a tear-gas canister directly at a young man who is throwing stones. After the canister is fired, the jeep continues on its way without stopping.

A photographer on the scene relates that the young man “fell to the ground, remained conscious for a few seconds, and then began bleeding profusely from the region of his eye.” He was subsequently evacuated for treatment at Beilinson Hospital, where he was sedated and placed on a respirator. On Saturday, he died from his wounds.

	Mourners carry the body of Palestinian activist Mustafa Tamimi during his funeral in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh on December 11, 2011.
	Photo by: AFP

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 The dynamic of democratic, nationalist and class struggles throughout the Moslem world has set in motion a new constellation of alliances between the imperial West (US and European Union) and Islamist parties, leaders and regimes, dubbed “moderate” by US officials, propagandists and academics.

by James Petras, Veterans Today, Dec 12, 2011

This essay analyzes the changing contemporary context of imperial domination, especially the demise of longstanding client regimes.  It then examines the previous significant ties between western imperial powers and Islamist movements and regimes and the basis of ‘historical collaboration’.

The third part of the paper will outline the political circumstances in which the imperial powers embrace “moderate” Islamists in government and utilize “armed fundamentalists” in opposition to secular regimes.  We will critically analyze how “moderate” Islam is defined by the Western imperialist powers.  Is this a tactical or strategic alliance?  What are the political “trade-offs”?  What do imperialism’s neo-liberal clients and their new ‘moderate’ Muslim allies have in common and how do they differ?

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Dr  Ola Tunander, Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift/ 2011, No. 04

Sammendrag

Norske forskere spekulerte i Dagserevyen den 22. juli 2011 om et islamistisk angrep, men det viste seg snart at den ansvarlige, Anders Behring Breivik, hadde blitt inspirert av et helt annet politisk miljø. Denne artikkelen ser nærmere på gjerningsmannens inspiratorer og på hvilke aktører som kan ha hatt interesse av å bruke ham. Her framheves ikke minst voldelige nettverk og finansielle bånd som Breiviks manifest og andre vitnesbyrd peker mot.

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The City, London . . . Britain’s finance sector contributes less to the country than manufacturing. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

The national interest. It’s a phrase we’ve heard a lot recently. David Cameron promised to defend it before flying off last week to Brussels. Eurosceptic backbenchers urged him to fight for it. And when the summit turned into a trial separation, and the prime minister walked out at 4am, the rightwing newspapers took up the refrain: he was fighting for Britain. In the eye-burningly early hours of Friday morning, exhausted and at a loss to explain a row he plainly hadn’t expected, Cameron tried again: “I had to pursue very doggedly what was in the British national interest.”

As political justifications go, the national interest is an oddly ceremonial one. Like the dusty liqueur uncapped for a family gathering, MPs bring it out only for the big occasions. And when they do, what they mean is: forget all the usual fluff about ethics and ideas; this is important.

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We’re being lied to about the purported Iranian nuclear threat, and the war party knows it.

In ways eerily reminiscent of the 2002 buildup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the American people are being fed a steady diet of war propaganda about Iran and its alleged quest for a nuclear weapon.

As with Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein, comparisons to Hitler circa 1938 abound. Max Boot, the neoconservative columnist, is just one of many propagandists working to agitate Americans into supporting a military attack on Iran. He wrote recently, “After the failure to stop Hitler and Bin Laden, among others, Westerners were said to have suffered a ‘failure of imagination.’ We are suffering that same failure today as we fail to face up to the growing threat from the Islamic Republic.”

The message is unmistakable: Time is running out. Get Iran now before it’s too late.

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By Glenn Greenwald, Salon, Dec 10, 2011

The FBI yesterday announced it has secured an indictment against Faruq Khalil Muhammad ‘Isa, a 38-year-old citizen of Iraq currently in Canada, from which the U.S. is seeking his extradition. The headline on the FBI’s Press Release tells the basic story: “Alleged Terrorist Indicted in New York for the Murder of Five American Soldiers.” The criminal complaint previously filed under seal provides the details: ‘Isa is charged with “providing material support to a terrorist conspiracy” because he allegedly supported a 2008 attack on a U.S. military base in Mosul that killed 5 American soldiers. In other words, if the U.S. invades and occupies your country, and you respond by fighting back against the invading army — the ultimate definition of a “military, not civilian target” — then you are a . . . Terrorist.

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by Stephen Lendman, opednews.com, Dec 12, 2011

Deepening Eurozone crisis spreads globally.

From inception, Eurozone monetary union was an idea doomed to fail. Nonetheless, it was engineered fraudulently to look workable.

In 1979, Europe’s Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) was introduced as part of the European Monetary System (EMS) to propel the continent to one European currency unit (ECU).

ERM never worked. ECU is failing. At issue is duplicity, conflicts of interest, and uniting 17 dissimilar countries under rigid euro straightjacket rules. Doing so usurps their monetary and fiscal autonomy disastrously.

Nonetheless, banking giants partnered with EU, ECB and IMF Troika power decide everything. Policies require lowering living standards, sacking public workers, and selling off state assets lock, stock and barrel at fire sale prices.

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By Sybille Fuchs , wsws.org, 12 December 2011

Journalists from the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the German television magazine “Panorama” have uncovered the location of one of the chain of notorious secret torture prisons run by US Central Intelligence Agency in Europe. The prison is situated in a residential area of the Romanian capital, Bucharest.

The prison in Bucharest began operations following the closure in 2003 of a similar torture centre in Poland. The prison was located in a building housing the Romanian National Registry Office for Classified Information (Official Registrului National al Informatiilor Secrete de Stat) authority. The transport of prisoners to the prison from Bucharest’s airport was carried out in inconspicuous minibuses.

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