Peace and Justice Post

By our reporters, wsws.org,  29 October 2011

San Diego police carried out a raid early Friday morning, making 51 arrests and clearing out Occupy San Diego protesters who had been maintaining their encampment for three weeks.

At about 2 a.m. Friday, dozens of police officers and San Diego County sheriff’s deputies surrounded Civic Center Plaza and Children’s Park, closing in on protesters at both locations. Police were armed with batons, billy clubs; a few reportedly had guns of some sort.

The press claims there were no injuries immediately reported, but 51 were arrested and all tents, tables and other belongings of protesters were confiscated. This is but one raid in a wave of brutal police repression that has occurred over the past week.

The first location to be hit by the police raid was Children’s Park, the logistical headquarters of the San Diego occupation. Cheryl, a demonstrator who was present during the raid, stated that police moved quickly and quietly, giving no warning of their presence.

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Editor’s note: Nearly three years after President Obama declared the Guantanamo prison for terrorist suspects would be closed, the camp in Cuba remains open. Of the more than 750 inmates that were once held there, fewer than 200 remain now. CNN contributor Jenifer Fenton interviewed some of the former inmates, and one of the guards.

(CNN) — “We were told that they were all guilty … that these were the worst of the worst,” Brandon Neely said about the detainees who were arriving at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“We were told that these guys, all of them, had either helped plan 9/11 or were caught red handed on the battlefield, weapon in hand, fighting American soldiers … These are the people that would kill you in a heartbeat if you turn your back on them.”

In June 2000, Specialist Neely, now 31, enlisted for five years as a military police officer. He left later that summer for Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri for training and was assigned to Fort Hood, Texas upon graduating. In early January 2002, Neely boarded a plane to Guantanamo Bay, where he would be stationed for the next six months. He had volunteered for the deployment not knowing what it was or where it would take him.

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By News Desk, Truth Drive, Oct 29, 2011

Islamabad, Oct 29(ANI): Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan has condemned what he called the “criminal silence” of non-government organisations (NGOs) that claim to be champions of human rights, over the killings of civilians in US drone attacks in the country’s tribal areas.

The cricketer-turned-politician made these comments while addressing a protest rally in front of Parliament House in Islamabad.

He said that civilian casualties due to drones were increasing with each passing day, and asked the government to quit if it could not take action in this regard.

Imran categorically rebutted the US opinion that no civilian casualties were taking place as a result of targeted strikes against high profile terrorists in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the Dawn reports.

He demanded the implementation of the resolution adopted in recently held All Parties Conference (APC).

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By M K Bhadrakumar, Asia Times, Oct 28, 2011

Two templates in regional politics are seriously debilitating the United States’s campaign to bring Pakistan down on its knees in the Afghan endgame. One is that Delhi has distanced itself from the US campaign and pursues an independent policy toward Islamabad.

The second factor frustrating US policies to isolate Pakistan is the South Asian nation’s bonhomie with Iran. Pakistan would have been pretty much isolated had there been an acute rivalry with

Iran over the Afghan endgame. The current level of cordiality in the relationship enables Islamabad to focus on the rift with the US and even draw encouragement from Tehran.

It’s baloney
A recent statement by the Indian External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on the US-Pakistan rift underscored that India doesn’t see eye-to-eye with the US approach. (See US puts the squeeze on Pakistan, Asia Times, October 22). It was carefully timed to signal to Washington (and Islamabad) that Delhi strongly disfavored any form of US military action against Pakistan.

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• Ed Vulliamy in New York
• The Observer, Sunday 30 October 2011

A shackled detainee is taken from a vehicle for interrogation at Camp Delta, at the Guantanamo base in Cuba in 2006. Photograph: Brennan Linsley/AP

The former chief prosecutor for the US government at Guantánamo Bay has accused the administration he served of operating a “law-free zone” there, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the order to establish the detention camp on Cuba.

Retired air force colonel Morris Davis resigned in October 2007 in protest against interrogation methods at Guantánamo, and has made his remarks in the lead-up to 13 November, the anniversary of President George W Bush’s executive order setting up military commissions to try terrorist suspects.

Davis said that the methods of interrogation used on Guantánamo detainees – which he described as “torture” – were in breach of the US’s own statutes on torture, and added: “If torture is a crime, it should be prosecuted.”

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Since the United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, Pakistan has lost more than 35,000 people, the vast bulk of them civilians. While the U.S. has had slightly over 1800 soldiers killed in the past 10 years, Pakistan has lost over 5,000 soldiers and police. The number of suicide bombings in Pakistan has gone from one before 2001, to more than 335 since.

“Terrorism,” as Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari says, “is not a statistic for us.”

For most Americans, Pakistan is a two-faced “ally” playing a double game in Central Asia even as it siphons off tens of billions of dollars in aid. For Pakistanis, the spillover from the Afghan war has cost Islamabad approximately of $100 billion. And this in a country with a yearly GDP of around $175 billion and whose resources have been deeply strained by two years of catastrophic flooding.

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The core crisis of Christianity is how could a religion based on the teachings of Jesus, who called for peace through love and generosity to the poor – and who disdained the rich – have grown so tolerant of war, greed and inequality. The Rev. Howard Bess traces this conundrum to the Church’s early days.

Paul was Christianity’s first theologian, with his writings making up about half of the entire New Testament. Indeed, though Paul did not become a believer until years after Jesus’s crucifixion, Paul wrote before any of the four gospels describing Jesus’s life and teachings were committed to the written word.

Thus, Paul – more than anyone else – set the standard for what is required to be a Christian. And, in the 10^thchapter of his letter to the Romans, he wrote these words: “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

So, being a Christian was for Paul a matter of head and heart, not actions. By his standard, there is no amount of good deeds that can bring salvation. It is a matter of belief and belief only.

Paul’s standard has been challenged by some Christians over the centuries – and the New Testament’s Book of James stresses the value of good works – but never has Paul’s “head and heart” standard been dislodged as a central tenet of Christianity.

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Editor’s Note: T.J. Coles’ new essay, What Are We Doing in Afghanistan? is a follow-up to his October 14 article, What Have We Done to Afghanistan? Reviewing a Decade of Anglo-American Occupation.  He reveals the regression of the west from civilization itself in lust for petroleum and power. His highly readable and well-constructed analysis is extremely well-sourced and deserves a careful reading for understanding the underlying forces that threaten the earth and its inhabitants.

– Les Blough, Editor

Afghanistan has always been considered “the centre of great empires” by imperial powers,¹ serving as a “buffer” between Persia, Russia, and India (Britain’s greatest colonial prize).² Lord Curzon, viceroy of India, referred to the countries as “pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a game for the domination of the world.”³ A century later, the long-time geostrategist and energy investor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, authored The Grand Chessboard (1997) in which he called Eurasia “the center of world power,” adding that fragmentation will “keep the barbarians from coming together.”⁴

Collapse of the Soviet Union and Control of the Caspian Sea

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left a question mark over the Caspian Sea and its energy reserves, with Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Russia claiming sovereignty. Bruce R. Kuniholm explained that “Brzezinski believed that how Russia responds to Ukraine’s closer relationship with Europe and to Azerbaijan’s desires to pipe its oil through Turkey will be the bellwethers for its imperial ambitions.”^{5  . . .}

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by Dr. Lawrence Davidson, Intifada,  Oct 25, , 2011

On February 12, 2009 then head of the CIA Leon Panetta (who is now Secretary of Defense) endorsed a secret CIA analysis “predicting the demise of Zionist Israel within 20 years if general political trends in the region continue.”

I

Not too long ago I gave a talk on the Palestinian bid for statehood. In the audience was a Russian-Israeli expatriate who politely took exception to my criticisms of Israeli policies and behavior. His main point was that I could not credibly criticize the Israelis because I had not experienced what they had and did not know what they knew. Or, to put it in a more homey manner, I had not walked in their shoes. “Israelis have been trying to find solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma for over sixty years, so what gives you the wisdom to criticize them and tell them what they should do?” This is an old and often used objection and, if taken literally, would suggest that outside mediation is never possible.

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By Bob Bauman, LewRockwell.com, Oct 28, 2011

Ten years ago today, on Oct. 26, 2001, President George W. Bush signed into law the odious legislation known as the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, perhaps the single most unconstitutional enactment by the U.S. Congress since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1789.

A panicked Congress, eager to be seen as “doing something,” overwhelmingly passed the law only weeks after the Sept. 11, 2011 terror attacks in New York and Washington.

In an atmosphere of palpable fear, with haste and secrecy, in the name of the “war on terrorism,” Congress adopted the Act without hearings, giving the U.S. executive branch and its police agencies sweeping powers that undermine both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The Act was passed with little debate by senators and congressmen – most of whom did not, and could not, even read the bill. When the vote was taken no final printed copies were available.

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