Peace and Justice Post

DUBAI — A Bahraini special court has upheld life jail sentences served on seven Shiite opposition leaders convicted of plotting to overthrow the regime in the Gulf kingdom, BNA official news agency said.

Jail sentences against seven other activists, ranging between two to 15 years and including Sunni opposition leader Ibrahim Sharif, were also upheld by the national safety appeals court, it said, quoting military general prosecutor Colonel Yusof Fulaifel.

Seven others, one sentenced to life in jail and the remainder to 15 years, remained at large and had not appealed against their sentences.

The appealed verdicts will go to a civil court of cassation for a final decision.

The eight activists sentenced to life include Hassan Mashaima, head of the Shiite opposition Haq movement, Abdulwahab Hussein, who leads the Shiite Wafa Islamic Movement, and Shiite human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who is also a Danish citizen.

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In comments today, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani cautioned that the US was risking fueling anti-American sentiment across Pakistan with its continued allegations that the Haqqani Network is a de facto wing of Pakistan’s military.

He also said the threats for a ground invasion of Pakistan’s tribal areas were “disturbing” and that any such invasion would be a “violation of our soveignty.” He added that such threats were not appropriate to make toward allies and that he warned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that an invasion was “not acceptable to Pakistan.”

US officials have repeatedly hinted at unilateral ground action against the Haqqani Network, and over the weekend Sen. Lindsey Graham (R – SC) claimed there was “broad bipartisan support” in Congress for invading Pakistan.

Interesting, the US claim that the Haqqanis are under Pakistani control took a major hit today, as the Afghan Taliban claimed that they are actually in control of the network.

White House spokesman Jay Carney today insisted that the prospect of revoking all aid to Pakistan isn’t a “new warning” but rather a reiteration of the Obama Administration’s position. He added that the US is constantly considering revoking Pakistan’s aid.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Environmentalists are blaming climate change for the unprecedented massive monsoon rains in Pakistan, which so far this year have affected eight million people, claiming 350 lives and damaging 1.3 million homes.

Women from Sultan-Abad Mughal village fetch drinking water from a pump surrounded by flood waters in Dadu district, Sindh province. (Photo by Asad Zaidi © UNICEF Pakistan)

Over the past month, the country’s southern region has received the highest monsoon rains ever recorded, local metrological experts confirm.

In August, the southern parts of the country received 270 percent above-normal monsoon rains. And in September, the monsoons rains were 1,170 percent above normal, says Dr. Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, Adviser Climate Affairs.

The Sindh province, where six million acres of land were inundated in current floods, had experienced severe drought conditions before the monsoon season and had not received any rainfall at all during the past 12 months.

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By Paul Craig Roberts, opednews.com, Sept. 27, 2011

Have you ever before heard of the Haqqanis?  I didn’t think so.  Like Al Qaeda, about which no one had ever heard prior to 9/11, the “Haqqani Network” has popped up in time of need to justify America’s next war – Pakistan.

President Obama’s claim that he had Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden exterminated deflated the threat from that long-serving bogyman. A terror organization that left its leader, unarmed and undefended, a sitting duck for assassination no longer seemed formidable. Time for a new, more threatening, bogyman, the pursuit of which will keep the “war on terror” going.

Now America’s “worst enemy” is the Haqqanis. Moreover, unlike Al Qaeda, which was never tied to a country, the Haqqani Network, according to Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, is a “veritable arm” of the Pakistani government’s intelligence service, ISI. Washington claims that the ISI ordered its Haggani Network to attack the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, on September 13 along with the US military base in Wadak province.

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In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Erdogan noted that Israel is the only player in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons and asked, “Why is it that countries banning Iran from having nuclear weapons don’t also ban Israel from having nuclear weapons?”

Turkey downgraded ties with Israel after Tel Aviv refused to apologize for its attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which left nine Turkish citizens dead on May 31, 2010.

Earlier in September, the Turkish Economy Minister said Ankara would continue its “normal” economic ties with Tel Aviv. From January 2011 to July 2011, trade between Turkey and Israel reached $2.3 billion.

Erdogan also commented on Turkey’s decision to host one component of a missile shield system, calling it a “NATO concept.”

He advised against “different interpretations” of Turkey’s decision and urged everyone to look at “what is actually the reality” in the issue.

But Turkey’s move was still censured in some circles, with Iran describing it as “a cause for concern” and “questionable.” Russia criticized Turkey for collaborating with NATO.

Turkey could earn as much as $4 billion from the missile shield system. It has been reported that a Turkish defense company is holding negotiations on a $2 billion contract in connection with the project.

President Barack Obama struggled to explain his planned veto of UN recognition of a Palestinian state just a year after he welcomed the idea. His speech was a painful example of a leader knowing what is right and calculating that he can’t do what is right, notes Lawrence Davidson.

By Lawrence Davidson, Consortium News, Sept. 26, 2011

On Sept. 21, President Barack Obama delivered his latest message to the United Nations: “I would like to talk to you about a subject that is at the heart of the United Nations – the pursuit of peace in an imperfect world.”

Actually, one thing that makes the world imperfect is the lopsided power distribution at the UN. This allows the permanent members of the Security Council (particularly the U.S.) to decide when peace does or does not get pursued.

But Obama did not call attention to this problem. Instead he pointed to Libya and the alleged achievement of freedom, security and peace in that North African land. Actually, what Libya amounted to, at least in part, was the destruction of a nation with a standard of living approaching that of Spain.

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NEW YORK — When Mark Hatfield, who had served as a U.S. Senator from Oregon for three decades, died in early August, obituaries noted that he was one of the first U.S. soldiers to visit Hiroshima not long after the atomic bombing of the city, and that experience led him to work for nuclear arms control later, after he became a Senator.

As it happened, the day of Hatfield’s death, Aug. 7, fell between the day the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the day it did on Nagasaki, in 1945.

His death occurred, in fact, when an annual round of commentaries on those deeds were appearing. Among them, the historian Gar Alperovitz wrote to point out that “the vast majority of top American military leaders in all three services” argued after the war that the U.S. “did not need to use the atomic bomb to end the war against Japan in 1945” (“On the Sixty-Sixth Anniversary of the Bombing of Hiroshima”).

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A mourner at Issam Kamal Abed Odhe’s funeral. (Photo by Silvia Boarini)

KUSRA — Seven children no longer have a father and the Palestinian people have another martyr. Issam Kamel Abid Badran Odeh was shot in the neck and killed by Israeli soldiers, on Friday, in the latest clash in an ongoing conflict between the Israeli settlers of Esh Kadesh outpost and the Palestinian village of Kusra, near Nablus.

Kusra residents also claimed Israeli soldiers bound and blindfolded two children before letting settlers beat them and throw rocks at them. Another man was shot in the shoulder and the hip.

An official Israel Defence Forces’ statement described the events as involving “violent rioters” (Palestinians), incited during a “mutual rock hurling incident … between Israeli civilians and approximately 300 Palestinians.”

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Ever since John Mearsheimer and I began writing about the Israel lobby, some of our critics have leveled various personal charges against us. These attacks rarely addressed the substance of what we wrote — a tacit concession that both facts and logic were on our side — but instead accused us of being anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists. They used these false charges to try to discredit and/or marginalize us, and to distract people from the important issues of U.S. Middle East policy that we had raised.

The latest example of this tactic is a recent blog post from Jeffrey Goldberg, where he accused my co-author of endorsing a book by an alleged Holocaust denier and Nazi sympathizer. Goldberg has well-established record of making things up about us, and this latest episode is consistent with his usual approach. I asked Professor Mearsheimer if he wanted to respond to Goldberg’s sally, and he sent the following reply.

John Mearsheimer writes:

In a certain sense, it is hard not to be impressed by the energy and imagination that Jeffrey Goldberg devotes to smearing Steve Walt and me. Although he clearly disagrees with our views about U.S.-Israel relations and the role of the Israel lobby, he does not bother to engage what we actually wrote in any meaningful way. Indeed, given what he writes about us, I am not even sure he has read our book or related articles. Instead of challenging the arguments and evidence that we presented, his modus operandi is to misrepresent and distort our views, in a transparent attempt to portray us as rabid anti-Semites.

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Gilad Atzmon, MWC News, Sept. 25, 2011

Professor John Mearsheimer is subject to a Zionist-trans-Atlantic-attack for supporting my latest book The Wandering Who.

Earlier this year John Mearsheimer, the highly respected international relations theorist and Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, wrote the following preliminary front matter for my book:

“Gilad Atzmon has written a fascinating and provocative book on Jewish identity in the modern world. He shows how assimilation and liberalism are making it increasingly difficult for Jews in the Diaspora to maintain a powerful sense of their ‘Jewishness.’ Panicked Jewish leaders, he argues, have turned to Zionism (blind loyalty to Israel) and scaremongering (the threat of another Holocaust) to keep the tribe united and distinct from the surrounding goyim. As Atzmon’s own case demonstrates, this strategy is not working and is causing many Jews great anguish. The Wandering Who? should be widely read by Jews and non-Jews alike.”

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