Anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews Condemn Zionist Pogroms in West Bank and Strangulation of Gaza

July 14, 2008

NETUREI KARTA of THE ORTHODOX JEWRY – JERUSALEM, PALESTINE
P.O.Box 5053 Jerusalem
@neto.bezeqint.net
uruknet, Jul. 10. 2008

Anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews Condemn Zionist Pogroms in West Bank and Strangulation of Gaza

Anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews worldwide condemn the savage pogroms unleashed against the Palestinian people in the West Bank by the Zionist terrorist gang known as the “IDF.”

The Zionist terrorists are currently on a rampage throughout the West Bank to terrorize Palestinian civil society as they strengthen their hold on the prison known as Gaza.

We implore the world community not to stand idly by and allow the Palestinian people to be terrorized and sacrificed solely in order to make life comfortable for the Zionist regime. Where are the peacekeeping troops? Where are the UN declarations? Where are the world summits of the major powers? Where are the declarations and condemnations? Where are the arms boycotts against the Zionists?

What is the reason for the constant silence in the face of the Zionist miscreants? Is it intimidation and threats to use the term “anti-Semite” against any person or government who dares to criticize their brutality?!

HOW LONG WILL THIS ENDURE? HOW LONG WILL THE ZIONIST REGIME HAVE A FREE HAND AND A BLANK CHECK TO TERRORIZE AND HUMILIATE THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE?

We also condemn the silence of Jewish leaders and rabbis who call themselves Orthodox and who have either been bribed or intimidated by the Zionists.

How long shall you remain silent at the total desecration of the name of G-d and our holy Torah by the vicious Zionist heretics? You are silent and the word “Jew” is seen among the nations to mean murderer and terrorist!

No person remaining silent shall escape the Day of Judgment because everything is recorded in Heaven!! If you believe in the Torah and follow our Sages then you must not ignore the state-sponsored terrorism committed by the heretical Zionist regime in violation of all international laws and the entire Torah!! We pray for the immediate dismantlement of the rogue Zionist regime and for the immediate restoration of the inherent rights of the Palestinians throughout historic Palestine!

Rabbi Meir Hirsh
Neturei Karta
Jerusalem, Palestine

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Zionist Israel | 1 Comment »

Mukasey: Bush’s New ‘Mr. Cover-up’

July 14, 2008

Robert Parry | Consortiumnews.com, July 10, 2008

Even Sen. Charles Schumer, whose vote last year ensured Michael Mukasey’s confirmation as Attorney General, was left sputtering as Mukasey returned the favor by rebuffing Schumer’s concerns about the Bush administration’s political prosecutions.

At the end of his round of Senate Judiciary Committee questions, Schumer referred to allegations that White House political adviser Karl Rove had pressed for the selective prosecution of Alabama’s Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman, who was viewed as a threat to Republican dominance of the South.

“Do you think that someone in the Justice Department should ask Karl Rove whether he was involved, whether he did the things that are alleged – someone somewhere – or is there a possibility that no one should ever ask him?” the New York Democrat said, his voice rising.

Mukasey responded coolly that he would not endorse the questioning of Rove. In disgust, Schumer said, “I find these answers very disappointing.”

But Schumer was not alone. At the oversight hearings on July 9, the committee’s Democrats and the ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, voiced varying levels of disappointment at Mukasey’s refusal to look back at the misconduct – including criminal acts – that had occurred earlier in the Bush administration.

Indeed, Mukasey’s evasive answers recalled the stonewalling of his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales. Mukasey’s vague and meandering responses made two things clear, however: George W. Bush’s hubris about what he sees as his unlimited presidential powers continues and Mukasey will serve as Bush’s rearguard protector during his final six months in office.

In a separate confrontation with two House committees, Mukasey has promulgated a novel legal theory justifying his refusal to release FBI reports on interviews with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney about their roles in exposing the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame.

Even though Bush has not asserted executive privilege regarding the FBI reports, Mukasey has refused to honor subpoenas from the House committees on the grounds that to do so would threaten “core Executive Branch confidentiality interests and fundamental separation of powers principles.”

Mukasey’s theory ignores a variety of precedents, including the public release of criminal-case testimony by Bush’s three predecessors (Bill Clinton on the Monica Lewinsky case, George H.W. Bush on the Passportgate affair and the Iran-Contra scandal, and Ronald Reagan on Iran-Contra.)

Nuremberg Defense

In his Senate testimony, Mukasey also left no doubt that the Justice Department would take no action against anyone in the administration who violated criminal statutes in the “war on terror” if they were following legal advice from superiors, a modern version of the so-called Nuremberg defense.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, urged Mukasey to “follow what I think is the clear standard of the law within your own department and initiate those investigations” into the Bush administration’s abuse of detainees, including the use of “waterboarding,” a form of simulated drowning.

Durbin noted that retired Major General Antonio Taguba, who was in charge of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse probe, stated recently that “the Commander in Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture” and that “there is no longer any doubt about whether the current administration committed war crimes, the only question that remains is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held accountable.”

Mukasey, however, responded that anyone who acted in “good faith” and relied on the Justice Department’s legal advice “cannot and should not be prosecuted.” The same protection should cover government lawyers who gave the advice, he said.

Continued . . .

Tags: , , ,
Posted in War Criminals | Leave a Comment »

Red Cross finds Bush administration guilty of war crimes

July 14, 2008

RINF.COM, July 13, 2008

By Andrew McLemore

In a secret report last year, the Red Cross found evidence of the CIA using torture on prisoners that would make the Bush administration guilty of war crimes, The New York Times reported Friday.

The Red Cross determined the culpability of the Bush administration after interviewing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, according to the article.

Prisoner Abu Zubaydahwho said he had been waterboarded, “slammed against the walls” and confined in boxes “so small he said he had to double up his limbs in the fetal position.”

The information comes from a new book written by Jane Meyer, who has frequently published articles concerning counter-terrorism in The New Yorker.

The book is titled “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” and will be released next week.

Mayer cited “sources familiar with the report” to explain the confidential document as a warning “that the abuse constituted war crimes, placing the highest officials in the U.S. government in jeopardy of being prosecuted.”

The report was submitted to CIA last year and concluded that American interrogation methods are “categorically” torture that violates both domestic and international law, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported Friday.

Although the CIA had already admitted to the use of waterboarding, Meyer says in the book that several CIA officers confirm the findings of the Red Cross, including the other forms of torture mentioned.

Maddow called George W. Bush a “torture-approver-in-chief who has yet to be held to account for anything” and said that congressman Dennis Kucinich had reintroduced his articles of impeachment against the president.

Maddow questioned constitutional law expert Johnathan Turley about the development.

“The problem for the bush admin is that they perfected plausible deniability techniques,” Turley said. “They bring out one or two people that are willing to debate on cable shows whether waterboarding is torture and it leaves the impression that its a closed question.

“It’s not. It’s just like the domestic surveillance program that the federal court said just a week ago was also not just a closed question.”

When asked by Maddow if the chances are now greater that Bush will be prosecuted now or after leaving office by the international community, Turley compared the situation to Serbia in the early 90s.

“I’d never thought I would say this, but I think it might in fact be time for the United States to be held internationally to a tribunal. I never thought in my lifetime I would say that.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3PvIFx-WDE

Tags: ,
Posted in War Criminals | Leave a Comment »

U.S. visit feeds Pakistani worry over U.S. attack

July 14, 2008

Robert Birsel
Reuters North American News Service ,July 13, 2008 02:22 EST

ISLAMABAD, July 13 (Reuters) – The Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, visited Pakistan on the weekend, fueling speculation that the United States was about to take action against militants in northwest Pakistan.

Pakistan has been a close U.S. ally in the global campaign against terrorism but the United States has become increasingly frustrated at what it sees as insufficient effort by Islamabad to fight militants on the Afghan border.

A U.S. embassy spokeswoman confirmed that Mullen had made a one-day trip to Pakistan on Saturday, but said she had no details about his meetings. Pakistani military and government spokesmen were not available for comment.

Pakistani newspapers said Mullen, in talks with Pakistani military commanders and leaders of a new government, had expressed deep frustration with growing cross-border militant attacks and had called for decisive action to stop it.

“Sources quoted Mullen as complaining that militants were moving across the border with greater liberty now than during the previous government,” the Dawn newspaper said.

Pakistan’s semi-autonomous ethnic Pashtun tribal belt on the border has became a sanctuary for al Qaeda and Taliban militants fighting Western soldiers in Afghanistan and against security forces in Pakistan where 15 soldiers were killed on Saturday.

The U.S. Pentagon said last month insurgent havens in Pakistan were the biggest threat to Afghan security.

Pakistan has ruled out allowing foreign troops onto its soil although U.S. pilotless drones have been increasing their flights, and attacks, over the Pakistani side of the border.

Continued . . .

Tags:
Posted in US policy | Leave a Comment »

Bush to hasten Iraq troop withdrawal in bid to help McCain win White House

July 14, 2008

By Leonard Doyle in Washington | The Independent, Monday, 14 July 2008

John McCain with George Bush, who hopes to reassure US voters

AFP/GETTY
John McCain with George Bush, who hopes to reassure US voters

Change font size: A | A | A

President George Bush wants to speed up the withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq, a move that could help to quell the anti-war anxieties of voters before November’s presidential election.

Drawing down large numbers of troops would enable the Republican candidate, John McCain, to say that his forceful military strategy for Iraq was correct. Alone among Republican and Democratic politicians, he consistently urged Mr Bush to take on the insurgents with extra forces. He is now attacking his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, for preaching policies of defeat by calling for a withdrawal in 16 months.

American commanders want to reduce their deployment in Iraq to ease the strain on the military and free up troops for Afghanistan where they are taking a beating from the Taliban and other militants.

Nine American soldiers were killed and 15 wounded yesterday in the bloodiest day in three years for US forces in Afghanistan. In a multi-pronged attack, revealing sophistication and daring, militants overran a remote US base near the Pakistan border on the front lines of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. It was the deadliest on US forces in the country since 16 combat troops were killed when their helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade in the same area in 2005.

Concerns are also growing that Mr Bush wants to release fighting forces before he leaves office in January, in the event of conflict with Iran.

By the times of Mr Bush’s departure, three of the 15 combat brigades now in Iraq could have left the country, say government and military officials. That would still leave up to 130,000 frontline troops in the field – a reduction from the 170,000 deployed in the “surge” last year.

A rapid US withdrawal would mark a sharp turnaround in the fortunes of the Bush administration from only two years ago, amid the bloody slaughter of growing numbers of Iraqis and American soldiers. Anti-war feeling is at fever pitch in the US and the military is said to be near breaking point from its extended combat deployments.

Continued . . .

Tags: ,
Posted in US policy | Leave a Comment »

How Britain Wages War

July 13, 2008

by John Pilger | ANTIWAR.COM, July 12, 2008

The military has created a wall of silence around its frequent resort to barbaric practices, including torture, and goes out of its way to avoid legal scrutiny.

Five photographs together break a silence. The first is of a former Gurkha regimental sergeant major, Tul Bahadur Pun, aged 87. He sits in a wheelchair outside 10 Downing Street. He holds a board full of medals, including the Victoria Cross, the highest award for bravery, which he won serving in the British army.

He has been refused entry to Britain and treatment for a serious heart ailment by the National Health Service: outrages rescinded only after a public campaign. On 25 June, he came to Downing Street to hand his Victoria Cross back to the Prime Minister, but Gordon Brown refused to see him.

The second photograph is of a 12-year-old boy, one of three children. They are Kuchis, nomads of Afghanistan. They have been hit by NATO bombs, American or British, and nurses are trying to peel away their roasted skin with tweezers. On the night of 10 June, NATO planes struck again, killing at least 30 civilians in a single village: children, women, schoolteachers, students. On 4 July, another 22 civilians died like this. All, including the roasted children, are described as “militants” or “suspected Taliban.” The Defense Secretary, Des Browne, says the invasion of Afghanistan is “the noble cause of the 21st century.”

The third photograph is of a computer-generated aircraft carrier not yet built, one of two of the biggest ships ever ordered for the Royal Navy. The £4bn contract is shared by BAE Systems, whose sale of 72 fighter jets to the corrupt tyranny in Saudi Arabia has made Britain the biggest arms merchant on earth, selling mostly to oppressive regimes in poor countries. At a time of economic crisis, Browne describes the carriers as “an affordable expenditure.”

The fourth photograph is of a young British soldier, Gavin Williams, who was “beasted” to death by three noncommissioned officers. This “informal summary punishment,” which sent his body temperature to more than 41 degrees, was intended to “humiliate, push to the limit and hurt.” The torture was described in court as a fact of army life.

The final photograph is of an Iraqi man, Baha Mousa, who was tortured to death by British soldiers. Taken during his post-mortem, it shows some of the 93 horrific injuries he suffered at the hands of men of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment who beat and abused him for 36 hours, including double-hooding him with hessian sacks in stifling heat. He was a hotel receptionist. Although his murder took place almost five years ago, it was only in May this year that the Ministry of Defense responded to the courts and agreed to an independent inquiry. A judge has described this as a “wall of silence.”

A court martial convicted just one soldier of Mousa’s “inhumane treatment,” and he has since been quietly released. Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers, representing the families of Iraqis who have died in British custody, says the evidence is clear – abuse and torture by the British army is systemic.

Shiner and his colleagues have witness statements and corroborations of prima facie crimes of an especially atrocious kind usually associated with the Americans. “The more cases I am dealing with, the worse it gets,” he says. These include an “incident” near the town of Majar al-Kabir in 2004, when British soldiers executed as many as 20 Iraqi prisoners after mutilating them. The latest is that of a 14-year-old boy who was forced to simulate anal and oral sex over a prolonged period.

Continued . . .

Tags:
Posted in War Criminals | Leave a Comment »

Mukasey Refuses to Probe CIA Interrogations

July 13, 2008

Jason Ryan | RINF.COM, July 12, 2008

Attorney General Michael Mukasey has notified the House Judiciary Committee that he will not appoint special counsel to investigate the actions of CIA officers and agents who conducted detainee interrogations that included controversial methods such as waterboarding, which simulates drowning.

The controversial interrogation practices were authorized by lawyers from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

In a letter to House Judiciary Chairman Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who had requested special counsel on the matter, Mukasey noted that “it would be unwise and unjust to expose to possible criminal penalties those who relied in good faith on those prior Justice Department opinions.”

Referencing “The Terror Presidency,” a book by Jack Goldsmith — former head of the Office of Legal Counsel — Mukasey said that the intelligence community was exposed to “cycles of timidity and aggression.”

Mukasey also noted in the letter that opening a criminal investigation of the interrogators “would not only, in my judgment, be unjust but would also have potentially grave national security consequences. There could be no more certain way to usher in a new ‘cycle of timidity’ in the intelligence community than to tell the government’s national security policymakers and lawyers that, if they support an aggressive counterterrorism policy based on their good-faith belief that such a policy is lawful, they may nevertheless one day be prosecuted for doing so.”

The issue of the interrogation practices gained renewed attention when the CIA acknowledged in December that interrogation video tapes of two Al Qaeda detainees who had been waterboarded had been destroyed.

The video tapes have become a critical point in the appeal of convicted terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui. The main point of Moussaoui’s appeal is that government officials withheld evidence from his defense, and that the CIA had submitted inaccurate declarations to the U.S. District Court that no recordings of detainee interrogations existed.

Shortly after being sworn in as attorney general, Mukasey appointed John Durham to serve as acting U.S. attorney in the investigation of the tapes’ destruction.

A little noticed court filing in the litigation of the appeal of Moussaoui’s conviction noted in court papers filed last week that Durham had recently uncovered new information in the case: “The Acting United States Attorney and his staff have very recently uncovered new information that may be relevant to the issues that were addressed … and have been raised again on appeal.”

The Justice Department has declined to elaborate on Durham’s new information from that filing but it indicates the investigation into the tapes’ destruction is ongoing.

Tags: , ,
Posted in War Criminals | Leave a Comment »

President George W Bush backs Israeli plan for strike on Iran

July 13, 2008

As Tehran tests new missiles, America believes only a show of force can deter President Ahmadinejad

US President George W Bush

President George W Bush: US officials acknowledge that no American president can afford to remain idle if Israel is threatened

Uzi Mahnaimi in Washington | The Times, July 13, 2008

President George W Bush has told the Israeli government that he may be prepared to approve a future military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations with Tehran break down, according to a senior Pentagon official.

Despite the opposition of his own generals and widespread scepticism that America is ready to risk the military, political and economic consequences of an airborne strike on Iran, the president has given an “amber light” to an Israeli plan to attack Iran’s main nuclear sites with long-range bombing sorties, the official told The Sunday Times.

“Amber means get on with your preparations, stand by for immediate attack and tell us when you’re ready,” the official said. But the Israelis have also been told that they can expect no help from American forces and will not be able to use US military bases in Iraq for logistical support.

Nor is it certain that Bush’s amber light would ever turn to green without irrefutable evidence of lethal Iranian hostility. Tehran’s test launches of medium-range ballistic missiles last week were seen in Washington as provocative and poorly judged, but both the Pentagon and the CIA concluded that they did not represent an immediate threat of attack against Israeli or US targets.

“It’s really all down to the Israelis,” the Pentagon official added. “This administration will not attack Iran. This has already been decided. But the president is really preoccupied with the nuclear threat against Israel and I know he doesn’t believe that anything but force will deter Iran.”

The official added that Israel had not so far presented Bush with a convincing military proposal. “If there is no solid plan, the amber will never turn to green,” he said.

There was also resistance inside the Pentagon from officers concerned about Iranian retaliation. “The uniform people are opposed to the attack plans, mainly because they think it will endanger our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the source said.

Complicating the calculations in both Washington and Tel Aviv is the prospect of an incoming Democratic president who has already made it clear that he prefers negotiation to the use of force.

Senator Barack Obama’s previous opposition to the war in Iraq, and his apparent doubts about the urgency of the Iranian threat, have intensified pressure on the Israeli hawks to act before November’s US presidential election. “If I were an Israeli I wouldn’t wait,” the Pentagon official added.

Continued . . .

Tags: ,
Posted in War Criminals | Leave a Comment »

Mark Steel: Wife-beating? That’s fine – unless you’re a Muslim

July 13, 2008

Mark Steel | The Independent, Wednesday, 9 July 2008

Change font size: A | A | A

The Sun newspaper has come over a bit modest. Following a Channel 4 documentary about media reporting of Muslims, the paper accepts some of its stories were “distorted”. But they’re not doing themselves justice. They weren’t distorted – they were entirely made up. For example, a story about a Muslim bus driver who ordered his passengers off the bus so he could pray was pure fabrication.

But if reporters are allowed to make up what they like, that one should be disciplined for displaying a shocking lack of imagination. He could have continued, “The driver has now won a case at the Court of Human Rights that his bus route should be altered so it only goes east. This means the 37A from Sutton Coldfield will no longer stop at Selly Oak library, but go the wrong way up a one-way street and carry on to Mecca. Local depot manager Stan Tubworth said, ‘I suggested he only take it as far as Athens but he threatened a Jihad, and a holy war is just the sort of thing that could put a service like the Selly Oak Clipper out of business’.”

Then there was a story about “Muslim thugs” in Windsor who attacked a house used by soldiers, except it was another invention. But with this tale the reporter still claims it’s true, despite a complete absence of evidence, because, “The police are too politically correct to admit it.” This must be the solution to all unsolved crimes. With Jack the Ripper it’s obvious – he was facing the East End of London, his victims were infidels and he’d have access to a burqua which would give him vital camouflage in the smog. But do the pro-Muslim police even bother to investigate? Of course not, because it’s just “Allah Allah Allah” down at the stations these days.

Continued . . .

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Islam and Muslims | Leave a Comment »

An Aggressive and Hypocritical US Policy Toward Iran

July 12, 2008

Ivan Eland | Antiwar, July 12, 2008

The chauvinistic American news media have focused on evil Iran’s missile tests and the indignant Bush administration reaction, while missing some key causes of the event. As if the Iranians had started the entire dust up, the media reported Gordon Johndroe, the White House spokesman, barking, “The Iranian regime only furthers the isolation of the Iranian people from the international community when it engages in this sort of activity.” The U.S. press then reported Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as bristling that the U.S. would defend its allies and protect its interests against attack.

The media could have given equal emphasis to the recent strident rhetoric and behavior of Israel and the Bush administration towards Iran, but didn’t. Not only has the Bush administration pointedly declined to rule out military action against Iran, the United States was conducting provocative naval maneuvers in the Persian Gulf near Iran before the Iranian missile tests. In addition, last month, according to U.S. intelligence officials, Israel conducted an exercise that simulated a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. In the American press, these provocations tend to get buried under sensational headlines implying Iranian aggressiveness in launching the missiles. For example, the headline for a New York Times article on the subject read, “Iran Launches 9 Missiles in War Games, One with Range Said to Include Israel.”

Via the missile firings and by bluntly saying that if attacked, a counterattack on Israel and the U.S. fleet would ensue, Iran was merely trying to deter any potential Israeli or Bush administration attack before the U.S. elections. Iran – not Israel or the U.S. – has the fear of being attacked.

The American public assumes that the U.S. being a democracy automatically translates into being right in disputes overseas. But statistics show that democracies are no less aggressive overseas than non-democracies. In fact, by far the most aggressive country in the post-World War II world – if measured in the numbers of military and covert interventions – is the United States. Iran may be indirectly supporting militias in Iraq, Gaza, and Lebanon, but the United States, just since 2001, has invaded and occupied two countries and changed their governments using armed force.

Iran got permanently on the wrong side of U.S. policy after its fundamentalist Islamic revolution and the taking of U.S. diplomats hostage in 1979. However, the American people have always been oblivious to what caused that burst of anti-American venom. In 1953, the CIA ousted Mohammed Mossadeq, the elected leader of Iran, because he nationalized British oil interests. The U.S. government reinstated and supported the brutal Shah, who ruled until the revolution in 1978, and grabbed 40 percent of Iran’s oil for American companies.

Continued . . .

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in US policy | Leave a Comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »