Peace and Justice Post

LewRockwell.com

By Eric Margolis

The Bush Administration may be preparing to lash out at old ally Pakistan, which Washington now blames for its humiliating failures to crush al-Qaida, capture its elusive leaders, or defeat Taliban resistance forces in Afghanistan.

One is immediately reminded of the Vietnam War when the Pentagon, unable to defeat North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong forces, urged invasion of Cambodia.

Sources in Washington say the Pentagon is drawing up plans to attack Pakistan’s “autonomous” tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Limited “hot pursuit” ground incursions by US forces based in Afghanistan, intensive air attacks, and special forces raids into Pakistan’s autonomous tribal region are being evaluated.

This weekend, the US national intelligence chief and other intelligence spokesmen confirmed that strikes against “terrorist targets” in Pakistan’s tribal belt are increasingly possible. These warnings were designed to both further pressure Pakistan’s beleaguered strongman, President Pervez Musharraf into sending more troops to the tribal areas to fight his own people, and to prepare US public opinion for a possible widening of the Afghanistan war into Pakistan.

Pakistan’s 27,200 sq km tribal belt, officially known as the Federal Autonomous Tribal Area, or FATA, is home to 3.3 million Pashtun tribesmen. It has become a safe haven for al-Qaida, Taliban, other Afghan resistance groups, and a hotbed of anti-American activity, thanks mostly to the US-led occupation of Afghanistan which drove many militants across the border into Pakistan. Osama bin Laden is very likely sheltered in this region, as US intelligence claims.

I spent a remarkable time in this wild, medieval region during the 1980’s and 90’s, traveling alone where even Pakistani government officials dared not go, visiting the tribes of Waziristan, Orakzai, Khyber, Chitral, and Kurram, and meeting their chiefs, called “maliks.”

These tribal belts are always referred to as “lawless.” Pashtun tribesmen could shoot you if they didn’t like your looks. Rudyard Kipling warned British Imperial soldiers over a century ago, when fighting cruel, ferocious Pashtun warriors of the Afridi clan, if they fell wounded, “save your last bullet for yourself.”

But there is law: the traditional Pashtun tribal code, Pashtunwali, that strictly governs behavior and personal honor. Protecting guests was sacred. I was captivated by this majestic mountain region and wrote of it extensively in my book, “War at the Top of the World.”

The 40 million Pashtun – called “Pathan” by the British – are the world’s largest tribal group. Imperial Britain divided them by an artificial border, the Durand Line, which went on to become, like so many other British colonial boundaries, today’s Afghanistan-Pakistan border. When Pakistan was created in 1947, the Pashtun were split between that new nation and Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s Pashtun number 28–30 million, plus an additional 2.5 million refugees from Afghanistan. Pashtuns, one of the British Indian Army’s famed “martial races,” occupy many senior positions in Pakistan’s military, intelligence service and bureaucracy, and naturally have much sympathy for their embattled tribal cousins in Afghanistan. The 15 million Pashtun of Afghanistan form that nation’s largest ethnic group and just under half the population.

The tribal agency’s Pashtun reluctantly joined newly-created Pakistan in 1947 under express constitutional guarantee of total autonomy and a ban on Pakistani troops ever entering there.

But under intense US pressure, President Pervez Musharraf violated Pakistan’s constitution by sending 80,000 federal troops to fight the region’s tribes, killing 3,000 of them. In best British imperial tradition, Washington pays Musharraf $100 million monthly to rent his sepoys (native soldiers) to fight Pashtun tribesmen. As a result, Pakistan is fast edging towards civil war, as the bloody siege of Islamabad’s Red Mosque and a current wave of bombings across the nation show.

The anti-Communist Taliban movement is part of the Pashtun people. Taliban fighters move across the artificial Pakistan-Afghanistan border, to borrow a Maoism, like fish through the sea. Osama bin Laden is a hero in the region, and likely shelters there.

The US just increased its reward for bin Laden to $50 million and plans to shower $750 million on the tribal region in an effort to buy loyalty. Bush/Cheney & Co. do not understand that while they can rent President Musharraf’s government in Islamabad, many Pashtun value personal honor far more than money, and cannot be bought. That is likely why bin Laden has not yet been betrayed.

Any US attack on Pakistan would be a catastrophic mistake. First, air and ground assaults will succeed only in widening the anti-US war and merging it with Afghanistan’s resistance to western occupation. US forces are already too over-stretched to get involved in yet another little war.

Second, Pakistan’s army officers who refuse to be bought may resist a US attack on their homeland, and overthrow the man who allowed it, Gen. Musharraf. A US attack would sharply raise the threat of anti-US extremists seizing control of strategic Pakistan and marginalize those seeking return to democratic government.

Third, a US attack on the tribal areas could re-ignite the old irredentist movement to reunite Pashtun parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan into an independent state, “Pashtunistan.” That could begin unraveling fragile Pakistan, leaving its nuclear arsenal up for grabs, and India tempted to intervene.

The US military has grown used to attacking small, weak nations like Grenada, Panama, and Iraq. Pakistan, with 163 million people, and a poorly equipped but very tough 550,000-man army, will offer no easy victories. Those Bush Administration officials who foolishly advocate attacking Pakistan are playing with fire.

July 24, 2007

Eric Margolis [send him mail], contributing foreign editor for Sun National Media Canada, is the author of War at the Top of the World. See his website.

Copyright © 2007 Eric Margolis

ZNet, July 19, 2007

Women for Palestine

Six years ago almost to the day, the great intellectual Edward Said wrote an article(1) that could almost have been written today. Then he said, “Rarely have I seen such a concentration of Israeli mendacity received with such cringing servility by Palestinians, and all this while millions of Palestinians are suffering the worst possible collective punishment.” I have no doubt that he would have been even more scathing about the state of play now because it seems the Palestinian leadership (many of whom are still around) has learned nothing from the endless deception and betrayal carried out by Israel during all the years of peace talks. Only Israel has gained in this illegal occupation, and criminally so, at the devastating expense of the Palestinian people.

Unbelievably, little is being said about the Occupation in the current political drama. Instead, we are getting news reports of what Fatah said, what Hamas said, what Israel is prepared to offer or not offer and the usual farcical allusions to peace talks from the US. This plays right into Israel’s hands, particularly when a catatonic world is just beginning to wake up – when influential voices are accusing Israel of apartheid, when the dastardly effects of the Wall are beginning to be noticed and when respectable institutions are contemplating divestment and boycotts. And Israel is encouraging the pathetic play for power amongst some Palestinians all too willing to comply, so that public opinion will be deflected away from its crimes. It is in this political maelstrom, that the Palestinians under occupation are having to struggle just to live from day to day without even the remotest glimmer of hope for a life of freedom and peace, let alone the justice that has long been their due. Theirs is a struggle whose tragically epic proportions deserve much much more than the paltry news items and commentaries that barely get published or mentioned.

Ever since the Palestinians were catastrophically dispossessed of most of their homeland in 1948, their situation has gone from bad to worse to disastrous. No other conflict has had such intense involvement from a superpower as actor and broker in all that time and no other Occupying Power has had so much financial and political support as it flagrantly violates every aspect of international law and every UN resolution upholding the rights of the Palestinians. If Israel really wanted peace, it would have been easy to get the Palestinians to accept a state on 22 percent of their land after Arafat held out the olive branch and agreed to recognise Israel. It would have been easy after Oslo when the Palestinians agreed to just about everything, leaving only Jerusalem and the right of return for later discussions. But, while Israel was talking “peace”, it was still stealing Palestinian land, still building illegal Jewish settlements right in the heart of Palestinian territory, still herding Palestinians through their degrading grid of checkpoints, still arresting and torturing, still thundering into Gaza with its massive military arsenal, only to then begin building the infamous Wall, deep inside the Armistice line. Today, Israel’s apartheid policies and practices have taken on new dimensions with denial of entry, the creation of reservations, population transfers and ethnic cleansing a shocking reality.

Israel continues to pursue its unilateral decisions to secure final borders at the expense of a viable Palestinian state. It continues to demand huge increases in funding from the US for weapons and military hardware that wreak such bitter havoc on the people under its occupation. Yet, we are supposed to use the language of diplomacy and democracy instead of calling a spade a spade. The Fatah politicians talk about capacity and institution building, extract promises from Palestinians to forgo resistance and agree with Israel to round up anyone who might just have an association with Hamas. Never mind that Israeli soldiers continue their raids into Palestinian towns and continue their brutish violence against a terrified civilian population. Never mind that Gaza is being hermetically sealed from the outside world and the people are being forced to depend on the most basic aid. As the latest staged scenario plays itself out, it is apparent that the US no longer controls the situation, Europe is floundering, the UN is a lame duck , the Palestinian people are the hapless quarries, caged and almost beaten into submission and Israel takes what it wants. And all the while, the politicians smile, shake hands and talk about a “new future” with nary a word about the ordinary people suffering extraordinary hardships under the yoke of Israel’s violent occupation.

Edward Said’s words may have been written in 2001, but the thrust of his message is no less resounding: “. . . no matter the occasion, no matter the question, no matter the newspaper or TV or radio journalist, every question must first be answered with a few basic points about the military occupation . . . This is the source of violence, this is the source of the main problems, and it is the reason Israel can never have real peace. Our entire political position must be based on ending the occupation and this must take precedence over any and every other consideration. . .” It is the occupation, the occupation and the occupation over and over again.

(1) Said, Edward – Israel Sharpens its Axe, Counterpunch, 13 July 2001

Sonja Karkar is the founder and president of Women for Palestine and also a founding member of the steering committee of Australians for Palestine in Melbourne, Australia. See http://www.womenforpalestine.com and http://www.australiansforpalestine.com

Human Rights First, July 20, 2007

The Order contains fine sounding rhetoric that changes little and leaves dubious claims in place

The following statement can be attributed to Elisa Massimino, Washington Director, Human Rights First:

Torture and cruel treatment by U.S. personnel happened, in the first place, because the administration applied such a flexible interpretation of the laws and standards against abuse that they became practically meaningless. That is how the United States got to Abu Ghraib.

The administration fought to get Congress to pass a law equating Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions with the prohibition against cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. Congress refused, because it feared that the administration would again interpret the legal bans in a way that would endanger the United States’ military personnel, now and in future wars.

Congress has reiterated, twice in the last two years, that the law absolutely prohibits torture and other forms of official cruelty. The interrogation techniques that have been authorized for the CIA program — the so-called “alternative set of techniques” — are prohibited under current law. Nothing in today’s Executive Order changes that.

But the Order fails to make clear whether interrogation techniques that had been authorized for use in the CIA program are still permitted. If the Order is interpreted by the CIA as authorization to use techniques such as waterboarding, stress positions, hypothermia, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation and isolation, it sends a powerful — and dangerous — message to the United States’ current and future enemies: that this country believes these techniques can lawfully be used against our own troops without violating Common Article 3. This is the reason why more than 50 retired generals and admirals, including several former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, urged Congress to reject the administration’s attempt to redefine the Geneva Conventions standard in this way. If the CIA uses this Executive Order as authorization for what Congress refused to permit, then Congress will have to act again. As Senator John McCain, one of the sponsors of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 cautioned when the Act was passed, “In interpreting the conventions in this manner, the President is bounded by the conventions themselves. Nothing in this bill gives the President the authority to modify the conventions or our obligations under those treaties. That understanding is at the core of this legislation.”

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Human Rights First and Physicians for Human Rights’ forthcoming report on the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” examines the medical consequences of those techniques and concludes that they are prohibited under existing law. For copies of the executive summary of the report contact Krista Minteer (minteerk@humanrightsfirst.org).

The Masison Capitall Times (Wisconsin),

Dave Zweifel — 7/18/2007

When George W. Bush was surprisingly re-elected president in November 2004, I predicted that in a couple of years — just like after the re-election of Richard Nixon — you’d have problems finding people who would admit having voted for him.

It’s unfortunate, but that is in fact the case in 2007 as even longtime Republicans are counting the days left until this administration is history.

Indeed, there are many Republicans joining the growing chorus that wants to impeach Bush and Dick Cheney and get rid of these two guys now before they do even more damage to this great country of ours.

Frankly, it’s remarkable how total the damage has been. The lies to get us into a war with Iraq and then the incompetence in handling it were bad enough. But the war is just a piece of the utter devastation that this administration has caused in everything from the administration of justice to the stewardship of our national parks, from the reputation of the Food and Drug Administration to the nation’s ability to respond to emergencies.

If shortsighted ideology didn’t get in the way of working for the common good, incompetent cronies did.

Instead of putting experienced foreign affairs people in jobs to handle the Iraqi transition from Saddam Hussein to some form of democracy, the administration filled those jobs with inexperienced, mostly young people, whose only qualification was that they were doctrinaire Republicans. It was the same sort of nonsense that prevailed at Homeland Security, where the completely unqualifed Michael “you’re doing a heckuva job” Brown turned FEMA into a national laughingstock.

Now comes the news that even the surgeon general’s office — a federal agency whose sole purpose is to promote the public’s health — was manipulated by the Bush team.

Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona testified before a congressional committee recently that the administration repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

According to a New York Times story, Dr. Carmona told the committee that he wasn’t allowed to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education or prison, mental health and global health issues. Whenever he gave a speech, he was instructed to make sure Bush’s name was mentioned at least three times on every page.

Plus, he was discouraged from attending the Special Olympics because of the charitable organization’s long ties to a “prominent family.” He wouldn’t give the name on the record, but he was obviously referring to the Kennedys, who have long been associated with the Olympic events for the disabled.

Bill Clinton may have had some personal defects, all of which led to his being impeached by a partisan House of Representatives. Like Alex Rodriguez of baseball fame, he may cheat on his wife, but he hit home runs when they mattered.

The Bush crowd is straight out of the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.

If lying about sex gets you impeached, what do we do with an administration whose lies have led to a world calamity and whose ideology trumps even common sense? The answer couldn’t be more clear.

Dave Zweifel is editor of The Capital Times.

Green Left online

By Dale Mills & Tony Iltis

21 July 2007

The decision by immigration minister Kevin Andrews to throw 27-year-old Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef into immigration detention — despite a Queensland court granting Haneef bail on charges of “recklessly” (meaning not deliberately) supporting terrorism — has further exposed the Howard government’s utter disregard for civil rights and the judicial system, and the dangers inherent in its “anti-terror” laws.

Haneef, an Indian citizen working as a medical registrar at the Gold Coast Hospital, was arrested at Brisbane Airport on July 2 and detained without charge. On July 14 he was finally charged with “recklessly providing support to a terrorist organisation” in Britain.

On July 16, bail was granted to Haneef on the basis that he provide a $10,000 surety and report to police three times a week. While there is a presumption against bail under the “anti-terror” laws unless exceptional circumstances can be shown, magistrate Jacqui Payne decided that there were indeed exceptional circumstances — an extremely weak prosecution case.

The only “evidence” known to link Haneef to any alleged crime was that his cousin, Sabeel Ahmed, has been charged in Britain with withholding information that could have prevented a terrorist act and that Haneef gave Ahmed a mobile phone SIM card last September — because the card had unused credit — before Haneef left Britain to work in Australia.

Full article

The Independent, July 22, 2007

By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent

Pakistan’s supreme court dealt President Pervez Musharraf a damaging and embarrassing blow yesterday, ruling that his decision to fire the chief justice was illegal and ordering that he be reinstated.

In what may be the most direct challenge to the military dictator’s authority since he came to power by means of a coup in 1999, the court voted 10-3 to quash a case of alleged misconduct against Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry. Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday said that General Musharraf’s order suspending Mr Chaudhry was “set aside as being illegal”.

In a move that backfired, General Musharraf sacked Mr Chaudhry in March after accusing him of corruption. The move was widely seen as politically motivated, given the judge’s investigations into alleged human rights abuses by forces in Baluchistan province.

While General Musharraf might have assumed his decision to force out Mr Chaudhry would have had little impact beyond the legal community, in the months since his ousting the 59-year-old has become a rallying point for the disparate elements of Pakistan’s political opposition.

Everywhere the judge has gone to deliver lectures to lawyers’ groups, he has been mobbed by people who want to catch a glimpse of the man who dared to stand up to General Musharraf.

Yesterday’s decision triggered celebrations not only outside the Supreme Court in the capital Islamabad, but elsewhere across the country. Mr Chaudhry’s lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, said: “He has been restored and it is a victory for the entire nation.”

General Musharraf said last month he would accept whatever decision the court made, something repeated by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who called for unity as the country heads to elections this year. “I would like to emphasise that we must all accept the verdict with the grace and dignity reflective of a mature nation,” he said. “This is not the time to claim victory or defeat. The constitution … must prevail at all times.”

Some of General Musharraf’s opponents believe his decision to remove Mr Chaudhry was an attempt to pre-empt any legal challenges to his plan to ask the country’s regional and national assemblies to give him another five-year term.

Since the operation to clear the Red Mosque this month, which left more than 100 people dead, and the subsequent violent backlash, Pakistan’s deteriorating security situation has overshadowed the judicial crisis.

The Guardian, July 21, 2007

Blood and guts

by Declan Walsh

Lunchtime yesterday, and a gaggle of lawyers in black suits crammed into a small room in the sweaty bowels of Pakistan’s Supreme Court. Balancing cigarettes and cups of tea, they savoured the moment. An epic struggle was nearing its climax. The court was about to deliver its verdict on a battle that has captivated Pakistan since March, between the President, General Pervez Musharraf, and the chief justice, Muhammad Iftikhar Chaudhry. The country had never seen it before: a civilian openly challenging a military leader. After months of raucous protest, the lawyers smelled victory. But one was not sure.

Asma

Jahangir, an eagle-eyed lawyer on the frontline of the chief justice’s campaign, was apprehensive. “I don’t know, I just don’t know,” she says, her voice trailing away. “I could be surprised, but it looks like there’s going to be a compromise.” We sat down to lunch, a few discs of unleavened bread and a scoop of dhal.

At five feet tall, Jahangir, 55, is not an imposing figure, but for almost four decades she has towered over Pakistan’s human rights war. She has championed battered wives, rescued teenagers from death row, defended people accused of blasphemy, and sought justice for the victims of honour killings. These battles have won her admirers and enemies in great number. But she doesn’t care, mocking the mullahs and poking a finger in the face of the barrel-chested generals. In conversations with friends, one word constantly recurs: guts. “Asma is the gutsiest woman that Pakistan has,” says Abbas Nasir, editor of Dawn newspaper and a friend. “Whatever she believes in, she has the conviction to say it publicly in a sea of complete intolerance and ignorance. In a country like this, that is fantastic.”

Full article

Source: news.yahoo.com

By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer Fri July 20, 2007

WASHINGTON – President Bush breathed new life into the CIA‘s terror interrogation program Friday in an executive order that would allow harsh questioning of suspects, limited in public only by a vaguely worded ban on cruel and inhuman treatment.

The order bars some practices such as sexual abuse, part of an effort to quell international criticism of some of the CIA’s most sensitive and debated work. It does not say what practices would be allowed.

The executive order is the White House’s first public effort to reach into the CIA’s five-year-old terror detention program, which has been in limbo since a Supreme Court decision last year called its legal foundation into question.

Officials would not provide any details on specific interrogation techniques that the CIA may use under the new order. In the past, its methods are believed to have included sleep deprivation and disorientation, exposing prisoners to uncomfortable cold or heat for long periods, stress positions and — most controversially — the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding.

The Bush administration has portrayed the interrogation operation as one of one of its most successful tools in the war on terror, while opponents have said the agency’s techniques have left a black mark on the United States‘ reputation around the world.

Bush’s order requires that CIA detainees “receive the basic necessities of life, including adequate food and water, shelter from the elements, necessary clothing, protection from extremes of heat and cold, and essential medical care.”

A senior intelligence official would not comment directly when asked if waterboarding would be allowed under the new order and under related — but classified — legal documents drafted by the Justice Department.

However, the official said, “It would be wrong to assume the program of the past transfers to the future.”

A second senior administration official acknowledged sleep is not among the basic necessities outlined in the order.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the order more freely.

Skeptical human rights groups did not embrace Bush’s effort.

Tom Malinowski, Washington director for Human Rights Watch, said the broad outlines in the public order don’t matter. The key is in the still-classified guidance distributed to CIA officers.

As a result, the executive order requires the public to trust the president to provide adequate protection to detainees. “Given the experience of the last few years, they have to be naive if they think that is going to reassure too many people,” he said.

The order specifically refers to captured al-Qaida suspects who may have information on attack plans or the whereabouts of the group’s senior leaders. White House press secretary Tony Snow said the CIA’s program has saved lives and must continue on a sound legal footing.

“The president has insisted on clear legal standards so that CIA officers involved in this essential work are not placed in jeopardy for doing their job — and keeping America safe from attacks,” he said.

The five-page order reiterated many protections already granted under U.S. and international law. It said that any conditions of confinement and interrogation cannot include:

• Torture or other acts of violence serious enough to be considered comparable to murder, torture, mutilation or cruel or inhuman treatment.

• Willful or outrageous acts of personal abuse done to humiliate or degrade someone in a way so serious that any reasonable person would “deem the acts to be beyond the bounds of human decency.” That includes sexually indecent acts.

• Acts intended to denigrate the religion of an individual.

The order does not permit detainees to contact family members or have access to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

In a decision last year aimed at the military’s tribunal system, the Supreme Court required the U.S. government to apply Geneva Convention protections to the conflict with al-Qaida, shaking the legal footing of the CIA’s program.

Last fall, Congress instructed the White House to draft an executive order as part of the Military Commissions Act, which outlined the rules for trying terrorism suspects. The bill barred torture, rape and other war crimes that clearly would have violated the Geneva Conventions, but allowed Bush to determine — through executive order — whether less harsh interrogation methods can be used.

The administration and the CIA have maintained that the agency’s program has been lawful all along.

In a message to CIA employees on Friday, Director Michael Hayden tried to stress the importance and narrow scope of the program. He noted that fewer than half of the less than 100 detainees have experienced the agency’s “enhanced interrogation measures.”

“Simply put, the information developed by our program has been irreplaceable,” he said. “If the CIA, with all its expertise in counterterrorism, had not stepped forward to hold and interrogate people like (senior al-Qaida operatives) Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the American people would be right to ask why.”

For decades, the United States had two paths for questioning suspects: the U.S. justice system and the military’s Army Field Manual.

However, after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration decided more needed to be done. With Zubaydah’s capture in 2002, the CIA program was quietly created.

Since then, 97 terror suspects are believed to have been held by the agency at locations around the world, often referred to as “black sites.”

The program sparked international controversy as details slowly emerged, with human rights groups saying the agency’s work was a violation of international law, including the Third Geneva Convention’s Common Article 3 protections, which set a baseline standard for the treatment of prisoners of war.

In September, Bush announced the U.S. had transferred the last 14 high-value CIA detainees to the military’s detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they would stand trial. The CIA has held one detainee since then — an Iraqi who the U.S. considered one of al-Qaida’s most senior operatives. He was also eventually transferred to Guantanamo.

___

Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann and Lara Jakes Jordan contributed to this report.

Workers World

By Deirdre Griswold

Published Jul 19, 2007

The debate over the war in Iraq has finally made it onto the agenda of the Senate! But not at a time when funding for the war is up for a vote. A majority of Congress, including most Democrats, already voted to approve those hundreds of billions of dollars.

The current debate is over an amendment, put forward by Democratic Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, to a new appropriations bill. The amendment would begin to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within 180 days (six months) of enactment and complete a reduction of troop strength—but not a total withdrawal—by April 30, 2008.

This debate is finally happening after the electorate has in many, many ways expressed its utter disgust with the war, the occupation and both political parties for letting the carnage drag on despite the immense pain and suffering it has meant for the Iraqi people and many in the U.S. Especially hit here is the working class, which pays for wars in blood and taxes while the rich generally do quite well as war spending oozes through the upper layers of the economy.

The senators also must know that calls are heard more and more frequently to impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney because these two lied to the world about Iraq’s mythical weapons of mass destruction. Every online discussion having to do with the war or the White House—except those on bizarrely ultra-right Web sites—rings with colorful denunciations of these political figures.

Full article

RINF.com, July 19, 2007

Why did IntelCenter, the middleman between “Al-Qaeda” and the media, a group that has government and Pentagon ties, re-release old footage and why did the media report it as new when it had already aired twice before? Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet

A videotape that was heralded as “new” footage of Osama bin Laden by many quarters of the press has been conclusively proven to be more than 5 year old re-released footage, leading to questions about why the government and the media continue to act as willing propagandists for the terrorists while striking fear into Americans by claiming an attack is inevitable.

Though some reports included the proviso that the tape could contain old footage, the importance and ceremony attached to the re-release of the Bin Laden tape over the weekend left the distinct impression that the footage was new and that it correlated with the alleged increase of “chatter” amongst terrorist organizations indicating that a new attack is imminent, a message that was again pushed by the U.S. government following the release of the National Intelligence Estimate yesterday.

In reality, the tape was being released for the third consecutive time , having first popped up in 2002 before re-airing again in 2003. The footage of Bin Laden was filmed six years ago in October 2001.

The Associated Press ran the tape as a top story on Saturday under the headline “Bin Laden Appears in New al-Qaida Video”.

Euro News, the propaganda arm of the European Union broadcast in dozens of countries around Europe, described the footage as “apparently new” .

“Possible New Message From Osama Bin Laden,” reported ABC News , noting that “a brief clip of an older-looking Osama bin Laden is contained in a new al Qaeda videotape,” when in reality the graying in Bin Laden’s beard was exactly the same as when he appeared in a 2001 videotape , while also wearing the exact same jacket.

The footage was not new and any small amount of cursory research would have verified that fact, and yet the media went full board with the story, creating the illusion that it was new, while rabid Neo-Cons lauded the tape as another reason for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq while fearmongering about upcoming terror attacks at home.

The footage first appeared in May 2002, having been released by a Pakistani security official to the Al-Ansaar Islamic news agency, based in Birmingham, England. This CBS video clip clearly shows the same footage as the apparent “new” tape.

Here is a screenshot from the 2002 tape (right) compared to the new tape (left). Notice the sloping mountain in the left background.

Sources indicate that the footage was shot in either October 2001 or March 2002, with the earlier date being the favorite as Bin Laden’s appearance matches with the footage from a different tape that was released in October 2001.

Al-Jazeera said they had the footage as far back as October 2001, but chose not to air it as they saw it as “not newsworthy” and “nothing more than a PR stunt.” Six years later, and with the footage having been released on two separate occasions already, the western media insinuated that the tape was new and splashed it everywhere as a top headline.

In our previous groundbreaking investigation , we exposed IntelCenter, the middleman between “Al-Qaeda’s media arm” and the press, and the organization that routinely obtains the tapes, as little more than a Pentagon front group staffed by individuals with close connections to the military-industrial complex.

IntelCenter were also behind the release of the “new” Osama tape – having previously released the same footage (the second time it had appeared) in October 2003!

IntelCenter issued a tacit warning that the footage may be re-hashed when they released the “new” tape to the media, but they failed to mention the fact that they released portions of the exact same clips in October 2003. The screenshots of Bin Laden which clearly correlate with the “new” tape were on their website all along, and yet they still labeled the footage as “significant”. IntelCenter knew the tape was definitely old, yet their meandering uncertainty left doubts that the media exploited to the full in claiming the footage may be new.

The screenshot from IntelCenter’s website from a tape released in October 2003 clearly match with screenshots from the “new” tape, a fact completely ignored by both IntelCenter themselves and the mass media.

Even a senior Bush administration official admitted to Newsbuster , “Intelligence agencies have determined the video was previously aired as a portion of a longer show first on MBC TV (Middle East broadcast station) on April 17, 2002,” and yet retractions to the supposition that the footage was new are nowhere to be seen in the media.

“What’s the result of the MSM’s sloppy “air-first-verify-later” approach? The world’s most evil and despicable terrorists are given tons of free air time and print exposure,” adds Newsbuster.

Even if you believe that Al-Qaeda itself is deciding to re-package old footage and constantly re-release it, and that this isn’t a crude propaganda ploy on behalf of IntelCenter in collusion with the Neo-Cons, why are the government and the media consistently affording lavish attention and giving prominence to such activity, aiding the terrorists to spread their propaganda ad infinitum?

It would be foolishly naive to think that the re-release of this tape – for the third time running – has little to do with the fact that the Bush administration has been ramping up the fearmongering and hinting at the inevitability of another attack over the past two weeks – ostensibly for political purposes to mute dissent.

Six months after the failed “surge” in Iraq and with Bush’s approval ratings sliding to all time lows while calls for impeachment reach a crescendo, a slew of information threatening a new Al-Qaeda attack gets released and up pops Osama – in a tape that is re-hashed for a third time – to validate the Neo-Cons insistence that to leave Iraq is to hand the terrorists a victory. That tape is released by an organization with clear links to the military-industrial complex who had knowingly released the same footage years earlier.

Is all this a coincidence, or does such chicanery and crass manipulation of the electorate and the political process demand an immediate Congressional investigation as to why the U.S. government and its lapdog media fronts are working with the terrorists to artificially boost their profile while scaring the holy crap out of the American people at the most politically opportune moments?