L.K. Advani Before the Statue of ' RAM '

March,7,2009
 
    L.K. Advani Before the Statue of ' RAM '
   ***********************************
    For my glory,I always used your name,       
    I am a fraud, my Lord, you know it well;
    From you, I can't conceal my true self,
    I maligned you  for my political smell.
    But you never let me face the despair,
    On me, your blessings  always rained;
    I succeeded in blazing the trail of terror,
    With the militants,in your name, I trained.
    I was a heinous terrorist for the law of land,
    The grace of your name provided me shield;
    To a Muslim, my crimes were fit for death,
    Your symbol gave me powers, that I wield.
    Now forgive me for the sake of your sanctity,
    You are my Lord! the most revered sage !;
    I abused your piety to reach the highest post,
    Fulfill my last wish at this fag-end of age.
    *********************************
 
   Dr.Mustafa Kamal Sherwani,LL.D.
   Chairman, All India Muslim Forum
   Sherwani Nagar, Sitapur Road
   Lucknow, U.P. India
   E:mail ; sherwanimk@yahoo.com
   Phones: +91-522-2733715
                +91-9919777909

Declaration of the Women's International Committee of Via Campesina
On the occasion of the International Women's Day, 2009
 
We, women farmers from the five continents gathered in Seoul, South Korea, in the framework of Via Campesina’s Women’s International Committee meeting, declare:
 
On the 8th of March, the International Women's Day, we reaffirm our willingness to take actions to change the capitalist and patriarchal world that gives priority to the market’s interests instead of the rights of people.
           
As women farmers, we demand the respect of all our rights. We demand a life with dignity and without violence, and the respect of our sexual and reproductive rights. We struggle to achieve food sovereignty and to defend family farming, the only alternative to the current food and climate crises.  We want a real agrarian reform and respect for biodiversity.
 
We launched the international campaign against violence towards women in Maputo, Mozambique, during Via Campesina’s 5th Conference – October 2008.
At this meeting in Korea, we reconfirm our will:
-         To strengthen the organization at all levels and the struggle of women for their emancipation
-         To move forward in the equity of the sexes and women’s participation in all areas of decision making
-         To implement parity in our organizations
-         To end all forms of violence towards women, and to break the culture of silence
-         To build a global society that is just and equal.
 
We call women and men who struggle for peace and justice to take part in the immediate implementation of measures to eradicate all forms of physical, sexual, economic, environmental, verbal, psychological violence. We demand an end to the violence of war. 
 
We support our farmer sisters in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Palestine as well as all the women in all the countries that suffer wars and conflicts.
 
We denounce the destructive practices of transnational companies that destroy biodiversity, steal land, create environmental disasters, force massive migrations and cause the disappearance of family farming. We commit ourselves to struggle against unjust corporate power. 
 
All forms of inequality must be eliminated as soon as possible, whether they are social, cultural, ethnic, class or gender based.
 
We will struggle until we build a society that values the worth and the rights of each human being and a society that affirms that women's rights are human rights.
 
 
GLOBALIZE STRUGGLE
Globalize Hope

Subject: Goodbye Farmers Markets, CSAs, and roadside stands If the corporate lobbyists and corrupt politicians have their way
 

http://dprogram.net/2009/03/05/goodbye-farmers-markets-csas-and-roadside-stands/#more-9384
 
 
Goodbye farmers markets, CSAs, and roadside stands
Posted by sakerfa on March 5, 2009
The “food safety” bills in Congress were written by Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc.  All are associated with the opposite of food safety.  What is this all about then?
 
In the simplest terms, organic food and a rebirth of farming were winning.  Not in absolute numbers but in a deep and growing shift by the public toward understanding the connection between their food and their health, between good food and true social pleasures, between their own involvement in food and the improvement in their lives in general, between local food and a burgeoning local economy.
 
Slow Food was right - limit your food to what comes from your region and from real farmers, and slow down to cook it and linger over it with friends and family, and the world begins to change for the better.
 
And as we face an unprecedented economic crisis, and it is hard to be sure what has value, one thing that always does is food.  Which is why the corporations are after absolute control over it.  But what obstacles to a complete lock on food do they face?  All the people in this country who are “banking” on organic farming and urban gardens and most of all, everyone’s deepening pleasure in and increasing involvement with everything about food.
 
Farmers markets.  Local farmers.  Real milk.  Fresh eggs.  Vegetable stands.
 
Those are things we not only all want, but things we are actively getting involved in, and things we very much need.  And where they are truly good, they are growing.
 
The international financial corporations which have wreaked havoc around the world with astounding nonsensical “solutions” that are destructive of everyone but them, are brothers to the international agribusiness giants (Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc.) which are just as aggressively after their own form of “taking.”  Just seeds, animals, water, land.
 
And freedom.
 
Because human beings are by in large good and by in large incredibly resilient and clever, and left to their own devices - that is, free - they would handle this gargantuan financial stupidity the corporations brought us with NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT and all other globalized schemes (which they hope to eventually top off with CODEX).  How?  By being productive in real ways and locally.  And farming is the solid ground under that.  Farmers produce something of real value (something we used to take for granted), and from that base, businesses grow up.  Local markets, local food processors, local seed companies, local tool and supply companies, local stores … and an economy based on reality and something truly good for us, too, begins to grow.
 
So, look again at what has been exciting us - Farmers markets.  Local farmers.  Real milk.  Fresh eggs.  Vegetable stands. - and realize that they are not only wonderfully healthy but fun and naturally community building.  And more, they are a real economy and deeply democratic - and just at a time we need something that works economically, that supports our democratic rebirth, and that protects food itself and our easy access to it.
 
And it is all those things that threaten the corporations … which is why we now have these massive “fake food safety” bills in Congress.  Everything is going under thanks to these fools, and they wish to be there like vultures to make sure that every drop of blood that can be sucked out of our resources and us, is theirs.  To wit, they must get rid of such good and innocent things and yet truly powerful things as:
 
Farmers markets.  Local farmers.  Real milk.  Fresh eggs.  Vegetable stands.

And how will those who contaminate our country’s food with pesticides, hormones, antibiotics and more, do that?  Why, by setting standards for “food safety” that are so grotesquely and inappropriately and even cruelly applied to a local, independent farmers and ranchers that there is no way they can manage.  Imagine your being faced with a 100 page IRS form and facing a million dollar a day penalty for screwing up.  That would be in the ball park of the impossible complexity mixed with threat facing our farmers.  Imagine having the government and corporations deciding every single thing you can do and must do in your kitchen and backing that up with the threat of 10 years in prison for screwing up - though you have never made anyone sick, and those corporations have.  Imagine being surveilled 24 hours a day by GPS tracking devices that feed into … a corporate data bank, one they have now moved out of the country so no one here can have legal access to see what is in it.
 
Imagine the devil himself - or a whole boardrooms of them, dressed in suits - defining the only safe and healthy food in this country as dangerous and burdening hard working farmers with more work then anyone could bear, while his own, their own, food is so dangerous at this point that in the last 10 years alone, diabetes has gone up 90%.
 
And how did they get this far with such a scheme to apply insane industrial standards to every farm in the country?  Through fear of diseases and of outbreaks of food borne illnesses, both of which they cause themselves.
 
How it works:  Tyson helps Bill Clinton get into office.  Bill Clinton immediately and significantly lowers contamination standards for poultry as a thank you.  And it is such contaminated waste from transnational poultry factories which is now implicated as the source of bird flu. Then fortunes on made on that fear.  And then poultry industry uses the crisis they created to push out small farmers and take greater control than ever.  Their mantra?  Biodiversity not only be damned but be eliminated.  And get rid of those damn farmers who protect it while we’re at it.
 
The bills would require such a burdensome complexity of rules, inspections, licensing, fees, and penalties for each farmer who wishes to sell locally - a fruit stand, at a farmers market -  no one could manage it.  And THAT is the point.  The whole dirty tricks point.  The whole “be in tight control of everything needed for survival because it’ll be worth a fortune” point.
 
So, if you like farmers markets, local farmers, fresh milk, fresh eggs, vegetables stands, and freedom, let your friends know that it’s all on the line right now with those “fake food safety” bills brought to us with well-planned evil and more of it to come, by Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc.
 
Slow Food reminds us of just where we need to be (and notice how much would help any local economy):
 
·  Forming and sustaining seed banks to preserve heirloom varieties in cooperation with local food systems;
·  Developing an “Ark of Taste” for each ecoregion, where local culinary traditions and foods are celebrated;
·  Preserving and promoting local and traditional food products, along with their lore and preparation;
·  Organizing small-scale processing (including facilities for slaughtering and short run products);
·  Organizing celebrations of local cuisine within regions (for example, the Feast of Fields held in some cities in Canada);
·  Promoting “taste education;”
·  Educating consumers about the risks of fast food;
·  Educating citizens about the drawbacks of commercial agribusiness and factory farms;
·  Educating citizens about the risks of monoculture and reliance on too few genomes or varieties;
·  Developing various political programs to preserve family farms;
·  Lobbying for the inclusion of organic farming concerns within agricultural policy;
·  Lobbying against government funding of genetic engineering;
·  Lobbying against the use of pesticides;
·  Teaching gardening skills to students and prisoners; and
·  Encouraging ethical buying in local marketplaces.
 
But we need to stop these bills first or we are left with no money from the financial bailout and no food from the food stealout.
 
Send a message to Congress.
 
We need millions to be fighting this.  Contact Eli Pariser at MoveOn moveon-help@list.moveon.org to tell him MoveOn is badly needed.
 
And below, where Oped News offers a means of writing your local newspaper, take advantage of a chance to vent.
Take action — click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Stop HR 875, HR 814, SR 425, and soon, HR 759
Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers
I’m a mother and grandmother. There is no way I can leave my family or anyone else’s children, things as they are now.
Source: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Goodbye-farmers-markets-C-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090303-287.html

 Future Islam Can Be Proud Of
 
"Slumdog Millionaire" composer, Indian Muslim Allah Rakha Rahman, said in his Oscar acceptance speech, he had in his life "faced a choice between hate and love, and always chose love."
March 07, 2009
By M. D. Nalapat
There are by some estimates 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, about 1/10 of whom live in India. Despite being a minority in a Hindu-dominated country, India's Muslims outside of the conflict-ridden Kashmir region, have largely refused to heed the siren's call of the Islamic jihadists.

They have remained peaceful citizens of the world's most populous democracy, boldly using their numbers to ensure that those following agendas perceived as anti-Muslim cannot hope to attain national office.

Even the "Hindu-nationalist" Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has as its partners parties like Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and Janata Dal (United), which staunchly defend the numerous protections given to religious minorities to India since the country gained its independence in 1947.

Alienation Canard

It is small wonder then that India's Muslims have made world-class achievements in areas such as art, cinema, and business. The Muslim Azim Premji is one of India's richest people and has been recognized by "Business Week" as one of "Greatest Entrepreneurs of All Time." Former Indian President Abdul Kalam is also a devout Muslim.

In Bollywood, India's massive movie industry, Muslim heroes and heroines rank among the most popular film stars in a country that is 85 percent Hindu. Last year, "Newsweek" magazine named Muslim film star Shahrukh Khan one of the 50 most powerful people on Earth.

Millions of Muslim youths in India have been trained in sciences such as engineering and medicine since the 1990s, as were hundreds of thousands in the preceding decades. Of course, millions live in poverty -- just like millions of Hindus and Christians and others in this country that has nearly 300 million desperately poor people. The employment and wealth created by entrepreneurs like Premji. The music created by "Slumdog Millionaire" heroes Rahman and Pookutty. The secure energy promised by Muhammad el-Baradei and the IAEA. These are the future of Islam. These people, and millions like them, are the true Muslims.

In short -- although the hate-mongers would wish otherwise -- the overwhelming majority of India's Muslims feel no sense of alienation from their society or the outside world. They are confident that, together with fellow citizens from all faiths, they can compete anywhere in the world and succeed.

This spirit was amply evident during the recent Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, when two Indian Muslims -- Allah Rakha Rahman and Resul Pookutty -- won three Oscars between them in competition with the best composers and sound engineers in the world. These men are a universe away from the hatred and intolerance preached by Islamist extremists, who urge Muslims to withdraw from a world in which they claim everything is stacked against them.

True Spirit

A battle is being waged for the hearts and minds of Muslims, a battle between those preaching hate and exclusion and those advocating coexistence and cooperation. As Rahman said in his Oscar acceptance speech, he had in his life "faced a choice between hate and love, and always chose love." Pookutty dedicated his award to his country, India, and "its civilization," which he said "gave the world the word that precedes silence and is followed by more silence," om.

This is a word that originated thousands of years ago, when Sanskrit was born. Unlike Islamist extremists, Khomeinists, and Wahhabis, who refuse to look beyond their own narrowly interpreted traditions, Rahman and Pookutty scour the world for inspiration, demonstrating their capacity to lead the world in creating the riches of the Knowledge Economy.

If not for the intellectual and cultural destruction wrought by the extremists (remember the Buddhas of Bamiyan?), I think dozens of Muslims would have reached the tops of their fields by now, even joining Nobel Prize laureate Muhammad el-Baradei. El-Baradei, the Egyptian director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), shares with Rahman and Pookutty the moderate, knowledge-driven Islam that was responsible for the rapid spread of the religion during the first millennium after it was revealed.

Wahhabis and Khomeinists constantly seek to undermine the confidence of Muslims by promoting a culture of victimhood and urging Muslims to withdraw from the world and retreat into ghettos. But the compassion and tolerance that forms the core of true Islam can drive away such intolerance and hatred.

People like Rahman, Pookutty, and el-Baradei reflect the true spirit of Islam, a spirit that can create treasures in the modern world instead of drowning in the fantasy of returning to some pre-modern Golden Age. The employment and wealth created by entrepreneurs like Premji. The music created by Rahman and Pookutty. The secure energy promised by el-Baradei and the IAEA. These are the future of Islam. These people, and millions like them, are the true Muslims.

M.D. Nalapat holds the UNESCO Peace Chair and is director of the Department of Geopolitics at Manipal University in India. The views expressed in this commentary are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL
http://www.rferl.org/content/A_Future_Islam_Can_Be_Proud_Of/1505883.html

Opinion: Louisiana City One of Many Facing High-Tech Hate Speech
By Carol Forsloff.
Published Feb 11, 2009 by ¦ Carol Forsloff  Share:                 
 
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Natchitoches, Louisiana is a small Southern town. It is a microcosm of the world, however, in some respects. It is here that hate speech, intolerance and high tech lynching has occurred, just as it has in other places.
The Internet has the capability for people to do both good and bad things. It allows for interactive, international communication so that doctors can exchange information about cures for diseases. But it also allows people with deviant or dangerous motives to enlist legions to their cause. That’s a big concern.

Internet porn and hate affects many communities. It began to be particularly visible on a site called Topix during an election period that began less than two years ago during the local Louisiana Senate and House elections that also brought other key officials up in the campaigns as well. For example, Natchitoches re-elected its sheriff less than 18 months ago. He is a Creole, with African American heritage clearly visible; and he was one of many targeted with hate.

In Natchitoches the Mayor, Wayne McCullen, Sheriff Jones, local civic and business leaders, the President of Northwestern University and the major newspapers, as well as private individuals, have had personal attacks that are beyond ordinary questions of political or social propriety. Instead there are statements of “fact” about shakedowns by a newspaper publisher, adultery involving the Mayor and his assistant, drug-dealing by the Sheriff and racist, slanderous comments about the first and only female African American on the city council. All of these statements of fact are known to be false. When the matter was brought to the website involved, there was no response from its management.

The small town of Natchitoches is thought of by many as an oasis in the South with its pristine natural beauty and its racial mix of white and black almost even with major representatives from both groups actively involved in business and political affairs. It has been designated a key retirement spot by a number of publications. After a sordid past of slavery and segregation, it has moved ahead of much of the State of Louisiana towards inclusion and reconciliation, although vestiges of the problems still remain. It faces the present depression like other places, although less so because it is insulated because of a diverse economy and the fact that it is small enough that people have developed the sense of community that allows bonding and support when major problems occur. It cannot afford, as people in the community declare, to be demoralized by hate groups anymore than other places can at this time. That’s because during economic downturns like a recession or a depression hate groups multiply and cause problems that can become global.

One reputable journalist with decades of experience has been doing a series of investigative reports on Kim de Gelder who has been featured on Facebook sites that have been put up to support and applaud this man as a hero. His behavior involves the stabbing of a total 20 infants and two adults at a creche in the Belgian town of Dendermonde, three of whom have died. He has been called by authorities a mass murderer for this. Still he is applauded by hate speech that spreads through Internet sites and that continues in spite of the seriousness of the content.

The Ku Klux Klan has a website that initially portrays itself as a peaceful, loving group. Look further at its manifestoes and remarks and one sees that peace and love isn’t the direction or intent. This group believes in arming everyone, sending any group that disagrees in any way with white supremacy back to their own country, and quarantining everyone with HIV/Aids. There are many more notions that take an extreme in promoting not love but hate under what under the guise of “Christian concepts.”

There are videos on YouTube that depict sex acts between father and daughter in very detailed ways. Although this link shows a relatively recent video, additionally recommended have been on YouTube for many months.

Want to dialogue and be part of the American Nazi party? You can reach and interact with them online through Yahoo Groups. Yahoo features contact numbers and the membership list as well.

These are the terms of Topix service. The rest of the list is available here.

• upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, torturous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
• upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that shows nudity, partial nudity or adult content;
• upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that exhorts others to commit illegal acts;
• harm minors in any way;

These terms of service are similar to other website forums, developer sites and interactive Internet discussion groups, some under the umbrella of international businesses like Yahoo and Google. With the violations that seem to be a pattern everywhere, perhaps some believe there should be some international regulation and codes that offer controls and reporting.

Is there a difference between free speech and license and have some groups crossed the boundaries to the latter? It seems so by the evidence and whether it continues without control is something world leaders might need to examine.
This opinion article was written by an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily intended to reflect those of DigitalJournal.com
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/267027

THE MORAL LIE BEHIND THE HISTORICAL LIE
It is a sad fact that no one cares about the truth. But it is a fact.
What people care about is not offending those who have the power.

Without the terrible power Jews wield, "denial of the Holocaust" would present a problem to no one.
Denying the Holocaust has its counterpart in other unmentionable subjects. Good examples are not discussing the Jewish role in communism or not conceding that the state of Israel has a "right to exist".

Holocaust Denial is not merely about establishing what really happened to the Jews during World War Two, it is about challenging the right of the Jews to impose their dogmas on the rest of the population.

The case of Bishop Richard Williamson is instructive. Bishop Williamson has committed no crime. He has merely expressed an opinion displeasing to Jew power. Worse, he has brought public attention to an issue that Jews wish to have concealed from the public at all costs. And that is the crime.

The real lesson of the Holocaust is:
because Jews were supposedly exterminated during World War Two, Jews are therefore an eternally innocent people. They are never to be criticized, stood up to or forced to back down. That is the moral lie hiding behind the historical lie of the "gas chambers".
And THAT in itself is why the exaggerated account of the Holocaust Hoax must be exposed as a big lie.
B G
Feb. 27, 2009

http://www.alternet.org/audits/123047/clinton_foundation_fueled_by_blood_money/?page=2

 
Clinton Foundation Fueled By Blood Money
By Rob Larson, AlterNet. Posted January 30, 2009.

The Clinton Foundation is funded by the people, governments and companies that help create the problems the charity seeks to address.
The scale of Mittal's steel empire stacks the deck against smaller competitors and undermines a Clinton Foundation goal. But a nice seven-digit check to the Clintons' global charity levels the playing field enough to sleep at night. The Open Hand giveth, and the Invisible Hand taketh away.
Or take AIDS, often seen to be the foundation's core issue. The foundation recently negotiated heavy price reductions for certain AIDS drugs sold in the developing world and has come to partially support moves by Brazil and Thailand to break the patents on AIDS therapy drugs held by U.S. companies. This new policy has been pushed for by AIDS activists and groups like Doctors Without Borders, who have seen thousands of lives improved by cheap generics that violate patent rights. But only recently has the hand of the foundation been forced by Brazil's and Thailand's patent breaking, which is seen even by conservative observers like the Economist as successful in fighting the disease.
The business press describes the position of the most prominent AIDS activist in South Africa, Zackie Achmat: "Like many activists, he believes drug companies have been goaded into their recent donations -- only by terrible publicity," and that "contrary to what the industry said, patents were indeed an obstacle to affordable medicines." The Financial Times describes the pharmaceutical industry's limited giveaways or price reductions of AIDS drugs as "part of public relations efforts by Western companies to deal with an onslaught over the prices they charge for their drugs."
So while the Clinton Foundation has gradually come to support production of some far-cheaper generics in the developing world, it took public and activist pressure, plus the growing independence of developing countries like Brazil, to bring them and Big Pharma around. And some of the medicine can even be paid for with the hundreds of thousands of dollars donated to the foundation by AIDS drug patent-mongers Pfizer and Ranbaxy, paying for a few generics to fight the disease they helped to spread.
While the foundation's work is clearly invaluable to the people and desperate communities it serves, the point is that its money comes directly from parties contributing heavily to the problems it's fighting, from the brutal Saudi tyrants paying to encourage human development, to the global steel tycoon kicking in for classes on entrepreneurship, to the drug-patent owners grudgingly contributing to production of the generic drugs they fight against.
The foundation would probably defend itself by saying that its median gift amount is just $45, from its thousands of small-scale donors, who are admirable, well-meaning people. But that doesn't get you to the $492 million total the foundation manages. That comes from the Clintons' big-ticket donors, which also include Victor Pinchuk, the Ukrainian steel oligarch who built his empire from the Soviet Union's assets sell-off, and Blackwater, the U.S. mercenary company under legal sanction for its killings in Iraq. Blood money still spends.
In the end, the Clinton Foundation's big-ticket donors are a ruling-class rogues gallery with a guilty conscience. But in a world of tyrannical regimes, powerful global corporations and spreading disease among the poor, you can count on more ego-stroking from the guilty parties that keep the lights on at Big Charity.
 
The scale of Mittal's steel empire stacks the deck against smaller competitors and undermines a Clinton Foundation goal. But a nice seven-digit check to the Clintons' global charity levels the playing field enough to sleep at night. The Open Hand giveth, and the Invisible Hand taketh away.
Or take AIDS, often seen to be the foundation's core issue. The foundation recently negotiated heavy price reductions for certain AIDS drugs sold in the developing world and has come to partially support moves by Brazil and Thailand to break the patents on AIDS therapy drugs held by U.S. companies. This new policy has been pushed for by AIDS activists and groups like Doctors Without Borders, who have seen thousands of lives improved by cheap generics that violate patent rights. But only recently has the hand of the foundation been forced by Brazil's and Thailand's patent breaking, which is seen even by conservative observers like the Economist as successful in fighting the disease.
The business press describes the position of the most prominent AIDS activist in South Africa, Zackie Achmat: "Like many activists, he believes drug companies have been goaded into their recent donations -- only by terrible publicity," and that "contrary to what the industry said, patents were indeed an obstacle to affordable medicines." The Financial Times describes the pharmaceutical industry's limited giveaways or price reductions of AIDS drugs as "part of public relations efforts by Western companies to deal with an onslaught over the prices they charge for their drugs."
So while the Clinton Foundation has gradually come to support production of some far-cheaper generics in the developing world, it took public and activist pressure, plus the growing independence of developing countries like Brazil, to bring them and Big Pharma around. And some of the medicine can even be paid for with the hundreds of thousands of dollars donated to the foundation by AIDS drug patent-mongers Pfizer and Ranbaxy, paying for a few generics to fight the disease they helped to spread.
While the foundation's work is clearly invaluable to the people and desperate communities it serves, the point is that its money comes directly from parties contributing heavily to the problems it's fighting, from the brutal Saudi tyrants paying to encourage human development, to the global steel tycoon kicking in for classes on entrepreneurship, to the drug-patent owners grudgingly contributing to production of the generic drugs they fight against.
The foundation would probably defend itself by saying that its median gift amount is just $45, from its thousands of small-scale donors, who are admirable, well-meaning people. But that doesn't get you to the $492 million total the foundation manages. That comes from the Clintons' big-ticket donors, which also include Victor Pinchuk, the Ukrainian steel oligarch who built his empire from the Soviet Union's assets sell-off, and Blackwater, the U.S. mercenary company under legal sanction for its killings in Iraq. Blood money still spends.
In the end, the Clinton Foundation's big-ticket donors are a ruling-class rogues gallery with a guilty conscience. But in a world of tyrannical regimes, powerful global corporations and spreading disease among the poor, you can count on more ego-stroking from the guilty parties that keep the lights on at Big Charity.

 

 
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."
Jimi Hendrix 1942-1970
 

 All You Need Is Love - The Beatles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLxTpsIVzzo
 

 A book, a coup, some thoughts

Is the nation bound by an illegitimate, illegal and palpably unlawful act by a legal government who had not revalidated its mandate to govern as a party under the new constitution in the newly sovereign, independent state called the People’s Republic of Bangladesh? writes Syed Muhammad Hussain

A beautifully produced book,  Bangladesh: Failed Years —- 1972-75,   by Dr. Jamshed Chowdhury is based on his thesis dissertation for his PhD from Heidelberg University.

The theme of AL’s failures and failure of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman have been researched over many years, but then these in most cases have been vitiated by the preconceived perceptions brought in, hindering the process of a neutral scrutiny and an unbiased focus. Dr Jamshed Chowdhury does not appear to have an axe to grind in reaching certain conclusions. As a thesis work it appears to have been a labour of love. Perhaps I did miss some nuggets. But the first reading did not reveal any definitive, or for that matter, clear verdict. The readers are left to do that on their own.

Two major strains in the post-Independence political development in Bangladesh so much more attention and these are, one- While Sheikh Mujib may have realised that the overwhelming Bengali support for the cause of Independence was not so much of a total support for Awami League per se, but was an effective ‘carte blanche’ for his leadership of all Bengalis, this very crucial and finer point did not dawn on other AL leaders excepting possibly Tajuddin Ahmed. Or if historic verdict suffers from an element of generosity, it might opine that the rest of the AL high command chose to ignore it and deliberately in the following years, attempted to hoist AL for obvious reasons on the nation It was a monstrous hypocrisy that the nation which had united irrespective of all the past differences and then current gargantuan problems facing the country to rebuild the economy and rekindle the hopes that initiated and sustained the liberation struggle, should have been shackled with AL rule and only a short time later, imprisoned in a one-party political dispensation .
 
The AL and its short-sighted dwarfs thought they could overturn the popular will imbued then with their sacrifices many times over, No known, well placed AL leader had suffered any personal loss in the bloody war of liberation Sheikh Mujib was safely away, his family lived safely in Dhaka, and Theatre Road in Calcutta saw the Al leaders-in-exile not exactly in the thick of the battles that our valiant, often faceless fighters were engaged in some 100-odd kilometres away in the borders. This aspect must be brought out in the open in truth and without prejudice. Because the AL’s leadership claims are entrenched in these months and in those events occurring between March 1971 and December 1971.

In my view, only Tajuddin had the capability and the courage to strike a different note on policy matters with Sheikh Mujib. Mansur Ali and Qamruzzaman may have had some abilities, but their sense of getting into power was more acute than any ideal or principal-based stand that ought to have been taken in the crucial years before Baksal. Tajuddin in all probability became a hostage of loyalty to Sheikh and to his comrades. Tajuddin’s monumental failure to rebel and all others’ huge ability to ‘kiss the ground’ Sheikh walked on explain the disaster that befell the nation in August 1975. The army’s intervention is only a tool, not a prime mover, not even a reason.

Any analysis of a historic episode will suffer from being static if there is no measurement done of the shadows cast or areas illuminated by all these events. The AL and all other parties demonstrated the identical trait of a built-in failure, when, one- there are no dissenting voices, two, if there are, these are not heard with respect and patience, and third, like the Pharaohs the leaders abandon their trusted lieutenants and plot to empower their ill-gotten, ill-prepared and totally irrelevant offspring. The 1975 – onwards scenario in Bangladesh reveal those very characteristics that negate all the democratic norms and culture of governance of a modern, dynamic, ability-led, performance-oriented state. They violate openly all the values, they themselves shout about day in and day out, again publicly. No nation can and should, suffer such insolence of power and such flagrant disregard of people’s will and welfare.

The second major point of constitutionality was the establishment of one-party state with Baksal Political expediency apart, it was not, and it certainly could not be, the panacea AL and Sheikh Mujib were looking for evidently to tackle the rising problems for the government of the day. In fact, a party-less (disbanding AL) national Government under Sheikh Mujib could possibly have been a wiser, albeit difficult, solution. Through I strongly believe it was AL and its failure to rise above self-a-failed leadership – that led to the irreversible process of disaster, decline and decay in Bangladesh. Instead of strengthening the democratic polity, and culture and institutions like multiparty system, cabinet form of government, freedom of press and speech, independence of judiciary, non-interference in the due conduct of administration, non-preferential treatment to AL and party activists etc., Sheikh Mujib all but wore the crown and sat on the throne as the unelected king of the country. This brings in the legitimate question whether the AL victory in 1970 elections in Pakistan framework, could have been at all be valid as mandate in Bangladesh with its own constitution, for the declaration of one-party state in 1974. We need indeed to recall and emphasise that even the 1970 mandate was given in a multiparty elections.

Is the nation bound by an illegitimate, illegal and palpably unlawful act by a legal government who had not revalidated its mandate to govern as a party under the new constitution in the newly sovereign, independent state called the People’s Republic of Bangladesh?

One of the unexplained phenomena of all times in Bangladesh relates to the total absence, absolutely so, of any public outpouring of grief, of protests, of condemnation on the gruesome elimination of Sheikh Mujib and almost the entire family on 15 August 1975. There was no visible reaction at least worth mentioning to this horrendous event within less than four years of his rule as he came in like a conqueror from exile to the obeisance of his party men and to the adulation of the people of Bangladesh still dazed and reeling from the nightmares that began on the 25 March 1971. What had happened and what had gone so wrong? That just some army men caught up in a frenzied mood brought about such a catastrophe is too simplistic an explanation and certainly not the real or the full one.

To my mind, many elements conspired right from the day one of our Independence. But was not Sheikh Mujib’s then unbelievable popularity adequate to get around these long knives? While these evil forces were gathering strength, by the same token Sheikh Mujib’s style of administration, his weaknesses, his pervasive guilt feeling perhaps in not really being there with the valiant forces and above all, his easy capitulation to his close advisers from the great Theatre Road sector, in not firmly announcing a national government, in giving reign to his sons and daughters’ lust for immediate power along with other relatives, sideling wise and committed comrades like Dr Kamal Hossain, Kader Siddiqui and many other genuine, but out-spoken well-wishers, went on corroding the strength that could have otherwise been Sheikh Mujib’s shield for physical and political survival. There were quite a few self-seeking civil servants whose counsel Sheikh Mujib listened to most of the time There were strings of sycophants, hangers-on and their cohorts who gained immensely through Sheikh Mujib’s misplaced generosity and misuse of state patronage and funds.
 
And then of course his so-called stalwarts and follower banded in an almost obscene personal security apparatus called the Rakkhi Bahini, alienated the regular Armed Forces and other law-enforcing agencies as much as it did the people at large. Such an illegitimate, personalised security arrangements did not, and never do, deliver – the 15th August massacre should be a living testimony to all. And that there were no genuine regard and affection and they disappeared like mists in the sun, when their mighty leader had a mighty fall. Even all his ‘Bhayera Amaar ‘across the length and breadth of the country did not come out wailing at the great fall. Why? The reasons must be embedded in the way the AL conducted itself, the way Sheikh Mujib distanced himself not only from all the pro-independence, proactive-forces, but also from the common people at large.

The smoke from his most expensive brand Erin more pipe tobacco created a veil across his eyes and his senses and he could not see for himself, nor were his ‘honourable’ bandoliers were honest enough to keep him informed about the people and about their ever-growing problems and the rising tide of disenchantment through deprivation, neglect and unkempt promises. All these led to the growing chasm between Mujib the people’s leader and Mujib the Prime Minister and then also so swiftly, the President of a one-party state, banishing freedom of speech and thereby, banishing hope. And hopeless people do not have tears left to cry for others, even for their great fallen hero! To be Sheikh Mujib alone was not enough, ‘I love my people and my people love me’ type simplistic belief was certainly not the solution the nation was then dying for A colossal black hole of utter disillusionment, hopelessness, and disgust had engulfed the nation.

In my view, the famine of 1974 despite sufficient stocks of food was the watershed, but the charge that ignited the explosion of mayhem and the public silence, was perhaps the huge , multi-layered, cream cake that was carried through the television coverage to celebrate Sheikh Mujib’s birthday. The ’cake’ travelled over the dead bodies and the dying ones in the realm to mark the birth of the ‘Bangabandhu’! All people do and can, suffer only so much pain, but they still had some respect for the dead and they did not take out a cake on the 15th of August 1975.

The writer is a former ambassador and secretary to the Bangladesh government

http://www.newagebd.com/2005/may/28/edit.html#2

http://shahidul.wordpress.com/2009/03/06/horror-and-grief-a-nation-besieged/

Rahnuma Ahmed reflects on the complicated story unfolding about the BDR rebellion in Bangladesh. Photos by DrikNews:

Is there more to it than meets the eye? In a crisis as grave as the one that faces the nation now, where does one seek answers to the truth? It is better to know some of the questions than all the answers. But what if some of the questions being raised are seen, especially by powerful sections, as blaming the victims of the tragedy? Do we have the resources, the intellectual capacity, the political will, and above all, the courage, to raise the right questions? Will these be tolerated, in moments of such deep grief, where passions rage high?

http://shahidul.wordpress.com/pathshala-updates/

Pathshala updates:

Alexia Awards: Source: David Sutherland

Saiful Huq Omi a finalist: Saiful Huq Omi, born in Bangladesh in 1980, graduated from Pathshala South Asian Institute of Photography and became a photographer in 2005. He is represented by Polaris Images. His works have been published in Newsweek, Foto File USA, New Internationalist, Time Magazine, The Guardian, and Asian Photography and in the Arab News. He has lectured and presented his works at The London School of Economics, Rochester Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and Columbia University and in many other universities.

Khaled Hasan wins student award for excellence: Khaled Hasan, a student at Pathshala South Asian Institute of Photography in Bangladesh, graduating in 2009. Khaled was a recipient of the National Geographic All Roads Award in 2008. Each Award of Excellence winner receives a $1600 scholarship that pays part of tuition, fees and living expenses to study photojournalism in London in the fall semester at Syracuse University in London and a $500 cash grant to help produce their proposed stories.

Wahid Adnan finalist in Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest

http://shahidul.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/pakistan-hope-amidst-the-chaos/

Salma Hasan Ali sees hope amidst the chaos in Pakistan:

No doubt there are tragic forces at play in the country trying to undermine the fabric of its politics, culture, society, and soul.  Sometimes seemingly overwhelming forces.  But there are also kernels of hope that remind us that all will not be lost to violence and a distorted mindset.

There are people like Edhi and thousands more working each day to feed, nurse, console, support and shelter.  There are people like Suleman and hundreds of others fiercely loyal to Mortenson’s commitment --  and the commitment of so many NGOs around the country -- to educate Pakistan’s children. There are young women like Shakeela, smart, capable, determined, and feisty, who will ultimately change the country, if given the chance.

--
Shahidul Alam
http://shahidul.wordpress.com
www.majorityworld.com
www.drik.net

Bangladesh: Elections present risks and opportunities for human rights
Document - Bangladesh: Elections present risks and opportunities for human rights

23 December 2008   AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL        MEDIA BRIEFING         AI Index No ASA 13/011/2008

Parliamentary elections scheduled for 29 December offer a unique opportunity for improving Bangladesh’s battered human rights situation. As an immediate matter, the elections signal the end of a two-year period of state of emergency marked by severe restrictions on political rights such as free assembly and free expression. If conducted properly and free of violence, the elections could inaugurate a more responsive, accountable civilian government -- a development necessary for improving the lives of millions of Bangladeshis now living in grinding poverty and without access to proper housing, education, or health care.

Amnesty International welcomes the withdrawal of the state of emergency on 17 December 2008, and the restoration of rights that had been fully or partially curbed in Bangladesh during the past two years. Amnesty International calls on the major actors on Bangladesh’s political scene to do their part to respect and protect the right of all Bangladeshis to participate, without discrimination, in the conduct of public affairs. The Caretaker Government must ensure that people seeking to take part in peaceful election campaigning and in the elections themselves are protected against arbitrary arrests, intimidation and violence. Amnesty International urges all political parties to desist from violence and to commit themselves to the protection of human rights, including of minority groups, now and in future, whether in government or opposition.

Amnesty International has identified the following issues as particularly important to the proper conduct of the upcoming elections and the formation of a new government:

Intimidation and violence against voters

As the country moves away from emergency restrictions, both the Caretaker Government and the political parties have the responsibility to ensure that there is no recurrence of the political violence that characterized previous elections and preceded the declaration of state of emergency on 11 January 2007. From late October 2006 to early January 2007, in the run up to the postponed general elections, at least 35 people were killed and hundreds injured during clashes between rival political groups. The last general elections, which took place in October 2001, were marred by frequent clashes between members and supporters of opposing political parties, who used violent means including sticks, knives, firearms and crude bomb against each other during election campaigning. Thousands of people were left injured and more than 150 killed in these clashes during the three-month period of election campaigning before the polls. At least 10 of those killed were believed to have been hit by bullets fired by the police at the crowds.

The Caretaker Government has the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that elections proceed properly and serve to register the genuine wishes of the Bangladeshi people. The Caretaker Government’s efforts should now be directed at upholding the newly restored freedoms during the coming elections. The Caretaker Government has mobilized nearly 50,000 troops to provide security and minimize partisan violence that has characterized past polling efforts in the country. Law enforcement personnel can play a major role in preventing threats, intimidation and attacks from non-state actors against voters. In the past, armed gangs acting at the instigation of local politicians have committed such abuses with impunity.

However, Bangladesh’s security forces, including police, the Rapid Action Battalion and army units deployed to maintain law and order have a poor track record on human rights. There are credible reports of harassment of human rights defenders, torture and other ill-treatment, and the use of unnecessary or excessive force and extrajudicial executions during law enforcement operations. For instance, between January 2007 and August 2008, more than 200 persons died in what police and RAB have portrayed as “crossfire” but are suspected to be extrajudicial executions. The government has not rigorously investigated these reports and no RAB or army personnel allegedly involved have ever been brought to justice. The government must ensure that law enforcement personnel are held accountable for any human rights violations they have committed.

Prior to January 2007, the major political parties have either instigated, supported or directly engaged in violence against their political opponents. The Hindu minority group has also been a target of electoral and communal violence. Student groups of the main political parties have been among the main perpetrators of political violence in Bangladesh. These groups include Bangladesh Chattra Dhal (BCD, affiliated to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party); Bangladesh Chattra League (BCL, affiliated to the Awami League); and Islami Chattra Shibir, (Shibir, affiliated to Jamaat-e-Islami). Political parties have pledged, but failed, to disarm them. None of the political parties has condemned the violence carried out by their members. On the contrary, the leaders have shown tacit support for violent means, and have at times colluded with criminal gangs to attack their opponents. The political parties have the responsibility to ensure that their cadres and student wings participate peacefully in the electoral process and desist from violence before, during or after the elections.

Restrictions on freedom of assembly

Protecting the right to freedom assembly and association requires firm action from the Caretaker Government to inform and train law enforcement agencies to respect these rights. It also requires active support from political party leaders to ensure that their members respect the right all people, including their opponents, to hold rallies and to campaign for elections. The partial withdrawal, on 3 November 2008, of the ban on political rallies was a step in the right direction but it was not implemented until 12 December. With the lifting of the state of emergency on 17 December, the government should fully restore all rights that had been restricted under the emergency.

Restrictions on freedom of expression

The withdrawal of emergency restrictions on freedom of expression in November 2008 was long-awaited and welcome. Although the restrictions were not being enforced strictly, they nonetheless made it difficult for journalists and human rights defenders to carry out their legitimate work free from harassment, intimidation or abuse. They resulted in the arrest by security forces of at least three journalists and two human rights defenders including Tasneem Khalil and Jahangir Alam Akash in 2007, four of whom claimed to have been tortured while in custody.

Amnesty International recognizes that the situation appears to have improved significantly in 2008, with no one taken into custody for defending human rights.

Amnesty International welcomes the Right to Information Ordinance promulgated in October 2008. It will have a positive impact on freedom of expression when it comes into operation in early 2009 by giving citizens access to information held by public bodies. However, the ordinance explicitly excludes security agencies such as the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, Special Branch of Bangladesh Police and the Intelligence Cell of Rapid Action Battalion from disclosing information unless it relates to human rights violations and corruption.

Attacks against minorities

Fear of attacks against minorities, including Hindus, is a real concern given the electoral violence during and immediately after the parliamentary elections of October 2001. Sporadic attacks against minorities had frequently occurred during parliamentary elections in Bangladesh but the violence took an unprecedented turn during the last elections in 2001. Crowds of assailants, whom journalists and survivors described as members of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led coalition, which won the elections, drove hundreds of Hindu families off their land, and in some cases burnt their homes, apparently on grounds of the Hindus’ perceived support for the opposition Awami League party. Bnagladeshi newspapers reported that dozens of Hindu women had been raped and at least one Hindu man was hacked to death. Government action – from late 2001 onwards – to contain the violence prevented the recurrence of mass scale attacks but no one was brought to justice for the attacks. There are legitimate fears within the human rights community and members of the Hindu minority that similar attacks against Hindus could occur during the forthcoming elections.

Another alarming development since late 2003 has been the rise in attack and hate speech against members of the Ahmadiyya community. The attacks have largely been instigated by Khatm-e Nabuwat, an Islamic group demanding that the government declares the Ahmadiyya sect non-Muslim. Instances of such attacks include the killing of an Ahmadi imam, “excommunication” by laying siege to Ahmadi houses and not letting inhabitants out of their homes, the beating of dozens of Ahmadis, and the marching of crowds attempting to occupy Ahmadiyya places of worship and drive the Ahmadis out. Although the previous government and the present Caretaker Government have prevented agitators from entering Ahmadi places of worship or large-scale abuses against their members, there is a high risk of their exposure to such attacks during the unpredictable times of elections.

Other minorities also need protection. For instance, frequent clashes between Bengali settlers and indigenous communities over the settlers’ push to acquire indigenous land in the Chittagong Hill Tracts make the area especially vulnerable to eruption of violence during elections. Indigenous people say army units deployed in the area do not stop settlers from confiscating their land or from attacking them. Indigenous voters need assurance that they can cast their vote freely without fear of attacks or harassment during or after elections. Army units deployed in the area have a responsibility to ensure their safety and security at all times.

Commitment to improving Bangladesh’s human rights situation
Political parties must show a more robust commitment to human rights, and refrain from supporting any laws or activity that have been or will be abusing human rights. Upholding freedoms requires support and cooperation from political parties. Although the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party have stated publically that they will uphold human rights, they have not provided a clear explanation of how they will make this happen. Their past poor record on human rights lends little credence to their promises in the absence of concrete plans for implementation.

The Awami League has not provided a concrete plan about how it will follow through on its promise of ensuring the independence and impartiality of the judiciary, ending extrajudicial executions and establishing the rule of law. Their promise to strengthen the Human Rights Commission and increase its effectiveness lacks credibility as they promised, but failed, to establish a human rights commission during their last tenure of office (1996-2001).

The BNP’s promise that if voted to power, they will implement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is vague and is not backed up by any plan of implementation. It is also in sharp contrast to their responsibility as the government of the day in launching the military operation “Clean Heart” (16 October 2002 to 9 January 2003). Troops deployed during that operation to maintain law and order were involved in extrajudicial executions of some 40 people, but received immunity from prosecution by the then BNP-led government. The BNP-led government set up RAB and failed to investigate the serious allegations of killings and other human rights violations by them.

Statements by Jamaat-e-Islami and Jatiya Party (Ershad) that they will introduce blasphemy laws are of serious concern. In Amnesty International’s experience such laws have been used in other countries to suppress freedom of expression and to persecute religious minorities, including in particular members of the Ahmadiyya community.

Specifically, Amnesty International urges the Caretaker Government to:

• ensure full freedom of expression and information to debate public affairs, to criticize and oppose, to publish political material and to advertise political ideas;
• continue to uphold the current trend not to arrest any journalists, human rights defenders or political activists exposing human rights violations or peacefully expressing their views;
• react efficiently and promptly to any instances of political violence by deploying adequate numbers of law enforcement personnel at the trouble spots;
• ensure that law enforcement personnel including police, Rapid Action Battalion and army units deployed to protect people against political violence do so in accordance with international human rights standards, including the UN guidelines against the use of excessive use of force,;
• ensure prompt, impartial and effective investigations by the civilian justice system of alleged human rights violations by military personnel and the RAB, including arbitrary arrest, torture, other ill-treatment, and deaths in custody, or use of unnecessary or excessive force with a view to bringing perpetrators to justice.
• ensure that minority communities, including Hindus and Ahmadis are protected against possible attacks during and after the forthcoming elections; send clear instructions to the army units in the Chittagong Hill Tracts to ensure that indigenous people in the area are protected against attacks from Bengali settlers during or after elections.

Amnesty International urges all parliamentary candidates and political parties to:

• publically pledge to promote and respect the right to freedom of expression, assembly and association during and after the elections, including by their opponents and minority groups to hold and express different opinions, organize rallies and campaign for elections, without being attacked violently;
• publically pledge to take effective steps to strengthen human rights in full conformity with international human rights standards, including by endorsing the measures taken by the Caretaker Government to establish the National Human Rights Commission, freedom of information, independence of the judiciary and tackle corruption;
• refrain from inciting, supporting or participating in political violence and make a clear and public call to all party members and supporters to respect human rights and the rule of law;
• support independent and impartial human rights monitoring (during and after the election campaign).

http://bangla.amnesty.org/en/document-bangladesh-elections-present-risks-and-opportunities-for-human-rights

 

http://electronicin tifada.net/ v2/article10375. shtml

 

THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
 
A public stoning in Germany
Raymond Deane, The Electronic Intifada, 6 March 2009

Hermann Dierkes is a respected politician with an honorable record of campaigning for social and political justice in the German Rhineland city of Duisburg. He represented his party Die Linke (The Left Party) on Duisburg City Council, campaigning tirelessly on anti-racist and anti-fascist issues. Most recently, he was his party's candidate for the post of Lord Mayor.

On 18 February 2009 Dierkes addressed a public meeting on the question of Palestine. To the question of how to take action against the injustice being suffered by Palestinians, he responded that the recent World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil had proposed an arms embargo, sanctions and the boycott of Israeli exports. He added: "We should no longer accept that in the name of the Holocaust and with the support of the government of the Federal Republic [of Germany] such grave violations of human rights can be perpetrated and tolerated ... Everyone can help strengthen pressure for a different politics, for example by boycotting Israeli products."

A few days later, Dierkes gave an interview to the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ), a conservative paper based in the nearby city of Essen. He explained the demands of the World Social Forum, and requested that the published interview should stress that this had nothing to do with anti-Semitism -- a qualification that invariably needs to be made in Germany, except when there is suspicion of Islamophobia. Predictably, his precautions were in vain; scenting a political coup, the reporter published his article without including the qualification.

All hell broke loose. In the 25 February edition of Bild -- Germany's best-selling and most obnoxious daily paper -- Dieter Graumann, Vice-President of the Central Jewish Council, accused him of "pure anti-Semitism. " WAZ editorialist Achim Beer decried Dierke's "careless Nazi utterances," comparing his words to "a mass execution at the edge of a Ukrainian forest." Hendrik Wuest, General Secretary of the CDU (the Christian Democratic Party), warned that "the Nazi propaganda" emanating from Die Linke is "intolerable. " Michael Groschek -- General Secretary of the local branch of the Social Democratic Party, which shares power nationally with the CDU -- played electoral politics with the claim that "[a]nyone playing electoral politics with such anti-Israeli utterances sets himself outside the rules of the democratic game."

Worse still, Dierke's own party failed to stand by him unambiguously. Press spokesperson Alrun Nuesslein opined that if Israel is criticized because "the population in the Gaza Strip is collectively punished by the ... closure of border crossings, it is equally impossible for us to punish the Israeli population" by means of a boycott of Israeli goods, particularly "in the context of German history," a mantra with which Germans routinely absolve themselves of their historic responsibility towards the Palestinians.

Other voices within the party took a more strident tone. Petra Pau, Vice President of the Bundestag (German Parliament), said Dierke's words "awake unspeakable associations and employ dubious cliches." Left Party politicians in Dierke's own area condemned his "anti-Jewish endeavors" (Guenter Will) and "anti-Semitic utterances" (Anna Lena Orlowski).

Events took their predestined course, and on 26 February Dierkes resigned his position within Die Linke and withdrew his mayoral candidacy. In an open letter to his party colleagues, pointing out that he had been the victim of "a public stoning" and of a campaign that was "a terrible mixture of the gravest insults and defamation, Islamophobic hatred, hatred of immigrants, and murder threats," he maintained that "[t]he victims of the Shoah and the heroes of the Warsaw Jewish rising would turn away with horror [could they see] with what malice and toward what ends they are being instrumentalized in order to justify ... the undemocratic and murderous politics of the Israeli government."

A quick perusal of the German blogosphere throws up countless repetitions of the phrase "kauft nicht beim Juden!" -- "don't buy from the Jew!" -- a slogan from the Nazi era that no longer serves to defame Jews but rather those who seek justice for the Palestinians. However, Jews aren't entirely immune from this weapon: in the respected weekly Die Zeit (15 January 2009) a certain Thomas Assheuer turned it against the Canadian Jewish author Naomi Klein after the British Guardian published her call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Given that Klein had carefully specified that BDS should be aimed at Israeli institutions and not individuals, this piece of defamation was particularly crass.

It appears that freedom of speech, supposedly one of the proudest acquisitions of post-Fascist Germany, is readily suppressed when exercised to advocate positive action against the racist, politicidal institutions and actions of the Zionist state. Indeed so brutal and venomous was the response to Hermann Dierke's remarks, and so instantaneous and unanimous the recourse, however ironic, to Nazi sloganeering, that it is difficult not to be reminded of the rhetoric promulgated by Julius Streicher's vile paper Der Stuermer between 1923 and 1945 and not to feel that the same atavistic sources that once disgorged Jew-hatred are now being tapped in this virulent and unceasing campaign against the advocacy of Palestinian rights. The Palestinians, after all, stand in the way of the establishment of a racial Jewish state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river, an eventuality that the German establishment deludedly sees as somehow shriving its own past crimes.

It has to be said that ordinary German people are, by and large, as unimpressed by philosemitic hysteria as they are by anti-Semitism. It remains to be seen how those people who have repeatedly voted for Hermann Dierkes because they see him as an honest and reliable politician -- something as rare in Germany as elsewhere -- will react to being robbed of their representative by such a campaign of hatred and defamation on behalf of a quasi-fascist state.

Finally, it will be interesting to see if this debacle induces Die Linke to reconsider whether it is more appropriate to adopt a principled position on Israel than to continue playing to the gallery of rightist pressure-groups that have taken upon themselves the task of perpetuating unconditional German support for Israel. It is hard to feel optimistic about this.

Raymond Deane is an Irish composer and activist (www.raymonddeane. com).

 Let the people do what they want, you get Woodstock. Let the government do what it wants, you get WACO!....Mary.

March 6, 2009
 
US Military Dominance
in Mideast
Proven a Costly Myth
by Gareth Porter
The arguments for maintaining a major U.S. combat force in Iraq at least through 2011, escalating U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan and assuming a confrontational stance toward Iran appear to assume that the United States remains the dominant military power in the region.
But the pattern of recent history and current developments in the region has not supported that assumption. Not only has the United States been unable to prevail over stubborn nationalist and sectarian forces determined to resist U.S. influence, but it has not been able to use its military supremacy to wage successful coercive diplomacy against Iran.
Furthermore, even the ability of the United States to maintain troops in Iraq and Afghanistan turns out to be dependent on regimes which are by no means aligned with the United States.
Six years ago, after the United States had removed the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the U.S. appeared to be militarily dominant in the region. Apart from its nearly 200,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States had surrounded Iran with a network of airbases scattered across the region from the Persian Gulf sheikdoms through Iraq and Afghanistan to the Central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, along with aircraft on U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf.
Since 2003, however, events in the region have dealt a series of blows to the assumption that the U.S. military presence in general and ground forces in particular confer real power in the region. The first blow was the U.S. failure to subdue the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. By mid-2005, U.S. commanders in Iraq were admitting publicly that the U.S. military occupation was generating more resistance than it was eliminating.
The next blow was the Sunni-Shi'a civil war in Baghdad in 2006, which U.S. troops were unable to prevent or stop, even after the Bush "surge" of additional troops. The "cleansing" of Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad by Shi'a militias with the tacit support of the government ended only after a large swath of Sunni neighborhoods in the capital had been taken over. That fact contradicts the later boast by Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, that "coalition forces" had "broken the cycle of sectarian violence in Iraq."

The decision by Sunni insurgents to cooperate with the U.S. military in 2006 and 2007 was not the result of U.S. military prowess but of their defeat at the hands of Shi'a militias and the realization that the Sunnis could not oppose three enemies (the U.S., the Shi'a militias and al Qaeda) simultaneously.
It also enabled the Shi'a government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, which had close ties to Iran, to consolidate its power and to achieve a crucial degree of independence from the United States.
The George W. Bush administration and the U.S. military command continued to assume that it would be able to keep its Iraqi bases indefinitely. In mid-2007, Defense Secretary Robert Gates invoked the Korean model – a decades-long garrisoning of tens of thousands of U.S. troops – as the plan for Iraq.
But in July 2008, the al-Maliki government began demanding that all U.S. troops leave the country by the end of 2010. After initially refusing to believe that the troop withdrawal demand was serious, the Bush administration was forced eventually to agree to withdraw all U.S. troops by the end of 2011.
The evolution of Iraqi politics belies the popular narrative that Gen. David Petraeus miraculously rescued the U.S. war from a bad strategy and ultimately prevailed over U.S. "enemies," including Iran.

In its conflict with Iran over its nuclear program, the Bush administration tried to intimidate Tehran by seizing Iranians in Iraq and wielding indirectly the threat of attack against its nuclear facilities. But coercive diplomacy did not work, largely because Iran could credibly threaten to respond to a U.S. or Israeli attack with unconventional attacks against U.S. bases and troops – and possibly even warships – in the Persian Gulf region.
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, where the United States had appeared to be in control from 2001 to 2005, the Taliban and other insurgent groups have grown rapidly since then and become the de facto government in large parts of the Pashtun region of the country. The U.S. military presence has been unable to slow the rise of the insurgents in those rural areas.
The most recent blow to the image of U.S. military dominance in the region has been the revelation that the United States lacks a reliable access route for supply of its troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. military has long relied on the route through the Khyber Pass in Pakistan to transport about 80 percent of all supplies for Afghanistan.
But in 2008, allies of the Taliban began disrupting the U.S. logistics route through the Khyber Pass so effectively that it could not longer be counted on to supply U.S. forces. That meant that United States had to find another access route for supplying its troops in Afghanistan.
David Petraeus, the new CENTCOM commander, traveled to Central Asia to secure promises of a new route into Afghanistan from Russian ports overland to Kazakhstan and then through Uzbekistan to northern Afghanistan.
But this alternative scheme would rely on Russian cooperation, giving a rival for power in Central and Southwest Asia a veto power over U.S. military presence in the region. The Kyrgyz president announced during a trip to Moscow in early February that he was ending the agreement on U.S. use of the air base at Manas. That was a signal that Russia would cooperate with the U.S. military only insofar as it was consistent with Russian dominance in Central Asia.
Relying on Uzbekistan for transit of NATO supplies for Afghanistan was another highly tenuous feature of the Petraeus plan. The Karimov regime, notorious for its abuse of human rights, faces an Islamist insurgency that could well disrupt supply routes through the country.
A much shorter and far more secure route into Afghanistan would be from the Iranian port of Chabahar through the Western Afghan city of Herat to the Ring Highway which serves all major Afghan cities. NATO's top commander in Afghanistan said on Feb. 3 that NATO would "not oppose" bilateral deals with Iran for supplying troops through that country.
Significantly, the Pentagon has made contingency plans for the use of the Iranian route, according to one well-informed former U.S. official. That suggests that the Russian-Central Asian route was regarded as far from certain.
On the other hand, the U.S. military is not likely to regard reliance on its regional rival for power in the Middle East as a solid basis for its military presence in Afghanistan.
Obama administration officials are still talking about Middle East policy as though the U.S. military presence has conferred decisive influence over developments in the region. However, the events of the past six years have shown that to be a costly myth. They have underlined a truth that few in Washington find palatable: geography and local sociopolitical dynamics have trumped U.S. military power – and are very likely continue to do so in the future.

Let the people do what they want, you get Woodstock. Let the government do what it wants, you get WACO!....Mary.

Zionist Militants Surround America’s New President
Free traders working to delete ‘America-first’ provisions from latest spending package
  http://www.american freepress. net/html/ zionist_militant s_167.html
PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATEs and abroad are hoping that President Obama will end America’s illegal wars, halt America’s support for Israel’s massacre of Lebanese and Palestinians, and punish, instead of reward, the shyster banksters whose fraudulent financial instruments have destroyed economies and imposed massive sufferings on people all over the world. If Obama’s appointments are an indication, all of these hopeful people are going to be disappointed.

James Petras examines Obama’s foreign policy appointments and finds the largest collection of Zionist militarists outside of Israel.

Petras concludes that Obama’s “diplomatic” team has Iran in its sights, and hostility that meshes with Israel’s own intent. Not realizing that a member of the press had been mistakenly invited to a selected audience, the Israeli ambassador to Australia said that Israel’s attack on Gaza was a dress rehearsal for a major attack on Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu, the expected winner of Israel’s March elections, has again declared that Israel will not permit Iran to have a nuclear energy program as it would provide the basis for developing nuclear weapons.

It makes no sense for Israel to baldly state its intention to attack Iran if Israel does not mean it. What if the Iranians believe the Israelis and decide to strike first with their long-range missiles?

Obama’s economic appointments are just as discouraging. Obama chose as his treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, the man who helped Bush’s treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, engineer the $700 billion dollar rip-off of the U.S. taxpayer, money that was gifted to the crooked banksters who destroyed Americans’ pensions, jobs and health care coverage.

These banksters, and the negligent federal regulators who enabled them, should be put in prison, not handed hundreds of billions of dollars.

Instead, Obama has appointed one of the chief orchestrators of the rip-off to the helm of the Treasury. Obama’s National Economic Council is just as depressing. Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers, is its head. Summers recently declared that he had no inkling that a financial crisis was about to hit. Why did Obama put a person without a clue in charge?

Summers’s colleagues are just as bad. Obama has appointed Diana Farrell, lead author of a phony study that claimed offshoring of American jobs is a win-win game for Americans, as deputy director of the National Economic Council. Farrell is affiliated with McKinsey & Company, a firm that helps American corporations offshore their operations.

In his book, Outsourcing America, economist Ron Hira tore Farrell’s McKinsey report to shreds. Why not appoint Ron Hira and Nouriel Roubina, who predicted the crisis, to the National Economic Council?

With Israel’s most fervent American allies whispering in one ear and banksters and offshoring propagandists whispering in the other, how can President Obama fulfill any of the hopes that people have?

The discouraging fact is that even when faced with crisis in the economy and in foreign policy, the American political system is incapable of producing any leadership. Here we are in the worst economic crisis in a lifetime, perhaps in our history, and on the brink of war in Pakistan and Iran while escalating the war in Afghanistan, and all we get is a government made up of the very people who have brought us to these crises.

Just as the Bushites could not admit the failure of their man, the Obamacons will not be able to admit the failure of their man.

The era of American leadership has passed. America’s shyster financial system has brought economic crisis to the world. America’s wars of aggression are seen as serving no purpose except the enrichment of the military industries associated with Dick Cheney. The world is looking elsewhere for leadership.

Vladimir Putin made a play for this role at Davos, where his speech at the opening ceremony was the most intelligent speech of the event.

Putin reminded the World Economic Forum that “just a year ago, American delegates speaking from this rostrum emphasized the U.S. economy’s fundamental stability and its cloudless prospects. Today, investment banks, the pride of Wall Street, have virtually ceased to exist. In just 12 months, they have posted losses exceeding the profits they made in the last 25 years.”

Putin made his case that the existing financial system based on the U.S. dollar and American financial hegemony has failed. Putin said that a secure world requires cooperation that requires trust. He made it clear that the Americans have proven that they cannot be trusted.

Nationally syndicated columnist, Paul Craig Roberts, Ph.D., a former editor at The Wall Street Journal, is the author of several books. He has been associated with the Hoover Institution, and the Institute for Political Economy and from 1981 to 1982 served as assistant secretary of the treasury for economic policy.

Declassified US documents on Bangladesh coups in 1975

We do not know what message the US Embassy in Dhaka had sent to the State Department after the Pilkhana massacre. We will have to wait for another 30 years to get full text of the official message from the US Embassy.

However, I can share with you the message the US Embassy in Dhaka had sent after the August 1975 coup. This declassified document confirms Sheikh Mujib was warned by the US about the coup but he simply brushed the information aside.

The Embassy also provided early analysis of the August 15 coup against President Mujibur Rahman. It tentatively predicted that the United States would enjoy greater influence under the government of new president Khondakar Mushtaque Ahmed.

The Embassy had also provided a narrative account and analysis of the military unrest and resulting coup of November 3–7, 1975.
 
http://bdfact.blogspot.com/2009/03/declassified-us-documents-on-bangladesh.html
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Telegram 5470 From the Embassy in Bangladesh to the Department of State, November 10, 1975, 1010Z
 
1. IT MAY BE USEFUL TO OFFER A CAPSULE SUMMARY OF THE CHAOTIC EVENTS OF LAST WEEK IN BANGLADESH WHICH SAW THREE DIFFERENT GOVERNMENTS, MUCH KILLING, AND THE AVOIDANCE OF CIVIL WAR, WITH ATTENDANT POSSIBILITY OF INDIAN INTER-VENTION, BY THE NARROWEST OF MARGINS. THIS ACCOUNT IS SECRET. THE CONFRONTATION BETWEEN BRIGADIER MOSHARRAF, CHIE FOF THE ARMY GENERAL STAFF, WHO HAD BEEN EMBITTERED BY HIS FAILURE TO SHARE IN THE PROMOTIONS RECEIVED BY SOME OFHIS COLLEAGUES AFTER THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT MUJIB BY THE MAJORS ON AUGUST 15 AND WHO WAS ALSO BELIEVED TO BE ON A LIST OF ARMY OFFICERS TO BE INVESTIGATED WHICH HAD RECENTLY BEEN DRAWN UP BY THE MAJORS, BEGAN IN THE EARLYHOURS OF MONDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 3.
WE DO NOT KNOW POSITIVELY WHETHER MOSHARAFF WAS THE ARCHITECT OF THE CONFRONTATION, AS MANY CONTEND, OR WHETHER, AS ONE GOOD SOURCE HAS TOLD TOLD US, HE SIMPLY WENT ALONG WITH SUBORDINATES WHO WERE DETERMINED TO END THE SPECIAL ROLE OF THE MAJORS IN THE MOSHTAQUE GOVERNMENT, A ROLE WHICH HAD RESULTED, AMONG OTHER THINGS, IN THE HARRASSMENT OF SOME OF THE MILITARY OFFICERS. THIS SOURCE ALSO HELD THAT ONE OF MOSHARRAF'S OBJECTIVES--ALTHOUGH HE WAS UNDOUBTEDLY MINDFULOF THE PERSONAL GLORY THAT MIGHT AWAIT HIM--WAS TO TAKE CONTROL OF HIS SUBORDINATES' PLANS IN SUCH A WAY AS TO AVOID MAJOR BLOODSHED.

3. MOSHARRAF AND HIS ALLIES QUICKLY TOOK CONTROL EARLY MONDAY MORNING OF THE ARMY CANTONMENT AS WELL AS MOST OF THE CITY OF DACCA AND PRESSED THEIR CONFRONTATION WITH THE MOSHTAQUE GOVERNMENT BY FLYING A MIG FIGHTER AND ARMED HELICOPTER OVER THE CITY IN A SHOW OF STRENGTH WHICH WAS ALSO INTENDED TO INTIMIDATE THE TANK CREWS LOYAL TO THE GOVERNMENT. AGAINST THIS BACKGROUND, MOSHARRAF LEVIED FOUR DEMANDS ON MOSHTAQUE:

1) THAT MOSHARRAF REPLACE MAJOR GENERAL ZIAUR RAHMAN, HIS PERSONAL RIVAL, AS CHIEFOF STAFF; 2) THAT THE MAJORS BE RETURNED TO REGULAR ARMY DISCIPLINE; 3) THAT THE TANK FROCES LOYAL TO THE GOVERNMENT BE DISARMED; AND 4) THAT MOSHTAQUE REMAIN IN OFFICE.

OUTGUNNED AND APPARENTLY INTEND ABOVE ALL ON AVOIDING BLOODSHED, WHICH WOULD ALSO HAVE INVITED INDIAN INTERVENTION, MOSHTAQUE EVENTUALLY YIELDED AFTER NEGOTIATING DURING THE COURSE OF A LONG DAY A COMPROMISE WITH MOSHARRAF BY WHICH THE MAJORS AND SOME OF THEIR COLLEAGUES, TO WHOM MOSHTAQUE WAS INDEBTED FOR HIS PRESIDENCY, WERE PERMITTED  
SECRET 
SECRET PAGE 03 DACCA 05470  01 OF 02  101306Z 
TO DEPART BANGLADESH.
BEFORE THIS COMPROMISE HAD BEEN REACHED, THE MOSHTAQUE GOVERNMENT HAD CALLED ON THE ARMY FORCES AT COMILLA TO COME TO ITS AID BUT HAD BEEN REFUSED ON THE GROUNDS THAT THE COMILLA COMMANDER WOULD ONLY RESPONDTO THE ORDERS OF THE CHIEF OF ARMY STAFF (WHO WAS THEN UNDER ARREST)OR THE CHIEF OF THE GENERAL STAFF (I.E., MOSHARRAF).

4. THE CONFRONTATION BROUGHT ANOTHER BLOODY RESULT WHICH,WE HAVE GOOD REASON TO BELIEVE, HAD BEEN PART OF AN EARLIER CONTINGENCY PLAN TO BE CARRIED OUT IN THE EVENT THAT MOSHTAQUE WERE TO BE KILLED, I.E., THE MURDER OF HIS FORMER COLLEAGUES IN THE AWAMI PARTY LEADERSHIP WHO WERE NOW HIS POLITICAL ENEMIES--FORMER PRIME MINISTER MANSOOR ALI,FORMER VICE PRESIDENT SYED NAZRUL ISLAM, FORMER PRIMEMINISTER, FINANCE MINISTER AND INDIOPHILE TAJUDDIN AHMED, AND FORMER INDUSTRIES MINISTER KAMARUZZAMAN. THESE LEADERS WERE KILLED, EVIDENTLY AT THE ORDER OF ONE OR MORE OF THE MAJORS, EARLY MONDAY MORNING AT DACCA JAIL. THE EVENT ADDED A NOTE OF MYSTERY TO MOSHARRAF'S ACQUIESCENCE LATER IN THE DAY TO THE DEPARTURE OF THE MAJORS, ONE VERSION HAVING IT THAT MOSHARRAF DID NOT YET KNOW OF THE DEED WHEN THE PLANE LEFT DACCA AT MIDNIGHT MONDAY.MANY OBSERVERS ALSO NOTED THAT ONE EFFECT OF THE MURDERS WAS TO REMOVE THE LOGICAL LEADERSHIP OF ANY PRO-INDIAN GOVERNMENT.

5. WITH THE EXPLOSIVE SITUATION DEFUSED TO A DEGREE BY THE DEPARTURE OF THE MAJORS, NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN MOSHTAQUE AND MOSHARRAF CONTINUED ON TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY, RESULTING IN MOSHARRAF'S DESIGNATION AS CHIEF OF STAFF LATE TUESDAY NIGHT, AND EVENTUALLY IN MOSHTAQUE'S RESIGNATION EARLYTHURSDAY MORNING WITH THE SIMULTANEOUS ANNOUNCEMENT THATA NON-POLITICAL FIGURE, CHIEF JUSTICE A.S.M. SAYEM, WOULDBE APPOINTED PRESIDENT. SAYEM WAS SWORN IN ON THURSDAY AND PROMPTLY DISSOLVED THE PARLIAMENT. REPORTS, WHICH WE ACCEPT, WERE RIFE THAT THE CABINET HAD ALREADY RESIGNED IN PROTEST AGAINST THE MURDER OF THE FORMER GOVERNMENT LEADERS.

6. BUT IT NOW BECAME CLEAR THAT MOSHARRAF'S ASSUMPTION OF POWER IN THE ARMY WAS UNPALATABLE TO MOST OF HIS FELLOW SECRET
 SECRET PAGE 04 DACCA 05470  01 OF 02  101306Z 
OFFICERS AND ENLISTED RANKS, BOTH BECAUSE GENERAL ZIA EVIDENTLY HELD A MUCH WIDER POPULAR FOLLOWING AMONG THE MBUT ALSO, AND VERY IMPORTANTLY, BECAUSE MOSHARRAF WAS WIDELY SEEN, WHETHER ACCURATELY OR NOT, AS AN INSTRUMENT OF INDIAN POLICY. THIS PERCEPTION WAS BUTTRESSED BY THE PRO-MUJIB PROCESSION ON TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY'S HARTAL TO PROTEST THE KILLINGS AT DACCA JAIL. THE LOWER RANKS REVOLTED IN THE EARLY HOURS OF FRIDAY MORNING, QUICKLY  OVERTHROWING THE MOSHARRAF FORCES AND, ACCORDING TO VIRTUALLY ALL ACCOUNTS, KILLING MOSHARRAF. EXTENSIVE FIRING WENT THROUGHOUT THE CITY ALL NIGHT AND ALL DURING THE DAY FRIDAY, MOST OF IT CELEBRATORY AFTER MOSHARRAF WAS OUESTED. ONE AUTHORITIATIVE SOURCE HAS TOLD US THAT ONLY ABOUT THIRTY WERE KILLED IN THE OVERTHROW; OTHER REPORTS HAVE REACHED US WHICH PUT THE FIGURE IN THE HUNDREDS.

7. THE SUCCESSFUL REVOLT OF THE LOWER RANKS NOW BROUGHT ANEW PROBLEM, THE RAMPANT INDISCIPLINE OF THE ENLISTED MEN,MANY OF WHOM NOW TURNED ON OFFICERS AGAINST WHOM THEY MIGH THAVE GRUDGES AND OTHERS BEGAN PRESENTING DEMANDS ON THE ARMY LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER DEAL IN THEIR FUTURE TREATMENT.WIDESPREAD REPORTS WERE CURRENT THROUGHOUT THE WEEKEND THAT LARGE NUMBERS OF MILITARY OFFICERS HAD FLED OR WERE ATLEAST STAYING AWAY FROM THE CANTONMENT OUT OF FEAR OF THE RAMPAGING SEPOYS, AND SEVERAL REPORTS REACHED US OF THE MURDER OF MILITARY OFFICERS AND OF THEIR WIVES.

 8. MEANWHILE THE POST-MOSHARRAF GOVERNMENT TOOK SHAPE IN A MEETING EARLY FRIDAY MORNING BETWEEN GENERAL ZIA,MOSHTAQUE AND PRESUMABLY OTHER PRINCIPAL  AIDES. MOSHTAQUE WAS OFFERED THE PRESIDENCY A NEW BUT DECLINED ON THE GROUND THAT, IN THE STILL EXPLOSIVE SITUATION, THE COUNTRY REQUIRED A NON-POLITICAL, NON-CONTROVERSIAL PRESIDENT.CONSEQUENTLY THE DECISION WAS REACHED TO KEEP JUSTICE SAYEM IN THE PRESIDENCY AND TO TURN OVER TO HIM AS WELL THE FUNCTIONS OF CHIEF OF THE MARTIAL LAW ADMINISTRATION,
SECRET  PAGE 02 DACCA 05470  02 OF 02  101246
 A ROLE WHICH HAD BEEN FILLED BRIEFLY BY GENERAL ZIA. WEWERE POINTEDLY ASSURED THAT THESE ARRANGEMENTS ENJOYED FULL SUPPORT BOTH WITHIN THE MILITARY AND WITHIN THE POLITICAL LEADERSHIP SO THAT THE WAY WAS NOW CLEAR FOR THERESTORATION OF STABILITY IN THE COUNTRY.

 9. AS OF MONDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 10, THE SITUATION HAD RETURNED TO AN APPARENT NORMALCY, WITH INTERNATIONAL AIR SERVICE RESUMED ON SUNDAY, BUT THE GENERAL UNEASINESS WAS STILL BEING FED BY REPORTS OF CONTINUED KILLINGS AMONG THE MILITARY AND OF POSSIBLE INDIAN ACTIONS ALONG THE BORDER.THE PROSPECT WAS FOR, AT BEST, A CONTINUED STATE OF TENSION AND UNCERTIANTY.

10. COMMENT. THREE CONCLUSIONS IMPLICIT IN THE ABOVE ACCOUNT SHOULD BE UNDERLINE. THE FIRST IS THAT THE ACTIONS OF THE MAIN PARTICIPANTS IN THE COUP AND COUNTER-COUP APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN NON-POLITICAL, EXCEPT IN THE SENSE THAT MOSHARRAF HAD THE ADDITIONAL DISADVANTAGE OF APPEARING TO BE PRO-INDIAN. THE ARMY FORCES WHICH OVERTHREW MOSHTAQUE AND THE MAJORS APPEAR TO HAVE ACTED PRIMARILY OUT OF A SENSE OF GRIEVANCE AGAINST THE MAJORS. THE COUNTER-COUP WAS THE WORK OF LOWER RANKS WHO FAR PREFERRED ZIA TO MOSHARRAF AND WHO WERE ALSO CONCERNED WHRE MOSHARRAF'S LOYALTYMIGHT LIE. WE HAVE NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT ANY OF THE REGIMES OF THE PAST WEEK WERE ANTI-AMERICAN, PRO-INDIAN, OR PRO-SOVIET IN CHARACTER.

11. THE SECOND IS THAT WE HAVE NO EVIDENCE THAT INDIA WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY OF THE WEEK'S ACTIONS. 
12. THE THIRD IS THE CONFIRMATION OF HOW STRONGLY AND PERVASIVELY ANTI-INDIA ANTIPATHIES ARE FELT HERE-FROM THE TOP OF THE LEADERSHIP TO THE LOWEST GROUPS OF THE SOCIETY. ALTHOUGH WE HAVE NO EVIDENCE THAT MOSHARRAF WAS PRO-INDIAN, AND SOME THAT HE WAS NOT, HE WAS WIDELY IDENTIFIED AS SUCH AND THE WILD CELEBRATIONS HERE OF HIS OVERTHROW CARRIED DISTINCTLY ANTI-INDIAN OVERTONES.

BOSTER

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/e8/97075.htm

--------------------------------------------

Minutes of the Secretary of State's Regional Staff Meeting, Washington, August 15, 1975, 8 a.m.

The Secretary’s 8:00 a.m. Staff Meeting
Friday, August 15, 1975

Participants:

THE SECRETARY OF STATE - HENRY A. KISSINGER

P Mr. Sisco
E Mr. Robinson
T Mr. Maw
AF Ambassador Mulcahy, Acting
ARA Mr. Rogers
EA Mr. Zurhellen, Acting
EUR Mr. Armitage, Acting
NEA Mr. Atherton
INR Mr. Hyland
S-P Mr. Lord
EB Mr. Enders
S/PRS Mr. Funseth, Acting
PM Mr. Vest
PM Ambassador Buffum
H Ambassador McCloskey
L Mr. Leigh
S/S Mr. Borg, Acting
S Mr. Bremer

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Let's talk about Bangladesh.

MR. ATHERTON: Well, it was a remarkably well-planned and executed coup for Bangladesh.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: What does that mean? Is Mujibur alive or dead?

MR. ATHERTON: Mujibur is dead; his immediate clique, which was largely family, nephews, brothers.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I get good advice from INR.

MR. HYLAND: He wasn't dead when I talked to you.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Really? Did they kill him after some period?

MR. ATHERTON: As far as we know -- I can't say we have got all the details. But the indications are that the plan was to kill him. And they simply surrounded his palace and went in and killed him. That is as far as we know now.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Didn't we tell him that last year?

MR. ATHERTON: In March we had lots of indications --

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Didn't we tell him about it?

MR. ATHERTON: We told him at the time.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Didn't we tell him who it was going to be, roughly?

MR. ATHERTON: I will have to check whether we gave him the names.

MR. HYLAND: We were a little imprecise on that.

MR. ATHERTON: He brushed it off, scoffed at it, said nobody would do a thing like that to him.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: He was one of the world's prize fools.

MR. ATHERTON: But it seems that the coup leaders are in complete control.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Who are they?

MR. ATHERTON: They are military officers, middle and senior officers, who are generally considered less pro-Indian than the past leadership; pro-U.S., anti-Soviet.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Absolutely inevitable.

MR. ATHERTON: Islamic. They have changed the name to the Islamic Republic --

SECRETARY KISSINGER: That they would be pro-U.S. was not inevitable. In fact, I would have thought at some turn of the wheel they were going to become pro-Chinese, and anti-Indian I firmly expected. I always knew India would rue the day that they made Bangladesh independent. I predicted that since '71.

MR. ATHERTON: I think our biggest problem is going to be to avoid too close an embrace.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Why -- because they are friendly to us?

MR. ATHERTON: I think they are going to want us to come in with promises.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: The principle being we only embrace on the sub-continent those who oppose us. What is the principle?

MR. ATHERTON: I think our principle ought to be we are giving about all the aid we can really give or Bangladesh can really absorb.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Before we implement it, let's check that. I know we can't do a huge increase in aid. But I think if people who think they are pro-U.S. come to us and then get a technical lecture that unfortunately we can't do any more -- there must be some maneuvering we can do on food aid and some token increase in aid.

MR. ENDERS: We can do a little more on food aid.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I would like them to get it, if they are indeed what you say they are, which I don't know.

MR. ATHERTON: These are all the initial indications.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Then they ought to get a friendly reception.

MR. ATHERTON: I think the immediate question is how we comport ourselves with the new government. It seems to me despite what the memo says which we sent you, which I didn't have time to go over carefully this morning -- I think we ought to simply respond to any overtures.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: What did the memo say?

MR. ATHERTON: It says we ought to hold off on a decision on recognition. But I don't think that needs to be posed as that sharp a question.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: We ought to recognize.

MR. ATHERTON: I don't know what recognizing means in this case. I think we simply --

MR. SISCO: Just continue. That memo said also we have to check all this with the Indians, as if to give the Indians a veto. I certainly don't agree with that.

MR. ATHERTON: I think it would be useful --

SECRETARY KISSINGER: We certainly shouldn't go to the Indians.

MR. ATHERTON: I think there might be some merit in an exchange of views with them.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: After we have done it. We will not even discuss establishing contact with the new government with the Indians. After contact is established, we would be interested to hear their views, as long as they clearly understand that they cannot tell us what to do, and as long as they cannot go to the Bangladesh and tell them -- and then ask Bangladesh for their views, so that they can be transmitted to us.

MR. ATHERTON: I fully agree.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Which is what India would dearly love to do.

You better let me see any approaches.

MR. ATHERTON: I think we have to prepare a telegram today, and we will clear it with you, on what we say to the Indians. And the Pakistanis are important. There will be some move towards Pakistan.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I also want to see you for a few minutes on a sober instruction to Bhutto, and some of his ideas on commitments. Okay.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/e8/97038.htm

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Telegram 3964 From the Embassy in Bangladesh to the Department of State, August 16, 1975, 1135Z

FM AMEMBASSY DACCA

TO SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7733INFO
AMEMBASSY ISLAMABADAM
EMBASSY KATHMADUAM
EMBASSY NEW DELHIAM
CONSUL CALCUTTA
CINCPAC
C O N F I D E N T I A L DACCA 3964
CINCPAC FOR POLADE.O. 11652: GDSTAGS: PINT, PFOR, BG, US, IN, UR, CH, XD

SUBJECT: PRELIMINARY COMMENT ON THE COUP IN BANGLADESH

1. THE EVENTS OF THE FIRST TWENTY-FOUR HOURS GIVE PROMISE THAT THE COUP WHICH BEGAN AT 0515 LOCAL TIME ON AUGUST 15 WILL NOT BE CHALLENGED. THE OATHS OF FEALTY TO THE NEW GOVERNMENT SWORN BY THE SERVICE CHIEFS, THE HEADS OF THE PARAMILITARY BANGLADESH RIFLES AND RAKKHI BAHINI ANDTHE HEAD OF THE POLICE BRING ALL ARMED ELEMENTS INTO SUPPORT OF THE NEW REGIME.. THE PUBLIC HAS DISPLAYED NO PARTICULAR JIBILATION AT THE FALL OF MUJIB BUT RATHER ACALM ACCEPTANCE, AND PERHAPS SOME SENSE OF RELIEF. THERELATIVE EASE WITH WHICH POWER HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED SUGGESTS ABOVE ALL THE DEGREE TO WHICH MUJIB AND THE BANGALEES HAD BECOME ALIENATED FROM ONE ANOTHER, THE BANGALEES FROM MUJIB BECAUSE OF HIS FAILURE TO MEET THEIR ASPIRATIONS AND HIS APPARENT DESIRE TO HOLD POWER LARGELY FOR PERSONAL AGRANDIZEMENT AND DYNASTIC REASONS, AND MUJIB
CONFIDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL PAGE 02 DACCA 03964 161135Z
FROM THE BANGLAEES AS HE GREW MORE ISOLATED FROM OBJECTIVE COUNSELS AND BEGAN TO SUFFER THE CLASSIC PARANOIA OF THE DESPOT. THE QUICKENING TEMPO OF SHEIKH MUJIB'S EFFORTS SINCE EARLY JUNE TO INSURE HIS STRANGLEHOLD ON POWER,TOGETHER WITH THE GROWING INFLUENCE OF HIS NEPHEW SHEIKHMONI, DOUBTLESS MADE THE COUP PLOTTERS CONCLUDE THAT NO FURTHER DELAYS IN TAKING ACTION WAS POSSIBLE. THAT INDIA'S INDEPENDENCE DAY WAS CHOSEN MAY HAVE BEEN MERELY INCIDENTAL, BUTWE NOTE THE COINCIDENCE.

2. IT IS TOO EARLY TO OFFER ANY SURE OPINIONS ON THE DIRECTION OF EVENTS. THE NEW CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT UNDER KHONDAKAR MUSHTAQUE AHMED SEEMS LITTLE LIKELY TO AROUSEANY SENSE OF ENTHUSIASM. ALTHOUGH PURGED--BY DEATH OR EXCLUSION--OF THOSE WHO WERE CLOSEST TO SHEIKH MUJIB, IT IS STILL A COLLECTION OF OVERLY FAMILIAR FIGURES WHO ARE IDENTIFIED WITH THE POOR ADMINISTRATION OF POST-LIBERATION BANGLADESH. CLEARLY, ITS COMPOSITION IS INTENDED TO SUGGEST THAT BANGLADESH UNDER MUSHTAQUE WILL OFFER CONTINUITY, BUT ALSO THAT THERE WILL BE GREATER MODERATION. MUSHTAQUE'S RADIO ADDRESS LATE ON AUGUST 15 (DACCA 3955) SUPPORTS THIS VIEW, CONDEMNING AS IT DOES THE DOMESTIC CONSEQUENCES OF SHEIKH MUJIB'S RULE BUT CLEARLY SUGGESTING THAT IN SOFAR AS FOREIGN AFFAIRS ARE CONCERNED, BUSINESS WILLBE MUCH AS USUAL.
THERE IS ALREADY SOME EVIDENCE THAT THE NEW GOVERNMENT WILL WANT TO STRENGTHEN ITS TIES WITH THE MUSLIM WORLD, INCLUDING PAKISTAN. AT THE SAME TIME,MUSHTAQUE'S WELL-KNOWN ANTIPATHY TO INDIA NOTWITHSTANDING,THE NEW REGIME WILL NOT WANT TO AROUSE UNDUE SUSPICIONS ON THE PART OF INDIA, CLEARLY COGNIZANT OF THE IMPORTANCE OF PRESERVING AN ADEQUATE MEASURE OF GOODWILL ON THE PART OF ITS IMPOSING NEIGHBOR. (PERHAPS ONE REASON FOR THE COMPOSITION OF THE CABINET, WITH ITS EXCLUSIVE RELIANCEON OLD FACES, IS A HOPE TO DEMONSTRATE TO INDIA ITS BASIC CONTINUITY.)
INSOFAR AS THE MAJOR POWERS ARE CONCERNED, MUSHTAQUE HAS STATED HIS GOVERNMENT'S DESIRE TO ESTABLISH"CLOSER AND FRIENDLY RELATIONS WITH THE BIG POWERS LIKETHE UNITED STATES, THE SOVIET UNION AND CHINA." THIS WOULD SEEM TO MEAN MORE BALANCE IN ITS RELATIONS, AND THUS SOME DIMINUTION IN THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOVIET UNION.
CONFIDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL PAGE 03 DACCA 03964 161135Z

3. THE EVIDENCE SO FAR SUGGESTS THE POSSIBILITY THAT OUR OWN RELATIONS WITH THE NEW GOVERNMENT COULD TURN OUT TO BE ON AN EVEN MORE CORDIAL BASIS THAN THEY WERE UNDER MUJIB. THE NEW PRESIDENT HAS IN THE PAST BEEN STRIKINGLY OVERT IN SUGGESTING HIS "PRO-AMERICAN" ATTITUDE; MOREOVER,THE FIGURES IN THE OLD REGIME WHO WERE KNOWN FOR THEIR LEFTIST AND ANTI-AMERICAN VIEWS (SHEIKH MONI AND SAMAD,EXAMPLE) ARE NOW GONE. THE POSSIBILITY IS ALSO STRONG THAT THEY WILL LOOK TO US FOR EVEN LARGER AMOUNTS OF AID--MUSHTAQUE HAS ARGUED WITH US BEFORE THAT WE ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN TRULY HELP BANGLADESH--SO THAT OUR PROBLEM MAY WELL PROVE TO BE ONE OF TEMPERING THE NEW REGIME'S EXPECTATIONS  OF US.

4. WE CANNOT PRESENTLY JUDGE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MUSHTAQUE'S GOVERNMENT AND THE MILITARY. WE NOTE WITH INTEREST THAT EVERY OFFICIAL STATEMENT STRESSES THE ROLE OF THE ARMED FORCES IN THE TAKEOVER. WE ARE TOLD THAT THEY MILITARY ARE AT PRESENT ENGAGED IN PREPARING MARTIALLAW ORDERS WHICH WOULD, IF THE PAKISTANI PATTERN IS FOLLOWED, SERVE AS BASIS LAW OF THE COUNTRY. WHETHER THIS MEANS A GROWTH OF TENSION BETWEEN THE CIVILIANS AND THE MILITARY WE CANNOT YET SAY, BUT WE WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT ONE OF THE FIRST STATEMENTS BY MUSHTAQUE WOULD HAVE BEEN A PROMISE OF A NEW, MORE LIBERAL CONSTITUATION THAN THAT IMPOSED LAST JANUARY BY MUJIB. THE CIVILIANS PROBABLY HAVEA MOMENTARY ADVANTAGE IN LIGHT OF THEIR EXPERIENCE; MOREOVER, IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE MILITARY'S SUCCESSFUL OUSTER OF MUJIB, WE ARE LEFT WITH THE IMPRESSION THATTHE COUP PLANNERS PREPARED FOR LITTLE BEYOND THE EVENTITSELF.
HOWEVER, THE MILITARY--AND BY THIS WE MEAN THE YOUNGER OFFICERS WHO PLANNED AND LED COUP--DID WORK THE OVERTHROW OF SHEIKH MUJIB, AND WE SUSPECT THAT,HAVING TASTED BLOOD, THEY WILL WANT AT THE VERY LEAST TO EXERCISE SOME MEASURE OF INFLUENCE OVER THE COURSE OFEVENTS. WE HAVE NO REASON TO LOOK FOR BANGALEE QUADDAFI SAMONG THE COUP PLANNERS; RATHER, AS MEMBERS OF THE OLD,SERVICE-ORIENTED MIDDLE CLASS WHICH WAS THREATENED BY SHEIKH MUJIB, THEY MAY PROVE A MORE MODERATE FORCE THAN HAS BEEN SEEN IN EAST BENGAL SINCE PAKISTANI PERIOD. CONFIDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL PAGE 04 DACCA 03964 161135Z

5. ONE POINT TO BE EMPHASIZED IS THAT, WHILE THE OVERTHROW OF SHEIKH MUJIB WAS SUCCESSFUL, IF BLOODLY, A GREAT DEAL REMAINS TO BE DONE. MUSHTAQUE'S SPEECH IS SIGNIFICANT LARGELY FOR ITS GENERALITIES AND ITS ECHOES OF EARLIER AWAMI LEAGUE RHETORIC, BUT CONCRETE ACTIONS HAVE SO FAR BEEN FEW. WE ARE NOT SURPRISED THAT THE DEGREE OF DIRECTION DISPLAYED SO FAR IS LIMITED FOR WE HAVE EVERY REASON TO THINK THAT THOSE PRIVY TO THE PLANNING OF THE COUP WERE SMALL IN NUMBER AND THUS THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PREPARING ANY ELABORATE PLANS FOR THE GOVERNACE OF BANGLADESH WAS VERY SMALL.
HOWEVER, UNLESS EARLY STEPS ARE TAKEN TO DEMONSTRATEVIGOR AND WILL, THE ADVANTAGE NOW HELD BY THE NEWREGIME WILL BEGIN TO DIMINISH, AN WE MAY CONFRONT AN UNSETTLED--AND UNSETTLING--SITUATION AS CONTENDERS FOR POWER EMERGE. NO ONE NOW ON THE BANGLAEE POLITIICAL STAGEHAS KIND OF COMMANDING PERSONALITY WHICH SUSTAINED SHEIKH MUJIB FOR SO LONG.  THE CIVLIAN GOVERNMENT FALTERS, WE MAY FIND THE MILITARY CONCLUDING THAT IS MUST AGAIN SAVE THE NATION.

BOSTER

CONFIDENTIAL

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/e8/97064.htm

AIG's Bailout/Handout Financing Israeli Mortgages in Jerusalem - West Bank?
http://jezekiah. wordpress. com/2009/ 03/06/how- much-of-aigs- bailouthandout- is-financing- israeli-mortgage s-in-jerusalem- the-west- bank/

Related: The Israeli Jerusalem municipality hands out demolition orders for 36 Palestinian families!

As of March 4, 2009, the American taxpayer has bailed out American International Group (AIG) to the tune of $163 billion (assuming that the Federal Reserve and the Federal gubmint are to be believed on anything anymore).

On March 3, 2009, this exchange took place in the august and hallowed halls of what used to be known as the Congress of a Constitutional Republic: With One Word, Bernanke Reveals Who Actually Runs the Country: Senator Sanders: "Will you tell the American people to whom you lent $2.2 trillion of their dollars?" Ben Bernanke: "No."

One can only surmise Bernanke's reasoning. He claims he doesn't want to spook the banks and the markets or some such claptrap. I have another possible reason: Bernanke, being an Orthodox Jew, doesn't want the American public to get any inkling of Israel's share of the various bailouts.

AIG owns a company in Israel called Ezer Mortgage Insurance (EMI). EMI will insure/finance up to 95% of a private Israeli mortgage. Below is EMI's nifty ad gizmo with some of the relevant text copy underneath the link. I've adjusted the figures to reflect current money values. Please alert me if you spot any problems with the math. (Warning - very annoying music):

It's so simple to purchase a house in Israel when EMI (a member of AIG, American International Group) makes up to 95% financing possible!

EMI sets the premium as a function of the LTV (Loan To Value ratio) and the term of the loan. As a rule of thumb - for every $100,000 of a loan taken by a borrower, the borrower pays an additional $25 a month.

For example: David Silberstein is an affluent Jew living in Florida, with a strong affiliation to the Jewish state; his children are even considering immigrating to Israel and serving in the Israel Defense Force when they tun 18. Consequently, David is keen on buying an apartment in Israel to strengthen his ties with the Land and to enable his children to live comfortably while in Israel. David has found a property that he likes carrying a price tag of $176,000. While David has sufficient equity to buy the apartment, he has chosen to use EMI's financial instrument (credit insurance)!

Why? Because it's a smart choice: this way, he has money left over for additional investments and for spreading the risk! David knows that with EMI's solution, he can buy an apartment without using up all his equity and continue to enjoy the standard of living to which he is accustomed. David and his wife have decided to invest start-up capital in the amount of 10% of the value of the apartment. Accordingly, the terms of the mortgage extended to them by the mortgage bank is as follows:

Property value: NIS 740,640
Property value in $: 176,070
Total loan NIS: 666,576
Total loan in $: 158,463
Total start-up capital NIS: 74,064
Total start-up capital in $: 17,607
LTV (Loan to Value ratio): 90%
Monthly payment including EMI premium: NIS 3,857
Monthly payment including EMI premium in $: 916.92
EMI premium out of total monthly payment: NIS 152
EMI premium out of total monthly payment in $: 36
Loan term of 25 years. 4.5% fixed interest rate

*$1 = NIS 4.21 as of 03/06/09

America, doesn't it give you the warm fuzzies to know that while our economy is tanking, Israelis and Jews making aliyah to Israel will still be able to "enjoy the standard of living to which they are accustomed"?

For a little more insight into how the Israeli mortgage market works, see these two links:
A Guide to the Perplexed - An Introduction to Israeli Mortgages
http://blog. israelmortgage. net

From the first link:
"Graces: For those who are building a home in Israel while paying a mortgage elsewhere, or alternatively while paying rent, most mortgage banks offer graces on the loans. Two types of graces exist in Israel - partial and full. Under the terms of a partial grace, only interest must be repaid during the grace period. Under the terms of a full grace, no payment is made during the grace period and any interest that should have been paid is added to the loan balance and is paid back as part of the loan once the grace period ends. Graces are not offered on the zakaut loans and some banks do limit graces to certain loan types."

Question: Gee whiz, why don't Americans get these `grace' periods on their mortgages?
Answer: Because we need to give our last drop of blood to support and subsidize the holy, sacred Israeli parasites mortgage market.

WOLF

+<Why Sudan???...Cherchez Africom...>-
--- On Fri, 3/6/09, Gamila Zahran < gzahran(at)wanadoo.fr
 
Arabian Sights.....
 
==================================
"Why Sudan?
 
For the last 15 years Sudan has been on the agenda for regime change...
because Sudan housed Palestinian resistance fighters...
Sudan is an Islamist regime that is against the state of Israel...
 
They say these are some Arabs in Sudan
enslaving Africans...so naturally the language of
"Arabs enslaving Africans"... is so clever and the media pushes that
so there would come a natural hatred of Blacks for Arabs
so that Arabs look like the real culprits here...
 
Now where there a fight?
Was it over slavery?
 
...At no time during our talk with John Garang which was
4 hours in length was there ever a mention of slavery...
 
Look at the Sudan, it is the largest land mass country
I think on the African Continent...it could feed all of Africa .
In the south there is an abundance of oil,
and if you remember in Nigeria, in the eastern part of Nigeria,
they wanted to break that part off...and it ignited a 'civil war'
 and the civil war was to unite that which can give them power.
 
Because there was a regime in Lagos that the government of America
and Britain did not like...You see when you see senator Tom Lantos
leading the march on the Sudanese embassy.
 
When you see Eli Wiesel. These are Zionists.
These are pro-Israeli Zionists.
 
Why are they leading the march? Do you really think
that they have compassion for what is going on in Darfur?
 
See human suffering is human suffering. Do not tell me
you have compassion for the Blacks that are suffering in Darfur,
and you've got Palestinians suffering under your nose
and you do not care nothing about that?
 
Come on.
If there is 3.5 Million dying in the Congo,
you say nothing about that?
The people that are dying in Uganda,
you say nothing about that?
NO.
Then what is the motive setting up under this?
 
This is what Black people have to look at.
It is that there is
 Oil in the Sudan,
there is Gold, 
there is Uranium.
 
..So what I say to Black people:
when the former slave masters
who did not care about lynching,
who did not care about our suffering,
who do not care about what happened in Katrina,
do NOT you be deceived that
they care about what is happening over there and
they do not care what is happening to us here.
 
If you can promote black people calling black women 'bitches'
and 'whores' and have no thought about that, you can promote
gangster life, guns, and drugs and you have no thought about that,
yet the Black community is dying as we speak, how in the hell
can I think you're concerned about Darfur when we are dying
in Harlem and in Brooklyn and in the south side of Chicago?
Stop it.
Black people wake up to the deceit."
 
=====================
During a live news talk show on New York's KISS FM, the Honorable
Minister Louis Farrakhan and Nation of Islam International Representative,
Akbar Muhammad discussed the situation in Darfur, Sudan
with radio host James Mtume.Use the following link
to view this FinalCall.com News featured webcast and related articles:
http://www.finalcall.com/absolutenl/t.aspx?n=41&l=67
 
==================================
How the "Stop Darfur" Movement
Aids the US Drive for Hegemony
George Wright
“...Interestingly, the “Save Darfur” campaign started right at the point
when it was obvious that the United States
(military) invasion of Iraq had caused a catastrophe. 

What was being ignored by Darfur “ humanitarian activists” was that
a United States-led intervention would only amplify the level of violence;
all one had to do is look at Iraq and Afghanistan to understand that. 
Emblematic of the Orwellian world that we live at the moment,
at “Save Darfur” demonstrations, many
'peace activists' carried signs which read:
“Out of Iraq; Into Sudan”!...
 
There is no question the Sudanese Government has been
responsible for much of the death and horror in Dafur.  However,
defining the violence in Darfur as “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing”
confuses what is happening in Darfur;
obfuscates the objectives of the United States toward Sudan;
and distracts from what needs to be done to resolve the Darfur Crisis. 
 
As Ugandan scholar Mahmood Mamdani explains: 
“Morally, there is no doubt about the horrific nature of the violence
against civilians in Darfur.  The ambiguity lies in the politics of violence… 
 
The Darfur conflict is actually part of a complex series of regional
civil wars abetted by “Big Power” intervention while innocent people
are caught in the middle. The outline of that situation starts with the fact
that for over two decades the Sudanese Government and the Sudanese
Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) were involved in a civil war in southern Sudan. 
 
The United States provided arms,
training, materiel, and intelligence
to the rebel SPLA during that conflict. 
That support was transferred through
Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Uganda...

http://www.blackcommentator.com/224/224_genocide_olympics_wright_guest_pf.html
 
=============================
 
AFRICOM'S COVERT WAR IN SUDAN :
 
The Winter of Bashir's Discontent
keith harmon snow
5 March 2009
        
 First note that the ICC can now be viewed as a tool of hegemonic
U.S. foreign policy, where the weapons deployed by the U.S.
and its allies include the accusations of, and indictments for,
human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
.. no white man has yet been charged with these or other offenses
at the ICC—which now holds five black African “warlords”
and seeks to incarcerate and bring to trial another black man,
also an Arab, Omar Bashir.
Why hasn’t George W. Bush been indicted?
 
Or what about Donald Rumsfeld? Dick Cheney? Henry Kissinger?
Ehud Olmert? Tony Blair? Vadim Alperin? John Bredenkamp?...
 
Following on the heals of the announcement that the ICC handed down
seven war crimes charges against al-Bashir, a story broadcast
over all the Western media system and into every American living room
by day’s end, President al-Bashir ordered the expulsion
of 1I international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating
in Darfur under the pretense of being purely ‘humanitarian’ organizations.
 
What has not anywhere in the English press been reported
is that the United States of America has just stepped up
its ongoing war for control of Sudan and her resources:
petroleum, copper, gold, uranium, fertile plantation lands for sugar
and gum Arabic (essential to Coke, Pepsi and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream).
 
This war has been playing out on the ground in Darfur through
so-called ‘humanitarian’ NGOs, private military companies,
‘peacekeeping’ operations and covert military operations
backed by the U.S. and its closest allies... the U.S. war for Sudan
has always revolved around ‘humanitarian’ operations
—purportedly neutral and presumably concerned only about
protecting innocent human lives—that often provide cover
for clandestine destabilizing activities and interventions...

HTML
http://www.allthingspass.com/uploads/html-264THE%20WINTER%20OF%20BASHIRS%20DISCONTENT.htm
PDF   
http://www.allthingspass.com/uploads/pdf-264THE%20WINTER%20OF%20BASHIRS%20DISCONTENT.pdf
http://www.allthingspass.com/

==================================
The US’s War In Darfur
 
Keith Harmon Snow 
 
Debunking the claims of a “genocide against blacks”
or an “Islamic holy-war” against Christians,
Darfur’s Arab and black African ethnic groups
have intermarried for centuries, and nearly everyone is Muslim.
 
The “Save Darfur” campaign is deeply aligned with Jewish and Christian
faith-based organizations in the United States, Canada, Europe and Israel.
 
These groups have relentlessly campaigned for Western military action,
demonizing both Sudan and China, but they have never addressed
Western military involvement—backing factions on all sides.
 
By mobilizing constituencies sympathetic to the “genocide” label
and the cries of “never again” they do a grave disservice
to the cause of human rights...
The West is desperate to deploy a “robust peacekeeping”
mission in Darfur, to press the Western agenda...
 
www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=447&Itemid=37
 
======================

Over Five Million Dead in Congo?
How Truth is Hidden,
Even When it Seems to Be Told

Debunking the claims of a “genocide against blacks”
or an “Islamic holy-war” against Christians,

keith harmon snow
 
Genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - and on
the entirety of the Africa continent - is the direct result of
deliberate policies by American and European governments
and the multinational corporations they serve.
 
So-called "relief" agencies that make a pretense of counting the dead
are often themselves creatures of the very corporations that have
set countless militias and neighboring client states
on successive rampages of slaughter and ethnic cleansing
- all to protect the business of extracting the riches of Congo.
 
Many, many Nuremburg courts could be filled to capacity with American
and European luminaries guilty of crimes against humanity in Central Africa,
yet the corporate, racist political culture insists African "savagery"
is to blame for the ongoing holocaust...

However, the story of war and plunder in Congo is not unreported.
It is a story that has been censored, manipulated, and covered up
even while it is ostensibly being told. Plenty of information
has been published about the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
and plenty of this is flak, designed to whiteout the truth, and help keep
the real story buried, and that includes the truly honest representations
of war and suffering in Congo that have been published.
 
Just because the mainstream doesn't cover it, doesn't mean it didn't happen. T
his is the falsification of consciousness...
 
====================================
Top Ten Reasons to Suspect "Save Darfur" is a PR Scam
to Justify US Military Intervention in Africa

Bruce Dixon
 
The star-studded hue and cry to "Save Darfur" and
"stop the genocide" has gained enormous traction in U.S. media
along with bipartisan support in Congress and the White House.  
 
But the Congo, with ten to twenty times as many African dead
over the same period is not called a "genocide"
and passes almost unnoticed.
Sudan sits atop lakes of oil.
It has large supplies of uranium, and other minerals,
significant water resources, and a strategic location
near still more African oil and resources.
 
The unasked question is whether the nation's Republican and
Democratic foreign policy elite are using claims of genocide,
and appeals for "humanitarian intervention" to grease the way
for the next oil and resource wars on the African continent.

The regular manufacture and the constant maintenance
of false realities in the service of American empire is a core function
of the public relations profession and the corporate news media.  
 
Whether it's fake news stories about wonder drugs and
how toxic chemicals are good for you, bribed commentators and
journalists discoursing on the benefits of No Child Left Behind,
Hollywood stars advocating military intervention to save African orphans,
or slick propaganda campaigns employing viral marketing techniques
to reach out to college students, bloggers, churches and ordinary citizens,
it pays to take a close look behind the facade.

Among the latest false realities being pushed upon
the American people are the simplistic pictures of
Black vs. Arab genocide in Darfur, and the proposed solution:
a robust US-backed or US-led military intervention in Western Sudan.  
 
Increasing scrutiny is being focused upon the "Save Darfur" lobby
and the Save Darfur Coalition; upon its founders, its finances,
its methods and motivations and its truthfulness.  
In the spirit of furthering that examination we here present
1O reasons to suspect that the "Save Darfur" campaign
is a PR scam to justify US intervention in Africa. ...

Chris Taylor, head of strategy for Blackwater, says his company has a database
of thousands of former police and military officers for security assignments.
He says Blackwater personnel could set up perimeters
and guard Darfurian villages and refugee camp in support of the U.N.  
 
Blackwater officials say it would not take many men to fend off
the Janjaweed, a militia that is supported by the Sudanese government
and attacks villages on camelback.
Apparently Blackwater doesn't need to come to the Congo,
where hunger and malnutrition, depopulation, mass rape and
the disappearance of schools, hospitals and civil society into
vast law free zones ruled by an ever-changing cast of African proxies
(like the son of the late and unlamented Idi Amin),
all under a veil of complicit media silence already constitute
the perfect business-friendly environment for siphoning off
the vast wealth of that country at minimal cost.

Look for the adoption of the Congolese model across the wide areas
of Africa that U.S. strategic planners call "ungoverned spaces".  
Just don't expect to see details on the evening news,
or hear about them from Oprah, George Clooney or Angelina Jolie.
 
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=453&Itemid=1
 
=========================== 
AFRICA INCREASINGLY IN US-ISRAELI CROSSHAIRS
The Strategic  Importance of Africa
IASPS Staff

co-authored by IASPS  Strategic Fellow Paul Michael Wihbey
and US State  Department expert Dr. Barry Schutz,
Office of Analysis for Africa,Washington DC., the article challenges
the conventional wisdom that the United  States has no vital interests in Africa.
.. because of the availability of its alternative, plentiful and
reliable energy sources, Africa is increasingly an attractive zone
for American engagement  at the political, economic and security levels.
The authors recommend three specific American policy initiatives
that would enhance the US presence in Africa  including:
1. Debt Forgiveness, 2. Free Trade and
3.  Establishing a new US military command
http://www.israeleconomy.org/opeds/oped30.htm

structure for the  South Atlantic.

American Policy and Africa

http://www.iasps.org/nbn/nbn308.htm
http://www.israeleconomy.org/nbn/nbn308.htm

The Pentagon's New Africa Command
Interviewees:Robert T. Moeller, Rear Admiral, Head of Africa Command
    Robert G. Loftis, Ambassador, State Department
http://www.cfr.org/publication/13348/pentagons_new_africa_command.html
 
 
For more Info. On the topic refer to Liz Burbank´s “The Digest”
http://www.burbankdigest.com/node/175

Press Release
Wednesday 4th March 2009
 
http://tinyurl.com/bypekr
 
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine was launched today at a press conference
chaired by Stéphane Hessel, Ambassador of France. The initiators, Ken Coates,
Chairman of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Leila Shahid, General
Delegate of Palestine to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg and Nurit
Peled, Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, discussed the history and reasons
on why they called for the creation of this Tribunal. Speaking for the
Organising Committee, the former Belgian Senator Pierre Galand explained how it
will work. Amongst more than a hundred international personalities who have
given their support to this Tribunal, Ken Loach, Paul Laverty, Raji Surani,
Jean Ziegler, François Rigaux, Jean Salmon and François Maspero were present
to give encouragement.
 
In the tradition of the Russell Tribunal on War Crimes in Vietnam, the Russell
Tribunal on Palestine is a citizens’ initiative that aims to reaffirm the
primacy of international law as the basis for solving the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, and at raising awareness of the responsibility of the international
community in the continuing denial of the rights of the Palestinian people.
 
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine will base its work on Experts’ and
Witnesses’ Committees that will establish the facts and build up the legal
arguments that will be presented to the Tribunal. National Support Committees
will contribute to the preparation of experts’ reports, promote popular
mobilisation and media coverage and participate in fundraising. We can already
count on strong support from the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Spain,
Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Portugal, Ireland, Lebanon, Algeria,
Australia, Italy, South Africa, Egypt and, of course, from Israel and
Palestine. Further contacts are under way for the creation of such Committees
in other countries and continents.
 
Once the accusation has been fully prepared and the witnesses summoned, the
sessions of the Tribunal will be organised at the beginning of 2010 in several
major capitals. A jury made up of well-known personalities who are respected
for their high moral standing will consider the reports and hear the witnesses
for and against.
 
The jury will announce its conclusions which, we are persuaded, will attract
widespread international public and political support, thereby contributing to
a just and durable peace in the Middle East.
 
Contact Tel / fax: 00 32 (0)2 2310174
                   Cell Phone: 00 32 (0) 479 12 95 32
                   e-mail: trp_int@yahoo.com
                   web site: www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com
 
--
 
Redress Information & Analysis
Website  - http://www.redress.cc
Newsblog - http://redressnewsblog.blogspot.com
YouTube Channel - http://www.youtube.com/redressvideo
 
Redress Information & Analysis is dedicated to exposing injustice,
disinformation and bigotry and to providing thought-provoking interpretations
of current affairs.

Since the people of these states have been repeatedly cheated out of their hard-earned money by two successive imposed federal corporate bailouts, illegitmate income taxation by the Federal Reserve/IRS, endless massive funding for war profiteers and the systemic CAFR scam, the only options may be direct action, general strikes and secession.
 
1.                           State can run out of money, but can't file for bankruptcy | WHAT ...
State can run out of money, but can't file for bankruptcy. "A state is not going to just shut down," said Elizabeth McNichol, a state budget specialist at ...
whatreallyhappened.com/content/state-can-run-out-money-cant-file-bankruptcy - 42k - Cached - Similar pages
 
1.                           46 Of 50 States Could File Bankruptcy In 2009-2010
makes me wonder where all that “bail-out money” is coming from. ... wisely they should all be fired and let people with common sense run the govt. .... can’t be measured by the numbers in your bank account but is measured by the real ...
www.infowars.com/46-of-50-states-could-file-bankruptcy-in-2009-2010/ - 173k - Cached - Similar pages
 
 
States can run out of money, but cannot file for bankruptcy
By Dan Carden-Staff Reporter-Illinois Daily Herald-February 6, 2009
 SPRINGFIELD - Facing an ever-growing pile of bills, crushing debt and less tax money flowing into the state treasury, Illinois is broke. But could the state climb out of its nearly $9 billion budget hole by declaring bankruptcy?
No, say tax and budget experts.
 Federal law permits individuals, businesses and local governments to file for bankruptcy reorganization and sometimes debt forgiveness. States are not covered by the law. No U.S. state has ever declared bankruptcy.
"A state is not going to just shut down," said Elizabeth McNichol, a state budget specialist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C., think tank.
"As bad as things are, no state is going to have zero revenue coming in," McNichol said. "It's really just a matter of (false) choices."
So, rather than having a court restructure its finances as in a bankruptcy filing, a state would have to reorganize its spending and debt on its own. That's the current challenge for Gov. Pat Quinn and lawmakers.
Illinois has long balanced the stack of bills on the comptroller's desk very carefully. Certain payments must be made on certain days, so other bills sometimes get pushed back a few days - or longer - to make sure there is enough cash on hand, said a spokeswoman for Comptroller Dan Hynes.
But should state finances became especially dire, Illinois could keep going by not paying back money it has borrowed. Such a move is unlikely and the consequences of default would make the state's financial situation worse.
That's because it would greatly hinder the state's ability to borrow in the future. Plus, the people Illinois owes money to could go to court to force the state to pay.
"It's not something you want to do because when you want to borrow in the future you'll have to pay a lot more interest because you're a higher risk," explained Beverly Bunch, an associate professor of public administration at the University of Illinois at Springfield.
 
But if the state manages to muddle through, the future could get pretty bleak. California's current $41 billion budget crisis is a preview of what Illinois might have to do to stay solvent.
 
California has been borrowing to pay its everyday bills. But facing a $346 million shortfall just for February, California Controller John Chaing this week stopped writing checks for nearly everything other than education and debt payments. That means spending on state agencies, including public safety, payments for state purchases and tax refunds will be delayed until at least March.
 
The Illinois Constitution says state pensions cannot be "diminished or impaired." But money for schools, public safety, and payments to cities and counties are offered no such protection and could all be delayed.
 
The trickle-down effect of stopped payments in the Golden State is busting the budgets of cities and counties across California. Riverside County, located between Los Angeles and San Diego, is going to court for permission to stop providing state-mandated services if the county does not receive state funding.
 
Starting today, California's 238,000 state workers begin "Furlough Fridays" - unpaid days off on the first and third Friday of every month through June 2010. The furloughs will save the state $1.3 billion over the next 17 months, but will also end up costing the state revenue as those workers pay less tax on smaller incomes.

 

 
 
46 Of 50 States Could File Bankruptcy In 2009-2010
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Freedom Arizona
January 30, 2009
There is a high chance a majority of the States within the United States of America could file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. There is currently 46 states with high budget deficits, Arizona being one of them.
In fact, Jan Brewer, the newly appointed Governor of Arizona has a major crisis on her hands, one that Arizona and national media isn’t covering. The alarming news is the State of Arizona has 90 to 120 days before they completely run out of money. After that, all bills and tax refunds owed to the citizens will go unpaid.
 
Before Janet Napolitano left for her new Homeland secretary position, she had a stand-off with Arizona Treasurer Dean Martin. The AZ Treasurer forewarned Napolitano about Arizona’s financial crisis, but she refused to heed his words.
With neighboring California on the verge of bankruptcy this year, many States will follow in their steps.
Many States are already scurrying to cut unwanted costs, cut State-funded programs, raise taxes, not issue tax refunds to their citizens, and borrow money just to survive in 2009. Unfortunately, many banks — the same banks the Fed bailed out — are refusing to loan money to the States and their Treasury agencies.
The article, State Budget Troubles Worsen, at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities website is an excellent piece to read. It shows where each State currently stands in these challening economic times, and you see 46 of the 50 States are clearly in the financial red.
It’s very possible you’ll see the end of the United States as we know it. If the Fed doesn’t bailout the States when their cash dries up and the banks don’t loan them money, then our States will be left in financial ruin. This would be a tragic and unprecedented event never experienced in the United States.
No State has ever filed bankruptcy, but it could be coming to a State near you this year.
We are on the brink of something far worse than the Great Depression.
Research related links
Financial crisis: Countries at risk of bankruptcy from Pakistan to Baltics
Hungary on edge of bankruptcy
Kansas suspends income tax refunds, may miss payroll
Federal Bailout of States Violates U.S. Constitution
Individual bankruptcy filings up 27%
California Pension Funds Close To Bankruptcy
Seniors Increasingly Facing Bankruptcy
Eastern European economies face bankruptcy
California to Suspend Welfare Checks
States to Give Cops Authority to Stop Motorists Not Wearing Seat Belts
29 States Faced Total Budget Shortfall of at Least $48 Billion in 2009
The States Are Not Branches Of The Federal Government!
Military Manuals - Learn survival skills, self defense, marksmanship, build a GUN, etc..? Learn what the NWO does not want you to know... How to survive the onslaught!
 
*** exposing the hidden truth for further educational research only *** CAVEAT LECTOR *** In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. NOTE: Some links may require cut and paste into your Internet Browser. Please check http://tinyurl.com/33c9yr for more real news posts and support the truth! (sorry but don't have time to email all posts) free book download:  http://www.lulu.com/content/165077  *** Revealing the hidden Truth For Educational & Further Research Purposes only. ***  NOTICE: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security Agency (NSA) may have read emails without warning, warrant, or notice. They may do this without any judicial or legislative oversight. You have no recourse, nor protection.......... IF anyone other than the addressee of this e-mail is reading it, you are in violation of the 1st & 4th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Patriot Act 5 & H.R. 1955 Disclaimer Notice: This post & all my past & future posts represent parody & satire & are all intended for entertainment and amusement only. To be removed from the weekly list, please reply with the subject line "REMOVE"

Israeli 'wanton destruction' turns heads
Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:15:26 GMT

 
Donatella Rovera (L), the Amnesty International researcher on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories
Amnesty International has accused the Israeli army of engaging in "wanton destruction" of Palestinian homes during its Gaza offensive.

The head of the Amnesty's fact-finding mission to the West Bank and Gaza says the use of mines to destroy homes contradicts Tel Aviv claims that the Israeli army acted in accordance with international law during the three-week war on Gaza.

The Israeli army emphasizes that Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and its infrastructure were the target of Operation Cast Lead, and not the civilian population in Gaza, said Donatella Rovera, who argued the claim saying the methods used by Israeli forces raise concerns about war crimes.

Israeli troops had to leave their vehicles to plant the mines, indicating that they faced no danger and that there was no military or operational justification, she told the BBC news website.

The BBC report also cites Breaking the Silence -- an Israeli NGO that gathers and circulates the testimonies of Israeli soldiers on incidents of unnecessary violence and oppression -- saying that its findings from the Gaza war suggested many demolitions had been carried out when there was no immediate threat.

"From the testimonies that we've gathered, lots of demolitions -- buildings demolished either by bulldozers or explosives -- were done after the area was under Israeli control," said Yehuda Shaul, one of the group's members.

 
A Palestinian girl carries her sister in front of a destroyed house in northern Gaza Strip
On December 27, Israel started a huge military operation on the densely-populated coastal sliver, which saw the death of over 1,330 Palestinians and left thousands of buildings, civilian houses and mosques reduced to debris.

Rovera expressed Amnesty's deep concern over the "large scale destruction of homes and other civilian properties" during the conflict. "The destruction was, in our view, and according to our findings, wanton destruction - it could not be justified on military grounds," she said.

The Amnesty official said her team found fragments of anti-tank mines in and around destroyed properties. This together with remains of houses, collapsed in on themselves -- as if blown up from below, rather than from above as in an air strike -- suggested that Israeli troops had left their armored vehicles to plant them and set up the detonators, she said.

"Unless those operating on the ground felt not just 100 percent but 200 percent secure -- that the places were not booby trapped, that they wouldn't come under fire -- they could not have got out of the vehicles," she said, concluding that the use of the method cut short claims about the kind of danger that might have made it lawful to destroy some of those properties.

"Wanton destruction on a large scale would qualify as a war crime," she said.

MRS/MMN
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=87732&sectionid=351020202

EXCLUSIVE: INCEST MONSTER FRITZL TO TELL ALL IN TV INTERVIEW FROM JAIL
   Can you see the three x six-pointed star shapes? Need I say any more?
JOSEF FRITZL: THE FULL, HORRIFIC STORY...
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/87975

Does Britain still have a special relationship with the United States?
 
Yes 40%
No   60%
 
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/poll-35957-details/ques-36131-id/Standard+poll%3A+special+relationship/poll.do
 
What a difference a few months make. ..   After providing hourly support to the biggest gang of crooks ever to
occupy the White House with "don't worry, be happy" BS, Fox News is now peddling Doomsday scenarios full time.

Here's what it looks and sounds like:  http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/579.html
 
Brasscheck TV
2380 California St.
San Francisco, CA 94115

Immigration, a branch of Homeland Security, is now experimenting with  a new kind of prison:

One that incarcerates entire families  from infants on up. Privately owned of course.

Details:   http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/281.html

Brasscheck TV
2380 California St.
San Francisco, CA 94115

 

 
Must Jews always see themselves as victims?
Fierce debate has been raging in 'The Independent' about Israel's conduct in Gaza. Here, one leading Jewish thinker argues that until Jews shake off their persecution complex, there can never be peace in the Middle East
By Antony Lerman

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/must-jews-always-see-themselves-as-victims-1639277.html
 

 

Britain returns to thrifty domesticity
A revival of 1950s style domesticity has swept Britain due to the economic downturn. Consumers are applying a do-it-yourself attitude to all areas of daily life by making clothes, growing vegetables and dying their own hair.
http://www.independent.co.uk/money/invest-save/britain-returns-to-thrifty-domesticity-1638887.html
 
How to buy gold bars (How to invest in gold bars )
Now that the Bank of England has decided to start printing money, investors worried that inflation will result are thinking of turning to gold, a traditional store of value in troubled times.

"We did have people phoning up to inquire about buying gold after hearing the news about printing money," said a spokeswoman for Baird & Co , the bullion dealer. "Some said they planned to buy a bar or two as a result."
Buying gold bars – in small quantities at least – is no different from buying a packet of sweets, say. Anyone can walk into Baird's shop in the City, hand over some cash and take away their gold.
"The most popular small bar is probably the 1 ounce," said the spokeswoman. This currently costs £718.25. But if you don't want to spend that much, smaller bars are available: the company's smallest, the 2.5 gram, costs £64.25.
Gold is heavy, so the bars are small for their weight; a 1kg bar worth £22,182 measures 5 inches by 3.5 and is about a quarter of an inch thick. "They are not big but they are heavy," she said.
The biggest, meanwhile, weighs in at 12.5kg and costs £222,000. "People do come in occasionally and buy five of them in one go," said the spokeswoman, although customers buying such large amounts would have phoned first. That 50kg in gold would be worth £1.1m.
There are formalities to go through if you are placing a large order. "We need a passport and two utility bills if you are buying more than £5,000 worth of gold," said Baird.
Ninety per cent of its small retail business is done by post or internet, with gold being shipped by courier after funds have cleared. Alternatively, the company can store your gold, for a fee, for holdings worth £5,000 or more.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/gold/4949392/How-to-buy-gold-bars.html

Stop giving our cash to bankers - Sack them! Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Original article via Socialist Worker (UK):

Disgraced banker Fred Goodwin is going to keep his £16 million pension, despite some bluster from elements of the Labour government.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Even though it's on the other side of the pond, bankster frauds are getting away with millions of pounds. What's more, it's a Labour government who's turning a blind eye, all the while the British people are expected to pay for the bailout. Hmmm...sounds familiar, doesn't it?

The former Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) boss’s reward for leading the company to near collapse is just the tip of the iceberg of New Labour’s slavish devotion to the bankers.

Labour...pardon, New Labour is ostensibly the party of the working class in England. However, like a certain party in the US which is the rough equivalent, they threw their lot in with the banksters and the bosses in embracing neo-liberalism. Needless to say, their economy is crashing and may even be worse off then our own.

Lord Myners, Gordon Brown’s City minister, gave the go ahead for the pension of £693,000 a year. He didn’t realise it was an obscene amount of money.

The Pound Sterling is trading at $1.4031 today. Let's see...if the computer's math is right that's $972,348.30 per year. Hmmm. Not to bad a haul for a politico, eh?

Myners was chair of the Guardian Media Group and Land Securities Group, Europe’s largest property developer. He gave £12,700 to Brown’s leadership campaign in 2007. Brown appointed Myners as chair of the Low Pay Commission.

Myners was also a director of GLG, a hedge fund that speculated massively on the collapse of the Bradford & Bingley bank. The government then bailed out the bank.

 

Ah...that explains it. Even down to the hedge fund management. When will we all learn? Once we're out trillions of dollars, maybe.

No one knows how much public money will be given to the banks, because no one knows how much money they owe.

That's true for both sides of the Atlantic. We don't know how much we're going into hock in a chance to save the bankster frauds' backsides. And we're expected to accept it without question.

Read the rest of the article. It's actually pretty good, save for the bile that builds while your reading it. And, I guess, feel better about our situation in that the rest of the world is screwed, too. Well, I'm not sure about feeling better about that. The article does have a good suggestion at the end:

We shouldn’t be paying some banker’s pension. We shouldn’t be paying any of them at all. They should be paying back the money they have stolen from us. They should all be sacked and the banks should be run in the interests of the people.
 
http://rjones2818.blogspot.com/2009/03/stop-giving-our-cash-to-bankers-sack.html

 

The American Mindset
 & the Path of ‘Change’
 
Jim Kirwan
3-6-9
 
 
""You can trace Equality in letters of sliver on tablets of burnished gold, but without engineering a perpetual miracle, you cannot make it true..."Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can!" shrieketh the raging rhetoricians of the marketplace and editorial mill. "Yes we can! Yes we can!" bellows the herd, as it stupidly pours through the slip-rails to the pithing pen...Yes! O, yes! With a certainty we can," hisseth the plastic politician, the rattlesnake! The hungry basilisk!...America! Where the politicians rage and the people imagine vain things! And the dogs in the alleys - are baying at the moon!"" Ragnar Redbeard from Might is Right
 
Since the end of the Second World War Americans have been "played" like several hundred million cheap guitars. At first many were reluctant to accept the Siren’s call from the extremes of both the Left and the Right. But gradually the neutrality of higher education, along with the legitimacy of the new leaders of the corporate giants, and then lower education, were captured and turned against those they were charged with educating or enriching. It was here that this mindset began to take shape.
 
We’ve gone from becoming sheep to becoming nothing but two-legged appetites that have learned to feed on fear, on greed, and on the self-created lies that have kept everyone away from the truths we need; to understand it all, if we are ever to escape this semi-conscious prison of the mind. 
 
The American public has been at war with this particular mindset, that our master’s tailor-made for us, for a thousand years. It was “they” who planted the idea of the need for “CHANGE” in so many: Knowing as they did this, that what we get would not only NOT be change, but it would be that final lock that lets the victims know for certain, that they have definitely been captured.  It was these same owners that appointed the invisible Obama, the man with three names and two points of origin to rein as Dictator, over this final round-up of the two-legged herds of useless eaters, so that we might be sorted and assigned until we are no longer useful: To them.
 
Barack ran on a handful of promises, and already he’s broken nearly every one. What he did was promise action: But those actions proved to be nothing but extensions for the status quo to actually intensify what we objected to (in the case of not-closing Gitmo for at least a year—he gave himself more time to ratchet up the torture). This will not only NOT change anything: but in most cases, this course of action will eliminate the ability to actually ever change any of the things he said he would change “for us.” Look at his policies as compared to his promises; and look deeply into those he has appointed to “help” him exterminate us.  Obama represents the flim-flam artists in this dying country—nothing more—because he is “the con” and not “the answer” to anything!
 
Take Health Care as one example: Not even two months into his ‘rule’ Obama has already murdered single-payer health care, in direct contravention of his campaign promises. Instead of even looking at full medical care for all Americans, paid for by the government, at no additional cost to the taxpayers: Obamanation has invited the heads of the criminally-fraudulent medical insurance companies, along with all the other medical-health-parasites into his summit meetings—because he wants to keep health-care for all—imprisoned in the black hole of privatized corporate profits first, and separate from, any real access for people to be able to live healthy lives.
 
 “JUAN GONZALEZ: Initially, no supporters of single payer were invited to the summit. After protests were called, the White House invited Democratic Congressman John Conyers and the president of the Physicians for a National Health Program.
AMY GOODMAN: Single-payer advocates have also been largely silenced in the media. A new study being released today by FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, found the views of advocates of single payer have only been aired five times in the hundreds of major newspaper, broadcasts and cable stories about healthcare reform over the past week. No single-payer advocate has appeared on a major TV broadcast or cable network to talk about the policy during that period.”
“AMY GOODMAN: So, why isn’t single payer being considered? Why has it been rejected out of hand? Why do you think it’s the only answer?
LUKE MITCHELL:  I think there are a couple of reasons why they’re so explicitly rejecting it. One of them is that it’s a threat to a great deal of people who are making a lot of money right now, which is to say the insurance companies. A single-payer system would take a lot of money out of the insurance system, the private insurance system. And it’s also something that a lot of people in Washington understand as ideologically threatening, that is to say, they equate a single-payer system with what they call, quote, “socialized medicine,” unquote.”
So I think what Obama is trying to do is neutralize that threat and get, as he said, the imperfect rather than nothing. And maybe he’s right. There’s clearly a massive resistance to single payer on the Hill.”(1) 
What must happen is that every American must be entitled to the exact same care as every member of the government receives—which is absolutely free for life! “Health” is not a matter for private-business to regulate or administer, it is something that the tax-paying American public has already paid for, fifty-times over: Yet we only have the most diabolical medical services in the developed world. Yet as bad as this has been—Under Obamanation—it is about to get a whole lot worse, because the money that health-care needs is what is being used to continue to fund the illegal wars that he plans to expand on, instead of ending!
Let’s not forget about the still-imploding financial disaster. Close your eyes that are lying to you, and look carefully into the center of the vortex and you will see Obama’s hooded flunkies inside a tornado of Monopoly Money that is going everywhere except where it is needed most – into the pockets of those that will be charged for printing every single dollar, in this the greatest single monetary heist in human history, that continues to claim millions more victims each and every day. Have you seen the unemployment figures lately? And that’s only the ones that are recently unemployed – the actual number of the jobless is at least double whatever the owners of this nightmare may “say" it is today.
America is stuck in a mindset that refuses to question anything that is unfolding right in front of our eyes. We are so far past being brainwashed that we’re not even on the same planet as our ancestors were when this all first began. Our ‘minds’ are slush, our bodies are awash in chemicals and additives and lies, to the point where we are practically helpless; even if they stopped bombarding us right now, we’d still be nothing: because we sold everything that might have mattered to us—just to get into this petty game of greed and avarice.  This game has turned our lives into nothing more than somebody else’s footnotes, in their twisted stories that we can’t even read—because we’re too busy staying hooked on every facet of the corruptions and the lies that shall kill us all in the end.
There are ways to end this; but it may be too late. It is possible that when enough people share a common ideal, then that idea can be brought into this fight with very positive results.
 
The idea is called a thought-form: The loose definition of which is 'a very basic idea which has multiple points of origin, in an ever-shifting physical form, so that it can be received my millions of people simultaneously,' to each according to their own understanding of the idea. Some call this the 100th Monkey syndrome.
 
However it is also a fallacy to believe that this or any other thought-form will produce "change" or much of anything else by itself.  THOUGHTS that are valid require ACTION; otherwise the idea is just more 'background noise' that dies with the dawn of yet another day, in the hell-hole that we’ve made of this world. Part of this was begun in ‘Confirmation of Reality & Responsibility,’ and we need to begin to think about connecting our individual thoughts to direct action, if anything is ever going to change. (2)
kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net
1) Obama Hosts Summit on Healthcare http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/6/as_obama_hosts_summit_on_health 
2) Confirmation of Reality & Responsibility http://www.kirwanesque.com/politics/articles/2009/art31.htm
 

 

 
Having trouble viewing this email? http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Information Clearing House Newsletter
News You Won't Find On CNN
March 06, 2009
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"If they do it, it's terrorism, if we do it, it's fighting for freedom." - Anthony Quainton, U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua, 1984: Anthony Quainton - Source: Off the record response of the Ambassador to a group of concerned U.S. citizens when asked to explain the difference between U.S. government actions in Nicaragua and the violence it condemns as terrorism elsewhere in the world.
 
=
It is in the nature of imperialism that citizens of the imperial power are always among the last to know--or care--about circumstances in the colonies: Bertrand Russell
 
=
The aim of military training is not just to prepare men for battle, but to make them long for it: Louis Simpson
 
===
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. Some of these young men think that war is all glory but let me say war is all hell: William Tecumseh Sherman.
 
===
"The greatest spiritual practise is to transform love into service": Sai Baba
 
=
 
Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered Since The U.S. Invaded Iraq "1,311,696"
www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html
 
=
 
Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America'sWar On Iraq 4,255
icasualties.org/oif/
 
=
 
The War in Iraq Costs
$602,482,462,637
See the cost in your community
nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182
 
=
 
Top U.N. Official Accuses U.S. of Inhuman Atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan
 
By Fox News
"The aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan and their occupations constitute atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who believe in the rule of law in international relations," said U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22157.htm
 
===
 
"I Was Only Following Orders!"
 
Being serious about torture. Or not.
 
By William Blum
 
On the very day of Obama's inauguration, the United Nation's special torture rapporteur invoked the Convention in calling on the United States to pursue former president George W. Bush and defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld for torture and bad treatment of Guantanamo prisoners.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22160.htm
 
===
 
Iran in the Crosshairs
 
By Gareth Porter and Ray McGovern
 
Remember when Joe Biden told supporters of Barack Obama last October that Obama would be tested in his first six months in office? There is good reason to believe he was referring to the likelihood that Netanyahu would become prime minister after the February 2009 Israeli election, and that he would waste little time finding a pretext to attack Iran.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22154.htm
 
===
 
U.S.: Military Dominance in Mideast Proven a Costly Myth
 
Analysis by Gareth Porter
 
Apart from its nearly 200,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States had surrounded Iran with a network of airbases scattered across the region from the Persian Gulf sheikdoms through Iraq and Afghanistan to the Central Asian republics of Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan, along with aircraft on U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22155.htm
 
===
 
Hell Hath No Fury Like an Imperialist Scorned
 
By William Blum
 
Hugo Chávez's greatest sin is that he has shown disrespect for the American Empire. Or as they would say in America's inner cities - He's dissed the Man. Such behavior of course cannot go unpunished lest it give other national leaders the wrong idea.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22161.htm
 
===
 
AIG: Billions Dished Out in the Dark
 
By Robert Scheer
 
This is crazy! Forget the bleating of Rush Limbaugh; the problem is not with the quite reasonable and, if anything, underfunded stimulus package, which in any case will be debated long and hard in Congress. The problem is with what is not being debated: the far more expensive Wall Street bailout that is being pushed through--as in the case of the latest AIG rescue--in secret, hurried deal-making primarily by the unelected secretary of the treasury and the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22162.htm

===
 
U.S. Military Aid to Israel
 
By Kathleen and Bill Christison
 
In these days of economic crisis, budget overruns, earmarks, and multi-billion dollar bailouts, when Americans are being forced to tighten their own belts, one of the most automatic earmarks-a bailout by any measure-goes to a foreign government but is little understood by most Americans.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22163.htm
 
===
 
Trickle Down Misery
 
Analysis by Abid Aslam
 
Soaring food and fuel prices pushed 130 million to 155 million people in developing countries into poverty in 2008 and the World Bank reckons another 53 million people could join them this year. This would bring the total of those living at or below the international poverty line of two dollars a day to more than 1.5 billion people.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22156.htm
 
===
 
The Big Dither
 
By Paul Krugman
 
Mr. Obama's failure to match his words with deeds. The reality is that when it comes to dealing with the banks, the Obama administration is dithering. Policy is stuck in a holding pattern.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22158.htm
 
===
 
Smart Is The New Stupid
 
By David Michael Green
 
Impoverished, deceived, broken and isolated, America is finally growing up.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22159.htm
 
===
 
13 killed in bombing at livestock market:
 
A car bomb tore through a crowded livestock market south of Baghdad yesterday, killing at least 13 people in a mainly Shiite area that the U.S. military has described as one of the safest in Iraq.
http://snipurl.com/daaj2
 
===
 
Two killed in Tikrit by explosive car:
 
Two people were killed in a car bomb explosion while driving in Tikrit, one of the major cities in Salah El-Din province, northern Baghdad, police said Friday.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1980859&Language=en
 
===
 
Brain-injured GIs Could Number 360,000:
 
The estimate of the number injured - the vast majority of them suffering concussions - represents 20 percent of the roughly 1.8 million men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan,
http://www.military.com/news/article/braininjured-gis-could-number-360000.html?ESRC=eb.nl
 
===
 
Army captain charged with stealing $690,000:
 
28-year-old entrusted with money for Iraq relief allegedly mailed it home
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29543169/
 
===
 
2 alleged U.S. spies killed in Pakistan: -
 
Suspected militants killed two persons in Pakistan's tribal areas on charges of spying for the United States, said local television on Friday.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/06/content_10957325.htm
 
===
 
Mayor killed in Pakistan bomb blast: police:
 
The mayor of a town in remote northwest Pakistan was killed and his driver wounded Friday when a roadside bomb planted by suspected Taliban militants exploded near his car, police said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090306/wl_sthasia_afp/pakistanunrestnorthwestblast
 
===
 
One killed, 18 hurt in attack on Pakistan worshippers:
 
A grenade thrown into a prayer gathering in a Sunni Muslim mosque Thursday killed one worshipper and wounded 18 in an apparent sectarian attack in northwestern Pakistan, police said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090305/wl_sthasia_afp/pakistanunrestblast
 
===
 
U.S. to Reportedly Invite Iran to Afghanistan Conference:
 
The Obama administration reportedly plans to invite Iran to an international conference on Afghanistan later this month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Thursday.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/06/reportedly-invite-iran-afghanistan-conference/
 
===
 
Why 10,000 Ugandans are eagerly serving in Iraq:
 
Thousands of men and women from poverty-stricken Uganda risk their lives for $600 a month in Iraq.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0306/p04s02-woaf.html
 
===
 
Israel Kills At Least 3 Palestinians:
 
Medical workers said two people were killed at the scene of the attack on Thursday near the Israel-Gaza border and a third died later in hospital.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/03/20093594623783596.html
 
===
 
Gaza homes destruction 'wanton':
 
Human rights investigators say Israeli forces engaged in "wanton destruction" of Palestinian homes during the recent conflict in Gaza.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7926413.stm
 
===
 
Audio slideshow: Homeless in Gaza:
 
Raed al-Atamna's family's six houses were destroyed in the recent Gaza conflict, as well as the cars he uses to earn his living as a taxi driver.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7926780.stm
 
===
 
US offers $0 for Gaza reconstruction:
 
Although the Obama administration is pledging $900 million (Dh3.3 billion) of aid, none of the money will go to rebuilding Gaza, the Los Angeles Times reported.
http://snipurl.com/dab17
 
===
 
The pasta, paper and hearing aids that could threaten Israeli security:
 
Members of the highest-ranking American delegation to tour Gaza were shocked to discover that the Israeli blockade against the Hamas-ruled territory included such food staples as lentils, macaroni and tomato paste.
http://snipurl.com/dab4n
 
===
 
Pots of urine, feces in the refrigerator -
 
How IDF troops vandalized Gaza homes
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1068989.html
 
===
 
Proposal in Congress: No Gilad Shalit, no Gaza aid:
 
Rep. Shelley Berkley of Nevada drafted a petition to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which demanded that the financial aid be delayed for as long as the rocket fire continues and Shalit remains in captivity.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1068953.html
 
===
 
Mauritania 'shuts' Israeli embassy:
 
Diplomatic relations between Mauritania and Israel have been strained since Israel launched a military offensive in the Gaza Strip in December.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/03/20093612531527630.html
 
===
 
Iran throws conference to support Hamas:
 
Iran, Hamas and their supporters from 30 countries spent two days probing ways to provide assistance to the militant Palestinian group and promote "resistance against Israel" at an international gathering in Tehran, an Iranian lawmaker said Thursday.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008816950_apmliranhamasconference.html
 
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Clinton says U.S. is 'testing waters' in outreach to Iran, Syria:
 
U.S. to press Russia on Iran nuclear program, while inviting Tehran to attend conference on Afghanistan
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1069168.html
 
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America must accept Iran as an equal partner:
 
If the US can embark on a new Iran policy free of the pressures of the Arab and Israeli lobbies, there will be a chance to put all issues on the table and resolve them through logical negotiations.
http://snipurl.com/dabfb
 
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Britain re-establishing contact with Hezbollah:
 
Britain is re-establishing contact with the militant group Hezbollah following the formation of a unity government in Lebanon, the British government said Thursday.
http://snipurl.com/dabhs
 
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African states face warrant dilemma:
 
The AU, which claims the warrant will disrupt peace negotiations over Sudan's western region of Darfur, has said it will send a delegation to the UN Security Council to try to halt the indictment.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/03/2009369412283166.html
 
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Russia outmaneuvered U.S. over air base, analysts say:
 
The aid package that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's government crafted was grounded in a hard-knuckled, realpolitik approach to this impoverished, landlocked Central Asian country.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/63357.html
 
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Hidden cells reveal Bolivia's dark past:
 
Those hallways led to cells where around 2,000 political prisoners were held and tortured during the 1971-1978 military rule under General Hugo Banzer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7925694.stm
 
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Panetta: No one to be punished for CIA interrogations torture:
 
CIA Director Leon Panetta says agency employees who took part in harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects are not in danger of being punished.
http://snipurl.com/daboq
 
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Prosecutors defy judge's order in Al-Arian case:
 
Brinkema has raised concerns the government's plea deal with Al-Arian amounted to a "bait-and-switch" in which Al-Arian was misled into thinking the Florida plea bargain would end his legal problems and result in his swift deportation after serving his sentence.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090305/ap_on_re_us/attacks_professor
 
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Sen. Patrick Leahy, Issues Call For Investigations Into Bush Crimes:
 
Video
http://snipurl.com/dabs5
 
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UK: Passports will be needed to buy mobile phones:
 
Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4969312.ece
 
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Barack Obama bets the farm in $4 trillion poker game:
 
The President believes he can change US politics for a generation. If he's wrong he could bankrupt the whole country
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5854168.ece
 
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GM says it will go bust in days without new US bail-out:
 
General Motors today warned it would go bust within 30 days unless the US treasury gives it a further multi-billion dollar loan.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/05/gm-bankruptcy-warning
 
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US unemployment hits 25-year high:
 
US unemployment has risen to 8.1 per cent, the highest level since December 1983, according to a US government report.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/03/200936132544136220.html
 
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Record 31.8 million on food stamps:
 
Government shows increase of 700,000 food stamp recipients in a single month.
http://snipurl.com/dabxn
 
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One in 8 US homeowners late paying or in foreclosure: :
 
About one in eight U.S. homeowners with mortgages, a record share, ended 2008 behind on their loan payments or in the foreclosure process as job losses intensified a housing crisis spawned by lax lending practices, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Thursday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0531503420090305
 
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Mortgage woes break records again in 4Q:
 
Delinquencies, foreclosures rise to almost 12 percent of US home loans in 4th quarter
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/12-pct-are-behind-on-mortgage-apf-14553386.html
 
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Pictured: The credit crunch tent city which has returned to haunt America:
 
Today, tents are once again springing up in the city of Sacramento. But this time it is for people with no hope and no prospects.
http://snipurl.com/dac3b
 
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Ten Things You Can Do to Stay in Your Home:
 
Every thirteen seconds, an American loses his/her home. In 2008, more than 2.3 million families faced foreclosure. If the government doesn't intervene in a muscular way, an estimated 6 million owners will lose their homes in the next three years.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090323/ten_things?rel=hp_currently
 

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