![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
May 10th, 2008
And why do I get the feeling that Joe Boy and his fellow conspirators are more interested in policing and censoring the Internet than they are in protecting Americans from government created and funded "boogeymen?"
The Thought Crime Act, brought to you by that Senator from Israel, Joe LIEberman
What are people like Leiberman, Felter, Silber, Lieter, MEMRI and Rita Katz doing to protect Americans from the Internet?
Senator Joe Lieberman, the US senator representing Israel (I), released on 05.08, the report that will be used to justify the "Thought Crimes Act" law that is setting in his committee.
The report, Violent islamist extremism, the internet, and the homegrown terrorist threat.pdf urges new laws to be passed in the U.S. to combat internet terrorism, by citing sources such as Michael E. Leiter, Arvin Bhatt, Mitchell Silber, the discredited 9/11 Commission Report, our friends at MEMRI, Rita Katz of the SITE Institute, Joseph H. Felter, Marc Sageman, Mike Ronczkowski.
Nothing in common there, eh?
--MORE--
Friday, 05.09.2008, 02:52pm
According to Norman Finklestein, not only Israel and the Arab world but all of us may be on the edge of the pit. Speaking at the University of Ottawa on May 2 at a meeting sponsored by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, he said that Hizbullah could undertake an attack on Israel at a time that it decided on.
Hizbullah’s potential is more deadly this time than it was in the 2006 war with Israel, in which it demonstrated its ability to hold its own. This time, he said, it will have missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv and Dimona, the Israeli nuclear center. He did not need to spell out the implications of that scenario, but Hillary Clinton has threatened Iran with U.S. intervention if Israel were attacked. So suppose Hizbullah attacks?
The danger to the world of a new Israeli-Hizbullah dust-up gives, he said, further urgency to the need for a settlement of the Israel-Palestine standoff. The outlines of a settlement are already agreed upon by the world, as expressed at the U.N., with the only dissenters being the United States, Israel, and a handful of mini-states in the Pacific such as Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands. That solution involves a return to the 1967 boundaries, the right of return for the Palestinian refugees, the elimination of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and a two-state solution.
--MORE--
By Aaron David Miller
Aaron David Miller, who served at the State Department as an adviser to six secretaries of state, is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and author of the recently published “The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace” (Bantam).
Thu. May 08, 2008
MILLER: ‘American Jews shouldn’t kid themselves or willfully mask their own influence.’
Domestic politics, as Bill Clinton’s national security advisor, Anthony Lake, told me when I interviewed him for my book, is like sex to the Victorians: It’s on everybody’s mind, but nobody wants to talk about it. It’s about time that we start talking about it, particularly when it involves Israel, the pro-Israeli community in America and Arab-Israeli diplomacy. Furthering American national interests in the Middle East depends on it. But this conversation must be honest and clear.
Sadly, that’s not happening. Too many defenders of Israel pretend that Jewish political power has little to do with official American support for Israel (even while many know it does), and too many of Israel’s detractors believe that support for Israel in the United States results almost entirely from political lobbying. The fact is that America’s support for Israel mixes almost seamlessly, driven by shared values and the well-organized efforts of 5.3 million American Jews (and millions of their fellow non-Jewish citizens, particularly evangelical Christians) to create a strong and sustainable American-Israeli bond. After watching and participating in Middle East policy for almost 30 years, I suspect that value affinity — the critical importance of supporting likeminded nations abroad (which is in the broadest conception of America’s national interest) — is the core foundation on which that relationship rests or why it survives over time.
But American Jews shouldn’t kid themselves or willfully mask their own influence. Jews have a powerful voice in shaping America’s Middle East policy. They’re also not alone in making the case for Israel. Today, five advocates push for a close American-Israeli bond: first, a well organized and affluent Jewish community for which Israel has become a survival issue; second, an effective Congressional lobby (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) that skillfully guards and sustains a pro-Israeli tilt among a sizable number of passionately pro-Israeli legislators and a majority for whom Israeli issues are not a priority but who don’t need the headache of swimming upstream against a well-organized lobby; third, millions of evangelical Christians who support Israel not just for theological reasons but because of, particularly in the wake of September 11, shared values; fourth, the Arabs themselves (Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and even non-Arab Iran) whose extremism just makes Israel look better and more sympathetic, and fifth, a Jewish lobby of one — the personal impact that Israeli prime ministers can have on American presidents.
--MORE--
Lebanon is just one more of Mr Bush's failures in the Middle East
Hezbollah to End Armed Presence in Beirut
"The west has lost a lot after Nasrallah surprised their allies"
| 'Nasrallah Ruined 3Yrs of Arab, Foreign Intel Efforts' | ||
| ||
10/05/2008 The former head of Israel's intelligence Aaron Zeevi Farkash said that he had warned Washington against relying on its allies in Lebanon. "We advised the CIA not to rely on Walid Jumblatt or Saad Hariri because we tested them in 2006 and they proved helpless in the face of Hezbollah." |
- Story Highlights
- President Bush makes up his own definition of human rights, ex-president says
- U.S. has said "Geneva Conventions do not apply," former President Carter says
- GOP presidential candidates in rush to go to war with Iran, Carter says
- Sens. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama criticized for refusing to set Iraq pullout date
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States tortures prisoners in violation of international law, former President Carter said Wednesday.
"I don't think it. I know it," Carter told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
"Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights," Carter said. "We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused."
Carter also said President Bush creates his own definition of human rights.
Friday, May 09 2008, 5:42PM
Nir Rosen
Note from Steve Clemons. My colleague Nir Rosen who has been one of America's most significant chroniclers of the Islamic dimensions of America's war in the Middle East is now a regular contributer to The Washington Note. Please welcome him. And as always, the views he expresses are exclusively his own and not those necessarily of The Washington Note or mine. -- Steve Clemons
When Israel was bombing Lebanon in 2006, killing its civilians and destroying its infrastructure, Condoleeza Rice celebrated this as the "birth pangs of the new Middle East," a phrase that lives in infamy in Lebanon. The events of the last 24 hours in Lebanon were the death throes of the Bush plan for the new Middle East. In Iraq, instead of creating a democracy, the US introduced a civil war, sectarian militias, death squads and ethnic cleansing. It installed a series of ineffective dictators, Garner, Bremer, Allawi.
Then it surrendered to pressure from the sectarian Islamist Shiites it had empowered and agreed to elections, which of course ended in victory for sectarian Islamist Shiite militias who began slaughtering anybody they didn't like, especially Sunnis. Then the US decided it had had enough of its puppet prime minister Jaafari, who was not proving obedient enough, so they forced him out and replaced him with another sectarian Shiite Islamist, Maliki, who also proved a disappointment to them. But though they threatened to remove him, they have backed him as he loses popularity and even attacks more popular Shiite movements like the Sadrists. Meanwhile the US has introduced new Sunni militias composed of thugs and former murderers. Its icon was Abu Risha, the slain leader of the Awakening council in the Anbar.
In Palestine, furious that Hamas won democratic and fair elections, the US (along with the Saudis, Jordanians, Israelis, Egyptians and others), backed the unpopular Fatah and Mahmud Abbas, a traitor to his own people, collaborating with their occupiers. As Fatah tortured its opponents Gaza was suffocated and the Palestinian people punished for their decision to take part in elections. As Fatah thugs attempted a coup in Gaza, Hamas thwarted this threat with a counter coup and easily defeated the American backed Palestinian militias.
--MORE--
Global Thought Police Decree Passages in the New Testament Are ‘Classical Anti-Semitism’
Bible is ‘hate,’ says State Department Office of Global Anti-Semitism
By Rev. Ted Pike
The State Department “Office of Global Anti-Semitism” says the New Testament claim that the Jews had Christ crucified is “classical anti-Semitism”—a historic form of hate. It included as an “anti-Semitic incident” the case of a Polish priest who said Jews killed Christ.
Are you one of tens of millions of Christians who agree with Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ that Jewish leaders incited a Jewish mob and persuaded Pilate to have Christ crucified? The government now considers you “anti-Semitic.” You are part of a worldwide scourge the U.S., Canada, Australia, and 55 European nations are uniting to suppress.
In the many countries now ruled by hate laws, it is already a federal offense to repeat the claim of New Testament “hate literature” that the Jews had Christ crucified. The State Department’s equation of biblical Christianity with “hate” is an ominous indication. The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith—architect of hate laws worldwide (and primary ideological and statistics-gathering force behind the Office of Global Anti-Semitism)—is moving rapidly to create bias against Christians as haters, particularly of Jews and homosexuals.
--MORE--
--MORE--
Related
U.S. Looks Set to Offer Israel Powerful New Radar
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Is AIPAC Making A Monkey Out Of You?
With AIPAC's annual Treason Fest about to begin in Chicago in early June, shouldn't Americans be asking themselves...Is AIPAC making a monkey out of me? You Decide.
1. Why does America forsake 1.3 billion Muslims with most of the worlds oil reserves and their limitless manpower for 5 million Apartheid Israelis and their....and their...and their... old testament?
2.Why does 30 percent of America's foreign policy budget go to a country with 0 percent of the worlds population (rounded)?
3.Why is there a Holocaust museum in Washington paid for with American tax dollars. Why did the money for the World War II museum honoring those freeing holocaust survivors have to be funded privately without government assistance?
4.Why is there such a dearth of news coverage concerning a trial involving treason charges against two high ranking AIPAC (Apartheid Israel's) lobby officials?
5.Why did the Vichy Democratic congress exempt the treasonous AIPAC organization from newly enacted lobby reform legislation?
--MORE--
Palestinian youth in the Dheisheh refugee camp talk about what it means to them to be a refugee, their identities and hopes for the future.
linkJudge Napolitano on Unconstitutional Patriot Act and Loss of Freedoms
Thursday, May 8, 2008
UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus Peter Dale Scott has warned:
What's he talking about?"If members of the Homeland Security Committee cannot enforce their right to read secret plans of the Executive Branch, then the systems of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution would seem to be failing.
To put it another way, if the White House is successful in frustrating DeFazio, then Continuity of Government planning has arguably already superseded the Constitution as a higher authority."
Well, in the summer 2007, Congressman Peter DeFazio, on the Homeland Security Committee (and so with proper security access to be briefed on COG issues), inquired about continuity of government plans, and was refused access. Indeed, DeFazio told Congress that the entire Homeland Security Committee of the U.S. Congress has been denied access to the plans by the White House (video; or here is the transcript). The Homeland Security Committee has full clearance to view all information about COG plans. DeFazio concluded: "Maybe the people who think there’s a conspiracy out there are right”.
--MORE--
Land ownership changes process on verge of Israel's 60th anniversary
Israel and Its Consumption of Palestinian Land
Friday, May 9, 2008
May 6, 2008 The MPT in Palestine spent two days in the Salfit and Qalqiliya areas of Palestine. The Salfit region is a group of 18 villages between Ramallah and Nablus along the proposed path of the Israeli Apartheid wall as it penetrates further into Palestine. The area has been adversely affected by 21 illegal Israeli settlements constructed since 1967. Over 67,000 Israeli colonists have moved into this region taking land from Palestinians without any compensation to the over 64,000 Palestinians living there. The Qalquiliya region has a similar makeup and problems. Israel has occupied the Palestinian nation since 1967 and continues its aggressive strategy of displacing Palestinians from their land by creating illegal settlements to attract Jews from North America, South America, and Russia. More homes and farms will be taken from the Palestinians to further the expansion plans of the Israeli government.
Illegal Israeli Settlement at Sha’arei Tibva --MORE--
Published 09 May 2008
Ben White reports on how some of Israel's Palestinian citizens marked the beginning of the country's 60th anniversary celebrations
Mothers with prams mixed with old men leaning on sticks, and groups of teenagers sang boisterously alongside those walking in silence. All along the stony path, the sun's rays shone through the tree tops to illuminate the flags and placards. Not every afternoon woodland stroll is labelled a "subversive challenge" to the state, but the Palestinian citizens of Israel were well aware of the significance of their alternative 'Independence Day' event, as they gathered on the ruins of Safuriyya, one of the hundreds of villages destroyed by Israel in 1948.
On a day when across the country, hundreds of thousands attended official military shows, firework displays and communal barbeques, this was the biggest event held by Palestinians inside Israel. Participating in the procession were the very top level Arab leaders, including Knesset members, the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee and the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel.
The march began just outside Nazareth, close to the Israeli town of Tzipori, and a short walk from the site where the village of Safuriyya once lay. Some carried the names of destroyed villages, while others held up Palestinian flags and banners saying 'Yes to the right of return'. The rows of chairs laid out at the culminating rally were quickly filled, with people continuing to arrive as both Arabs and Jews gave speeches on the small stage.--MORE--
A
Gary Ostrow, a
The arrest of a
--MORE--
Bethlehem: hundreds mark the 60th Nakba by carrying the largest key in the world
Memorial for Riad Hamad
 |
| Riad Hamad, in a still from a video interview by www.freespeech.org |
More than three weeks after the body of a beloved middle school teacher was pulled from Ladybird Lake, a memorial will be held for the man whose life and death remain mysteries. The service is scheduled for 1 P.M. on Saturday, May 10, at the St. James Episcopal Church, 1941 Webberville Road in Austin.
When Riad Hamad’s body, bound with duct tape, was pulled from the water, the initial reaction was that a murder had occurred. But quickly–some say too quickly–the Austin Police Department said Hamad had likely bound himself to make his suicide look like a murder. Some questioned whether federal authorities had suggested to APD investigators that the ruling of “suicide” would make things easier for everyone. Court documents were released, which some local media insinuated showed that Hamad may have raised money for terrorists at best, or stole money from his beloved charities at worst.
Was Hamad the tireless fundraiser for Palestinian children? Or was he a thief? Or worse, a terrorist? Did he commit suicide?
--MORE--
In a new blow to the Bush administration’s troubled military commission system, a military judge has disqualified a Pentagon general who has been centrally involved in overseeing Guantánamo war crimes tribunals from any role in the first case headed for trial.
The judge said the general was too closely aligned with the prosecution, raising questions about whether he could carry out his role with the required neutrality and objectivity.
Military defense lawyers said that although the ruling was limited to one case, they expected the issue to be raised in other cases, potentially delaying prosecutions, including the death-penalty prosecution of six detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for the Sept. 11 attacks.
Playing the Iraq Oil Card
Dollar, not supply, causes record oil - Iran offical
Glenn Greenwald
Saturday May 10, 2008
On the question of whether the Pentagon maintained an illegal covert domestic propaganda program -- and on the broader question of whether the American media's political coverage is largely shaped and controlled by the U.S. Government -- I don't believe it's possible to obtain more conclusive evidence than this:
These are excepts from a memorandum sent on January 14, 2005 -- just before President Bush was to be inaugurated for his second term -- from Capt. Roxie T. Merritt, the Director of DoD Press Operations, to several top Pentagon officials, including Larry Di Rita, the top aide to Donald Rumsfeld (pp. 7815-7816 (.pdf)). It reports on Merritt's conclusions and proposals in the wake of a Pentagon-organized trip to Iraq for their military analysts:
BACKGROUND
One of the most interesting things coming from this trip to Iraq with the media analysts has been learning how their jobs have been undergoing a metamorphosis. There are several reasons behind the morph . . . with an all voluntary military, no one in the media has current military background. Additionally we have been doing a good job of keeping these guys informed so they have ready answers when the networks come calling.
CURRENT ISSUES
--MORE--
McCain Insists That He Voted For Bush
AZ Senate votes to opt-out of Real ID Act
Friday, 09 May 2008
By Anca Gurzu, centretownnewsonline.ca
Surveillance cameras may help police with criminal investigations but wouldn't prevent crimes by themselves, according to one surveillance expert.
Josh Greenberg, a mass communications professor at Carleton University, who has studied the impact of closed circuit television (CCTV) surveillance, says people support the idea because they believe it will help protect them from robberies, sexual assault or other violent crimes.
"The belief is that cameras would allow police to prevent these crimes from happening because they would get there in time," says Greenberg. "But there is no empirical evidence, from all the research I looked at, that shows that the kinds of crimes people are most afraid of are deterred by the presence of video cameras."
In Britain, which has more CCTV cameras per citizen than anywhere else in the world, Scotland Yard says a huge investment in surveillance cameras has not had an impact on the crime rate. For example, only three per cent of street thefts in London were solved using CCTV images, The Guardian newspaper reported a senior police official as saying.
--MORE--
Seven Palestinians killed in Gaza and the West Bank
Health ministry: Babies born with deformities in Gaza due to siege
[ 10/05/2008 - 03:01 PM ]
GAZA, (PIC)-- Newly born babies in the Gaza Strip are born with deformities due to their mothers' lack of proper nutrition as a result of the Israeli siege and scarcity of food and money, a health ministry official in the PA caretaker government said on Saturday.
Dr. Salah Al-Rantisi, the chairman of the women health department in the ministry, said that another factor was the shortage in medication as a result of the siege, which led to the spread of anemia and malnutrition among pregnant women.
He said that the result was that many of the newly born babies were born with deformities in the bones and other abnormalities in addition to having weights far below the average.
May 10, 2008
Tasers pose potentially fatal health risks that studies proving their safety don't take into account, a U.S. doctor told the B.C. taser inquiry yesterday.
San Francisco cardiologist and electrophysiologist Zian Tseng became interested in the use and effects of tasers after a taser-related death in San Francisco in January, 2005. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Dr. Tseng suggested tasers could induce cardiac arrhythmia.
"Shortly thereafter I was contacted by [Taser International, Inc.] directly to reconsider my statements to the media," he said. "They even offered to ... give me grant money for research."
Much of the scientific justification for the safety of tasers is based on formulae that don't examine their use in the "real world," Dr. Tseng said.
--MORE--
Dollar, not supply, causes record oil - Iran offical
Federal regulators close Arkansas bank ANB Financial
AIG reports massive Q1 net loss of US$7.8bil
IMF worries that commodities may not be a bubble
by Ty Andros, Editor, Tedbits Newsletter| May 9, 2008
Introduction
In today’s missive we are going to cover the creeping socialization of the G7 banking system and the second act of the horror show known as biofuels. Slowly but surely, the central banks of the G7 are taking over the short term funding needs of the money center and investment banking industries. The march is set to accelerate as the income streams dive as outlined in the Tedbits 2008 Outlook (Wolf Wave at www.TraderView.com ).
In the second piece we will be covering the unfolding debacle known as biofuels versus food, and the impacts about to unfold in the grain markets. They are set to be quite dramatic. There is no escape from the math. The food price and availability crisis is about to get a whole lot worse.
Confusion reigns supreme as the forces of darkness, embodied by the mainstream press and public servants, are set to blow the public to and fro in a gigantic game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey and the politics of FEAR (false evidence appearing real). The mobs are set and ready to lynch the bad guys. Unfortunately, the bad guys are their elected leaders.
--MORE--
Rapists are the scum of the earth. Anyone who aggressively invades another person's body, permanently scarring the victim's psyche, deserves the maximum ethical justice. Whether on the spot or in a court of law, that justice should be firm and expedient. Too often that is not the case. Some rapists never pay for their crimes, no matter how many times they've been caught in the act. Those serial offenders are known as governments.
When a rapist does the nefarious deed, he is basically telling the victim, "you're subhuman; you're expendable; I own you." This is also true when governments rape peoples: they dehumanize them through propaganda and violent actions displaying a total disregard for the victims' identity, sentiments, or livelihoods. The victim can not be thought of as having any control over the attacker. Emotional connections cause the attacker to think of the victim as having some human worth and ability to defend "itself."
Do you suppose U.S. warlords wanted to know the names or opinions of all the millions of Iraqi refugees the invasion and occupation have produced, or the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians they have killed, before invading and occupying Iraq? Of course not: the victims had to be made faceless and nameless lest the attackers might grow consciences (fat chance) over the immorality and illegality of the act they're conceiving.
--MORE--
Heavy bombardment on Sadr city despite ceasefire
Baghdad - Voices of Iraq
Saturday , 10 /05 /2008 Time 9:44:56
Baghdad, May 10, (VOI) – Three large parts of Sadr city were subjected to heavy bombardment that was continuously carried out by U.S. helicopters, starting from Saturday 3:30 p.m. until now, despite the Iraqi government and representatives of the Sadr movement having signed an agreement to stop confrontations in the city.
Reporter of Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI) said that airstrike operations covered the areas of Jameela, al-Gayiara, and al-Dakhil, but he could not contact medical sources to learn whether there were any casualties among Sadr city's residents.
Earlier on Saturday, the Sadr bloc's official spokesperson said that the bloc brokered a deal with the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to stop fighting in the troubled eastern Baghdad district of Sadr City, and end the crisis between the two sides.
--MORE--
Prominent Jewish movie producer threatens House Speaker
Pelosi: Democratic race should go on
- Story Highlights
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says either Democrat would make a great president
- Sen. Hillary Clinton facing renewed pressure to drop out of race
- Clinton insists the Florida and Michigan votes be counted
- Sen. Barack Obama's camp: "We're in a very strong position"
(CNN) -- The race for the Democratic presidential nomination is "alive and well" and must continue, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
"The people should all have the opportunity to speak as long as two candidates wish to compete in those primaries and caucuses," Pelosi said during a news conference Wednesday to promote Democratic energy proposals.
"In a few weeks, we will be on our way to nominating the next president of the United States."
Secret Service probes alleged noose incident
Police concerned about order to stop weapons screening at Obama rally
Obama overtakes Clinton in superdelegate endorsements
WASHINGTON — Secret Service supervisors shared crude sexual jokes and engaged in racially derogatory banter about blacks, and passed around an anecdote about a possible assassination of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, according to internal e-mail disclosed in a federal court filing on Friday by lawyers for black Secret Service agents.
The filing includes 10 e-mail messages that were among documents the agency recently turned over to lawyers for the black agents as part of an increasingly bitter discrimination lawsuit. The messages were written mainly from 2003 through 2005, and were sent to and from e-mail accounts of at least 20 Secret Service supervisors.
The messages offer a glimpse into the darker recesses of an agency known for protecting presidents and other dignitaries but whose culture is regarded as one of the most insular in federal law enforcement.