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CORRUPTION UPDATES 110

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1) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited. After the abstract there's analysis and commentary, links to related articles, and a link to the database with suggested search terms.

Israel eyes Gaza

Saleh Al-Naami monitors Israeli preparations for a strike against Hamas

Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2007/860/fr1.htm

Try as you might, by landline or mobile, you can't reach Amer Al-Jarah these days, or any of his senior aides. The general commander of the executive force for the Ismail Haniyeh government -- dissolved by the Palestinian president -- is now directing operations on the ground from secret shelters in anticipation of a military strike from Israel targeting Hamas militias. Hamas political leaders are also taking security precautions following indications that an Israeli operation in Gaza is imminent. On the evening of 26 August, Israeli television's Channel 10 revealed that the Israeli army Southern Command had completed intensive training exercises for a huge military campaign. According to Alon Ben David, the station's military commentator, the army's recent incursions into Gaza were preliminary exercises for a major offensive to be undertaken by occupation forces in coordination with Washington and Ramallah.

Ben Kasbit, senior commentator for Maarev, has confirmed that Fatah officials in Ramallah have asked Washington to persuade the Olmert government to press ahead with such an offensive. He added that when he was in the Palestinian president's Ramallah compound to interview Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah leaders there told him -- much to his surprise -- that they wanted Israel to crush Hamas in Gaza. Evidently Israel is acting on this hope. On 28 August, Israeli radio announced that the Palestinian president's office had notified Olmert that Abu Mazen understands why Israel might stage a military operation in Gaza given continued Qassam missile fire.

Also on 28 August, and following the latest meeting between Abu Mazen and Olmert, Israeli army radio revealed that PA security chiefs had presented the Israeli army command with a lengthy list of actions undertaken against Hamas operatives in the West Bank, in addition to closing down 103 organisations and charitable associations with links to Hamas. According to Ronny Daniel, Israeli TV 2 military commentator, the purpose of Israel's military operations in Gaza and of the security clampdown by the PA and the Israeli army against Hamas activists is to so debilitate Hamas it will be unable to hamper the success of the international "meeting" in Washington this autumn.

Israel, of course, has its own agenda. Israeli Interior Minister Avi Dichter told Israeli army radio on 24 August that, "Israel is committed to taking action against Hamas in Gaza, not for the sake of Abu Mazen but because Hamas's success at establishing an extremist Islamist entity on our southwestern border poses a strategic threat of the first order." According to Haaretz military commentator Amir Oren, there are many tactical aims that Israel hopes to achieve through a military operation, but the most salient strategic objective is to ensure that Hamas rule in Gaza is not stabilised in any way.

Military action against Hamas has become a matter of increasing urgency for the Israeli security establishment now that Hamas has consolidated its hold on Gaza. The Sunday edition of Maarev cites senior Israeli security sources as saying that they fear Hamas rule in Gaza will last longer than initially expected. They also believe that if free elections were to be held in the West Bank, Hamas candidates would probably beat Fatah's there as well. This alarming prognosis explains why members of the Olmert government have seized upon recent resistance operations (in which Hamas was not involved) to press for a debilitating blow against Hamas and why a 26 August cabinet session became a set piece in which doves joined the hawks in sounding a battle cry.

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THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

American Corporate Media fails to track Middle-East News Objectively

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., August 29, 2007

This explains why we have been deluged with stories about how Israeli's children are living in fear. Although not a word has been published about the Israeli military buildup and their movements towards war, we are experiencing a propaganda campaign to prepare Americans for Israel's upcoming invasion of Gaza.

Gaza is a city, rather a mega-city, not a country with an army. Israel is preparing to invade a densely packed civilian population in an urban area.

Israel will be able to do in Gaza what they were unable to do in Lebanon, as the infrastructure is already wrecked, and the people who dare to elect a government unfavorable to Israeli and American Interests are weak, and unable to defend themselves against American Armaments. They will be liquidated.

Then we will hold elections again.

Note: 9-16-07: BBC reports "limited" incursions by Israeli armor in North, Central and Southern Gaza.

Also See:

Book Review by Stepen Lendman: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe.

Book Review by Kim Petersen: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe.

 

Corruption Updates 37, 1st article on the page, "Poll: Israel, Iran, US most Negative Countries in World"

 

Corruption Updates 42, 4th article on the page, Bolton Admits US ALLOWED ISRAEL TO DESTROY LEBANON

 

Corruption Updates 64, 3rd article on the page,"British Academics’ Union Endorses Israel Boycott"

Corruption Updates 64, 4th article on the page, "Largest Labor Union in Britain May Consider a Boycott of Israel"

 

Corruption Updates 83, 10th article on the page, "Top Official of Hamas Is Rebuffed Over Talks"


Corruption Updates 90, 10th article on the page, "Israeli Settlements Found to Grow Past Boundaries"

Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007; Israel eyes Gaza

Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007; 'No elections if Hamas will win'

 

NY Times, September 12, 2007; U.S. Confirms Israeli Strikes Hit Syrian Target Last Week

 

NYT, July 23, 2007; In Arabic Textbook, Israel Calls ’48 War Catastrophe for Arabs: Arabs in Israel Live under Jim Crow Apartheid

 

NYT, July 31, 2007; U.S. Arms Plan for Mid east Aims to Counter Iranian Power: Bush fuels middle eastern Arms Race

 

BBC NEWS: September 14, 2007; Small Israeli force enters Gaza

Al Ahram, 13 - 19 September 2007; Marching to war with cold feet

 

 

Search the Corruption Database under

Israel (17 Abstracts)

Middle East (13 Abstracts)

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2) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

'No elections if Hamas will win'

Saleh Al-Naami explains why Fatah, Hamas and Israel all reject elections

Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2007/860/re5.htm

In a radical departure from the position he has held since Hamas took over Gaza, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas now maintains that legislative and presidential elections should not be held until the West Bank and Gaza are reunited under a single leadership. His prime minister, Salam Fayyad, worded this more explicitly. Holding these elections should be linked to "the end to the manifestations of the military coup" and the resumption of Abu Mazen's control over Gaza.

from statements issuing from Fatah leaders in connection with their appraisal of their movement's own performance it appears that Abu Mazen's shift in position stems primarily from the fear that Fatah would not be able to win the elections. Indeed, recent opinion polls gave them the warning signal. A poll appearing in Al-Quds, a Fatah mouthpiece funded by the Palestinian office of the presidency, indicated that Ismail Haniyeh would come out miles ahead of any other presidential candidate. According to the poll, if elections were held now, 51.38 per cent of the electorate would elect him, whereas only 13.37 per cent would vote for Abu Mazen, 12.62 per cent for Fatah leader Marawan Barghouti and a mere 4.99 per cent for Salam Fayyad, head of the current emergency government.

Apart from Palestinian legislative and presidential elections, Abu Mazen has voiced the possibility of elections within the PLO. Few, however, take this suggestion seriously. Even when the PLO was at the peak of its power, it never used the popular electoral system to select the leaderships of its various bodies. Also, practically speaking, the idea is virtually unachievable, since the PLO, theoretically at least, represents all Palestinians, whether in Palestine or in the diaspora.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Democracy of Fools: The American Vision for the Middle-East

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., August 19, 2007

We have watched the lie of American democracy stripped naked before the Arab people in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and now in Palestine.

The only democracy acceptable to America in the Middle-East is one that bends its will to our command. Any other outcome is unacceptable, and will be crushed by American political, economic, or if need be, military power.

We arm and fund Middle-Eastern dictatorships that pay off our support by acknowledging the "validity" of Israel, and serving us up the regions energy resources. The Saudis, Egyptians, and Jordanians do this by suppressing the political will and freedom of their own peoples with police state powers backed and equipped with US know how and technology.

In short, the political relationship of the US and the Middle-East is not, nor has ever been, based on spreading democracy. Our relationship with the Middle-East is based on suppressing the will and rights of local citizens, imposing dictators, and extracting hydrocarbons. Arabs have no power to select or influence their American Backed dictators outside of violent revolution..

Our government was a democracy until our parties, elections, candidates and political office was hijacked by a political parasite. Our corporate aristocracy has seized control of our government, swept aside our Constitution, and has attacked all freedom-loving peoples of the world.

The United States is spreading the very real doctrine of global wealth and power extracted through violence, while hiding behind the pretence of our broken democracy..

Our sole purpose in the Middle-East is to maintain unfettered direct control their oil, and therefore control global energy markets. We are not there to spread democracy.

Egyptian Dictator Condemns Democratically elected Hamas

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., June 24, 2007, originally written for Corruption Updates 83 #10

Irony of Ironies: The freely elected Hamas government has been condemned by the American Backed Dictator, Mubarak, of Egypt.

Fatah refused to recognize Hamas' victory, and was encouraged, armed, and supported by Israel and the US to defy Hamas' victory. Fatah kept what amounted to an illegal militia in opposition to the elected government. Just like the militias of Hizbolla, Islamic Jihad, and the Madi army that we have designated as "terrorist" groups. This was only one of many of our acts of bad faith.

The real loss we sustained by charting a course that subverted the democratically elected government of Palestine, besides assuring that Fatah would self-destruct, is the loss of a golden opportunity to have a real negotiation with a legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

Arafat was neither. Arafat believed in independence when he faced his people, and he believed in dependence when he faced the west. This suited neither side, and deteriorated into a regime of unmitigated corruption.

Abbas, on the other hand, is a Western Bitch, and is an unbalanced remnant of Arafat's Western face. But unlike Arafat, Abbas is incapable of changing faces when he turns to his own people. Abbas completely sold out when he assisted and served Israel and America's quest to crush Hamas. Abbas has lost all legitimacy in the eyes of Palestine.

Abbas was, and will be, easily defeated by Hamas in any fair election.

I laughed when The Jews danced in the streets at Arafat's demise, knowing he was the best friend they had with the Palestinians. If Arafat lived forever, he would have continued to balance his two faces, one against the other.

Abbas can suck western cock, but he cannot satisfy his own people. This lack of duplicity, his inability to balance the contradictory realities as Arafat did, has doomed Abbas, and made Hamas a shining example of a successful Islamic Independence movement across the whole Middle-East. The dancing Jews are wishing they had Arafat back.

The Jews, with our help, and fully backed by our stable of middle eastern dictators, were able to bulldoze Abbas, and the post-Arafat Fatah, into subservience to their claims of Israeli legitimacy. This means nothing. Israel can only be legitimized through negotiations with Hamas. Israel, despite 50 years of efforts, cannot buy legitimacy.

The source of failure in Palestine, and the rest of the world, is our failure to realize, either ethically or pragmatically, that legitimacy cannot be bought with bribes, nor violence.

Accepting Israeli claims to legitimacy without settling every major Palestinian claim and grievance was political suicide for Fatah, and increased domestic pressure on every American backed dictator in the middle east.

Prior to sponsoring Fatah's uprising against Hamas, we had the singular opportunity to open negotiations with the first legitimate, non-corrupted representative of the Palestinians, Hamas, for the first time in decades, and we blew it.

Blowing this opportunity to open real negotiations with the Palestinians will cost us dearly in the long run. In the short term, our attack on Hamas will fuel increased domestic resistance to our Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian dictatorships.

This will force our dictatorships to either turn against us to maintain their positions in the face of mounting domestic discontent, or declare war on their own people, and impose the will of the West through yet more violence.

Musharraf has reached this point in Pakistan. Egypt is not far behind.

Our response to Hama's victory was to undermine their democratic legitimacy by funding and arming attacks against them. Today, the troika of Israel, the US, and Fatah are trying to bludgeon and starve Hamas into submission. This will fail. The only legitimacy being undermined is our own, and that of our allies across the middle east.

Now we are faced with the ironic spectacle and hypocrisy of our Egyptian dictator Mubarak criticizing Hamas' legitimacy.

The situation is more desperate than we know, when Mubarak is forced to use the word "legitimacy" to criticize Hamas. How dare he use that word in any context other than a bad joke.

Mubarak speaks wisely and well against an elected government seizing legitimacy in Palestine, for he is an un elected tyrant, and represents American Power in the middle east.

If there was a real election in Egypt tomorrow, Mubarak would be hanging from a lamp post the next day, or living in a penthouse in Manhattan.

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Also See:

See the Links following the previous article

Search the Corruption Database under

Israel (17 Abstracts)

Middle East (13 Abstracts)

 

 

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3) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

Stand off escalates

The confrontation between the government and the Muslim Brotherhood has reached new levels, writes Gamal Essam El-Din

 

Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2007/860/eg5.htm

The Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc will use the next session of the People's Assembly to launch a scathing attack on the record of the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif. Saad El-Katatni, the bloc's parliamentary spokesman, said the Brotherhood's 88 deputies would join forces with 22 independent MPs to form a coalition of 100 deputies against the government. Their campaign, planned for November, will use all of parliament's supervisory tools in an attempt to embarrass cabinet ministers over a range of sensitive issues including torture in police stations and prison cells, the privatisation of Banque du Caire and the phasing out of energy subsidies. The Brotherhood will also seek to use the forthcoming parliamentary session to express their solidarity with the Islamist movement Hamas in Palestine.

The Brotherhood's announcement of its plans follows last week's government crackdown against the group which has upped the ante in the year-long standoff between security forces and the Brotherhood.

The crackdown began with the arrest of 16 Brotherhood leaders, including Essam El-Erian, Mahmoud Hussein, Ahmed Omar and businessman Nabil Moqbil, whose son is married to film star Adel Imam's daughter. El-Erian has been arrested five times in recent years, and had been released just three months ago. Police forces accused El-Erian and other Brotherhood leaders of belonging to an outlawed organisation and plotting to overthrow the regime. A few hours before the arrests the police had also detained mid-ranking Brotherhood leaders in Alexandria and Sharqiya governorates. In the meantime, former Brotherhood MP Gamal Heshmat was barred from travelling to Sudan.

The biggest blow, however, came on 22 August when Sabri Amer and Ragab Abu Zeid, two Brotherhood MPs from the Delta governorate of Menoufiya, were arrested. Amer and Abu Zeid were stripped of parliamentary immunity last May so that they could be interrogated on charges of attempting to revive the activities of an outlawed group. Meanwhile, President Hosni Mubarak warned that "some religious movements aim to turn the clock back."

The daily Al-Ahram reported on 25 August that the Brotherhood had reached a deal with four independent daily papers to publish "their allegations and lies against the government and the regime".

The Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc vowed that a delegation would soon head to Geneva to file a complaint with the Inter-Parliamentary Union. "We will also appeal to the African and Euro-Mediterranean parliaments to take a stand against the violation of the rights of Egyptian MPs," said El-Katatni.

"The Brotherhood is in favour of political stability in Egypt and does not have plans to incite the people on the street against the regime... the Egyptian street is boiling and still we prefer using parliament as a legal window for expressing our ideas," said El-Katatni.

Independent observers believe the recent escalation of the clampdown against the Brothers was sparked when it unveiled plans to establish a party programme. The programme, published three weeks ago by one of the four independent dailies, calls for a democratic state to be set up within an Islamic framework. Amr Elshobaki, of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS), argues that the crackdown is a pre-emptive strike aimed at preventing the Brotherhood from further disseminating its programme.

El-Katatni also sees a connection between the renewed attack against the Brotherhood and the recommendation two weeks ago by the UK House of Commons that the British government open a dialogue with Islamist movements including Hamas in Palestine, Hizbullah in Lebanon and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

 

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THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

AMERICAN BACKED DICTATOR USING VIOLENCE, FRAUD, AND POWER OF STATE TO HOLD POWER

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., January 16, 2007
Originally written for CU 30_7

Our support for democracy in the middle east is belied by the actions of our allies in the region. Hosni Mubarak's Dictatorship, which is living on borrowed time, is a perfect example.

The last Egyptian election proves the point well. In heavily rigged elections, backed by direct state violence against the opposition, the opposition party, the dreaded Muslim Brotherhood, won 20% of the seats in Parliament.

In real terms, Hosni lost, and only holds power by controlling the power of the State under a military dictatorship, a dictatorship he employed to assure victory in the last election. Today, he is consolidating his power further, to assure the ascension of his son to the military dictatorship of Egypt.

Hosni has began a multi-front attack on democracy in Egypt. He is arresting already outlawed political opponents, including students, teachers, and businessmen.

Hosni is personally altering the Constitution to further impede democratic input and “legally” consolidate the political and military power in his hands. This is a bit of a farce, as Mubarak already holds these powers.

Hosni, our good ally, is a tyrant.

The Corruption Updates have highlighted the historical, and increasing contemporary contradiction between our stated intentions, “spreading democracy in the middle east,” and the brutal American Sponsored violence our middle eastern dictators are using to maintain their authority.

The tyrants of the Middle-East maintain their authority with our arms, funds, and political support, not through local democratic institutions.

The governments within our alliance, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt, would fold, or radically change, within seconds of the withdraw of American support. With our support, they may be under even more pressure to radicalize, or fold up their tents and move to America.

Our middle eastern alliance, despite being under the umbrella of American power, have lost the confidence of their people. No American allies in the Middle-East rule with political or moral legitimacy. Only violence, or the threat of violence, is holding our Arab Empire together.

Our solution has been to increase our already legendary tolerance for oppression and dictators, add Perez Musharrif to our stable of dictators, and increase our military, political, and economic support for the rest. We are allowing, if not encouraging, our dictators to use more violence to suppress their people.

So, let's get this straight. To spread “democracy” in the middle east, we must arm, fund, and politically support military dictatorships and authoritarian monarchies. We must invade broken, but rich, countries, and reject the sovereignty of countries when the voters make decisions we don't like.

Oh, and we Americans can't forget that “we” claim the right to kidnap, hold, torture, and “render,” without judicial constraint or overview, anyone the President designates as an “enemy combatant,” or a “detainee,” or some other made-up designation.

These failed crimes have put us on the verge of spreading the war to Iran, which will most likely spread war across the whole middle east.

The only surprise in all this is that our legitimacy has not been shattered here, at home, as it has been in the middle east, and the rest of the civilized world.

Don't be surprised if Egypt has a Revolution when Israel or America begins bombing Iran.

Also See:

Corruption Updates 18, 7th article on page, FOR MODERATE DEMOCRACY: EGYPTIANS BELIEVE DEMOCRACY IN EGYPT IS NOT A REAL CONCERN (of the United States)

 

Corruption Update 21, 3rd article on he page, Egypt Sends Sadat's Nephew to Prison for Defaming Military page, states that:

The United States had at one time talked about Egypt as leading the way toward democratic reform in the Middle East. But with the chaos in the region, and the political uncertainty in Egypt, officials in Egypt said the United States has dropped all pressure to make democratic reforms.” Now compare that with our latest rational for the Iraq war: “We Will Spread Democracy across the Middle East.”

 

Corruption Update 27, 5th article down, Egypt Cracks Down on Brotherhood

Corruption Update 27, 5th article down, Egypt adopts Bush style arrests based on no more than the will of the President

Corruption Update 27, 6th article on page,2007, Redrawing the Map,” This article describes Mubarak's suppression of democracy through arbitrary Constitutional amendments.

 

Corruption Update 30, 7th article on page, Egypt detains Brotherhood backers

 

Corruption Updates 31, 10th article on page, Pakistan US DICTATORSHIPS CONTINUES TO FUEL “TERRORISM”

 

Corruption Updates 32, 1st article on page,RICE THANKS EGYPTIAN DICTATOR FOR REGIONAL SUPPORT

Corruption Updates 32, 8th article on page, BROTHERHOOD MODERATE IN FACE OF DICTATORIAL REPRESSION

Corruption Update 40, 6th article on page, "Before the vote" (MUBARAK ABOUT TO IMPOSE BUSH RULES ON EGYPT The Constitutional changes Mubarak is about to impose on Egypt are the same powers Bush has claimed here

 

Corruption Updates 52, 5th article on page, Muslim Brothers in military trial

 

Corruption Updates 64, 5th article on page, Egypt, Commentary: Time to cut Israel off

 

Corruption Updates 70, 1st article on page, Ballot Boxes? Yes. Actual Democracy? Tough Question

Corruption Updates 74, 10th article on page, Egypt's dissidents held down by law

Corruption Updates 77, 1st article on page, Egypt:Arrests Point Toward a Crackdown

Corruption Updates 78, 9th article on page, Egypt: Twisted democracy

 

Corruption Updates 78, 10th article on page, Egypt: After Shura Council Elections

 

Corruption Updates 83, 10th article on page, Hamas Is Rebuffed Over Talks, Egyptian Dictator Condemns Democratically elected

Hamas Corruption Updates 97, 1st article on page, U.S. Arms Plan for Mideast Aims to Counter Iranian Power: Bush fuels middle east arms race

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4) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

The colonial mistake

Mixing religion and politics was a colonial scheme that is now haunting the West, writes Ayman El-Amir*

Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/860/op11.htm

Since the attacks of 11 September, terrorism has come to be identified with Islam. Whenever there is a plane crash, a train accident, a gas pipeline explosion or a university campus shooting, investigators first ask if it is an act of terrorism and secondly whether it is the work of Muslim fundamentalists.

The definition is all- inclusive and it makes no distinction between attacks on school children in Moscow, hotels in Amman, a suicidal attack on a coalition force patrol in Afghanistan, a roadside bomb blast against US occupation forces in Baghdad, or a shootout with Israeli troops in occupied Palestine. It even goes to the extreme of ostracising a majority government in occupied Palestine that has been elected according to the best tradition of Western liberal democracy.

Differences have been completely blurred since the former Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon tutored US President George W Bush that Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation was an integral part of the global attack on democracy and deserved to be included in Bush's global war on terrorism. Islamic extremists were painted as being behind it all.

The US and Israel adamantly fought against a definition of terrorism that excluded national resistance against foreign military occupation because it was contrary to Israeli designs for Palestinian land. The Bush administration distorted the standards of international law that were developed to legitimise armed resistance against Nazi Germany's military invasion and occupation of European territories.

When, for ulterior colonialist motives, all national resistance is dubbed terrorism then all acts of terrorism assume the mantle of national resistance. International standards were converted to convenient national and even individual standards and both terrorism and the national liberation struggle were judged in the eye of the beholder.

Thus the indiscriminate global war on terrorism, devoid of any collective international standards, is doomed and can only spawn a global war of terrorism. That is the prophecy of Russian President Vladimir Putin that he called "the curse of the 21st century."

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THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

American"Democracy" Requires People Vote for Bush's Side, or our Dictators will Brand you as a "Terrorist" and Kill you.

America only respects elections that have a preordained Outcome: our dictator wins.

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., June, 2007

The governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt are American supported dictatorships who have no democratic or Islamic legitimacy. Their Kingdoms are propped up by American political, military and economic support.

The opponents of these regimes have been labled "terrorists," as have the opponents of Israel Occupation.

50 years of denying the democratic rights of colonized Arabs, especially the Palestinians, has caused Arabs to look towards religion, rather than secular Western "democracy," for political justice.

Our denial of democratic justice to the Middle-East has radicalized resistance by forcing insurgents to depart "democracy," and find justification for their resistance to Western Imperialism in religion. Our "democracy" has delivered nothing but dictators, invasions, occupations, and injustice by any standard.

Thus our military and political victories, as complete as they seem to us, have laid the groundwork for our ultimate failure. Our victory has repudiated our legitimacy, and empowered radical Islam to provide justice and legitimacy to replace our secular democratic injustices.

The ethical and moral void created when the West and its dictators denied political legitimacy, democracy, and self-determination to Arabs is now filled with radical Islam.

50 years of military domination and occupation has not forced the Palestinians to accept defeat. Instead, they brazenly deny Israeli victory, and willingly give up their lives in asymmetrical warfare against the overwhelming superiority of Israeli and American weapons.

An American Patriot once said he was sorry he had only one life to give, in pursuit of his country's freedom.

The Palestinians are, at their most destructive, no threat to Israel.  The real threat the Palestinians pose to to the Israeli-American domination of the Middle-East is their refusal, at the cost of lives, liberties, and property, to accept Israel's "victory," over them, let alone accept the terms of victory the Israelis are dictating.

This bare rejection of Israeli legitimacy is a shining example of the triumph of the spirit of freedom and justice even when crushed under the treads of an American supplied Israeli tank.

Our response to this temerity is to declare the defeated, occupied residents of Palestine who refuse to accept Israeli victory, occupation, and domination "Terrorists."

This designation, according to Bush, puts the Palestinians beyond the pale of humanity, and the protections of international law. They may be kidnapped, tortured, and killed with extra-legal impunity.

The Ironic counterpoint to our "war on terror," is that to maintain the pretense of Israeli legitimacy in the Middle-East we fund and arm the Saudi, Jordanian and Egyptian Dictatorships. These governments recognize no civil rights. They arbitrarily detain, torture, and kill their opponents.

Our state sponsored terror has stimulated individual "terror" which has triggered a flood tide of state terror. Now we have a self-sustaining cycle of terror that is going to alter the political geography of the Middle-East.

Our Middle-Eastern Dictatorships repay our support by recognizing the legitimacy of Israel. They can only recognize Israel by holding their people in check at gunpoint.

Calling Islamic resistance to foreign dictators and foreign occupation "terrorism" is a thin effort win the war of words, and define the situation away. But as I pointed out above, Arabs are retreating from Western political and diplomatic forms, which have completely failed them, and are now basing the legitimacy of their insurgencies on Islam.

Winning the war of words is irrelevant when you have lost the war for the hearts and minds of the Middle-East.

The change in the terms of legitimacy in the Middle-East, from secular to Islamic, was spawned by our long term abuses of Palestine and our long term support of despotic regimes.

Iraq has merely released long pent up forces, instantly, and has accelerated the de colonization that was already changing the political landscape of the Middle-East.

Bush's definition of terrorism, combined with his attacks on Islamic nations, when coupled with our long term support of Arabic dictatorships, has created the conditions for a perfect storm of Islamic legitimacy to blow down our corrupted Middle-Eastern Empire.

The reversion to Islamic legitimacy has made American support for our dictatorships there as much a threat their continuation in power, as our support is necessary for these dictators to continue in power.

These governments will instantly crumble in open elections, or if our military and economic support was withdrawn. They are presently under serious domestic pressure for accepting our support.

American supported dictatorships in the Middle-East have only one viable solution to this contradiction: radicalizing their positions to reflect their peoples' hatred of America. Only by putting themselves at the head of rising popular sentiment against American interference can our dictators hope to retain power.

Our dictators must do this to maintain what little moral authority they still have over their people, to postpone the day when they either pay for their disloyalty with their heads, go radically "native," or flee to the protection of the United States.

Bush has accelerated the process of Middle-Eastern de colonization by highlighting and inflaming Arabic rage against their American supported dictators by de legitimizing the Palestinians as "terrorists," and attempting to steal Iraq.

Our grasping for empire has hastened the inevitable fall, or radicalization of the Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian dictatorships. This will end the Arab peoples' forced recognition of Israel, and leave Israel in a considerably degraded negotiating position.

Israel's legitimacy cannot be honestly recognized in the Middle-East until the Arab peoples have rid themselves of American supported dictatorships, and form legitimate governments that represent their beliefs, positions, and interests.

Only then will there be legitimate negotiating partners that represents the Arab's true perspective on Israel.

This has already happened in Iran and Syria. And it should come as no surprise that they hate and mistrust both Israel and the US. Until we stop imposing dictators and policies on the Middle-East that puts our interests above local self-determination and self-rule, we will continue to be confronted by people who will go to great lengths to give up their lives to kill us.

We can strengthen and expand this hatred, by crushing the Arabs as they revolt against American dictatorships. This will fail, and when the Arabs emerge out from under American-sponsored dictatorships, there will be hell to pay for both Israel and the US.

Or we can diminish the hatred. We have a choice with the parts of the Middle East we still control, Let's tell our Arab dictators that our reign of terror is over, and so is theirs. We can demand free and fair elections under threat of taking away the military and political protections that we shield our dictators under.

It is obvious that rather than justice, we have chosen to strengthen tyranny and increase violence. This will fail, and it will fail in a bloodbath.

When failure occurs, the survivors, the rich Saudi Princes, and the minions of the Egyptian dictator, will move here, their true “homeland,” with billions of dollars.

We can still avoid the bloody birth of an independent Middle-Eastern Enemy. Before us lays a critical choice. We can continue down the present path of supporting dictatorships and occupations which are accelerating the breakdown of our moral authority and legitimacy. Our legitimacy, and the legitimacy of our various dictatorships, no longer extends beyond the range of our weapons.

Our other option is to radically shift direction by empowering Hamas as a legitimately elected representative of the Palestinians, and begin peace negotiations that respect their position. Our only requirement should be that they come to the negotiation table.

This would have to be accompanied by an refusal to fund or arm Israel unless they agreed to put the legitimacy of Israel up for negotiation with Hamas. We would also have to de fund, disarm, and demand that our Middle-Eastern Dictatorships immediately democratize. Our first demand must be that the region's armies have no role in domestic politics or security.

The price Israeli would pay for legitimacy in negotiations with Hamas would be substantial. But giving up East Jerusalem, Golan, the right of return, and linking the West Bank with Gaza would not just buy peace for Israel, but would de fang Islamic fundamentalism around the world.

If Israel fairly negotiates for its legitimacy with the Palestinians, rather than imposing itself through violence, the United States will no longer need to fund and support regional dictators to protect Israel. A deal between Hamas and Israel would defuse the vast majority of Islamic hatred for the Jews.

But even more importantly, an honestly negotiated settlement between Israel and Palestine would re legitimize the validity of western secular democracy and be more effective at deflating the expansion of radical Islam than any dictator or war on "terror" we ever could throw at them.

We've thrown vinegar on the Arabs for long enough. Let's try sugar.

Unfortunately, the state of American Politics makes it virtually impossible to rip our foreign policy out of the grip of Big Oil and the Israeli Lobby. The only way to stop our government from supporting tyranny around the world is to take it back from the corporate fascists who have captured our parties, elections, and the government itself. A tall order indeed.

The problem is deeper than party or political belief. Our democratic system itself has been hijacked by wealth and power. The fact is that we are no longer a democracy, independent of which party controls which branch of government. Both parties use our foreign policy as a weapon of empire.

Look for the US to attempt to bomb Iran into the Stone Age, triggering a massive regional war, if not an eventual global conflict. At the very least the bloody emergence of an independent, post-colonial Middle-East will formalize a new world balance of power that will feature China, Russia and India rising to fill the power vacuum our moral and military blunders are creating. American control of the world oil markets is ending.

For the Middle-East this will involve changing the definition of "terrorism" from applying to those who oppose tyranny, to those who impose it.

That's us.

Also See:

Links Above, Egypt

Links Below, Israel

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Sac Bee, September 19, 07; College Kids set up, Knocked Down by Government Terror Laws

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5) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine
Review By Stephen Lendman
2-8-7

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2007/02/review-of-ethnic-cleansing-of.html

 

Ilan Pappe is an Israeli historian and senior lecturer at Haifa University. He's also Academic Director of the Research Institute for Peace at Givat Haviva and Chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Studies. Pappe is an expert on Israel and Zionism and the Palestinians' Right of Return to their homeland, is considered "an honourable academic with integrity and conscience," and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Council for Palestinian Restitution and Repatriation (CPRR), an organization declaring that "every Palestinian has a legitimate, individual right to return to his or her original home and to absolute restitution of his or her property."

 

Pappe is also one of Israel's "new historians" whose scholarship and writings are based on access to material now available from British Mandate period and Israeli archives that provide the most accurate and authentic documented history of Israel before and after it became a state and which now serve to debunk the myths about the years leading up to the Jewish State's founding and those following it to this day.

 

He proves from official records how the Israeli state came into being with blood on its hands from lands forcibly seized from its Palestinian inhabitants who'd lived on it for hundreds of years previously. Since the 1940s, they were ethnically cleansed and slaughtered without mercy so their homeland would become one for Jews alone.

 

The shameful result is that Palestinians then and today have almost no rights including being able to live in peace and security on their own land in their own state that no longer exists. Survivors then and their offspring either live in Israel as unwanted Arab citizens with few rights or in the Occupied Palestinians Territories (OPT) where their lives are suspended in limbo in an occupied country in which they're subjected to daily institutionalized and codified racism and persecution.

Nakba: The Israeli Holocaust Denial

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

by Kim Petersen

www.dissidentvoice.org
March 18, 2007

by Ilan Pappe  
(Oneworld Publications, 2006) 
Hardcover: 336 pages 
ISBN: 1-85168-467-0

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar07/Petersen18.htm
Ilan Pappe deserves credit. He goes further than most Israelis in deconstructing the Jewish state’s historical revisionism, which he calls a “Zionist whitewash of words.” But does Pappe go far enough?

The iconoclastic Haifa University historian has written a book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, destroying the “Israeli foundational myth,” which he describes as a “sheer fabrication.” Pappe sets straight the Israeli historiography. Central to Zionist historical revisionism is Nakba (catastrophe) denial. Pappe affirms the occurrence of the Nakba which he states was not a “voluntary flight” but part of a Zionist blueprint (Plan Dalet) for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It was ethnic cleansing, but was it not also something more sinister?

Pappe identifies the perpetrators of the Nakba as the “heroes of the Jewish war of independence,” of who the best known is David Ben-Gurion, “the architect” of ethnic cleansing. Ben-Gurion is more accurately viewed as one of history’s vilest war criminals.

Pappe writes, “[C]ontrary to claims historians such as Benny Morris have made, Plan Dalet was handed down to the brigade officers not as vague guidelines, but as clear-cut operational orders for action.” The action resulted in the expulsion of almost 800,000 people and the destruction of 531 villages and 11 urban neighborhoods. Palestinian villages were literally wiped off the map by Zionists.

In addition to the ethnic cleansing and massacres, Pappe details the crimes committed by the Zionists against Palestinians: bioterror, imprisonment, abuses, ghettoization, rapes (Ben-Gurion was, perversely, informed of every case), looting, and desecration of religious sites.

(More text in original article)

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THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Hidden History of Israel: Born in Terror, Ethnic Cleansing, and Genocide; Perpetuated by Crimes against Humanity

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September 20, 2007

"Israel" Thievery of Arab Lands continues from 1948 to Present

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July 20, 2007

Israel has no legitimate basis. Israel is based on violence, ethnic cleansing, and the military, economic and political power of the United States, and nothing else.

All of Israel is occupied land gained through terrorism, war, and other crimes against humanity.

Until the US recognizes these facts, the middle east will resist, and eventually overthrow, our Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian Dictators. Then the middle east will destroy Israel.

Until the US defines "democracy" as something more than a thin cover for Corporate control of our nation's politics, our middle eastern foreign policy will continue to be nothing more than a tool of the Oil and Israel lobbies. Both political parties have been corrupted by these fascistic interests, and both parties are incapable of dealing honestly with the middle east.

The dismal situation in Iraq represents the final failure of Democracy in America, not the spread of American Democracy.

America's unwarranted attack on Iraq represents the victory of wealth and power over our American democracy, and our foreign policy. In the case of the Iraq war, we got an example of the massive power of the Oil and Israeli lobbies to easily use America's power and wealth to advance their criminal agendas. They have stolen yet another nation. Except this time their hand is wedged tight in the cookie jar.

The Iraq war, and how it came about, does not represent the actions of a democratic country. The Iraq war represents the actions of a corporate fascist state.

Unfortunately for us, the majority of Arabs who are suffering under our various middle eastern dictators and the iron fist of our Jewish colony, have concluded that what we call "democracy" is completely unjust, patently immoral and unacceptable, and are instead embracing political forms based on religion.

Sadly, these religiously based systems, despite their considerable drawbacks and shortcomings, provide considerably more justice than our "democratic" system delivers.

The fault for the rise of extreme islamic radicalism lies with us, with us for allowing our own corporate christian taliban to smash our democracy, and seize the reigns of our foreign policy.

The rise of radical islam is nothing more than a response to our own extreme corruption, which is also the source of the loss of our own democracy.

This tragedy did not begin with 911, as our political and media liars constantly tell us. 911, and many more tragedies to come, began with the loss of our democracy, and our imposition of dictators and tyrants on countries in every continent in the world.

Resistance to American-supported puppet governments around the world is growing rapidly as colonized nations are rejecting our farcical "democratic" governments run by dictators, and seizing the right to define their own identities, cultures, and political systems.

This inevitable post-colonial evolution will only stop if America recognizes the right of every country in the world, especially the nations sitting on top of Oil, mineral resources, and labor, to self-determination and self-definition without us threatening them with war, death squads, or military coups to seize their assets.

If we continue to pursue our program of corporate globalism, the post colonial revolution we are experiencing will end with the violent destruction of our middle eastern dictatorships, Israel, and the shattering of our globalized web of corporate thievery.

A Democrat Congress and President is not going to change this scenario one iota. Until we reimpose democracy on our corporate politicians and release our "free" press from its corporate bondage, the corporate politicians of both parties will only be capable of spreading our corruption and tyranny, not our Democratic Principals, around the world.

The global revolution of democracy must start here, not over there.

Israel: A perpetual crime against humanity

latest Israeli Crimes at bottom of list

 

Mearsheimer and Walt, March 2006, THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY.

Book Review by Stepen Lendman: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe.

Book Review by Kim Petersen: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe.

 

essay: "Israel" Thievery of Arab Lands continues from 1948 to Present, alex, 7-20-07

 

 

Corruption Updates 37, 1st article on the page, "Poll: Israel, Iran, US most Negative Countries in World"

 

Corruption Updates 42, 4th article on the page, "Bolton Admits US ALLOWED ISRAEL TO DESTROY LEBANON"

 

Corruption Updates 64, 3rd article on the page,"British Academics’ Union Endorses Israel Boycott"

Corruption Updates 64, 4th article on the page, "Largest Labor Union in Britain May Consider a Boycott of Israel"

 

Corruption Updates 83, 10th article on the page, "Top Official of Hamas Is Rebuffed Over Talks"

 


Corruption Updates 90, 10th article on the page, "Israeli Settlements Found to Grow Past Boundaries"

Israel, $30 Billion in Military Aid From U.S. essay: Bush Wars Push Saudi Arabia..., nyt, 8-15-07

Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007; Israel eyes Gaza

 

Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007; 'No elections if Hamas will win'

BBC NEWS: 10-25-07; Israel approves Gaza power cuts

 

NY Times, September 12, 2007; U.S. Confirms Israeli Strikes Hit Syrian Target Last Week

 

NYT, July 23, 2007; In Arabic Textbook, Israel Calls ’48 War Catastrophe for Arabs: Arabs in Israel Live under Jim Crow Apartheid

 

NYT, July 31, 2007; U.S. Arms Plan for Mideast Aims to Counter Iranian Power: Bush fuels middle eastern Arms Race

Israel to Get $30 Billion in Military Aid From U.S., NYT, August 17, 2007

 

NY Times, September 12, 2007; U.S. Confirms Israeli Strikes Hit Syrian Target Last Week

BBC NEWS: September 14, 2007; Small Israeli force enters Gaza

Al Ahram, 13 - 19 September 2007; Marching to war with cold feet

 

rice backs Israeli naming Gaza “Hostile Entity:”a War Crime, bbc, 9-20-07

UN: cutting off gaza is an international crime, haaretz,9-20-07

 

'Israeli warplanes raid' Lebanon, BBC NEWS, 9-18-07

 

Iran: Retaliation for Any Israeli Attack, AP, September 19, 2007

 

Israel approves Gaza power cuts, BBC NEWS: 10-25-07

 

Corruption Updates 127, 3rd article on the page, IAEA chief lashes out over Israeli raid in Syria

Agence France-Presse, October 28, 2007: ElBaradei: No Evidence Iran is Making Nukes

 

Corruption Updates 127, 4th article on the page, Sabra and Shatila Massacres, 25 years later

 

Jew Laws of Tyranny rule in USA:

Guilt for Association

Terror Trial Defendant Gets 11 Years, ap, 11-21-07

...

Election power of the Israel lobby, aljazeera, 12-30-07

Bush Who? goes to Israel, independent (UK) 1-7-08

Israel esclates violence as tribute to bush policies, bbc, 1-7-08

Bush predicts Victory in Middle-east, ft, (uk) 1-6-08

 

Israel tribunals (bush courts) assure convictions, ap, 1-6-08

 

Kill Bush: American Taliban, daily times, (pk) 1-7-08

Bush has little respect in Mid-East, ft, 1-9-08

 

Will Israel sneak attack Iran?

Israel threatens Iran with sneak attack, ap, 9-29-04

Is Israel Planning a Nuclear Strike on Iran? der spiegel, 1-8-07

Pentagon ready for spring attack on Iran, guardian, 2-10-07

Iran and Russia cooperating on mutual defense, BBC, Nov 13, 07

Israel ready to attack Iran, ap, 1-14-08

rogue nuke nation Israel fires ballistic missile, aljazeera, 1-17-08

US: Israel's Bitch, aljazerra, 1-17-08

 

Bush visits his Egyptian dictator, lat, 1-17-08

 

Hammas breaks Rafa wall

Hamas breaks blockade, apa, 1-25-08

Israel abdicates legal responsibilities for gaza, yet another war crime, ap, 1-24-08

Gaza: free for a day, independent, 1-24-08

 

Israel wants its prison re-secured, hosni wants to save face, gaza wants food, meo, 1-28-08

Israel intentionally making civilians suffer in gaza, lat, 1-28-08

hamas assists egyptians to close border, meo, 1-29-08

US Kills UN resolution against israeli crime of collective punishment, meo, 1-30-08

Snow further complicates relief supplies to Gaza, irni, 1-30-08

no end in sight to gaza's suffering, al ahram, 1-31-08

egypt secures rafa crossing, guardian, 2-4-08

Israeli crime of collective punishment sparks Gaza humanitarian crisis, suffering. ap, 2-15-08

 

Hamas ends their one sided cease fire

Hamas Claims Responsibility for Blast, nyt, 2-5-08

guns blaze across Gaza border, yorkshire post, 2-5-08

 

war crimes, but no trials: cluster bombs in lebanon, lat, 2-1-08

Gunmen attack Israeli embassy in Mauritania, meo, 2-1-08

UK police tip embassy, let jewish war criminal escape arrest, yalibnan, 2-10-08

 

Arab bitch states expect israel to destroy iran nuke tech, dawn, 2-12-08

end of the "two-state" farce? nyt, 2-22-08

 

jew leader calls for holocaust on palestinians; bloodbath follows, aljezeera, 3-1-08

 

'US plot against Hamas' revealed, aljazeera, 3-4-08

 

israeli MP vows to expel arabs after gaza demo, middle east online, 3-5-08

third intifada in sight, Al Ahram, 3-5-08

A jew view of hamas, arab news, 3-6-08

gaza conditions worst since 1967, bbc, 3-6-08

 

US allows egypt to talk to  hamas, meo, 3-8-08

hostile entity holocaust: the jew's final solution for gaza, meo, 3-8-08

 

Israeli Advocate Barred From Britain, nyt, 3-12-08

 

Hamas men 'tortured by Egyptians,' BBC, 3-21-08

 

zawahiri call for global attacks against US & jews, meo, 3-24-08

Nasrallah vows revenge against Israel, meo, 3-24-08

 

another jewish traitor betrays US for Israel, international, 3-23-08

 

 

Iran extends nuke tech, says, "will never bow to bullies," press tv, 4-8-08

 

Hamas build up anticipates israeli invasion, reuters, 4-10-08

Bush Administration Counsels Carter Not to Meet With Hamas, voa, 4-10-08

 

 

Israel: Genocide announced, al ahram, 4-16-08

 

 

The middle east yesterday, today, and tomorrow, committee, 4-17-08

 

 

 

Syria: Israel ready to return Golan, usa today, 4-24-08

 

US set to offer Israel powerful new radar, israel news, 5-10-08

 

Bush's Best Friend. BUSH announces New Axis of Evil: US partnership with Israel war crimes, crimes against humanity: What's New? ynet, 5-14-08 how long can we impose jewish invaders/occupiers and american dictators on the Arabs? Not much longer.

 

Israel requires Syria submits to all demands before talks begin, just like the US with Iran, afp, 5-24-08

 

Massive bribes by American Jews to Israel PM detailed, haaretz, 5-27-08

US scientist has donated Israeli award to Palestinians, aljazerra, 5-26-08

Carter: Gaza blockade is 'human rights crime,' meo, 5-26-08

 

Zionism and power, middle east times, 5-31-08

Beyond Chutzpah, Norman G. Finkelstein

 

war criminals olmert, bush, and rice to meet in washington this week, ynet, 6-2-08

 

the candidates bow before AIPAC: And the winner is ... the Israel lobby, Asia times, 6-3-08

more crimes against international law: UN ‘deeply concerned’ with Israel's housing move, meo, 6-3-08

 

Bush meltdown building pressure in Israel to Sneak Attack Iran, ynet, 6-6-08

 

TRAITORS: california candidates must visit israel to be viable, lat, 6-11-08

 

Israel and America, an analysis by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, meo, 7-26-08

 

Campaign to silence dissent in West Bank, Gaza, ap 8-12-08

 

Israel 'asked the U.S. for weapons to attack Iran,' mail, 8-13-08

 

Gaza is Warsaw

 

Obama’s Zionist Wannabe Veep, meo, 9-2-08

Obama the traitor bows down to israel, motherjones, transcrip of Osama at AIPAC

 

The Latest Crimes

Jews Attack Civilian Population Centers

...

Global news Sources:

Air strikes in Gaza kill 205 as Israel targets Hamas, guardian, 12-27

...

Israel demolishes Hamas compounds, over 200 dead, sfchron, 12-27

...

Israeli raid prompts intifada call, aljiz, 12-27

...

Disinformation, secrecy and lies: How the Gaza offensive came about, Haaretz, 12-27

...

Israeli Gaza Strike Kills More Than 200, jew york times, 12-27

...

Israel launches massive air raid on Gaza, MEO, 12-27

...

Egypt slams Israeli 'murder' raids on Gaza, MEO, 12-27

...

World Muslim body slams Israeli 'war crime' MEO, 12-27

...

Death tally in Israel airstrike mounts to 228, 750 wounded, international, PK, 12-28

...

 

US F-16s used to commit war crimes/crimes against humanity in Gaza:

Massive Israeli air raids on Gaza, bbc, 12-27

The above events are worse than the Nazis firing on the Warsaw Ghetto

Japan Today

Israeli troops mobilize as Gaza assault widens, jt, 12-29-08

World News, Au

Israeli tanks mass near Gaza, wn, au, 12-29-08

AP

Chaos in Gaza as Israel's strikes continue, ap, 12-29-08

Haaretz

In response to Gaza raids, Hamas threatens to assassinate Livni, Barak, haaretz, 12-29-08

Al Jazeera

Israeli jets pound Gaza tunnels, aljiz, 12-29-08

Middle-East online

Israeli jets continue pounding besieged Gaza, MEO, 12-28-08

guardian

Gaza attacks spark uproar in Arab countries, guardian, 12-28-08

Attacks are only going to strengthen hand of Hamas, guardian, 12-28-08

the germs; deutsche welle

Germany Urges Israel to Avoid Civilian Casualties in Gaza, dw, 12-28-08

UN

Security Council calls on Israel, Palestinians to end violence immediately, un, 12-28-08

Guardian

Palestinian death toll rises to 325 as Israeli strikes continue, guardian, 12-29-08

Der Speigel

NO END IN SIGHT FOR FIGHTING: Israeli Jets Pound Gaza for Third Day, Spiegel, 12-29-08

Haaretz

Israel targets senior Hamas, Islamic Jihad commanders in fresh Gaza strikes, haaretz, 12-29-08

UN

Israel and Hamas must halt violence; humanitarian supplies must enter Gaza – Ban, UN, 12-29-08

News.Au

World must do more for Gaza – news au, 12-30-08

Commie (?) China Tells it LIKE IT IS????

GA president slams Israeli air strikes on Gaza, (COMMIE STATE PRESS:Just like CORPORATE MEDIA in US) people's daily, 12-29-08

It's sad and ironic when China's Press contains more truth than ours.

 

Islamis Republic News Agency

Ireland condemns Israeli massacres, irna, 12-29-08

 

Gulf Daily News

We're with the Palestinians...gdn, 12-30-08

MEO

Israel's War Crimes, 12-31-08

...

Israeli raids on Gaza boost Hamas popularity, meo, 12-31-08

...

‘Cast Lead’ reveals Saudi divide on right to assembly, meo, 12-31-08

...

Arab governments don't give a shit about Palestinians, but fear their own people, MEO, 12-31-08

 

Ya Libnan (leb)

Nasrallah calls for uprisings in the Arab and Muslim world, ya libnan, 12-29-08

War Criminals in the Sky

Haaretz

GIDEON LEVY / The IAF, bullies of the clear blue skies, haaretz, 12-31-08

 

Gaza Media Ban

IPS
MIDEAST: Media Banned From Gaza as Humanitarian Crisis Escalates, ips, 12-31-08

 

Guardian

Israel ordered to let international media into Gaza, guardian, 12-31-08

 

2009

Arab News (saudi arabia state press)

Gaza: Olmert's final failure, arabnews, 1-1-09 (reprinted by the Saudi
State press from the WP)

...

the Saudis and the Arab League pass the buck:

End this discord: Saud, arab news, 1-1-09

 

Der Spiegel

Is Israel Repeating Mistakes of the Past? der spieg, 12-31-08

 

Warsaw Ghetto, Redux...

Major fight between Israel, Hamas begins in Gaza, international news (pk), 1-5-09

 

Hamas ready for bitter urban battle, bbc, 1-4-09

Hezbollah chief: Gaza militants to inflict big loses on Israel, people’s online daily cn, 1-4-09

Hamas says captured two Israeli soldiers in Gaza, reuters, 1-4-09

Shooting fish in a Barrel, alJiz, 1-5-09

 

Boycott "Israel!"

Iran wants to use oil exports as a weapon against supporters of Israel, iranvajahan, 1-5-09

OAPEC to ignore Iran oil supply cut to supporters of Israel, iranvajahan, 1-5-09

 

World At War Against Jewish-American Fascism

Standing up to Jewish terrorism, haaretz, 12-4-08

Iran Threatens to Break Israel's Gaza Blockade, worldpress, 1-5-09

Indonesian protesters call for troops to be sent to Gaza, asia one, 1-4-09

Israel's Gaza offensive criticised across Asia, channelnewasia, 1-4-09

Protests around the world condemn Israeli bombing of Gaza, world news au, 1-4-09

Egyptian Complicity Exposes Deep Fear of Iran. Meo, 1-5-09


Another awful year, Al-Ahram, 1-6-09

FACTS

The Roots of the Conflict, meo, 1-4-09

Israel is Not a Victim, Palestine chronicle, 1-2-09

UN envoy questions weight of Israeli rights, presstv, 1-4-09

 

 

Arab Bitch-States Freaking Out

Jordan 'reconsidering Israel ties,' AlJiz, 1-5-09

Arabs vent anger at governments, Kuwait times, 1-5-09

Criminals vs cowards, Al-Ahram, 1-6-09

Egyptian Complicity Exposes Deep Fear of Iran, meo, 1-5-09

 

And our “King” in Saudia Arabia shits out of his mouth:

King tells Palestinians to stand united, arabnews, 1-5-09


The “King’s” justice in Saudi Arabia: Bisha’s one-man firing squad, arabnews, 1-5-09

U.S. blocks Security Council call on Gaza ceasefire, Tehran times, 1-5-09

President of the U.N. General Assembly: "I think it's a monstrosity; there's no other way to name it," cnn, 1-4-09

UN Security Council has ‘failed’ in Gaza: Arab League, international news (pk), 1-5-09

ANALYSIS / International community giving Israel time to weaken Hamas in Gaza, haaretz, 1-4-09

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY THE SPOKESPERSON FOR THE U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL, un, 1-5-09

...

US Supports War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity

US gives Israel free rein on whether to invade Gaza, daily times, (pk), 1-4-09

Our bribed Traitors: US Senate leaders stand solidly behind Israel, ap, 1-4-09
...

Paul: Israel had US OK for war on Gaza, presstv, 1-5-09

...

Egyptian Complicity Exposes Deep Fear of Iran. Meo, 1-5-09

Another awful year, Al-Ahram, 1-6-09

...

Crime upon Crime:

Israel accused of delaying medical access to injured, guardian, 1-9-09

Airburst shells 'are danger to civilians,' guardian, 1-9-09

The hundred years' war. Economist, 1-8-09

Former Amb. Martin Indyk vs. Author Norman Finkelstein: A Debate on Israel’s Assault on Gaza and the US Role in the Conflict, democracy now, 1-08-09

War Crimes against Palestine continue

U.N. Security Council approves Gaza cease-fire resolution, mcclatchy, 1-8-09

Obama camp 'prepared to talk to Hamas,' guardian, 1-9-09

ANALYSIS / Egypt-Syria row hampering Gaza truce efforts, haaretz, 1-9-09

Rockets fired at Israel from Lebanon, meo, 1-8-09

......

Flames of war over Gaza: The gates of Hell have opened, dailymail, 1-13-09

...

US: Israel's Bitch

Israel orders US to oppose truce

Olmert says he made Rice change vote, iht, 1-13-09

US denies Olmert swayed vote on UN resolution, earthnews, 1-13-09

U.S.: Olmert never asked us to abstain from UN vote on Gaza truce, haaretz, 1-13-09

Osama calls for jihad against Israel, apakitimes, 1-15-09

...

Start at the beginning:

Israel itself is a War Crime

EU halts upgrade of ties to Israel, ft, 1-14-09

Demands grow for Gaza war crimes investigation. Guardian, 1-13-09

"Israel" Thievery of Arab Lands continues from 1948 to Present, alex, 6-20-07

The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine, review, 2-8-07

...

Another fine addition to our corporate media idiots:

“Joe the Plumber”

Joe the idiot reports from Israel:

Reporters Should Be Barred From Wars, Says Reporter, nyt, 1-12-09

...

Richard Falk

the UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian territories:

The Gaza blockade is a direct violation of the fourth Geneva convention that prohibits collective punishment, says Richard Falk, in this

Russia Today Interview, 1-19-09

Richard A. Falk, wikipedia

...

Norman Finkelstein

On the truth behind Israel

Russia Today Interview, 1-21-09

Norman Finkelstein, Wikipedia

 

...

America's Empire Wars

Palestine

Hamas: Islamic Moderates

The subtext on Bin Laden's tape, iht, 1-22-09

Why we Must Negoctiate with Hamas, alex, 6/07

comments?

...

Special Envoys

palestine

US President names Middle East envoy who would be leaving as soon as possible for troubled region. meo, 1-23-09

Obama: We will aggressively seek lasting Middle East peace, haaretz, 1-23-09

comments?

Envoys: Custodians of the Empire

Richard Holbrooke, wikipedia

George Mitchell, wikipedia

...

Series of US attacks on International Rule of Law: Harbingers of the New World Balance of Power, alex wierbinski, 1-21-07

...

gaza is all civilians

Gazans say Israeli troops forced them into battle zones, mcclatchy, 2-6-09

Turkey probes Israel 'war crimes' in Gaza, meo, 2-6-09

Did the Israeli Army Wage Jewish Jihad in Gaza?, meo, 2-6-09

Shoe thrown at Israeli ambassador to Sweden, meo, 2-6-09

comments?

Egyptians broker Hammas, Fatah, "Israel," deal
status update

A new beginning? al-ahram, 2-4-09

Egypt blocks money into devastated Gaza, presstv, 2-7-09

...

Zionist Entity Unable to Elect New Govenment

Israel's Election Dashes Hopes for Peace, time, 2-11-09

Inconclusive Israeli election could give boost to truce talks with Hamas, but future uncertain, ap, 2-11-09

 

Lieberman’s Bloc to Decide the Next Israeli PM, al-manar, 2-11-09

Livni: I'll fight on despite poor odds, haaretz, 2-12-09

Boycott Israel

...

Update: Domestic and Global Status of the American Corporate Empire

...

Israel launches covert war against Iran, telegraph, 2-16-09

...

US Media Bias, Human Rights, and the Hamas Government in Gaza, project censored, 2009

...

Israel plans to double West Bank settlers, meo, 3-2-09

...

Foreign Traitors Control US Govt: The Israel Lobby

Obama's pick for top intelligence analyst withdraws nomination, chinaview, 3-11-09

...

Israel troops admit Gaza abuses, bbc, 3-19-09

 

 

Scroll up for Latest Israeli War Crimes

 

New Israel link list

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Israel (17 Abstracts)

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5b) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

Mearsheimer and Walt, London Review of Books, March 2006

For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.

Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.

 

6) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

Israel to Get $30 Billion in Military Aid From U.S.

By STEVEN ERLANGER

NYT, August 17, 2007

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/world/middleeast/17israel.html?ref=todayspaper&

pagewanted=print

JERUSALEM, Aug. 16 — Israel and the United States signed a deal on Thursday to give Israel $30 billion in military aid over the next decade in what officials called a long-term investment in peace.

The officials insisted that the deal was not dependent on a simultaneous American plan for $20 billion in sales of sophisticated arms to its Arab allies, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia. But Israeli officials acknowledged that the aid to Israel would make it easier for the Bush administration to win Congressional approval of the arms sales to Arab countries.

The American under secretary of state for political affairs, R. Nicholas Burns, speaking at the signing ceremony here, said, “There is no question that, from an American point of view, the Middle East is a more dangerous region now even than it was 10 or 20 years ago and that Israel is facing a growing threat” from Iran and its ally, Syria.

The threat, he said, is “immediate and it’s also long term,” and he cited Iran’s support for organizations that the United States classified as terrorist and that were opposed to peace and stability in the region, like Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

The new aid to Israel will average $3 billion a year on a sliding scale, an increase of about 25 percent from current figures, to begin in October 2008. That year, American economic aid to Israel, which has a vibrant, growing economy, is scheduled to end. Uniquely, officials said, the new deal allows Israel to spend 26.3 percent of the aid on arms from Israel’s domestic military industry; the rest of the money must be spent on American equipment.

Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the House majority leader, said in an interview on Thursday that “Congress will be supportive of the aid to Israel, but with respect to Saudi Arabia I think we will look at that more closely.” He said there were “specific concerns on guided missile technology that could be used defensively against Israel and that would be problematic.”

Mr. Burns and the Israeli team, led by the governor of the Bank of Israel, Stanley Fischer, who holds both American and Israeli citizenship, would not comment on the specifics of the arms deal.

Mr. Fischer said that Israel was grateful for the help, since it had one of the highest defense burdens “in what used to be called the free world,” amounting to 10 percent of gross domestic product.

Mr. Burns said, “This $30 billion in assistance to Israel is to be an investment in peace, in long-term peace — peace cannot be made without strength.”

In Gaza, Hamas, the Islamic group that has taken control there, briefly detained the Palestinian attorney general, Ahmed Mughami, who is allied with Fatah, after he returned to the Gaza Strip to try to prevent Hamas from altering the area’s judicial system. Fatah has ordered the police and other civil servants, including judges, not to work for Hamas in Gaza, and Hamas then said it would set up Islamic courts.


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THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Israel, US Declare: WAR is PEACE

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September 22, 2007

Bush Wars Push Saudi Arabia out of American Axis

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July 27, 2007

When Bush attacked Iraq, he also attacked the stability and credibility of the Saudi Royal Family. The Saudi royal family's position is delicately balanced on a double-edged sword. One edge of the sword faces America. The other edge of the sword faces the Arab people.The Arabs hate our support of Israel, and resent our support for the resource-rich tyrannies that ring the Gulf, and dominate middle eastern politics and economics.

When Bush attacked Iraq, the Saudi royal family's position became unbalanced between their people and our empire. The "King" has three choices: turn the sword towards America, the people, or himself.

Bush has destabilized this delicate balance, requiring the "king" to re calibrate his position between his people and American foreign policy. As the "king" depends on American power to maintain his tyrannical dictatorship, lessening his dependence on America requires broadening his appeal to his own people.

The King's people are sunnis who are seriously pissed off about Iraq. Bush's Iraq adventure has so enraged the Sunni Arabs that the "King" has been forced to take drastic action to preserve his dictatorship.

The "King" will no longer turn up oil production at our command. The "King" has declared that our occupation of Iraq is illegal. It appears that the "King" is tolerating the movement of Saudi fighters and dollars into Western Iraq to directly confront the Illegal American Occupation. The "King" has independently tried to restart negotiations with Israel. Saudi Arabia is now acting independently of American influence in the middle east.

Bush' response to this shocking change reveals the outlines of a vague plan forming in his addled brain. As the invasion of Iraq has empowered Iran, Bush is now being forced by the Saudi shift to accommodate the ex-Bathist Sunni in Western Iraq.

Bush is now arming and supporting the same Sunni insurgents we brutalized in Falluja, while simultaneously backing a Shite-dominated government. Bush has been forced down the contradictory path of arming both sides in the ongoing Iraqi civil war as a result of his inability to foresee, or understand, the complexities of Iraqi society that lay under the rule of Saddam before invading Iraq. If we write down every move Bush has made in Iraq, we see the outlines of a recipe for disaster.

This indicates that Bush has finally realized that his invasion and occupation has failed. Since American power has proven itself incapable of holding Iraq together, Bush has instead decided to pull it apart. This dramatically increases the risk that the Sunni-Shite civil war in Iraq could turn into a regional war.

Bush's anticipation of an Iraqi breakup and the associated risks is behind the 30 billion dollar arms package to the Saudis, the Sunni the gulf state emirates, and Israel.

This arms sale is a strong indication that Bush is anticipating a partition of Iraq that may ultimately spark a regional war between the Sunni and Shite. Even with billions in American arms the Saudis and Sunnis are no match for Iran, and will suffer terribly without significant direct American military support. Thus the billions in arms to the Saudis, and support for the American-killing Sunni insurgents in Iraq.

The arming of the Saudis and Sunni insurgents may well come back to shoot us in the ass. The Sunni insurgents in Iraq will most certainly turn against the occupation, and the Saudis are already charting an independent course as we arm them to the teeth.

The bottom line is that the Saudi ruling family will do what is necessary to maintain their hold on power. It is probable this will require they become completely independent of American power.

The balance of power in the middle east has already shifted out from under American control. American dominance has been diminished on two fronts. First, the location of power has shifted geographically, moving to the east towards Iran, and away from Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Even more importantly, the notion of legitimate political authority has been dramatically transformed, shifting away from foreign supported dictators and "kings" towards a notion of legitimacy based on independent local political authority.

Bush has dramatically accelerated these pre-existing trends, but decades of colonial domination of the middle east lays behind these rapid dramatic shifts.

Also See:


Corruption Updates 45, 2nd article on the page, "U.S. Iraq Role Is Called Illegal by Saudi King"

Corruption Updates 56, 1st article on the page, "White House Rejects Saudi View on Iraq"

 

Iran-Saudi Links 97_1

Egypt Links  78_l9

Israel Links 110_5

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Saudi Arabia

 

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7) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

U.S. Poverty Rate Drops; Ranks of Uninsured Grow
Census Data Show Mixed View of Post-Recession Economy

By N.C. Aizenman and Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 29, 2007; A03

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082800779_pf.html

The nation's poverty rate declined last year for the first time this decade, but the number of Americans without health insurance rose to a record 47 million, according to annual census figures released yesterday.

Nationally, however, the statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau offer a mixed picture of the economy's recovery from the recession of 2000-01.

Although median household income, adjusted for inflation, rose for the second straight year, it has not reached the pre-recession high of 1999.

The increase from 2005 to 2006 in median household income, to $48,201, appeared to be mainly the result of a jump in the number of people per household who held a full-time job rather than a rise in wages. Earnings of both men and women declined by slightly more than 1 percent.

Although the poorest households had the largest percentage income gain from 2005 to last year, income inequality remains at a record high. The share of income going to the 5 percent of households with the highest incomes has never been greater.

The 2006 poverty rate of 12.3 percent remained higher than during the recession. And the slight drop in the rate from 12.6 percent the year before was driven by a decrease in poverty among those older than 65. There was no change in the rates for children or for adults 18 to 24

"To be in worse shape in the fifth year of a recovery than during the previous recession is both unprecedented and disappointing," said Robert Greenstein, executive director of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The figures also reflect a continuing decline in employer-provided coverage. The percentage of people covered by employer-based health insurance fell to 59.7 percent in 2006, down from 60.2 percent in 2005. The figure was 64.2 percent as recently as 2000.

Business leaders have said the spiraling costs of health insurance are threatening their competitiveness in the global market, forcing companies to shift more expenses to workers or consider dropping the benefit.

Of the 2.2 million people who became uninsured in 2006, 1.4 million had a household income of $75,000 or higher. About 1.2 million of the newly uninsured worked full time.

"This is about the problem of the uninsured spreading to the middle class and working people," said Harvard Medical School professor Stephanie J. Woolhandler...

 

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THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Poverty Hidden Behind Cooked Stats

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September 22, 2007

The income level threshold used by the government to determine poverty is so low that it hides more poverty than it exposes. Government inflation statistics severely underestimate the rate of inflation. Likewise the unemployment statistics are also custom tailored to hide the true numbers of unemployed.

Each of these distorted statistical tools are designed to mask the creeping poverty that has consumed the bulk of the middle class. But you could would never it by looking at the government's economic statistics, or listening to the corporate press.

The prosperity the rich have experienced for the past few decades was not widely spread across society. The bulk of these profits have been extracted by not paying for the social infrastructure to match our massive growth rate. Our prosperity was manufactured by spreading, and deepening American poverty.

Now our unsustainable growth has reached the end of its expansion. The windfall profits our corporate state has been sucking up are about to vanish.  The poverty they have hidden so well behind their wall of statistics is welling up as the wealth of the nation declines.

The great unmeasured illegal surplus labor pool will swell to monumental proportions in a serious economic downturn. This will magnify the strains on our social ties that have already been weakened by 30 years of irresponsible growth.

According to the economic wizards that lead our politicians, that will be good, as it will reduce the wages of labor to the point where we can compete head to head with the peasant labor of China and Mexico. Unless we have a revolution first.

Our greatest hope is that the cold water of economic reality that is about to slap our consumers out of their material dreams wakes our people up to their ethical duties and responsibilities as citizens. This impending economic crisis is going to give patriotic Americans the chance to force our government back to democracy.

But this will require education. The democratic character and values of our country have been swallowed up by a frenzy of consumption. An economic shock that interrupts our shopping will provide a lesson about what is most important in life.

A good economic shock will repudiate the greed and lust for power that hides behind American "globalism." to convert many consumers into citizens. Economic disruption is going to lead us to reevaluate and measure our other flawed consumer assumptions.

Politics as a tool of wealth and power are being heavily questioned now, while things are still prosperous. An economic fall will slow the corporate bribery, and increase voter rage. This will be an excellent opportunity to force our system to back to democracy. Our Wars are being debated while a few serve and the rest of us go shopping as normal.

Look for our unsustainable economic, military and political behaviors to bring a significant change in our lifestyles and finally our expectations, which will allow us to restore our democracy.

Until then we can expect our government to mis-measure and misrepresent the status of our health, welfare and economic activity.

Also See:

Corruption Updates 36, 7th article on the page,  More in U.S. plunge deeper into poverty

Corruption Updates 45, 8th article on the page,  Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows

 

The End of the Party is Almost here:

Huffington Press, "Auto Sales Plummet"

Corruption Updates 61, 8th article on the page, "Home Sales Climb, but Prices Plummet"

Corruption Updates 81, 8th article on the page, Bear Stearns Staves Off Collapse of 2 Hedge Funds: Billions in Worthless Loans Ready to Hit Market"

Corruption Updates 83, 8th article on the page, "Report on Amaranth Collapse Is to Be Made Public"

Corruption Updates 93, 1st article on the page, "Bear Stearns Says Battered Hedge Funds Are Worth Little"


Corruption Updates 98, 1st article on the page, Expect more woes with prime home-equity loans

NY Times, August 10, 2007; Mortgage Losses Echo in Europe and on Wall Street: Irresponsible Politicians and Corporations have stolen all the money: Global Pyramid Crashing Down

NYT, Friday, August 10, 2007; Fed Injects Reserves Into System: Fed Subsidizes Irresponsible Growth

NY Times, August 11, 2007; Central Banks Intervene to Calm Volatile Markets: Irresponsible Politicians allowed Markets to Eat the Middle Class

BBC, August 14, 2007; US stocks fall on renewed jitters: Markets Crashing on Tuesday

AP, August 14, 2007; Europe’s Bank Lends Another $10.5 Billion: Central Banks Unable to Dictate Loan Rates in Face of Credit Crisis

Financial Times, August 17 2007; Asian markets trim losses in late trading: Asian Markets Plunged, Worse Week in Years

NY Times, August 14, 2007; Goldman and Investors to Put $3 Billion Into Fund: Another Major Hedge Fund Folding Up

AP, August 17, 2007; Fed cuts discount rate by 1/2 point: Feds Bailing Out Greedy Speculators

AP, August 17, 2007; Asian Stocks Slide Again Despite Late Wall Street Rally: Asian Markets Plunge on Friday

LA Times, August 17, 2007; A rush to pull out cash: Credit Crisis Expands to Panic Run on Bank

NY Times, Aug 17, 2007; Australia central bank confirms forex intervention: Credit Crisis Roils Foreign Exchange Markets

REUTERS, August 14, 2007; Fund’s Request for Redemption Halt Denied: Credit Crisis Spreads to Commodities Trading Firm

NY Times, August 14, 2007; Surge in Consumer Prices Stirs China’s Concern About Overheated Economy: China Faces Famine in Fall

BBC, August 8, 2007; Wealth gap 'spreads across Asia': Globalism Impoverishes Asia

Corruption Updates 108, 6th article on the page, 4 Major Banks Tap Fed for Financing

Corruption Updates 108, 7th article on the page, Lehman Closes Subprime Unit and Lays Off 1,200

Corruption Updates 108, 8th article on the page, Debt and Spending May Slow as Housing Falters, Fed Suggests

Washington Post,  August 29, 2007; U.S. Poverty Rate Drops; Ranks of Uninsured Grow

Economy: All Links

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Economics (31 Abstracts)

 

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8) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

Climate flooding risk 'misjudged'

Climate change may carry a higher risk of flooding than was previously thought, the journal Nature reports.

BBC, August 29, 2007

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6969122.stm

Researchers say efforts to calculate flooding risk from climate change do not take into account the effect carbon dioxide (CO2) has on vegetation.

Higher atmospheric levels of this greenhouse gas reduce the ability of plants to suck water out of the ground and "breathe" out the excess.

Plants expel excess water through tiny pores, or stomata, in their leaves.

Their reduced ability to release water back into the atmosphere will result in the ground becoming saturated.

Areas with higher predicted rainfall have a greater risk of flooding. But this effect also reduces the severity of droughts.

The findings suggest computer models of future climate change may need to be revised in order to plan for coming decades.

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THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Expect Constant Punishment from Nature into the Foreseeable Future

The following was written on May 1, 2007:

Climatologists No Better than Reporters

Their Models have failed: Science incapable of predicting Radical Pace of Climate Shift

Climate Change has already happened

Glad the Scientists Took their Heads out of their Asses, opened the Window, and Looked outside

Those of you who know me, and have talked to me for the last decade, are not surprised.

8 years ago I predicted the rate of global climate change would break all the climatologists' models, regaling scientists to the role of merely reporting. rather than predicting, climate change.

This prediction has proven itself.

Hear that chainsaw in the distance? That's the sound of nature coming to return all the favors we have bestowed on it.

Climate Already Changed, People and Scientists Too Stupid to SEE IT

may 1, '07

For about 10 years I have been telling my buddies that the heat of summer was not retreating southward during winter. This has been increasing each year, diminishing the polar chilling, changing the timing of the onset and end of the seasons. Most important in my view is the radical changes in the direction of the winter winds.

Winter Winds in the Bay Area have traditionally come from the NW. For the past 8 years the Winter winds have been shifting, coming from the West and the South West. These winds are dry in mid-winter, and keep the wet Northern Storms at bay. Then, in Spring, these Southern Winds have brought tropical-style downpours, barely offsetting our drying Winters.

This year the freakish Southern Spring storms did not come and bail us out.

Every Winter has become drier and warmer for the past 10 years. Fall now regularly extends into December, and spring try's to start in February. For the majority of you who are from someplace else, and don't have a clue as to what was normal for the Bay Area, this is very abnormal weather.

Watching the Sierra Bears in November and December is sad. Instead of enjoying a cold sleep, they are hungrily patrolling dead, dry meadows that have no berries, grubs, or food to sustain them until the uncertain advent of Winter snows and hibernation.

Watching the lowland trees this winter was disturbing: deciduous trees were dropping leaves all winter long. There was no "fall" to speak of, as in a temperature fall triggering a massive leave drop.

I suspect that the increasing incidents of mountain lion attacks reflects the lions response to decreasing late-fall food supplies. In any case, these seasonal changes have had a cascading effect in ecosystems. Budding times in Spring are off, affecting birth and survival rates of all interrelated species. Increasing Summer temperature are killing off high altitude plants. Lack of Winter snowfall is drying out the land early in the Spring, affecting budding timing and density. And the cycles of life continue to decline in the thrall of our ignorance.

Expect large declines in crop productions, if not outright crop failures, across the United States, and the world this year.

The Climatologists will catch up with the changes, but it will be too late to preserve our predictable seasons. We do not need science to tell us we have severely damaged our climate, we needed wisdom to fundamentally change our values and the direction our country is going.

Wisdom would have prevented us from blinding ourselves to the early warnings of nature, and the subsequent warnings of science. Wisdom would have prevented us from overburdening our land with people, our water with dams, and our skies with endlessly expanding pollution. The oceans contain a thin shadow of the life they held in 1600. And we desperately need wisdom now that our science cannot keep up with reporting on the damage our industrial-strength ignorance is perpetuating.

We seem to have traded, or maybe sold, our wisdom for luxury, prestige, greed and power.

It was a bad trade. The latter commodities are short-lived, unless balanced with wisdom. But Wisdom cannot be comodified and put on the market, so it has little contemporary value, and was let go of cheaply.

I have a wise plan: Let's double California's population by 2050. Let's give everybody in the state a driver's licence and a car or two. lets put another 30 million cars on our State's streets. Let's double our water and electricity consumption. That should fix things right up.

I'm glad we have such wise leaders, who represent our best interests so well.

(first printed in 47-10)

Also See:

Corruption Updates 36, 6th article on the page, "AMERICAN GREED-CONSUMPTION FUELS MANUFACTURING (POLLUTION) IN CHINA"

Corruption Updates 39, 10th article on the page, "Top Scientists Warn of Water Shortages and Disease Linked to Global Warming"

Corruption Updates 47, 9th article on the page, "Earth Faces a Grim Future: UN Report"

Corruption Updates 53, 2nd article on the page, "Arctic Sea Ice Melting Faster, a Study Finds:Climate Change has already happened"

Corruption Updates 65, 1st article on the page, "BEES: Honey, I'm Gone"

Corruption Updates 65, 7th article on the page, "China puts economy before climate"

Corruption Updates 71, 9th article on the page, "Only 50 years left' for sea fish"

Corruption Updates 76, 7th article on the page, "Study finds huge decreases in bird populations"

Corruption Updates 80, 2nd article on the page, "China building more power plants to supply American Consumption"

Corruption Updates 86, 7th article on the page, "Study Sees Climate Change Impact on Alaska"

Corruption Updates 93, 3rd article on the page, "Record Gulf of Mexico ‘Dead Zone’ Is Predicted"

Corruption Updates 94, 8th article on the page, "Climate Change Debate Hinges On Economics"

Corruption Updates 95, 9th article on the page, "Romania: Heat Wave Kills 18"

Corruption Updates 95, 10th article on the page, "Humans 'affect global rainfall'"

AP, August 7, 2007; South Asia Flood Victims Hit by Disease: Global Weather Crisis Deepens for Billions in South Asia

NY Times, August 8, 2007; Warming Threatens Farms in India, U.N. Official Says: Global Warming puts Billions at Risk

Bee, August 7, 2007; Summer chill is one for the ages: Freakish Weather Around the World, and in Sacramento

BBC, August 4, 2007; European heatwaves 'have doubled'

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Environment (71 Abstracts)

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9) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

Aide to Ex-Representative Is Given Probation

By BLOOMBERG NEWS

August 17, 2007

Washington

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/us/17brfs-AIDETOEXREPR_BRF.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print

The former chief of staff to former Representative Bob Ney was ordered to serve two years’ probation for his role in the corruption scandal surrounding the lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The man, William Heaton, 29, left, who often served as Mr. Ney’s contact with Mr. Abramoff, must also perform 100 hours of community service and pay a $5,000 fine, Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle said in Federal District Court. Mr. Heaton pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy in February. Prosecutors did not seek a prison term for Mr. Heaton, who cooperated with them by taping conversations with his boss. Mr. Ney, an Ohio Republican, is serving a prison term of two and a half years.

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THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September , 2007

Also See:

Corruption Updates 10, 3rd article on the page, Ney Pled Guilty to Corruption:One Down, the rest of our Legislature to Go

Corruption Updates 28, 7th article, “Prosecutors: Ney at Center of Conspiracy”

Corruption Updates 32, 5th article on the page, Ney gets 30 months in corruption case

Corruption Updates 35, 6th article on the page,  NEY: ARE FED PROSECUTORS GOING TO BUST OPEN CONGRESSIONAL CORRUPTION?

Corruption Updates 110, 9th article on the page, Aide to Ex-Representative Ney Is Given Probation

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Bob Ney

 

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10) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

White House Declares Office Off-Limits
Administrator of Missing E-Mails Not Subject to Open-Records Law, It Says

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 23, 2007; A04

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/22/

AR2007082202441_pf.html

The Bush administration argued in court papers this week that the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act as part of its effort to fend off a civil lawsuit seeking the release of internal documents about a large number of e-mails missing from White House servers.

The claim, made in a motion filed Tuesday by the Justice Department, is at odds with a depiction of the office on the White House's own Web site. As of yesterday, the site listed the Office of Administration as one of six presidential entities subject to the open-records law, which is commonly known by its abbreviation, FOIA.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit group, filed a lawsuit in May seeking Office of Administration records about the missing e-mails, including when they were deleted from government computer files. CREW said it understood that internal White House documents had estimated at least 5 million e-mails were missing from March 2003 to October 2005.

The Bush administration has not provided a number publicly. Some of the records may have been subject to a document preservation law administered by the National Archives and Records Administration. Congress has sought access to them as part of its probe into the administration's firing of nine U.S. federal prosecutors in 2006.

Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director, said that "one has to wonder if this is an effort by the White House to keep secret the details of how millions of White House e-mail suddenly went missing. The OA's disingenuous claim that it is not subject to the FOIA is contradicted by its own actions and statements."

But the Office of Administration, which was formed in 1977 and handles various administrative and technology duties, responded to 65 FOIA requests last year and even has its own FOIA officer, records show.

In its 20-page motion, the Justice Department argues that past behavior is irrelevant, pointing to a 1996 appellate court ruling that found the White House-based National Security Council was not covered by FOIA even though it had complied with the law previously.

As with the NSC, the government argues that the Office of Administration is not an "agency" as defined under the open-records statute because it has no substantial authority independent of the president.

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THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September , 2007

Also See:

FBI CHIEF DEFYS CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT REFUSAL TO DISCLOSE ILLEGAL PROGRAM, AP, Dec 6, 2006

Corruption Updates 29, 2nd article on the page, WHITE HOUSE CLAIMS SECRET POLICY POWER: BRIBERS TO GET SECRET ACCESS

Corruption Updates 32, 3rd article on the page, PRESIDENT TRIES END RUN AROUND CONSTITUTION:CLAIMS ACTIONS ARE SECRET, AND ABOVE THE LAW

ALBERTO FIGHTS FOR SECRET PRESIDENTIAL POWERS, AP,1-31-07

Cheney's Mystery Visitors, AP, 6-4-07

CHENEY ENERGY TASK FORCE DOCUMENTS FEATURE MAP OF IRAQI OILFIELDS, Judicial Watch

Nominee for C.I.A. Counsel Offers Few Details in His Senate Confirmation Hearing, NYT, 6-20-07

Corruption Updates 82, 1st article on the page, 6-22-07, National Archives are Target in Cheney Fight on Secrecy Data

Corruption Updates 110, 10th article on the page, White House Declares Office Off-Limits

Police stifle bill on discipline hearings access: ASSEMBLY PROTECTS SECRET POLICE, sf chron, 7-9-07

CIA briefings a secret forever: assent to impunity, defeat for honesty, history, and accountability, SF Chron, September 5, 2007

 

White House invokes executive privilege in EPA inquiry, lat, 6-21-08

 

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Secret Government (22 Abstracts)

 

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