House Resolution Designates Venezuela a State Sponsor of Terrorism

At a time of growing US poverty, hunger, homelessness, and despair, imperial wars without end, and an Obama administration even worse than its predecessor, the nation of Venezuela:

• is a model participatory democracy;
• holds free, fair and open elections;
• respects the rule of law, civil liberties, and human rights;
• doesn’t intimidate its neighbors;
• uses its resources responsibly for the people;
• provides essential social services for the needy;
• champions judicial fairness and the rule of law;
• has a model free and open media;
• wages no foreign wars;
• doesn’t torture or imprison its adversaries;
• conducts effective operations to halt illicit drugs trafficking;
• promotes global peace, solidarity, equality and social justice; and
• its only threat is its good example that shames its northern neighbor.

In contrast, America:

• is a serial belligerent and world class bully;
• spends more on militarism than the rest of the world combined at a time it has no enemies;
• backs the world’s worst dictators and faux democrats like Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe, a man closely linked to the country’s paramilitary death squads and drug cartels; and
• through the CIA, has actively engaged in global drugs trafficking since the agency’s 1947 founding; it profits hugely from its dealings with local traffickers; so do major US banks and other powerful business and financial interests.

In addition, Washington

• serves the rich at the public’s expense;
• tolerates corruption at the highest levels;
• subverts democracy through electoral fraud;
• has a closed, corrupted dominant media system serving the powerful, not the greater good;
• incarcerates hundreds of political prisoners;
• uses torture as official policy; and
• wages state-sponsored terrorism and global wars.

So consider the hypocrisy. On October 27, Rep. Connie Mack (Rep. FL) introduced HR 872: Calling for the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to be designated a state sponsor of terrorism for its support of Iran, Hezbollah, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP). Its sole co-sponsor was Rep. Ron Klein (Dem. FL).

Connie Mack is a notorious right-wing ideologue. In an accompanying statement he said:

The evidence linking Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez to the FARC and Hezbollah — two of the most dangerous terrorist organizations, responsible for many bombings, kidnappings, killings and drug trafficking — is overwhelming. Naming Venezuela as a state sponsor of terrorism will strengthen the stability of the region. The Administration must not turn a blind eye to Chavez’s dangerous aggression and must add Venezuela to the state sponsors of terrorism with delay.

Fact Check

Iran hasn’t attacked a neighbor in over 200 years, but has defended itself vigorously when attacked, including during the 1980-88 war with Iraq, a conflict the Carter administration triggered in an attempt to destabilize and weaken both countries.

Noted Latin America expert James Petras calls the FARC-EP the “longest standing, largest peasant-based guerrilla movement in the world (that was) founded in 1964 by two dozen peasant activists (to defend) autonomous rural communities from” Colombian military and paramilitary violence.

Hezbollah is no terrorist organization. It’s a legitimate resistance group, and, as a political party, is part of Lebanon’s elected government. In addition, it’s well respected for providing essential social services, including a network of schools, medical clinics, and organized relief after Israeli South Lebanon bombings in 1993, 1996, and 2006.

Also, according to Aijaz Ahmad writing in the Indian magazine, Frontline:

It’s “the only entity which has, through armed resistance, forced the Israelis to relinquish any territory that the Jewish state has ever captured” through decades of regional belligerency.

Mack Attack Round Two

HR 872 is round two for Mack. On March 13, 2008, he and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R. FL) introduced HR 1049 (with eight co-sponsors) “calling for the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to be designated a state sponsor of terrorism (and) condemn(ing) the Venezuelan government for it support of terrorist organizations,” at that time referring to the FARC-EP. The resolution died in the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Referred there as well, the new one won’t fare better. Otherwise the implications are serious as state terrorism designation means halting normal relations, prohibiting US companies from exporting and operating there, and denying America vitally needed Venezuelan oil. It’s the nation’s fourth largest supplier after Canada, Saudi Arabia and Mexico.

In its “State Sponsors of Terrorism Overview,” the US States Department imposes the following sanctions:

1. “A ban on arms-related exports and sales.

2. Controls over exports of dual-use items (that may be anything, including oil), requiring 30-day Congressional notification for goods and services that could significantly enhance the terrorist-list country’s military capability or ability to support terrorism.

3. Prohibitions on economic assistance.

4. Imposition of miscellaneous financial and other restrictions, including:

• Requiring the United States to oppose loans by the World Bank and other international financial institutions;
• Lifting diplomatic immunity to allow families of terrorist victims to file civil lawsuits in US courts;
• Denying companies and individuals tax credits for income earned in terrorist-listed countries;
• Denial of duty-free treatment of goods exported to the United States;
• Authority to prohibit any US citizen from engaging in a financial transaction with a terrorist-list government without a Treasury Department license; and
• Prohibition of Defense Department contracts above $100,000 with companies controlled by terrorist-list states.

In other words, it halts virtually all normal diplomatic, political and business dealings with “terrorist-list states.”

Corporate interests won’t tolerate it at a time every business opportunity counts. Nor will Venezuela with strong regional support given the political, security and economic implications.

As long as Bolivarianism flourishes, expect new efforts to vilify, isolate, destabilize, and topple Chavez, no more likely to succeed than others, and here’s why. According to the Venezuelan Institute of Data Analysis (IVAD), his latest approval rating tops 62% after nearly 11 years as president. Governing responsibly keeps him popular compared to Barack Obama’s noticeable slippage from his post inaugural high.

According to the November 3 Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll, only 28% of voters strongly approve of his performance, 41% strongly disapprove, 46% somewhat approve, 52% somewhat disapprove, and for Congress it’s far worse – 15% say its doing a good or excellent job compared to 53% ranking it poor.

Given Washington’s inattention to essential needs, watch for even greater erosion compared to Chavez remaining popular by a two-to-one margin — a profile befitting a democrat, not a state-sponsor of terrorism.

Source: Dissident Voice

American voters get rid of mayor along with speed cameras

It was American democracy in its purest form: three towns voting overwhelmingly to get their hated police speed cameras torn down — and to eject from office a mayor who had opposed the move.

Lost in all the analysis of what Republican wins in two gubernatorial elections on Tuesday meant for President Obama were three ballot initiatives — two in Ohio and one in Texas — to introduce a law ridding the towns of their traffic enforcement cameras.

In College Station, Texas, voters succeeded in dumping the cameras despite the manufacturers of the devices spending $60,000 (£36,000) on a campaign to keep them in place.

Voters in Chillicothe, southern Ohio, declared their opposition to the cameras by 72 per cent. The mayor of Heath, Ohio, who had been spotted removing anti-camera campaign posters from an intersection, lost his re-election bid.

The anti-camera crusaders in Ohio call themselves Citizens Against Photo Enforcement, or CAPE. Although most voters backed their campaign because they hate getting speed camera photographs in the post with a fine attached, CAPE based its opposition to the cameras on nothing less than the US Constitution.

They argued that the fines triggered by the speed photographs were a violation of due process because there was no right of appeal against the tickets except for a local hearing.

After Tuesday’s ballots 11 towns have now voted to get rid of the machines. Earlier this year, the Republican Governor of Mississippi abandoned them. In 2005 the Republican Governor of Maryland tried to veto a Bill authorising the cameras because they allowed police to “charge, try and convict an individual solely through use of a photograph”.

The police and road safety groups all argue, citing numerous studies, that speed cameras help to lower the accident and road death rate, but the rage against them by some citizens knows no bounds. In April, a technician servicing a camera in Arizona was shot dead.

Campaigners in Chillicothe also argued that the cameras hurt business, saying that motorists avoided the city to keep away from speed devices.

Before the town’s vote, the police chief, Roger Moore, held a press conference arguing that the wording of the new law, if passed by voters, could mean that his officers would be banned from using any speed-detecting device. The law reads that there is now a ban on “any electronic, photographic, video, radar laser or digital system used to produce evidence of an alleged traffic violation”.

Mr Moore said: “Any, to me, means all the radar and cameras we use. I believe the way it’s worded would prevent my officers from enforcing the law. I think as the position of chief of police, my ultimate responsibility is to keep Chillicothe safe. Anything that affects the citizens negatively or impacts their safety, I have the obligation to speak out.”

Source: Times Online

Zionist War Criminal Ehud Olmert Owned By SF Citizens

Bay Area residents attempted a citizen’s arrest of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, while he gave a speech to the World Affairs Council in San Francisco on 22 October 2009.

Twenty-two people were arrested for challenging Olmert directly and demanding he be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. Olmert has faced protests at Tulane University, University of Kentucky and the University of Chicago.

The recent International Independent Fact-Finding Mission, headed by Judge Richard Goldstone, found evidence that Israel had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during a three-week long attack on the Gaza Strip last winter, killing more than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and destroying much of the area’s infrastructure. In 2006, similar Israeli attacks on Lebanon killed 1,200 people. Olmert has refused to be held accountable.

Ali Abunimah’s reply on why he disrupted Olmerts speech at the University of Chicago: Electronic Intifada

“The killings of more than 3,000 Palestinians and Lebanese during Olmert’s three years in office are not mere differences of opinion to be challenged with a polite question written on a pre-screened note card. They are crimes for which Olmert is accountable before international law and public opinion.“

Source: Political Theatrics

Why the hate-crime law weakens our country

President Barack Obama has signed into law the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Actually, he signed into law the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act, which included the hate-crime legislation.

Sen. Harry Reid slipped the hate-crime legislation into the defense authorization bill to avoid having to have senators consider the controversial bill on its own.

It's for good reason that Democratic legislators wanted to hide under a rock while passing this terrible piece of legislation. It may help them with the far-left wing of their party. But weakening and damaging our country is not something to be proud of. And that is exactly what this new law does.

The bill adds on extra penalties to violent crimes when it is deemed they were motivated by gender, sexual orientation or disability. It's the first major expansion of hate-crime legislation originally passed in 1968, targeted then to crimes aimed at race, color, religion and national origin.

After signing this new law, Obama celebrated it by saying that in this nation we should "embrace our differences."

But law isn't about embracing our differences. It is about providing equal and nonarbitrary protection to all citizens.

Equal protection for every individual American under the law is what the Fourteenth Amendment to our Constitution, passed after the Civil War, guarantees. That this nation takes this guarantee seriously – that there are no classes of individuals that are treated differently under the law – has been a justifiable obsession of blacks.

A society in which all life is not valued the same, where murder of one citizen is not the same as murder of another citizen, is a horror which black Americans have known too well.

So it is a particular irony that this major expansion of the politicization of our law has been signed by our first black president.

What could it possibly mean that the penalty for the same act of violence – for murder – may be different depending on what might be deemed to be the motivation?

Can you imagine a football game where the penalty for roughing the passer is 20 yards rather than 15 if the referee concludes that the violence perpetrated was motivated because the quarterback was homosexual?

Is it not a sign of our own pathology that we now have codified that it is worse to murder a homosexual than someone who has committed adultery, even with your husband or wife, or who has slandered or robbed? Isn't the point murder?

It should be clear that hate-crime legislation has nothing to do with improving our law but rather with creating favored political classes. This should be hateful to everyone who cares about a free society – particularly to those, such as blacks, who have been so victimized by politicization of law.

The social breakdown that produces the disproportionate violence in black America is the product of the same moral relativism and politicization of law that has produced hate-crime bills.

We already have a source that instructs against murder and to love your neighbor as yourself. But this has been banned from our schools and our public spaces. So once again, in what is becoming our godless nation, we mistake the disease for the cure.

Source: The Dallas Morning News

ANALYSIS / U.S. using Goldstone report to punish Netanyahu

Operation Cast Lead in Gaza was perceived in Israel as a shining victory. Rocket fire from Gaza was brought to a halt almost completely. The Israel Defense Forces emerged from its failure during the Second Lebanon War and deployed ground forces with few casualties. "The world" let the operation continue and did not impose a cease-fire. A wonderful war.

Ten months later, it seems the victory was a Pyrrhic one. Israel did not realize that the rules have changed with Barack Obama's election as U.S. president. Prime minister Ehud Olmert timed Cast Lead to take place during the twilight period between the outgoing and incoming U.S. administrations, and rightly assumed that the incumbent, George W. Bush, would fully back Israel. However, in contrast to the Lebanon war of 2006, which ended with a cease-fire, the Gaza campaign continues being fought - in the diplomatic arena and in public opinion - and Israel must cope with its consequences in a less-friendly Obama era.

During the first, military round, Israel benefited from the decisive superiority of its firepower. However the Palestinians moved the war's current round to an arena more comfortable for them, and are benefiting from their advantage in UN institutions and in public opinion. The calls to boycott Israel are getting louder. Turkey is shirking off its strategic alliance with Israel and is presenting IDF soldiers as horrible murderers of children. Hamas is gradually winning recognition as a legitimate player, as it continues to amass a stock of rockets without hindrance. Meanwhile Israel's leaders are busy defending the country against the United Nations' Goldstone report (that accuses Israel and Hamas of perpetrating war crimes), and some even have to worry now about being the object of arrest warrants in Europe.

Hands are tied

Even if the legal process that Goldstone initiated ends up being halted, and Israel is not put in the dock in The Hague, its hands have been tied. The world, led by Obama, will not let it initiate a Cast Lead II operation. Certainly not when a right-wing government is in power in Jerusalem led by Benjamin Netanyahu, whom the world loves to hate. Netanyahu's clumsy attempt, in his Knesset speech this week, to link the war in Gaza to opposition leader Tzipi Livni did not really succeed. He is in power and the world considers him responsible. The Americans and the Europeans are using the Goldstone report to punish Netanyahu for his refusal to freeze the settlements.

The same thing happened to the Palestinians between the two intifadas. When they hurled stones during the first intifada (1987-1993) and the confrontation was in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, the world cheered them on and forced Israel to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization and to let its leader Yasser Arafat establish his autonomy in the territories. The Palestinian violence at that time was perceived as appropriate resistance to occupation. During the second intifada, the Palestinians resorted to suicide attacks in Israeli cities. They succeeded in killing many more Israelis, but they lost in the diplomatic arena, especially after the September 11 attacks in the United States, when the rules changed. The world was fed up with terror attacks and it allowed then-prime minister Ariel Sharon to reoccupy the West Bank, lock Arafat in a cage (his headquarters in Ramallah) and eventually unload Gaza without a peace arrangement.

Operation Cast Lead was the most planned operation in the annals of Israel's wars. Its organizers filled out all the forms and checked off on all the procedural changes that had been recommended by the Winograd Committee after its investigation of the shortcomings of the Second Lebanon War. The campaign's goals were reasonable. The scenarios were rehearsed. The reservists were trained. Jurists anticipated the legality of every target and operational plan. The soldiers were properly outfitted with food, water and protective equipment. The local authorities in the Israeli rear functioned as they should have. The media obeyed. In short, the government and the IDF prepared exceptionally well for a Third Lebanon War. They only forgot that the conditions on the Palestinian front are different than in Lebanon.

Not everybody shared the euphoria. The defense minister, Ehud Barak, wanted to halt Cast Lead after two or three days, but was overruled by Olmert who wanted to keep the campaign going, and then going further. Columnists and commentators warned of Gaza becoming a quagmire.

And most interesting: The Winograd Committee anticipated the lurking legal danger to Israel, and in its final report had warned of "far-reaching consequences" resulting from the widening gap between the rules of warfare and the reality of fighting terror launched from civilian surroundings. The committee recommended pulling the legal experts out of the operation rooms, increasing and highlighting investigation of irregular activities, and working with friendly countries to amend the rules of warfare, a recommendation that is easy to make but difficult to implement. The Winograd report did not warn against going into the next war before the rules of warfare are changed. The legal recommendations, drafted with restraint out of fear they would be used for anti-Israeli propaganda, were lost in the sea of piquant items in the report.

Upon returning to power, Netanyahu hoped to leave the Palestinian issue on the side and focus on the Iranian threat and on economic reforms. Now his government will have to cope with the consequences of Cast Lead and do so under less than ideal conditions, heavy international pressure and fear of arrest warrants and charge sheets.

Source: Haaretz News Jerusalem

What the Military Industrial Complex Does Not Want You to Know: The History of Iran

Oath Keeper Sheriff Richard Mack

VIDEO: Oath Keeper Sheriff Richard Mack

The sheriff is the most powerful law enforcement officer in the US and has the ultimate say in his county. No one supercedes his jurisdiction. The president of the US cannot tell your sheriff what to do, and in that same vein, not one of the auxiliary departments below the president can tell your sheriff what to do. To the contrary, when they are in his jurisdiction, he can tell them what to do. I pray for the day when a sheriff in this country will arrest an IRS agent for trespassing or for trying to victimize citizens in his county….

Source: Buchanon.Org

Why Does AIPAC Spy on Americans?

According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Steven J. Rosen will be allowed to move ahead with his civil defamation lawsuit against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Rosen and fellow AIPAC employee Keith Weissman were indicted under the 1917 Espionage Act in 2005 along with Department of Defense Employee Col. Lawrence Franklin for passing classified national defense information. Franklin pled guilty, but Rosen and Weissman’s case never went to trial — US attorneys gave up (PDF) after the presiding judge made a successful prosecution unlikely.

Rosen’s 2009 civil lawsuit contends that AIPAC defamed him when its spokesperson claimed that he "did not comport with standards that AIPAC expects of its employees." Rosen’s many filings in court reveal that his fundamental case is that AIPAC commonly circulates and distributes classified US government information when it suits the organization’s purpose in lobbying for Israel. AIPAC defamed him, he alleges, by claiming he was somehow unique.

An FBI file declassified and released on July 31, 2009 (PDF) backs up Rosen’s assertions. In 1984 AIPAC obtained a classified report compiled from the business secrets of US industries and associations opposed to signing a bilateral trade agreement with Israel. The FBI found that AIPAC had "attempted to influence members of Congress with the use of a purloined copy of the ITC report and had usurped their authority."

The Washington Field Office of the FBI went on to assert that "AIPAC is a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group staffed by U.S. citizens. WFO files contain an unsubstantiated allegation that a member of the Israeli Intelligence Service was a staff member of AIPAC."

Rosen is well on his way to claiming $20 million in damages for AIPAC’s "defamation" propelled by the court’s new ruling. But for Americans much larger concerns linger. Why isn’t AIPAC registering as an agent of a foreign principal if it is collaborating so closely with foreign intelligence services? Why are these matters being litigated in civil court as a family squabble between members of the Israel lobby? If espionage is a recurring, institutionalized feature of AIPAC, doesn’t that mitigate against its claims to be an American non-profit, working for American interests? From the NRA to the AARP, no legitimate American nonprofit lobby has ever been found to be trafficking in so much intelligence information, or so frequently channeling it to foreign government parties and friends in the establishment media.

Newly emerging declassified facts are reminders to concerned Americans that AIPAC is not at all what it claims to be. Rosen’s lawsuit will not likely make good on his and former lobbyist Douglas Bloomfield’s implicit threats to reveal AIPAC as a stealth, unregistered foreign agent of the Israeli government.

Fortunately for Americans, that uncomfortable fact is now emerging in myriad ways, even in the midst of AIPAC’s new attempts to engineer policies that could accelerate the downfall of the US economy.

Grant F. Smith is the author of the new book Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy. He is currently director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C.

Read more by Grant Smith

• Steve Rosen Accuses AIPAC of Espionage – September 1st, 2009
• Subsidies for Israel,
  Sanctions for Iran – June 28th, 2009
• The Samson Gambit – April 7th, 2009
• Should AIPAC Decide What’s Classified? – February 23rd, 2009
• Will Obama Break the Law
  for Israel’s Sake? – February 11th, 2009

Source: AntiWar.com

THE HYPOCRISY OF CELEBRATING THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL AND IGNORING ISRAEL'S "IRON WALL"

THE HYPOCRISY OF CELEBRATING THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL AND IGNORING ISRAEL'S "IRON WALL"

The Berlin Wall lives on in Israel, seen here in Bethlehem. The Israeli wall of separation is some 12 meters (37 feet) high. The hideous Israeli wall across occupied Palestine has underlined the fortress state and Jewish ghetto mentality in Israel. But is this the kind of state that a person would want to live in?

Bollyn in Berlin Wannsee, 30 October 2009

The Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago on November 9-10, 1989. Jewish-owned Music TV (MTV), Bono, and his band U2 will be celebrating along with millions of others the fall of the Berlin Wall while the entire world ignores its hideous cousin, the Israeli "Iron Wall" of separation.

Israel's Iron Wall is much higher and longer than the Berlin Wall and has been built on illegally occupied land yet no U.S. president has called on the Israeli leaders to "tear down this wall." The hideous wall was built with the support and approval of the U.S. Congress and presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Many millions of American taxpayer dollars were used to build this wall.

Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism (which became the Likud Party of Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, and Bibi Netanyahu) wrote an article entitled "Iron Wall" in 1923, which called for "Iron Wall" in occupied Palestine:

Settlement can thus develop under the protection of a force that is not dependent on the local population, behind an IRON WALL which they will be powerless to break down.

Prime Minister Netanyahu's father was Jabotinsky's executive secretary. Likudnik Prime Ministers Sharon, Olmert, and Netanyahu are the builders of Israel's "Iron Wall."

So, why do so-called "political" singers like Bono ignore the very real suffering of millions of Palestinians and the new Berlin Wall that divides the Holy Land? Why does the music industry ignore the crisis in the Middle East, the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the illegal occupation of Palestine by Zionist Jews who desecrate the Holy Land? Where has the music gone?

Bono, a friend of presidents Bush and Clinton, will be giving a "free" concert at the Brandenburg Gate, the famous 18th Century portal to the city of Berlin. Today, 20 years after reunification, Berlin is the most modern, clean, and civilized metropolis in the world. It is the capital of the most prosperous nation in Europe and the Number One exporter in the world. It's easy for MTV and Bono to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years later -- but if they really cared about freedom and equality for all men why don't they do a free concert in occupied-Bethlehem or Jerusalem in front of the wall of the Zionist fortress state of Israel? Why doesn't President Barack Hussein Obama II call on the Israeli leaders to tear down this wall, as President Reagan did to the Soviet leadership? Neither Obama nor Bono would dare to speak out against Israeli apartheid policies or Zionist war crimes because they are owned and controlled by the Zionist Jews who made them what they are.

This is why the music has gone into the gutter and why there is no anti-war music or resistance music today. The Zionist Jews have taken over the entire music industry, lock, stock, and barrel. It is the same with the press media, the television networks, and the film industry. The whole shebang is completely controlled by Zionist Jews. The Zionist masters own the big record labels and send the musicians they own to Israel to try and improve the image of the criminals who run the Zionist state.

Madonna with arch-terrorist Shimon Peres, father of Israel's illegal nuclear arsenal

Bono of U2, who is proud of his Jewish roots, embraces Tzipi Livni, a war criminal and daughter of a terrorist leader.

Bono flashed the peace symbol with George Bush in March 2002 as the U.S. waged a war of aggression and occupation in Afghanistan based on blatant lies about who was behind the false flag terror attacks of 9-11. Bono doesn't mind bolstering the image of real war criminals -- he is paid well to do so.

Bono continued to support Bush in 2007 as he waged two wars of aggression in support of the Zionist deception known as the "War on Terror". Bono works for his label, Universal Music Group, which is owned by Jean-Bernard Levy of Vivendi.


Bono is also very proud of his Jewish roots...

Born Paul David Hewson, Bono wrote about his mother's Jewish roots in his book U2 by U2:

Jack was a travelling salesman, as many of my uncles were, and they come from a long line of travelling salesmen. And in fact I am a travelling salesman. I sell songs for U2, door to door, city to city, and I promote ideas like debt cancellation or fair trade at the market, and I reckon I must have got if from the Rankins -- which, by the way, is usually a Jewish name. They all looked Jewish too. I've heard it said that the Rankins were Jewish at one point when they were based in Scotland, then they came over to Ireland and they weren't Jewish any more, which I think used to happen a lot. I don't know if that is true, but I'd like it if it were. (Source: U2 by U2, p. 15)

...and Bono absolutely adores the Jewish media moguls who made him rich and famous. Bono shows his affection for Lucian Grainge, the Jewish head of Universal Music Group (International) at Doug Morris's Grammy party in Los Angeles in 2009. Morris and Grainge, both Jews, work for Jean-Bernard Levy, head of Vivendi and owner of Universal Music. Don't expect Bono to protest Israeli war crimes or sing protest music to support Palestinian rights any time soon.


Bono and U2 in Israel, on the Jewish side of the wall, but of course.

A mime artist works at the Brandenburg Gate where the Berlin Wall divided the German capital for nearly three decades.

A small section of the wall has been saved. It was painted with the Palestinian and German flags and the Israeli flag superimposed in a "peace action" in 2004. The Palestinian flag, however, was only temporary. Usually it is just the German flag with the same Israeli motif. It suggests that Zionism dominates occupied Germany as it does occupied Palestine.

The painting by Gunther Schaefer, a German Jew from Frankfurt am Main, has been defaced more than 44 times by Germans who are deeply offended by the desecration of the German flag with the kabbalistic hexagram.

Wolfgang Schaefer is a co-founder of the East Side Gallery and his provocative painting is protected by the German state as "an historical monument."

Schaefer has been honored by President Johannes Rau in the Bellevue Palace for his offensive painting which desecrates the German flag. In 2007, Schaefer met the Pope, Benedict XVI, in St. Peter's Cathedral at the Vatican. Although average Germans find his painting to be highly offensive and disgusting, it is protected by law. It should be remembered that Germany is still occupied and does not have a peace treaty or a real constitution. The Grundgesetz (the basic law) written by the Allied occupiers, considered as temporary when it was written in 1945, is still in effect.

German lands stolen by Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, and Russians are still illegally occupied. The Czech Republic, which just ratified the E.U. Lisbon Treaty, was allowed an "opt out" which permitted the Czech state to maintain the racist Benes Decree which prohibits displaced ethnic Germans from returning to their homes, farms, and property that were stolen during the "ethnic cleansing" of Czechoslovakia after the war. Would a European state be allowed to have laws that prohibit Jews from regaining their property? How can the European Union accept laws that discriminate against Germans? The Zionist ethnic cleansing of the Baltic region and the Sudetenland resulted in the deaths of more than 2 million innocent German civilians. All German property was confiscated and the rightful owners were forced onto boxcars -- or shot. Jews, like Madeleine Albright's father, wound up with the German treasures that had been stolen. The German refugees are the Palestinians of Europe.

Israel Iron Wall -- Understanding the complete Zionist control of our media and government(s) is essential to understanding our political predicament.

Finis

Goldstone Challenges Obama on Israeli War Crimes

October 31, 2009

BERLIN - The Obama administration and U.S. Congress have joined the Zionist campaign to condemn the Goldstone report, a United Nations fact-finding report on the evidence of war crimes committed in Gaza during the Israeli offensive against the largely defenseless civilian population of the Gaza Strip. The overwhelming majority of the Gaza population is Palestinian refugees who were driven from their homes and villages during the Zionist ethnic cleansing of 1948-49.

The Israeli offensive, which began during Christmas last year, involved a large number of egregious war crimes being committed by the Israeli military, which was headed by Ehud Barak, a friend and supporter of President Barak Hussein Obama II. Barak would be the first one to be put on trial for the war crimes committed in Gaza. The Washington Post is reporting that Congress will vote to condemn the Goldstone report on Tuesday, November 3. President-elect Obama said he would have plenty to say about the Israeli assault on Gaza once he became president. Thus far he has said nothing.

To understand the actions of the Obama administation one has to be aware of the fact that the Obama White House is run by his Zionist handlers, primarily Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, who are controlled by more senior criminals in the organization. Candidate Obama was created by Chicago's arch-Zionist, Philip M. Klutznick, his daughter Betty Lu Salzman, Rahm Emanuel, and David Axelrod. Axelrod's mother was a communist journalist who wrote for the PM newspaper that pushed for the United States to enter the war against Germany in the early 1940s. President Obama will do nothing to cross his Zionist masters, and that includes the war criminals running the state of Israel.

Candidate Obama with Ehud Barak the Israeli defense minister in July 2008. Barak is a war criminal of the worst kind according to the UN fact-finding report on the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip written by Richard Goldstone, a South African judge who happens to be both Jewish and a Zionist. Barak would be the first person to be arrested for war crimes.

Congress to Vote to Condemn U.N. Report on Israeli War Crimes

The Washington Post of October 31 is reporting that the House of Representatives will vote on Tuesday on a nonbinding resolution condemning a controversial U.N. report on alleged Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip that has become a major complication in Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's diplomacy in the Middle East this weekend.

Clinton told the BBC that the report is biased and one-sided. This is a very clear indication that the Obama administration is working to further the Zionist agenda regardless of how many crimes are committed or lives are lost.

The Berlin Wall fell in November 1989

While the world celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Obama administration is helping build the Israeli wall. Two thousand U.S. troops are currently training in Israel to help fortify the fascist militaristic Jewish ghetto in Palestine, which is surrounded by an outrageous separation wall -- paid for and financed by the good people of the United States. To celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall while supporting the apartheid state of Israel is nothing but hypocritical -- and racist.

The U.S. government and the West finance and support the racist and extremist Israeli government that built an outrageous wall across the Holy Land.

Richard Goldstone, author of the UN report accusing Israel of serious war crimes and crimes against humanity during its assault on Gaza, has openly challenged the Obama administration to justify its claims that his findings are flawed and biased.

ISRAELI ASSAULT "DESIGNED TO TERRORIZE"

The UN fact-finding mission headed by Goldstone concluded that the Israeli assault on the civilian population of the Gaza Strip was "a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability."

Israel's criminal use of white phosphorus on civilian areas was blatant and obvious to television viewers around the world.

The Israeli government is particularly worried because the Goldstone report concluded that the Israeli military, headed by Ehud Barak, committed serious war crimes that constitute a "grave breach" of the Geneva Conventions:

From the facts gathered, the Mission found that the following grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention were committed by the Israeli armed forces in Gaza: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly. As grave breaches these acts give rise to individual criminal responsibility. The Mission notes that the use of human shields also constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The Goldstone fact-finding report is extremely important because it puts every law-abiding government on notice that they are obliged under international law to consider the leadership of the Israeli government and military as criminal. This means that people like Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak should be arrested as soon as they arrive in any country that upholds international law. In the same way that Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland, the Israeli political and military leaders should be arrested and held for a war crimes trial. This is what international law demands. If these individuals were to be arrested and interrogated we would also find the truth about who carried out the false-flag terror attacks of 9-11.

Wanted for war crimes: Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert (center) and defense minister Ehud Barak (right) with foreign minister Tzipi Livni, daughter of an Irgun terrorist. Barak and Olmert are also senior architects of the 9-11 attacks in the United States.

The UN report on Israeli war crimes during the assault on Gaza is in three parts and can be read by clicking on the following links:

Executive Summary Conclusions Complete Report

The Goldstone report verifies and validates what I have been saying since the Israeli assault on Gaza began in December 2008: The Israeli military, headed by defense minister Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, as prime minister, was committing serious war crimes. These crimes, which were witnessed by millions of television viewers, would force the incoming Obama administration to choose between supporting international law on war crimes or the criminal Zionist regime based in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. With Rahm Emanuel, the son of a Zionist terrorist running the White House, it appears that the Obama administration is siding with the criminals Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, and Shimon Peres.

The Israelis used white phosphorus as a weapon of terror.

Sources and Recommended Reading (Note: My articles on Israeli war crimes were stolen when my website Bollyn.info was hijacked in March 2009. The Rebel website has copies of the original articles with the photos.)

Kessler, Glenn, "Congress to weigh in on U.N.'s Gaza report," Washington Post, October 31, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/30/AR2009103003610.html

Ehud Barak - Architect of 9-11, September 11, 2009
http://www.bollyn.com/bollyn-to-name-chief-9-11-architect

How Will the World Respond to Israeli Crimes in 2009?, January 9, 2009
http://www.therebel.org/opinion/middle_east/how_will_the_world_respond_to_israeli_crimes_in_2009?_200901098976/

Why is Obama Silent about Israeli War Crimes?, January 7, 2009
http://www.therebel.org/opinion/middle_east/why_is_obama_silent_about_israeli_war_crimes?_200901078951/

Three Atrocities of Ehud Olmert, January 2, 2009
http://www.therebel.org/opinion/middle_east/three_atrocities_of_ehud_olmert_200901028921/

We originally first saw this post from our good friend at kenny's Sideshow. Check him out HERE.

Source: Christopher Bollyn

Norman Finkelstein: Zionism’s Version of History

My guest tonight is a Jewish American political scientist and author who Jewish supporters of Israel right or wrong love to hate. He is – Norman Finkelstein.

Norman Finkelstein grew up in New York City where, before he obtained academic employment, he was a part-time social worker with teenage dropouts.

He completed his undergraduate studies at New York’s Binghampton University in 1974. After studying in Paris, he went on to get his Master’s degree in political science, and later his PhD in political studies, from Princeton University. He has held faculty positions at five American universities.

The reason why Finkelstein is vilified by Jewish supporters of Israel right or wrong can be simply stated. In his writing and public speaking, as in his doctoral thesis, he is committed to exposing books which present Zionism’s version of history. They are, he writes and says, part of a “monumental hoax”, “fraud” and “nonsense”.

His friend Noam Chomsky once warned him in a letter that he would get into trouble because, Chomsky wrote, “you’re going to expose the American intellectual community as a gang of frauds, and they are not going to like it, and they’re going to destroy you.”

A dramatic moment in Zionism’s on-going attempt to destroy Finkelstein, and also its highly successful strategy for restricting academic freedom in general, came in June of last year (twenty o seven) when, giving in to Zionist pressure, Chicago’s DePaul University denied him tenure. Prior to that decision, Finkelstein had been an assistant professor at DePaul for six years, and described in an official university statement as “a prolific scholar and outstanding teacher.”

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews: The False Messiah (Zionism, the Real Enemy of the Jews). He blogs on www.alanhart.net.

more about “Hart of the Matter – Norman Finkelstein“, posted with vodpod

h/t: ICH

from the archives:

Norman Finkelstein: The Coming Breakup of American Zionism (vids)

see

Clinton, Goldstone and true cost of the occupation

Dennis Kucinich: Almost As Serious As Committing War Crimes Is Covering Up War Crimes!

Source: Dandelion Salad

WHY I AM NOT A ZIONIST

Build equality, not walls. (ActiveStills)

Last week I was disinvited from my second Jewish conference in two months for poems I’d written in solidarity with Palestinians, poems that make an unapologetic call for justice. Subsequently, I and the poet I was to read with at the J Street conference, wrote a response to being censored. People from all over the country wrote to us supporting free speech, supporting art as a tool for change, supporting real talk about the degradation of Palestinians, and people wrote to let us know they disagreed. Some more thoughtfully than others.

We decided to hold our reading anyway in Washington, DC during J Street’s inaugural conference at an alternative location. We were hosted by the Busboys and Poets space. The room filled with a spectrum of ideas. We read our poems and during the question and answer period, no one was shouted down. Not the Israeli army refusenik, not the liberal Zionist apologist, not the Palestinian student who asked us to include more about the Palestinian people in our poems, not just the land or idea of nation-state, a point beautifully made and incredibly profound. No one shouted down moderator Laila al-Arian, a brilliant journalist and activist, whose father was a Palestinian political prisoner in America, now freed because of his daughter’s persistence. The crowd was cool and civil, though broad in opinion.

Since the second Palestinian intifada I have thought, written and spoken about these issues, but over the course of these last several weeks, I have arrived at a new beginning. Prior to now, I muddled this issue in complexity. But I have come to realize it is actually simple and clear. I am a Jewish-American man in solidarity with the Palestinian people. I am in solidarity with Israeli and American and All people who work and risk their lives and livelihood for justice. I am not restricted to working within the confines of the Jewish-American community. Justice and resistance to imperialism is a global, human concern for all people. For Jews, yes, but not Jews alone. For Palestinians, yes, but not Palestinians alone. It will take us all to push and demand governments and corporate interests to create fair, equitable living conditions. It will take all peoples to hold history accountable for the atrocities that occur.

This is an analogy. America celebrates Columbus day even though Columbus and American settlers killed, enslaved and pushed indigenous peoples off land they lived on. Tragically, indigenous peoples have been nearly wiped out of existence and pushed to the furthest margins of our culture that revels in amnesia. Main St., mainstream American culture does not expect Native Americans to celebrate Columbus, nor care nor know nor imagine if they do or not. Native Americans are not a demographic population Hallmark cares to account for. It is preposterous to think Jews would celebrate Kristallnacht, the night of glass when SS troops stormed and terrorized their German ghettos. In Israel, Independence Day is called Yom Haatzmaut. Communities gather to play music, dance and watch fireworks. The Chief Rabbinate has declared this day a Jewish holiday in which prayers should be said. But Palestinians remember 1948 and the formation of the State of Israel as al-Nakba, the Catastrophe. A day of murder, displacement and forced Diaspora. A day families are torn apart and ripped away from their homes. A state-sanctioned celebration of their dehumanization and second-class citizenship.

For this reason alone, I cannot believe in the integrity of the Zionist project. It’s built on bodies and lies. It denies the existence of people and a people. One of its slogans, rooted in the same malicious revisionism as American history and Holocaust denial, is a land without people, for a people without land. Columbus didn’t discover shit. He enacted the desires of empire and the fetishization of “discovery.” The formation of the State of Israel is rooted in blood and deceit, is the same story as all colonies built in the name of imperialism, capitalism and dehumanization. Therefore, I am not Zionist.

I am not pro-Israel because in January Israel murdered more than 1,400 Palestinians. They bombed schools and hospitals. They bulldozed homes and bodies. Israel builds a separation wall, as Germany did, as the United States does between here and Mexico, as the rich do between themselves and the rest of us. I am not a believer in borders. I have been mistaken for Italian, Puerto Rican, Arab and Muslim, but I am a suburban Jew who sought out hip-hop cultural space across red lines and Chicago segregation. I learned borders are to be contended and crossed. Israel believes in borders. Israel practices apartheid. On one side, irrigated lawns and swimming pools in illegal Israeli settlements. On the other side, Palestinian disenfranchisement, denied access to drinking water, medical assistance, jobs, the ability to earn an income or vote in the country that governs them, that limits their movement with passports, checkpoints and curfews and closes them into open-air prisons. I cannot be in favor of these practices, nor the state that enacts them. These practices are to be resisted, protested and pushed against. Those whose bodies are legislated against, contained, detained and maimed by state-sanctioned terror are to be stood with and listened to.

This week has provided clarity. This is not a complex issue. There is the brutality of governments and the need for the liberation of a people, all people. I am a Jewish person who stands with Palestinian people relegated to second-class citizenship and Israeli soldiers who refuse to enact racist militarism. I am not a nationalist; therefore I am not a Zionist. I am against the oppression of any person and people. I am not a builder of walls. I believe in equity and democratic practice, therefore I am not pro-Israel. I am an advocate for truth, justice and reconciliation. I believe in this. I believe in this now. I believe in the work ahead.

Kevin Coval is the author of Slingshots (A Hip-Hop Poetica) and Everyday People and co-founder of Louder Than A Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival

Source

Source: Desert peace

Maryland cops force photographer to delete photos

Another town. Another cop. Another photographer gets his photos deleted.

This time it went down in Anne Arundel County, Maryland when Antonio Amador grabbed his camera to photograph an fatal accident that took place outside his home on October 24. This was part of an ongoing project to get drivers to slow down in the area.

He started filming the accident scene when an angry cop approached him, demanding he delete his memory card, according to the Maryland Gazette.

“Suddenly I hear this screaming, like somebody really mad,” he said. “I see this guy charging at me saying, ‘delete those pictures now!’ “

The officers threatened to arrest him if he didnt’ delete his photos. Amador tried to explain to them that he had a Constitutional right to take the photos.

“They couldn’t care less,” he said. “They threatened to handcuff me just because I questioned why I should delete my photos in the first place.”

The man who died in the accident was the son of a Baltimore police officer, so maybe that is why the officers felt they needed to violate Amador’s Constitutional rights.

Now the ACLU is looking into it. And Amador has filed a complaint against the department.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Related posts:

1. Maryland jury slaps police on wrist in journalist abuse suit
2. Maryland cop’s lies about DUI arrest exposed by surveillance video
3. Dash cam proves Maryland cop to be a boldface liar

Source: Photography is Not a crime

War, Peace and Obama’s Nobel By Noam Chomsky

The hopes and prospects for peace aren’t well aligned—not even close. The task is to bring them nearer. Presumably that was the intent of the Nobel Peace Prize committee in choosing President Barack Obama.

The prize “seemed a kind of prayer and encouragement by the Nobel committee for future endeavor and more consensual American leadership,” Steven Erlanger and Sheryl Gay Stolberg wrote in The New York Times.

The nature of the Bush-Obama transition bears directly on the likelihood that the prayers and encouragement might lead to progress.

The Nobel committee’s concerns were valid. They singled out Obama’s rhetoric on reducing nuclear weapons.

Right now Iran’s nuclear ambitions dominate the headlines. The warnings are that Iran may be concealing something from the International Atomic Energy Agency and violating U.N. Security Council Resolution 1887, passed last month and hailed as a victory for Obama’s efforts to contain Iran.

Meanwhile, a debate continues on whether Obama’s recent decision to reconfigure missile-defense systems in Europe is a capitulation to the Russians or a pragmatic step to defend the West from Iranian nuclear attack.

Silence is often more eloquent than loud clamor, so let us attend to what is unspoken.

Amid the furor over Iranian duplicity, the IAEA passed a resolution calling on Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and open its nuclear facilities to inspection.

The United States and Europe tried to block the IAEA resolution, but it passed anyway. The media virtually ignored the event.

The United States assured Israel that it would support Israel’s rejection of the resolution—reaffirming a secret understanding that has allowed Israel to maintain a nuclear arsenal closed to international inspections, according to officials familiar with the arrangements. Again, the media were silent.

Indian officials greeted U.N. Resolution 1887 by announcing that India “can now build nuclear weapons with the same destructive power as those in the arsenals of the world’s major nuclear powers,” the Financial Times reported.

Both India and Pakistan are expanding their nuclear weapons programs. They have twice come dangerously close to nuclear war, and the problems that almost ignited this catastrophe are very much alive.

Obama greeted Resolution 1887 differently. The day before he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his inspiring commitment to peace, the Pentagon announced it was accelerating delivery of the most lethal non-nuclear weapons in the arsenal: 13-ton bombs for B-2 and B-52 stealth bombers, designed to destroy deeply hidden bunkers shielded by 10,000 pounds of reinforced concrete.

It’s no secret the bunker busters could be deployed against Iran.

Planning for these “massive ordnance penetrators” began in the Bush years but languished until Obama called for developing them rapidly when he came into office.

Passed unanimously, Resolution 1887 calls for the end of threats of force and for all countries to join the NPT, as Iran did long ago. NPT non-signers are India, Israel and Pakistan, all of which developed nuclear weapons with U.S. help, in violation of the NPT.

Iran hasn’t invaded another country for hundreds of years—unlike the United States, Israel and India (which occupies Kashmir, brutally).

The threat from Iran is minuscule. If Iran had nuclear weapons and delivery systems and prepared to use them, the country would be vaporized.

To believe Iran would use nuclear weapons to attack Israel, or anyone, “amounts to assuming that Iran’s leaders are insane” and that they look forward to being reduced to “radioactive dust,” strategic analyst Leonard Weiss observes, adding that Israel’s missile-carrying submarines are “virtually impervious to preemptive military attack,” not to speak of the immense U.S. arsenal.

In naval maneuvers in July, Israel sent its Dolphin class subs, capable of carrying nuclear missiles, through the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea, sometimes accompanied by warships, to a position from which they could attack Iran—as they have a “sovereign right” to do, according to U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.

Not for the first time, what is veiled in silence would receive front-page headlines in societies that valued their freedom and were concerned with the fate of the world.

The Iranian regime is harsh and repressive, and no humane person wants Iran—or anyone else—to have nuclear weapons. But a little honesty would not hurt in addressing these problems.

The Nobel Peace Prize, of course, is not concerned solely with reducing the threat of terminal nuclear war, but rather with war generally, and the preparation for war. In this regard, the selection of Obama raised eyebrows, not least in Iran, surrounded by U.S. occupying armies.

On Iran’s borders in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, Obama has escalated Bush’s war and is likely to proceed on that course, perhaps sharply.

Obama has made clear that the United States intends to retain a long-term major presence in the region. That much is signaled by the huge city-within-a city called “the Baghdad Embassy,” unlike any embassy in the world.

Obama has announced the construction of mega-embassies in Islamabad and Kabul, and huge consulates in Peshawar and elsewhere.

Nonpartisan budget and security monitors report in Government Executive that the “administration’s request for $538 billion for the Defense Department in fiscal 2010 and its stated intention to maintain a high level of funding in the coming years put the president on track to spend more on defense, in real dollars, than any other president has in one term of office since World War II. And that’s not counting the additional $130 billion the administration is requesting to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan next year, with even more war spending slated for future years.”

The Nobel Peace Prize committee might well have made truly worthy choices, prominent among them the remarkable Afghan activist Malalai Joya.

This brave woman survived the Russians, and then the radical Islamists whose brutality was so extreme that the population welcomed the Taliban. Joya has withstood the Taliban and now the return of the warlords under the Karzai government.

Throughout, Joya worked effectively for human rights, particularly for women; she was elected to parliament and then expelled when she continued to denounce warlord atrocities. She now lives underground under heavy protection, but she continues the struggle, in word and deed. By such actions, repeated everywhere as best we can, the prospects for peace edge closer to hopes.

Source: In These Times