Published May 22nd, 2012 - 17:23 GMT via SyndiGate.info
Source: albawaba
srael is implanting “thousands of fake” Jewish graves in the land surrounding al-Aqsa Mosque “at the pretext of carrying out repair and maintenance works and new excavations” in a bid to lay hand on Palestinian and Islamic endowment lands, Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage said in a report on Monday.
“The Israeli occupation of Jerusalem is committing a very ugly crime on Palestinian lands, on Muslim endowment lands, and that is the implanting of thousands of fake Jewish graves in this site,” Abdel Majeed Mohammad, of the Aqsa Foundation was quoted in report as saying.
“What we learned from the people of Silwan is that there is limited number of Jewish graves (around Aqsa Mosque). The Israeli occupation is trying to impose a fait accomplice to control Palestinian endowment lands through implanting 3,000 graves.”
“This is the greatest paradox; on the one hand Israel bulldozes Muslim graves in Jerusalem, on the other hands it implants thousands of fake Jewish graves,” Mohammad said.
He added that thousands of Jewish tombstones were planted around the mosque to indicate graves, but underneath, there are no bodies, nor skeletons.
In January 2012, the Palestinian Information Center (PIC) reported that Israel “implanted 50 unreal graves in the northern part of Silwan district so as to control and seize about 20 dunums of Palestinian land there.”
“This Israeli move is aimed at separating the area from the walls of the Aqsa Mosque, where the IOA [Israeli Occupation Authority] also intends to establish a chain of Talmudic gardens and a large Jewish museum in the area connected with the Jewish cemetery in Ras al-Amud and Attour neighborhoods and the settlements, Maale Hazeetim and Maale David,” PIC reported.
In 2010 Israel said it had destroyed about 300 Muslim gravestones in a Jerusalem cemetery because they were “fake” and set up in a bid to snatch government land, according to AFP.
But the Islamic Movement completely denied the graves were fake, saying all of them contained bodies.
The demolition of the graves took place near the site of a planned Museum of Tolerance to be built by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a U.S.-based Jewish human rights group.
What is your opinion on Israel's cloak and dagger graveyard activity? Has Israel taken its territorial conflict with the Palestinians into the preserve of the dead? Could this be a form of imperialism from the grave?
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
House to Vote on Ron Paul Bill to Audit the Federal Reserve
28 May 2012
by Alex Newman
Source: The New American
GOP leadership in the House of Representatives announced that legislation to thoroughly audit the secretive Federal Reserve, a wildly popular measure pushed by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) for decades, will come up for a floor vote in July. Honest-money advocates and pro-transparency activists celebrated the news as a historic opportunity to rein in the central bank, which has come under heavy fire — especially in recent years — for debasing the U.S. dollar, manipulating markets, and showering big banks with trillions in bailouts.
The legislation, H.R. 459, already has over 225 co-sponsors in the House including an impressive roster of senior Democrats and Republicans, some of whom chair important committees. In the Senate, however, a similar bill has only about 20 co-sponsors so far, forcing Audit-the-Fed activists to wage a massive campaign aimed at exposing Senators who refuse to support transparency at the shadowy central bank. Polls in recent years revealed that four out of five Americans support auditing the Fed.
“The Fed has proven it cannot be trusted and must be audited. While the banksters’ dangerous schemes have been going on for years, the bailouts exposed the trillions being stolen from the American people,” noted Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a sponsor of the Senate legislation and the son of Congressman Ron Paul. “It is time to Audit the Fed. Time to shine a bright spotlight on the largest theft in American history.”
But victory in what Sen. Paul called this “vital effort to rein in the Federal Reserve” will not be easy, he noted. The establishment is already fighting back hard against the plan in an effort to shield the controversial institution from public scrutiny. And as the battle heats up, the Fed and its supporters will not give up easily.
“As we enter this critical time, we have an unprecedented chance to finish this fight and finally hold the Fed accountable for all it has done to wreck our economy and endanger our nation,” Sen. Paul concluded. “Don’t let this opportunity slip away.”
Experts and economic analysts have long said that if citizens understood what was really going on behind closed doors at the privately owned central bank, a tsunami of outrage would almost certainly force politicians to shut down the Fed and restore honest money once and for all. Even a watered-down audit, passed as part of the broader Dodd-Frank financial-reform bill, exposed blatant conflicts of interest among top Fed officials as well as some $16 trillion in Fed bailouts to big banks around the world.
Public outrage was unprecedented. Millions of Americans who had never even seriously contemplated the institution or its functions demanded reform. And lawmakers, political candidates, and grassroots organizations — realizing that there was no way the cat was going back in the bag — eventually jumped on the bandwagon, too.
“This historic moment is only possible thanks to your relentless pressure. Now we must turn up the heat to secure victory — first in the House and then in Harry Reid’s U.S. Senate,” wrote Vice-President Matt Hawes of the freedom-promoting Campaign for Liberty, one of the organizations leading the public battle for an audit that is planning a huge operation to make sure the legislation becomes law. “Now, we just need to show Congress the American people demand action on the Audit the Fed bill.”
With the looming vote, officials will soon have the chance to demonstrate whether their loyalty lies with the American people or with the mega-banks that literally own and control the Fed system. “You see, with the piling up of trillions of dollars in reckless bailouts of Wall Street and international bankers, even many politicians in Washington, D.C. want to show you they’re ‘being responsible,’ ” Hawes explained. “What better way for Congress to do this than by auditing the Federal Reserve to account for the trillions stolen from the U.S. taxpayers?”
The Fed, of course, has fiendishly resisted an audit — going so far as to hire a lobbyist to defend its interests on Capitol Hill while producing pro-central bank propaganda aimed at children — all under the guise of maintaining its supposed “independence.” But activists and monetary-policy experts suspect something far more sinister is going on.
“They know coming clean with Congress and the American people on what they’ve done to our money would result in an anti-Fed firestorm,” noted Hawes, echoing comments made by a vast array of experts and policy makers who support sound money. “So can you imagine the impact of a full-scale audit?”
According to Hawes, the Campaign for Liberty, and numerous economists, auditing the Fed would expose the destructive economic consequences of centrally planning interest rates and manipulating the supply of currency. It would also show that the central banking system leads to the destruction of the middle class, the destruction of the currency, and eventually, chaos.
“You and I have seen the damage the out-of-control Fed can cause, especially during a time of crisis. As you know, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and their cronies on Wall Street have for nearly four years been engaged in the worst plundering of a country’s wealth in the history of civilization,” Hawes explained in a letter to supporters soliciting help for the battle ahead.
“Americans are crushed under a mountain of debt, yet the Fed continues to print more money — backed by nothing but the whims of Ben Bernanke and international bankers,” he added. “If you and I don’t put an end to it all, it will clearly be the ruin of our entire way of life.” The next crisis, experts believe, could be just around the corner.
Other commentators backing the legislation also emphasized that the time to move on this crucial measure is now — for more than one reason. “As the global financial system teeters on the cusp of another recession, and nations throughout the Eurozone fall to economic insolvency, the time appears right for Congress to finally address the issue of the Federal Reserve, especially before their original 100-year charter expires,” wrote finance analyst Kenneth Schortgen Jr with the Examiner.
Even the debate will have a big impact, too. “[House Majority Leader] Eric Cantor's decision as a prime leader in the Republican party to bring the bill before Congress in July will have staggering effects on what the Fed may have to reveal in subpoenaed testimony, and what efforts they may be handcuffed from doing going forward if the economy continues to decline,” Schortgen explained. But actually passing the full bill, its supporters say, is more crucial than ever.
While Rep. Paul has been a longtime leader in the movement to expose, rein in, and eventually abolish the Fed, the public outcry about the issue has become so loud that lawmakers in both parties have taken up the call as well. During a recent hearing in Paul’s subcommittee on monetary policy, a bipartisan collection of legislators and experts discussed whether the Fed should be reformed or simply dismantled. Progress in addressing the problems, while slow, is expected to speed up.
Related articles:
Congress Debates the Federal Reserve: Reform or Abolish?
Time to Audit the Fed
Ron and Rand Paul Introduce “Audit the Fed” Legislation
Bernanke Attacks Ron Paul's Audit the Fed Bill
$Trillion Bailout of Euro, Greece Shows Need to Audit the Fed
Fed Manipulations in the Crosshairs
U.S. Fed Bailout of Euro Prompts New Push for Audit & Sound Money
GOP Lawmaker Unveils New Effort to Rein in Fed
Fed Audit: Trillions For Foreign Banks, Conflicts of Interest
Fed Plotting to Monitor Critics, Tailor Propaganda
Fed Wages PR Battle for Power, Secrecy
Fed Approves First Communist Chinese Takeover of U.S. Bank
by Alex Newman
Source: The New American
GOP leadership in the House of Representatives announced that legislation to thoroughly audit the secretive Federal Reserve, a wildly popular measure pushed by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) for decades, will come up for a floor vote in July. Honest-money advocates and pro-transparency activists celebrated the news as a historic opportunity to rein in the central bank, which has come under heavy fire — especially in recent years — for debasing the U.S. dollar, manipulating markets, and showering big banks with trillions in bailouts.
The legislation, H.R. 459, already has over 225 co-sponsors in the House including an impressive roster of senior Democrats and Republicans, some of whom chair important committees. In the Senate, however, a similar bill has only about 20 co-sponsors so far, forcing Audit-the-Fed activists to wage a massive campaign aimed at exposing Senators who refuse to support transparency at the shadowy central bank. Polls in recent years revealed that four out of five Americans support auditing the Fed.
“The Fed has proven it cannot be trusted and must be audited. While the banksters’ dangerous schemes have been going on for years, the bailouts exposed the trillions being stolen from the American people,” noted Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a sponsor of the Senate legislation and the son of Congressman Ron Paul. “It is time to Audit the Fed. Time to shine a bright spotlight on the largest theft in American history.”
But victory in what Sen. Paul called this “vital effort to rein in the Federal Reserve” will not be easy, he noted. The establishment is already fighting back hard against the plan in an effort to shield the controversial institution from public scrutiny. And as the battle heats up, the Fed and its supporters will not give up easily.
“As we enter this critical time, we have an unprecedented chance to finish this fight and finally hold the Fed accountable for all it has done to wreck our economy and endanger our nation,” Sen. Paul concluded. “Don’t let this opportunity slip away.”
Experts and economic analysts have long said that if citizens understood what was really going on behind closed doors at the privately owned central bank, a tsunami of outrage would almost certainly force politicians to shut down the Fed and restore honest money once and for all. Even a watered-down audit, passed as part of the broader Dodd-Frank financial-reform bill, exposed blatant conflicts of interest among top Fed officials as well as some $16 trillion in Fed bailouts to big banks around the world.
Public outrage was unprecedented. Millions of Americans who had never even seriously contemplated the institution or its functions demanded reform. And lawmakers, political candidates, and grassroots organizations — realizing that there was no way the cat was going back in the bag — eventually jumped on the bandwagon, too.
“This historic moment is only possible thanks to your relentless pressure. Now we must turn up the heat to secure victory — first in the House and then in Harry Reid’s U.S. Senate,” wrote Vice-President Matt Hawes of the freedom-promoting Campaign for Liberty, one of the organizations leading the public battle for an audit that is planning a huge operation to make sure the legislation becomes law. “Now, we just need to show Congress the American people demand action on the Audit the Fed bill.”
With the looming vote, officials will soon have the chance to demonstrate whether their loyalty lies with the American people or with the mega-banks that literally own and control the Fed system. “You see, with the piling up of trillions of dollars in reckless bailouts of Wall Street and international bankers, even many politicians in Washington, D.C. want to show you they’re ‘being responsible,’ ” Hawes explained. “What better way for Congress to do this than by auditing the Federal Reserve to account for the trillions stolen from the U.S. taxpayers?”
The Fed, of course, has fiendishly resisted an audit — going so far as to hire a lobbyist to defend its interests on Capitol Hill while producing pro-central bank propaganda aimed at children — all under the guise of maintaining its supposed “independence.” But activists and monetary-policy experts suspect something far more sinister is going on.
“They know coming clean with Congress and the American people on what they’ve done to our money would result in an anti-Fed firestorm,” noted Hawes, echoing comments made by a vast array of experts and policy makers who support sound money. “So can you imagine the impact of a full-scale audit?”
According to Hawes, the Campaign for Liberty, and numerous economists, auditing the Fed would expose the destructive economic consequences of centrally planning interest rates and manipulating the supply of currency. It would also show that the central banking system leads to the destruction of the middle class, the destruction of the currency, and eventually, chaos.
“You and I have seen the damage the out-of-control Fed can cause, especially during a time of crisis. As you know, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and their cronies on Wall Street have for nearly four years been engaged in the worst plundering of a country’s wealth in the history of civilization,” Hawes explained in a letter to supporters soliciting help for the battle ahead.
“Americans are crushed under a mountain of debt, yet the Fed continues to print more money — backed by nothing but the whims of Ben Bernanke and international bankers,” he added. “If you and I don’t put an end to it all, it will clearly be the ruin of our entire way of life.” The next crisis, experts believe, could be just around the corner.
Other commentators backing the legislation also emphasized that the time to move on this crucial measure is now — for more than one reason. “As the global financial system teeters on the cusp of another recession, and nations throughout the Eurozone fall to economic insolvency, the time appears right for Congress to finally address the issue of the Federal Reserve, especially before their original 100-year charter expires,” wrote finance analyst Kenneth Schortgen Jr with the Examiner.
Even the debate will have a big impact, too. “[House Majority Leader] Eric Cantor's decision as a prime leader in the Republican party to bring the bill before Congress in July will have staggering effects on what the Fed may have to reveal in subpoenaed testimony, and what efforts they may be handcuffed from doing going forward if the economy continues to decline,” Schortgen explained. But actually passing the full bill, its supporters say, is more crucial than ever.
While Rep. Paul has been a longtime leader in the movement to expose, rein in, and eventually abolish the Fed, the public outcry about the issue has become so loud that lawmakers in both parties have taken up the call as well. During a recent hearing in Paul’s subcommittee on monetary policy, a bipartisan collection of legislators and experts discussed whether the Fed should be reformed or simply dismantled. Progress in addressing the problems, while slow, is expected to speed up.
Related articles:
Congress Debates the Federal Reserve: Reform or Abolish?
Time to Audit the Fed
Ron and Rand Paul Introduce “Audit the Fed” Legislation
Bernanke Attacks Ron Paul's Audit the Fed Bill
$Trillion Bailout of Euro, Greece Shows Need to Audit the Fed
Fed Manipulations in the Crosshairs
U.S. Fed Bailout of Euro Prompts New Push for Audit & Sound Money
GOP Lawmaker Unveils New Effort to Rein in Fed
Fed Audit: Trillions For Foreign Banks, Conflicts of Interest
Fed Plotting to Monitor Critics, Tailor Propaganda
Fed Wages PR Battle for Power, Secrecy
Fed Approves First Communist Chinese Takeover of U.S. Bank
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
There Is No God but The God
May 29, 2012
written by: Sheila Quinn
Source: The Ummah Times
There is no God but The God. This is the first half of The Shahadatain-one of the five pillars of The Islamic Faith.
I have profiles on several social networks on the internet. There is this one social network that I was very active on at first. The experiences that I had in it were very interesting. There was this one group about Christianity which I participated in by sharing some information about Islam. Most of what I said was not responded to by Christians but by some atheists who were arrogantly assuming that they were being logical.
“Deaf, dumb and blind, and they perceive not” are words from The Qur’an which accurately describes many atheists.
One post in the Christianity group had a response from an agnostic who didn’t like Christianity-but was very much aware of the wonders of creation (“nature”). He seemed to like some religions like Buddhism and others. I suggested that he might want to learn about Islam. His response to my suggestion was both surprising and disappointing. His attitude was that there might be a God, but that if there is a God he did not have any interest in learning about Him. I was stunned by his response and had no idea as to what to say. I had opened up to him and he verbally slapped me in the face. Months later I thought up how I should have responded to him. His attitude was nonsensical. It was like he was appreciating many different paintings from the same painter, but had absolutely no interest in the painter himself.
It is interesting that most of the comments I made in the Christianity group were responded to by atheists who just wanted to bully others. (They not only bullied me, they also bullied the Christians in the group. I responded to their bullying by writing a post about ethno-centrism and about how my mother taught her children to not be ethnocentric.). Most of the time I just ignored their comments.
In general Christians think of themselves as monotheists. The fact is that most of them are not monotheists but polytheists. Those Christians who think that Jesus is God Himself-or the son of God- are giving partners to The One God. They are blaspheming their Creator. Unless they change their beliefs -in an acceptable way- before they die they will find themselves in The Hellfire. I am not the one who is saying this. The Creator Himself says this in the Qur’an in a number of places. An example is:
“They say, ‘Allah hath begotten a son!’ –Glory be to Him! He is Self Sufficient! His is all things in the heavens and the earth! No warrant have you for this! Say ye about Allah what ye know not?” (Qur’an; Sura “Yunus” (“Jonah” #10) Ayah # 68)
Many Muslims are like many Christians. Just as many Christians are giving partners to The One God, many Muslims are also giving partners to The One God. How is this? Those Muslims who are involved in Taqlid (Taqleed) are giving partners to The One God. Such Muslims are Mushrikeen (Polytheists). Any Muslim who follows anyone other than Prophet Muhammad is involved in Taqlid. They are making shirk with Allah; they are mushrikeen (polytheists).
"Turn ye in repentance to Him, and fear Him: establish regular prayers, and be not ye among those who join gods with Allah- those who split up their religion and become sects-each party rejoicing in that which is with itself." Qur’an; Sura “Rum” (“The Romans”) #30; aya’in #31-32
“Those who follow the Messenger, the Unlettered Prophet…So it is those who believe in him, honor him, help him, and follow the Light which is sent down with him,-it is they who will prosper” (Sura: “Al A’raf” (“The Heights” # 7) Ayah #157)
Some References:
Qur’an: Sura “Yunus” (“Jonah” #10) Ayah # 68); Sura “Rum” (“The Romans”) #30; aya’in# 31-32); (Sura: “Al A’raf” (“The Heights” # 7) Ayah #157)
Blog Articles: “A Disease Called Taqleed” written by Sheila Quinn; “Is the Islamic Nation Sinking?” written by Sheila Quinn
written by: Sheila Quinn
Source: The Ummah Times
There is no God but The God. This is the first half of The Shahadatain-one of the five pillars of The Islamic Faith.
I have profiles on several social networks on the internet. There is this one social network that I was very active on at first. The experiences that I had in it were very interesting. There was this one group about Christianity which I participated in by sharing some information about Islam. Most of what I said was not responded to by Christians but by some atheists who were arrogantly assuming that they were being logical.
“Deaf, dumb and blind, and they perceive not” are words from The Qur’an which accurately describes many atheists.
One post in the Christianity group had a response from an agnostic who didn’t like Christianity-but was very much aware of the wonders of creation (“nature”). He seemed to like some religions like Buddhism and others. I suggested that he might want to learn about Islam. His response to my suggestion was both surprising and disappointing. His attitude was that there might be a God, but that if there is a God he did not have any interest in learning about Him. I was stunned by his response and had no idea as to what to say. I had opened up to him and he verbally slapped me in the face. Months later I thought up how I should have responded to him. His attitude was nonsensical. It was like he was appreciating many different paintings from the same painter, but had absolutely no interest in the painter himself.
It is interesting that most of the comments I made in the Christianity group were responded to by atheists who just wanted to bully others. (They not only bullied me, they also bullied the Christians in the group. I responded to their bullying by writing a post about ethno-centrism and about how my mother taught her children to not be ethnocentric.). Most of the time I just ignored their comments.
In general Christians think of themselves as monotheists. The fact is that most of them are not monotheists but polytheists. Those Christians who think that Jesus is God Himself-or the son of God- are giving partners to The One God. They are blaspheming their Creator. Unless they change their beliefs -in an acceptable way- before they die they will find themselves in The Hellfire. I am not the one who is saying this. The Creator Himself says this in the Qur’an in a number of places. An example is:
“They say, ‘Allah hath begotten a son!’ –Glory be to Him! He is Self Sufficient! His is all things in the heavens and the earth! No warrant have you for this! Say ye about Allah what ye know not?” (Qur’an; Sura “Yunus” (“Jonah” #10) Ayah # 68)
Many Muslims are like many Christians. Just as many Christians are giving partners to The One God, many Muslims are also giving partners to The One God. How is this? Those Muslims who are involved in Taqlid (Taqleed) are giving partners to The One God. Such Muslims are Mushrikeen (Polytheists). Any Muslim who follows anyone other than Prophet Muhammad is involved in Taqlid. They are making shirk with Allah; they are mushrikeen (polytheists).
"Turn ye in repentance to Him, and fear Him: establish regular prayers, and be not ye among those who join gods with Allah- those who split up their religion and become sects-each party rejoicing in that which is with itself." Qur’an; Sura “Rum” (“The Romans”) #30; aya’in #31-32
“Those who follow the Messenger, the Unlettered Prophet…So it is those who believe in him, honor him, help him, and follow the Light which is sent down with him,-it is they who will prosper” (Sura: “Al A’raf” (“The Heights” # 7) Ayah #157)
Some References:
Qur’an: Sura “Yunus” (“Jonah” #10) Ayah # 68); Sura “Rum” (“The Romans”) #30; aya’in# 31-32); (Sura: “Al A’raf” (“The Heights” # 7) Ayah #157)
Blog Articles: “A Disease Called Taqleed” written by Sheila Quinn; “Is the Islamic Nation Sinking?” written by Sheila Quinn
Daily Kristallinacht in Palestine ~ By @StephenLendman
May 28, 2012
By:Stephen Lendman
Source: Occupied Palestine
Imagine daily life under these conditions. Occupation harshness enforces institutionalized terror. Fear is constant. Collective punishment is policy.
Peaceful public demonstrations are assaulted. Free expression and movement are prohibited. Population centers are isolated. Borders are closed.
Normal daily life is denied. Economic strangulation and institutionalized racism are imposed. So are curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, separation walls, electric fences, and other barriers.
Neighborhood incursions, land, sea and air attacks, bulldozed homes, land theft, ethnic cleansing, slow-motion genocide, targeted killings, mass arrests, torture, and gulag imprisonment reflect daily life for praying to the wrong God.
Fundamental civil and human rights are denied. Crimes of war and against humanity repeat without redress. Wanting to live free in sovereign Palestine is called terrorism.
Punitive taxes are imposed. Few services are provided. Vital ones are lacking or inadequate. Palestinian lawmakers are imprisoned for belonging to the wrong party.
Fishermen are attacked at sea. So are farmers working their land. Trying at the wrong time risks arrest, injury or death. Crops and orchards are destroyed. Settlers commit regular attacks. Courts provide no help.
Gaza is suffocating under siege. Scoundrel media policy enforces coverup and denial, blame the victim, and portray Israel as the region’s only free democratic state. Reality reflects police state harshness. It persists without end.
Even Jews challenging injustice are targeted. Rogues tolerate no opposition. Israeli ones have few equals.
On May 24, Haaretz headlined “Amnesty International: Israel uses excessive force against Palestinians,” saying:
AI’s 2012 annual report “is highly critical of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians….” It charges Israel Defense Forces with “frequent” use of “excessive, sometimes lethal force against demonstrators in the West Bank and civilians in Gaza.”
Dozens are lawlessly killed, including children. Blockading Gaza enforces a “humanitarian crisis.” Restricting free movement was also criticized.
So was Israel’s Separation Wall on stolen Palestinian land, settlement expansions, home demolitions, destroying so-called “unrecognized” villages, and failure to “bring those (who) attack Palestinians to justice.”
Settlers were mentioned. They commit vandalism and kill Palestinians with impunity. Israeli security forces do nothing to stop them. More on that below.
Wrongfully imprisoning Palestinians was criticized. Thousands rot unjustly in Israel’s gulag. Hundreds are there uncharged. Torture and ill-treatment were highlighted. So were other abuses.
On May 25, Al Haq headlined “Rampant settler attacks against Palestinians,” saying:
Since January, Al Haq documented “98 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians across the West Bank.”
Those living closest to settlements are most vulnerable. Attacks include property damage or destruction, physical assaults, and murder.
Al Haq highlighted several recent incidents:
(1) On May 19, about 150 settlers, some heavily armed, invaded ‘Asira al-Qibliya village south of Nablus. Twenty nearby Israeli soldiers watched and did nothing.
Crops were burned. Youths confronted settlers. They used live fire in response. Bassam Nijem ‘Asayra witnessed events. One settler “pointed his gun directly towards him,” he said.
Nimer Fathi Nijem intervened to help him. Settlers opened fire. He incurred face and neck wounds. Bassam thought he would die. He was hospitalized with severe damage to his right cheek, left ear, and jaw.
Clashes continued for another two hours. Soldiers intervened. They assaulted Palestinians, not settlers, with tear gas and rubber bullets. Incidents like this repeat often.
(2) On May 20, Muhammad ‘Aqel Mur’s crops were set ablaze. Two settlers were responsible. Muhammad approached. They hurriedly left.
Police and Israel’s Civil Administration (ICA) were informed. Security forces and ICA personnel arrived to assess damage and question Muhammad.
Two settlers were apprehended. “Muhammad is not optimistic that they will be held to account.” It rarely happens. Occasionally settlers are questioned and released without further action.
(3) On May 17, Hamza Zeid ‘Allan saw his father’s car on fire. Three arsonists were spotted leaving the scene.
Hamza notified the Israeli Coordination office nearby. Police and military forces arrived to investigate. A complaint was filed. No further action was taken.
(4) On May 17, settlers destroyed 33 fruit trees belonging to Muhammad ‘Abd-al-Hamid al-Sleibi. He and his family relied on harvested crops for income since 1959.
In April, settlers destroyed his olive groves and over 30 vine trees. They left behind “price tag” and “revenge” slogans. They reflect repeated vandalism and other violent incidents. Extremist settlers commit them with impunity.
“Mumammad and his lawyer are still waiting for an appointment with the Israeli Civil Administration regarding this incident.” They expect little help. Settlers act lawlessly with impunity.
On May 26, armed settlers launched multiple attacks on Palestinian villages near Nablus. Farmers were attacked on their land. One was shot and wounded. He was struck in the abdomen and hospitalized.
Farmlands were also set ablaze. Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and rubber bullets on Palestinians defending their property. One arrest followed. Palestinians don’t know what’s worse – marauding settlers or soldiers defending their right to commit vandalism and other crimes with impunity.
On May 25, Adalah headlined “Adalah to Government and Knesset: “Sanctioning Construction on Private Palestinian Land in the West Bank Violates Israeli and International Law,” saying:
If passed, Knesset bills will “legalize building on private Palestinian land in Israeli Jewish settlements in the West Bank.”
Adalah attorney Suhad Bishara said doing so amounts to large-scale lawless confiscation of Palestinian land. Resources on it will be lost. Israeli wants all valued parts of Judea and Sameria Judaized.
Israel’s High Court accepts the legitimacy of private Palestinian property rights. It also recognizes international humanitarian and human rights laws. Israel systematically ignores them.
Politically confiscated land is prohibited. Knesset bills permit it. If enacted, they’ll circumvent recent Supreme Court rulings. They ordered illegal settler outposts on private Palestinian land dismantled. Forged papers were used to build them.
Extremist Israeli cabinet members threatened to resign if settlers are removed. Netanyahu postponed demolitions. He appears poised to recognize them retroactively.
Israeli officials often circumvent High Court decisions. Netanyahu heads Israel’s worst ever government. Racist, hardline rogues infest it. Democratic values don’t matter. Laws are routinely violated.
Palestinian rights are systematically denied. State terror is policy. Adalah knows petitioning for what’s right has little chance of succeeding. Nonetheless, it persists like other human rights groups. Palestinians deserve that much and more. So does everyone.
Progress comes slowly in baby steps. On May 23, Ahmed Moor’s Mondoweiss article headlined “Why ‘Brand Israel’ is failing,” saying:
“Israel is less popular among young Americans than ever before” for good reason. Doing the wrong thing long enough attracts attention. It’s encouraging to see young people understand, including Americans.
They’re assaulted by one-sided pro-Israeli scoundrel media. For them, the harshest Israeli policy is justified. Palestinians are vilified as terrorists for wanting to live free.
For young Americans, however, “the conversation about Zionism in America is dramatically different from what it was only a few years ago.” Facts slowly displace fiction. Truths reach people wanting to know.
Learning them is eye-opening. Oslo “facilitate(d) the preservation of Jewish privilege.” Occupation terrorizes Palestinians. Zionism reflects racism, violence, and rapaciousness. It’s an instrument for harsh repression. It abhors love thy neighbor and do unto others.
Anti-Semitism is an outworn canard. It’s become “an exercise in self-caricature.” Public support for Israel is eroding. Perhaps one day political Washington will notice. How it reacts is another matter altogether, and the same goes for racist European governments.
Understanding is one thing, policy another. Change so far is nowhere in sight. Palestinians know best of all.
A Final Comment
On May 23, Haaretz columnist Amira Hass headlined “Israel is doing everything to separate Gaza, West Bank,” saying:
Aside from issues of divide, conquer and control, Hass wrote about five Gazan women accepted to attend Bir Zeit University. Four hope to earn master’s degrees in gender studies.
Three are in their 40s, one in her 30s, and a fifth just graduated from high school with honors.
Israel blocks their admission. It refuses passage rights through its territory to the West Bank. Security is claimed for justification. At issue is racist persecution, not fear of a terrorist attack.
“The State Attorney’s Office knows it is difficult to argue persuasively that four middle-aged women who have worked for years to advance women’s rights in the Strip, and one young woman (the daughter of a well-known jurist), will export terror infrastructure to the West Bank.”
Instead it says the state has “broad authority to determine” who’s granted entry rights. With regard to students posing no threat, the argument is spurious on its face.
Gisha attorneys say Gaza merchants enter Israel for work meetings. Why them and not students? Does modest easing on commerce matter more than education? Do men get rights denied women?
Hass notes “the elephant in the room.” Israel wants Hamas rule in Gaza. It facilitates West Bank separation. Oslo stipulated one Palestine, not two. Israel systematically violated all provisions agreed on.
Palestinians suffer grievously. Abbas compounds injustice as Israel’s enforcer. He long ago betrayed his people for self-serving reasons.
On May 23, Israel’s High Court heard arguments for and against the five Gazan women. Though absent, their presence was felt. Attorneys argued on their behalf.
Israel denied them entry for their Supreme Court hearing.
At issue is who’ll prevail – students petitioning for justice or the “indefensible” claim of a fundamentally corrupt racist state.
Also at issue is does it matter. Extremist governments like Netanyahu’s ignore rulings they reject.
Expect nothing different this time. Expect another “Brand Israel” black eye.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen [at] sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled “How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War”
http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
By:Stephen Lendman
Source: Occupied Palestine
Imagine daily life under these conditions. Occupation harshness enforces institutionalized terror. Fear is constant. Collective punishment is policy.
Peaceful public demonstrations are assaulted. Free expression and movement are prohibited. Population centers are isolated. Borders are closed.
Normal daily life is denied. Economic strangulation and institutionalized racism are imposed. So are curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, separation walls, electric fences, and other barriers.
Neighborhood incursions, land, sea and air attacks, bulldozed homes, land theft, ethnic cleansing, slow-motion genocide, targeted killings, mass arrests, torture, and gulag imprisonment reflect daily life for praying to the wrong God.
Fundamental civil and human rights are denied. Crimes of war and against humanity repeat without redress. Wanting to live free in sovereign Palestine is called terrorism.
Punitive taxes are imposed. Few services are provided. Vital ones are lacking or inadequate. Palestinian lawmakers are imprisoned for belonging to the wrong party.
Fishermen are attacked at sea. So are farmers working their land. Trying at the wrong time risks arrest, injury or death. Crops and orchards are destroyed. Settlers commit regular attacks. Courts provide no help.
Gaza is suffocating under siege. Scoundrel media policy enforces coverup and denial, blame the victim, and portray Israel as the region’s only free democratic state. Reality reflects police state harshness. It persists without end.
Even Jews challenging injustice are targeted. Rogues tolerate no opposition. Israeli ones have few equals.
On May 24, Haaretz headlined “Amnesty International: Israel uses excessive force against Palestinians,” saying:
AI’s 2012 annual report “is highly critical of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians….” It charges Israel Defense Forces with “frequent” use of “excessive, sometimes lethal force against demonstrators in the West Bank and civilians in Gaza.”
Dozens are lawlessly killed, including children. Blockading Gaza enforces a “humanitarian crisis.” Restricting free movement was also criticized.
So was Israel’s Separation Wall on stolen Palestinian land, settlement expansions, home demolitions, destroying so-called “unrecognized” villages, and failure to “bring those (who) attack Palestinians to justice.”
Settlers were mentioned. They commit vandalism and kill Palestinians with impunity. Israeli security forces do nothing to stop them. More on that below.
Wrongfully imprisoning Palestinians was criticized. Thousands rot unjustly in Israel’s gulag. Hundreds are there uncharged. Torture and ill-treatment were highlighted. So were other abuses.
On May 25, Al Haq headlined “Rampant settler attacks against Palestinians,” saying:
Since January, Al Haq documented “98 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians across the West Bank.”
Those living closest to settlements are most vulnerable. Attacks include property damage or destruction, physical assaults, and murder.
Al Haq highlighted several recent incidents:
(1) On May 19, about 150 settlers, some heavily armed, invaded ‘Asira al-Qibliya village south of Nablus. Twenty nearby Israeli soldiers watched and did nothing.
Crops were burned. Youths confronted settlers. They used live fire in response. Bassam Nijem ‘Asayra witnessed events. One settler “pointed his gun directly towards him,” he said.
Nimer Fathi Nijem intervened to help him. Settlers opened fire. He incurred face and neck wounds. Bassam thought he would die. He was hospitalized with severe damage to his right cheek, left ear, and jaw.
Clashes continued for another two hours. Soldiers intervened. They assaulted Palestinians, not settlers, with tear gas and rubber bullets. Incidents like this repeat often.
(2) On May 20, Muhammad ‘Aqel Mur’s crops were set ablaze. Two settlers were responsible. Muhammad approached. They hurriedly left.
Police and Israel’s Civil Administration (ICA) were informed. Security forces and ICA personnel arrived to assess damage and question Muhammad.
Two settlers were apprehended. “Muhammad is not optimistic that they will be held to account.” It rarely happens. Occasionally settlers are questioned and released without further action.
(3) On May 17, Hamza Zeid ‘Allan saw his father’s car on fire. Three arsonists were spotted leaving the scene.
Hamza notified the Israeli Coordination office nearby. Police and military forces arrived to investigate. A complaint was filed. No further action was taken.
(4) On May 17, settlers destroyed 33 fruit trees belonging to Muhammad ‘Abd-al-Hamid al-Sleibi. He and his family relied on harvested crops for income since 1959.
In April, settlers destroyed his olive groves and over 30 vine trees. They left behind “price tag” and “revenge” slogans. They reflect repeated vandalism and other violent incidents. Extremist settlers commit them with impunity.
“Mumammad and his lawyer are still waiting for an appointment with the Israeli Civil Administration regarding this incident.” They expect little help. Settlers act lawlessly with impunity.
On May 26, armed settlers launched multiple attacks on Palestinian villages near Nablus. Farmers were attacked on their land. One was shot and wounded. He was struck in the abdomen and hospitalized.
Farmlands were also set ablaze. Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and rubber bullets on Palestinians defending their property. One arrest followed. Palestinians don’t know what’s worse – marauding settlers or soldiers defending their right to commit vandalism and other crimes with impunity.
On May 25, Adalah headlined “Adalah to Government and Knesset: “Sanctioning Construction on Private Palestinian Land in the West Bank Violates Israeli and International Law,” saying:
If passed, Knesset bills will “legalize building on private Palestinian land in Israeli Jewish settlements in the West Bank.”
Adalah attorney Suhad Bishara said doing so amounts to large-scale lawless confiscation of Palestinian land. Resources on it will be lost. Israeli wants all valued parts of Judea and Sameria Judaized.
Israel’s High Court accepts the legitimacy of private Palestinian property rights. It also recognizes international humanitarian and human rights laws. Israel systematically ignores them.
Politically confiscated land is prohibited. Knesset bills permit it. If enacted, they’ll circumvent recent Supreme Court rulings. They ordered illegal settler outposts on private Palestinian land dismantled. Forged papers were used to build them.
Extremist Israeli cabinet members threatened to resign if settlers are removed. Netanyahu postponed demolitions. He appears poised to recognize them retroactively.
Israeli officials often circumvent High Court decisions. Netanyahu heads Israel’s worst ever government. Racist, hardline rogues infest it. Democratic values don’t matter. Laws are routinely violated.
Palestinian rights are systematically denied. State terror is policy. Adalah knows petitioning for what’s right has little chance of succeeding. Nonetheless, it persists like other human rights groups. Palestinians deserve that much and more. So does everyone.
Progress comes slowly in baby steps. On May 23, Ahmed Moor’s Mondoweiss article headlined “Why ‘Brand Israel’ is failing,” saying:
“Israel is less popular among young Americans than ever before” for good reason. Doing the wrong thing long enough attracts attention. It’s encouraging to see young people understand, including Americans.
They’re assaulted by one-sided pro-Israeli scoundrel media. For them, the harshest Israeli policy is justified. Palestinians are vilified as terrorists for wanting to live free.
For young Americans, however, “the conversation about Zionism in America is dramatically different from what it was only a few years ago.” Facts slowly displace fiction. Truths reach people wanting to know.
Learning them is eye-opening. Oslo “facilitate(d) the preservation of Jewish privilege.” Occupation terrorizes Palestinians. Zionism reflects racism, violence, and rapaciousness. It’s an instrument for harsh repression. It abhors love thy neighbor and do unto others.
Anti-Semitism is an outworn canard. It’s become “an exercise in self-caricature.” Public support for Israel is eroding. Perhaps one day political Washington will notice. How it reacts is another matter altogether, and the same goes for racist European governments.
Understanding is one thing, policy another. Change so far is nowhere in sight. Palestinians know best of all.
A Final Comment
On May 23, Haaretz columnist Amira Hass headlined “Israel is doing everything to separate Gaza, West Bank,” saying:
Aside from issues of divide, conquer and control, Hass wrote about five Gazan women accepted to attend Bir Zeit University. Four hope to earn master’s degrees in gender studies.
Three are in their 40s, one in her 30s, and a fifth just graduated from high school with honors.
Israel blocks their admission. It refuses passage rights through its territory to the West Bank. Security is claimed for justification. At issue is racist persecution, not fear of a terrorist attack.
“The State Attorney’s Office knows it is difficult to argue persuasively that four middle-aged women who have worked for years to advance women’s rights in the Strip, and one young woman (the daughter of a well-known jurist), will export terror infrastructure to the West Bank.”
Instead it says the state has “broad authority to determine” who’s granted entry rights. With regard to students posing no threat, the argument is spurious on its face.
Gisha attorneys say Gaza merchants enter Israel for work meetings. Why them and not students? Does modest easing on commerce matter more than education? Do men get rights denied women?
Hass notes “the elephant in the room.” Israel wants Hamas rule in Gaza. It facilitates West Bank separation. Oslo stipulated one Palestine, not two. Israel systematically violated all provisions agreed on.
Palestinians suffer grievously. Abbas compounds injustice as Israel’s enforcer. He long ago betrayed his people for self-serving reasons.
On May 23, Israel’s High Court heard arguments for and against the five Gazan women. Though absent, their presence was felt. Attorneys argued on their behalf.
Israel denied them entry for their Supreme Court hearing.
At issue is who’ll prevail – students petitioning for justice or the “indefensible” claim of a fundamentally corrupt racist state.
Also at issue is does it matter. Extremist governments like Netanyahu’s ignore rulings they reject.
Expect nothing different this time. Expect another “Brand Israel” black eye.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen [at] sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled “How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War”
http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
Israel’s Enforcer ~ by @StephenLendman
May 28, 2012
By:Stephen Lendman
Source: Occupied Palestine
Israel enforces rogue state harshness. Rule of law principles are spurned. Even Jewish rights are marginalized. Palestinians have none.
Occupation ruthlessness terrorizes them. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad serve illegitimately.
Israel manipulated the process to elect Abbas and keep him in charge. Despite virtually no popular support, Fayyad was appointed.
Enforcing Israeli authority is policy. Abbas is a longtime collaborator. Duplicity defines his agenda. Israel and Washington know he’s reliable. They support him to serve their interests.
Abbas took credit as Oslo’s architect. Israel controlled the process. Sellout defined it. Israel got what it wanted. Palestinians were shut out. Abbas sold out. He agreed to unilateral surrender. So did Arafat.
In April, Al-Ahram contributor Hasan Afif El-Hasan headlined “Twenty lost years,” saying:
Post-Oslo, nothing changed. Israel’s military protects settlers and terrorizes Palestinians. PA security forces violate the rights of their own people “in accordance with guidelines and direct orders established by Israel.”
“The path the PA chose since Oslo has not led to Palestinian independence and it has weakened the Palestinian national movement.”
“The PA does not govern its own territory, and became for all intents and purposes the administrator of an Israeli protectorate while Israel carries on with ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, colonising the West Bank and enforcing the criminal blockade on Gaza.”
Abbas and Fayyad replicate US-controlled puppet authority in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere. PA security forces prevent and/or contain peaceful demonstrations.
During Cast Lead, anti-Israeli protests were prohibited. Abbas tried to prevent war crime investigations. He won’t permit another Intifada. He targets Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine supporters.
Historian Beshara Doumani recently visited the West Bank. He said PA crackdowns prevent Palestinians from expressing views freely. He called Nablus “a broken city.” Resistance is confronted and quashed.
Sociology Professor Khalil Nakhleh calls PA/Israeli cooperation frightening. Palestinian elites place their interests above collective ones.
PA leaders work cooperatively with a “Jewish-ethno-security regime.” They rule Palestine “from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean….” What chance have Palestinians when top officials representing them sell out to Israeli authority?
On May 10, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights reported (PCHR) Palestinian security forces broke up “the concluding colloquium of the Palestine Festival of Literature.”
Free expression and opinion were violated. So was the right to peacefully assemble. Palestinian law affirms rights too important to deny.
Arab poets and writers attended. Egyptian blogger ‘Amru ‘Izzat spoke about liberty. Security forces cut off electricity and told attendees to leave. Those refusing were confronted. Cameras were confiscated. Chaos resulted. Later, the colloquium resumed at al-Quds International Hotel.
In early May, PA security forces arrested dozens of journalists and activists voicing dissent. Al Haq director Shawan Jabarin said:
“There are many people I’m sure that are afraid and will count to ten before they say anything. Maybe they’ll push people to speak underground instead of expressing their opinions freely.”
“I think they’re using different words here and there, just to undermine these people in the eyes of the public and to say that they are creating trouble and creating divisions. It’s a political judgement more than (something) illegal.”
Palestinian Attorney General Ahmad al-Maghni hasn’t “protect(ed) the freedoms and the rights of the people in the face of arbitrary detention, instead of arresting people.”
“Here, we see him acting quickly” and irresponsibly. “(A)t the same time, he’s closing his ears and his eyes on the crimes going on.”
“He is not taking into his mind that the law that he is using was approved in 1960 and these days, we are in 2012 and the main principle now in all the world is freedom of expression.”
Jabarin referred to the long outdated 1960 Jordanian Penal Code.
An-Najah University student Hasan Abbadi was jailed for days and fined for “creating disunity.” Others were targeted for Facebook and other social network comments.
Abbas ruthlessly targets truth. Criticizing PA authority isn’t tolerated. Web sites were blocked. Al Mughani ordered them shut. Internet freedom’s threatened. So are peaceful assembly and other rights.
Palestinians should ask who’s side are they on? It’s simple knowing and should mobilize them to react. Otherwise, current policies will continue and worsen.
Palestinian Security Forces Trained to Serve Israel
From 2005 until he retired in October 2010, Lt. General Keith Dayton served as US Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority head (USSC). Lt. General Michael Moeller replaced him. He reports directly to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The State Department says he “directs all facets of U.S. security sector assistance to the Palestinian Authority and synchronizes international supporting efforts.”
It’s part of Washington’s pro-Israel/anti-Palestinian agenda. USSC created, built, trains and funds a 25,000-strong PA force. Hundreds of millions are spent. At issue is Institutionalizing hard-line control. Israel’s own security operations are supplemented.
Dayton built and renovated garrisons, training colleges, Interior Ministry facilities, and security headquarters. In January 2010, a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report addressed “US Security Assistance to the Palestinian Authority,” saying:
In late 2004, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Abbas created the USSC for “civil security and counterterrorism purposes.”
Palestinian recruits train at Jordan’s International Police Training Center (JIPCA) near Amman. Instruction includes crowd control, confronting “terrorist networks,” and consolidating “competent, defactionalized civilian control” over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Hamas controls besieged Gaza. Perhaps Israel plans another war to change things.
At issue is maintaining militarized occupation control, confronting challenges to Israeli authority, serving imperial Washington, and denying Palestinians freedom and control over their own lives.
PA security forces assist Israeli harshness. Five PA security organizations operate: the National Security Forces (including military intelligence), Palestinian Civil Police, Preventive Security Organization, Presidential Guard, and General Intelligence Service.
Together they comprise the Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF). The PA interior minister controls them. He’s beholden to Israel. So are Abbas and Fayyad. Palestinians lose out. They have two enemies – Israel and their own West Bank government.
USSC is a multinational organization comprised of military officers and civilian personnel. Its core staff numbers about 45, including Americans, Canadians, Brits, and Turks. Operations are based in Jerusalem and Ramallah.
US private military contractors (PMCs), including DynCorp., are involved. So are around two dozen US and foreign law enforcement and security training specialists, as well as seven US and foreign technical advisors with expertise in security and Middle East affairs, strategic planning and organizational development, contracts and grants, procurement, logistics, and finance.
At issue is enforcing occupation harshness, denying Palestinian self-determination, and eliminating challenges to Israeli control. Palestinian security forces target their own people. Abbas and Fayyad collaborate for whatever benefits they derive.
Israel has final say on policy. Washington’s a reliable partner. Palestinians are left out and exploited. They’re on their own against two rogue states denying their legitimate rights. Liberation depends on restoring them.
By:Stephen Lendman
Source: Occupied Palestine
Israel enforces rogue state harshness. Rule of law principles are spurned. Even Jewish rights are marginalized. Palestinians have none.
Occupation ruthlessness terrorizes them. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad serve illegitimately.
Israel manipulated the process to elect Abbas and keep him in charge. Despite virtually no popular support, Fayyad was appointed.
Enforcing Israeli authority is policy. Abbas is a longtime collaborator. Duplicity defines his agenda. Israel and Washington know he’s reliable. They support him to serve their interests.
Abbas took credit as Oslo’s architect. Israel controlled the process. Sellout defined it. Israel got what it wanted. Palestinians were shut out. Abbas sold out. He agreed to unilateral surrender. So did Arafat.
In April, Al-Ahram contributor Hasan Afif El-Hasan headlined “Twenty lost years,” saying:
Post-Oslo, nothing changed. Israel’s military protects settlers and terrorizes Palestinians. PA security forces violate the rights of their own people “in accordance with guidelines and direct orders established by Israel.”
“The path the PA chose since Oslo has not led to Palestinian independence and it has weakened the Palestinian national movement.”
“The PA does not govern its own territory, and became for all intents and purposes the administrator of an Israeli protectorate while Israel carries on with ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, colonising the West Bank and enforcing the criminal blockade on Gaza.”
Abbas and Fayyad replicate US-controlled puppet authority in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere. PA security forces prevent and/or contain peaceful demonstrations.
During Cast Lead, anti-Israeli protests were prohibited. Abbas tried to prevent war crime investigations. He won’t permit another Intifada. He targets Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine supporters.
Historian Beshara Doumani recently visited the West Bank. He said PA crackdowns prevent Palestinians from expressing views freely. He called Nablus “a broken city.” Resistance is confronted and quashed.
Sociology Professor Khalil Nakhleh calls PA/Israeli cooperation frightening. Palestinian elites place their interests above collective ones.
PA leaders work cooperatively with a “Jewish-ethno-security regime.” They rule Palestine “from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean….” What chance have Palestinians when top officials representing them sell out to Israeli authority?
On May 10, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights reported (PCHR) Palestinian security forces broke up “the concluding colloquium of the Palestine Festival of Literature.”
Free expression and opinion were violated. So was the right to peacefully assemble. Palestinian law affirms rights too important to deny.
Arab poets and writers attended. Egyptian blogger ‘Amru ‘Izzat spoke about liberty. Security forces cut off electricity and told attendees to leave. Those refusing were confronted. Cameras were confiscated. Chaos resulted. Later, the colloquium resumed at al-Quds International Hotel.
In early May, PA security forces arrested dozens of journalists and activists voicing dissent. Al Haq director Shawan Jabarin said:
“There are many people I’m sure that are afraid and will count to ten before they say anything. Maybe they’ll push people to speak underground instead of expressing their opinions freely.”
“I think they’re using different words here and there, just to undermine these people in the eyes of the public and to say that they are creating trouble and creating divisions. It’s a political judgement more than (something) illegal.”
Palestinian Attorney General Ahmad al-Maghni hasn’t “protect(ed) the freedoms and the rights of the people in the face of arbitrary detention, instead of arresting people.”
“Here, we see him acting quickly” and irresponsibly. “(A)t the same time, he’s closing his ears and his eyes on the crimes going on.”
“He is not taking into his mind that the law that he is using was approved in 1960 and these days, we are in 2012 and the main principle now in all the world is freedom of expression.”
Jabarin referred to the long outdated 1960 Jordanian Penal Code.
An-Najah University student Hasan Abbadi was jailed for days and fined for “creating disunity.” Others were targeted for Facebook and other social network comments.
Abbas ruthlessly targets truth. Criticizing PA authority isn’t tolerated. Web sites were blocked. Al Mughani ordered them shut. Internet freedom’s threatened. So are peaceful assembly and other rights.
Palestinians should ask who’s side are they on? It’s simple knowing and should mobilize them to react. Otherwise, current policies will continue and worsen.
Palestinian Security Forces Trained to Serve Israel
From 2005 until he retired in October 2010, Lt. General Keith Dayton served as US Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority head (USSC). Lt. General Michael Moeller replaced him. He reports directly to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The State Department says he “directs all facets of U.S. security sector assistance to the Palestinian Authority and synchronizes international supporting efforts.”
It’s part of Washington’s pro-Israel/anti-Palestinian agenda. USSC created, built, trains and funds a 25,000-strong PA force. Hundreds of millions are spent. At issue is Institutionalizing hard-line control. Israel’s own security operations are supplemented.
Dayton built and renovated garrisons, training colleges, Interior Ministry facilities, and security headquarters. In January 2010, a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report addressed “US Security Assistance to the Palestinian Authority,” saying:
In late 2004, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Abbas created the USSC for “civil security and counterterrorism purposes.”
Palestinian recruits train at Jordan’s International Police Training Center (JIPCA) near Amman. Instruction includes crowd control, confronting “terrorist networks,” and consolidating “competent, defactionalized civilian control” over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Hamas controls besieged Gaza. Perhaps Israel plans another war to change things.
At issue is maintaining militarized occupation control, confronting challenges to Israeli authority, serving imperial Washington, and denying Palestinians freedom and control over their own lives.
PA security forces assist Israeli harshness. Five PA security organizations operate: the National Security Forces (including military intelligence), Palestinian Civil Police, Preventive Security Organization, Presidential Guard, and General Intelligence Service.
Together they comprise the Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF). The PA interior minister controls them. He’s beholden to Israel. So are Abbas and Fayyad. Palestinians lose out. They have two enemies – Israel and their own West Bank government.
USSC is a multinational organization comprised of military officers and civilian personnel. Its core staff numbers about 45, including Americans, Canadians, Brits, and Turks. Operations are based in Jerusalem and Ramallah.
US private military contractors (PMCs), including DynCorp., are involved. So are around two dozen US and foreign law enforcement and security training specialists, as well as seven US and foreign technical advisors with expertise in security and Middle East affairs, strategic planning and organizational development, contracts and grants, procurement, logistics, and finance.
At issue is enforcing occupation harshness, denying Palestinian self-determination, and eliminating challenges to Israeli control. Palestinian security forces target their own people. Abbas and Fayyad collaborate for whatever benefits they derive.
Israel has final say on policy. Washington’s a reliable partner. Palestinians are left out and exploited. They’re on their own against two rogue states denying their legitimate rights. Liberation depends on restoring them.
flag inside the Aqsa mosque
May 28, 2012
Source: Occupied Palestine
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– A group of Israeli occupation soldiers hoisted a three-meter long Israeli flag inside the holy Aqsa mosque on Monday and took photos with it as background.
Azzam Al-Khatib, the director of endowment in Jerusalem, said that around 160 soldiers of the special forces provocatively hoisted the flag inside the mosque.
He said that one of the Aqsa guards told them to lower the flag and get out of the Aqsa plazas, but they refused and shouted at him.
He pointed out that the incident is the first of its kind since the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem in 1967.
Source: Occupied Palestine
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– A group of Israeli occupation soldiers hoisted a three-meter long Israeli flag inside the holy Aqsa mosque on Monday and took photos with it as background.
Azzam Al-Khatib, the director of endowment in Jerusalem, said that around 160 soldiers of the special forces provocatively hoisted the flag inside the mosque.
He said that one of the Aqsa guards told them to lower the flag and get out of the Aqsa plazas, but they refused and shouted at him.
He pointed out that the incident is the first of its kind since the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem in 1967.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Israeli Company Has FAA Permission to Fly Drones in U.S. Airspace!
May 15th, 2012
by Bob Johnson
Source: Veteran's Today
The Israeli company Stark Aerospace of Mississippi is not so much from Mississippi as it is from Israel. Stark Aerospace of Mississippi is a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries! And the Federal Aviation Administration has given them permission to fly their drones in American airspace!
Israel started its drone program with a contract in July of 1970 with the American company Teledyne Ryan. Since then it has moved to making its own drones which it uses to wage war with its neighbors as well as to keep Palestinians suppressed and under Jewish control. While being employed to control the Palestinians Israeli drones have been used in the direct killings of Palestinian children in Gaza.
The U.S. government promotes the use of drones to state and local governments. Already many state and local authorities have purchased drones for surveillance. As if this isn’t bad enough, some are thinking of arming them.
With U.S. politicians being so subservient to Israel and looking to the Jewish state for the advancement of their sickening and evil political careers, it is not surprising that American policy is mimicking Israeli policy. We’ve long since ceased to be a free Republic and are now merely a conglomerate of special interest groups with Israeli special interests at the top of the heap. In short, the American Republic has been replaced by a kosher plutocracy.
end result of Israeli drone attack on a two-year-old Palestinian child.
This is the same child as above after the Israeli drone attack. What is in store for Americans who resist Israel running our country?
One of the most powerful weapons Israel has in its march to destroy freedom and to rule the world as its Hebrew Bible/Old Testament instructs it to do (one Bible quote in particular which seems to speak not only of Israel’s domination of its neighbors but also of its superior ruling relationship over America through its control of American politicians of both parties is Deuteronomy 11:23 which has God telling the Hebrews/Jews/Israel, “Then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves.”) is the belief of Gentiles that the Bible is the word of God. Since the Bible was written by ancient Hebrews/Jews it promotes them and Israel at the expense of everyone else. For example, the ancient Hebrews wrote in Deuteronomy 7:6 that God had chosen them “above all people that are upon the face of the earth.” And Leviticus 25:44-46 claims that God told the Hebrews/Jews that they could own Gentiles and our children as slaves forever “but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.” The list goes on and on.
This conflict Israel has with the rest of the world is a profoundly important problem that must be corrected. Especially since Israel has a stockpile of real nuclear, biological and chemical weapons along with multiple submarines to launch them. This conflict has been know for centuries as the battle between Jerusalem and Athens. Jerusalem represents alleged revelations and actual superstition. Athens represents God-given reason and the God honoring practice of following the evidence wherever it leads. (I wrote a chapter on this important topic in Deism: A Revolution in Religion, A Revolution in You.) The American founder and Deist Thomas Paine made clear the deadly nature of ancient Israel when he wrote in The Age of Reason, The Complete Edition, “The Jews made no converts; they butchered all.” This sick thinking is also embraced by modern Israel as is evident from its violent treatment of Palestinians, its promotion of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament which promotes Jewish superiority and its rhetoric such as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu stating that Jerusalem has been the Israeli capital for 3,000 years. The more people realize the ungodly nature of the Abrahamic “revealed” religions and their “holy” books (the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, New Testament [at Matthew 5:18 it says that Jesus said, "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."] and Koran), the sooner we can be free of the twisted thinking and the pain and misery they promote.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=207148
The views expressed herein are the views of the author exclusively and not necessarily the views of VT or any other VT authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors or partners. Legal Notice
by Bob Johnson
Source: Veteran's Today
The Israeli company Stark Aerospace of Mississippi is not so much from Mississippi as it is from Israel. Stark Aerospace of Mississippi is a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries! And the Federal Aviation Administration has given them permission to fly their drones in American airspace!
Israel started its drone program with a contract in July of 1970 with the American company Teledyne Ryan. Since then it has moved to making its own drones which it uses to wage war with its neighbors as well as to keep Palestinians suppressed and under Jewish control. While being employed to control the Palestinians Israeli drones have been used in the direct killings of Palestinian children in Gaza.
The U.S. government promotes the use of drones to state and local governments. Already many state and local authorities have purchased drones for surveillance. As if this isn’t bad enough, some are thinking of arming them.
With U.S. politicians being so subservient to Israel and looking to the Jewish state for the advancement of their sickening and evil political careers, it is not surprising that American policy is mimicking Israeli policy. We’ve long since ceased to be a free Republic and are now merely a conglomerate of special interest groups with Israeli special interests at the top of the heap. In short, the American Republic has been replaced by a kosher plutocracy.
end result of Israeli drone attack on a two-year-old Palestinian child.
This is the same child as above after the Israeli drone attack. What is in store for Americans who resist Israel running our country?
One of the most powerful weapons Israel has in its march to destroy freedom and to rule the world as its Hebrew Bible/Old Testament instructs it to do (one Bible quote in particular which seems to speak not only of Israel’s domination of its neighbors but also of its superior ruling relationship over America through its control of American politicians of both parties is Deuteronomy 11:23 which has God telling the Hebrews/Jews/Israel, “Then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves.”) is the belief of Gentiles that the Bible is the word of God. Since the Bible was written by ancient Hebrews/Jews it promotes them and Israel at the expense of everyone else. For example, the ancient Hebrews wrote in Deuteronomy 7:6 that God had chosen them “above all people that are upon the face of the earth.” And Leviticus 25:44-46 claims that God told the Hebrews/Jews that they could own Gentiles and our children as slaves forever “but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.” The list goes on and on.
This conflict Israel has with the rest of the world is a profoundly important problem that must be corrected. Especially since Israel has a stockpile of real nuclear, biological and chemical weapons along with multiple submarines to launch them. This conflict has been know for centuries as the battle between Jerusalem and Athens. Jerusalem represents alleged revelations and actual superstition. Athens represents God-given reason and the God honoring practice of following the evidence wherever it leads. (I wrote a chapter on this important topic in Deism: A Revolution in Religion, A Revolution in You.) The American founder and Deist Thomas Paine made clear the deadly nature of ancient Israel when he wrote in The Age of Reason, The Complete Edition, “The Jews made no converts; they butchered all.” This sick thinking is also embraced by modern Israel as is evident from its violent treatment of Palestinians, its promotion of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament which promotes Jewish superiority and its rhetoric such as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu stating that Jerusalem has been the Israeli capital for 3,000 years. The more people realize the ungodly nature of the Abrahamic “revealed” religions and their “holy” books (the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, New Testament [at Matthew 5:18 it says that Jesus said, "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."] and Koran), the sooner we can be free of the twisted thinking and the pain and misery they promote.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=207148
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German poll: No special debt owed to ‘aggressive’ Israel
25 May, 2012
Source:Russia Today
Over 70 year after the Holocaust, the majority of Germans believe their county has no special obligations to the Jewish state, a recent survey has shown. Israel was denounced as an “aggressive” state by almost 60 per cent of respondents.
The survey conducted by Forsa for Stern magazine, shows that over the past year Germans have become noticeably more critical towards Israel. Three years ago 59 per cent of Germans believed that Israel “pursued its interests without consideration for other nations,” while today the figure is 11 per cent higher.
The results come amid a growing divide between Germany and Israel.
The Israeli government's settlement policy has been criticized by Chancellor Angela Merkel, who calls it “an obstacle to fruitful talks” with the Palestinians. According to the poll, about 65 per cent of German people think that their country should recognize a Palestinian state.
Last month, Nobel laureate Gunter Grass publicly labeled the Israeli government a “threat to world peace”, criticizing its unsupervised nuclear program and intentions to wipe out Iran. Israel condemned the German poet's accusations as “shameful” and banned Grass from ever entering its territory.
Although Grass’ work faced widespread criticism in Germany, the opinion poll reveals that the majority of Germans might actually share some of the Nobel laureate’s views.
The poll was conducted on May 15 and 16, just two weeks before German President Joachim Gauck’s visit to Israel. Forsa pollsters interviewed a total of 1,002 people.
Source:Russia Today
Over 70 year after the Holocaust, the majority of Germans believe their county has no special obligations to the Jewish state, a recent survey has shown. Israel was denounced as an “aggressive” state by almost 60 per cent of respondents.
The survey conducted by Forsa for Stern magazine, shows that over the past year Germans have become noticeably more critical towards Israel. Three years ago 59 per cent of Germans believed that Israel “pursued its interests without consideration for other nations,” while today the figure is 11 per cent higher.
The results come amid a growing divide between Germany and Israel.
The Israeli government's settlement policy has been criticized by Chancellor Angela Merkel, who calls it “an obstacle to fruitful talks” with the Palestinians. According to the poll, about 65 per cent of German people think that their country should recognize a Palestinian state.
Last month, Nobel laureate Gunter Grass publicly labeled the Israeli government a “threat to world peace”, criticizing its unsupervised nuclear program and intentions to wipe out Iran. Israel condemned the German poet's accusations as “shameful” and banned Grass from ever entering its territory.
Although Grass’ work faced widespread criticism in Germany, the opinion poll reveals that the majority of Germans might actually share some of the Nobel laureate’s views.
The poll was conducted on May 15 and 16, just two weeks before German President Joachim Gauck’s visit to Israel. Forsa pollsters interviewed a total of 1,002 people.
Constitutional victory: Controversial NDAA provisions blocked, at least temporarily, by federal judge
May 22, 2012
by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Source:Natural News
NaturalNews) In a rare display of constitutional patriotism by a government authority, an Obama-appointed federal judge has put an indefinite block on the egregious National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). According to Bloomberg, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest of Manhattan, N.Y., ruled in favor of plaintiffs who earlier had sued the Obama administration over the bill's unconstitutional arrest and detainment provisions, which provide no protection for American citizens.
The loosely-worded Section 1021 of the bill cunningly grants the president unrestrained authority to use military force in detaining practically anyone for any suspected "terrorist-related" activity, without warrant and without a trial (http://www.naturalnews.com). This section, which was the primary focus of the lawsuit, admittedly provides no protection for American citizens, and is patently unconstitutional no matter how you look at it.
"The statute at issue places the public at undue risk of having their speech chilled for the purported protection from al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and 'associated forces' -- i.e., 'foreign terrorist organizations," said Forrest in her opinion. "The vagueness of Section 1021 does not allow the average citizen, or even the government itself, to understand with the type of definiteness to which our citizens are entitled, or what conduct comes within its scope."
Unless the U.S. Congress amends the bill to protect Americans against having their constitutional rights abolished in the name of national security, NDAA will remain blocked, at least formally. However, NDAA is really just an extension of the horrific USA Patriot Act, which was the Bush administration's precursor to NDAA that was passed immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks (http://www.scn.org/ccapa/pa-vs-const.html).
Obama administration appears to have fully intended to use NDAA against American citizens
Speaking on the details of how the case has proceeded thus far, Judge Forrest explained that Obama attorneys made absolutely no attempt to defend the administration against the allegations. They also made no attempt to claim that the ambiguous provisions were intended only for foreign suspects, which in and of itself points to sinister intentions with the bill.
"The government was given a number of opportunities at the hearing and in its briefs to state unambiguously that the type of expressive and associational activities engaged in by plaintiffs -- or others -- are not within Section 1021," said Judge Forrest. "It did not. This court therefore must credit the chilling impact on First Amendment rights as reasonable -- and real."
Efforts to amend NDAA to specifically protect American citizens on U.S. soil from illegal arrest and detainment, however, have been met with resistance by "neoconservatives" such as Charles "Cully" Stimson, a former Bush administration official who is now Chief of Staff and Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. He and others claim that amending NDAA will somehow encourage more terrorists to come to the U.S. (http://dailycaller.com).
These wildly absurd claims, however, were enough to convince the traitorous House of Representatives to recently vote down an amendment authored by Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mi.) and Adam Smith (D-Wa.) that would have prohibited the detainment, capture, or arrest of any person in the U.S under NDAA. According to The Daily Caller, the House rejected this amendment in an overwhelming vote of 238 to 182.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.bloomberg.com
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/035939_NDAA_Constitution_terrorism.html#ixzz1vyMmRYhL
by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Source:Natural News
NaturalNews) In a rare display of constitutional patriotism by a government authority, an Obama-appointed federal judge has put an indefinite block on the egregious National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). According to Bloomberg, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest of Manhattan, N.Y., ruled in favor of plaintiffs who earlier had sued the Obama administration over the bill's unconstitutional arrest and detainment provisions, which provide no protection for American citizens.
The loosely-worded Section 1021 of the bill cunningly grants the president unrestrained authority to use military force in detaining practically anyone for any suspected "terrorist-related" activity, without warrant and without a trial (http://www.naturalnews.com). This section, which was the primary focus of the lawsuit, admittedly provides no protection for American citizens, and is patently unconstitutional no matter how you look at it.
"The statute at issue places the public at undue risk of having their speech chilled for the purported protection from al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and 'associated forces' -- i.e., 'foreign terrorist organizations," said Forrest in her opinion. "The vagueness of Section 1021 does not allow the average citizen, or even the government itself, to understand with the type of definiteness to which our citizens are entitled, or what conduct comes within its scope."
Unless the U.S. Congress amends the bill to protect Americans against having their constitutional rights abolished in the name of national security, NDAA will remain blocked, at least formally. However, NDAA is really just an extension of the horrific USA Patriot Act, which was the Bush administration's precursor to NDAA that was passed immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks (http://www.scn.org/ccapa/pa-vs-const.html).
Obama administration appears to have fully intended to use NDAA against American citizens
Speaking on the details of how the case has proceeded thus far, Judge Forrest explained that Obama attorneys made absolutely no attempt to defend the administration against the allegations. They also made no attempt to claim that the ambiguous provisions were intended only for foreign suspects, which in and of itself points to sinister intentions with the bill.
"The government was given a number of opportunities at the hearing and in its briefs to state unambiguously that the type of expressive and associational activities engaged in by plaintiffs -- or others -- are not within Section 1021," said Judge Forrest. "It did not. This court therefore must credit the chilling impact on First Amendment rights as reasonable -- and real."
Efforts to amend NDAA to specifically protect American citizens on U.S. soil from illegal arrest and detainment, however, have been met with resistance by "neoconservatives" such as Charles "Cully" Stimson, a former Bush administration official who is now Chief of Staff and Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. He and others claim that amending NDAA will somehow encourage more terrorists to come to the U.S. (http://dailycaller.com).
These wildly absurd claims, however, were enough to convince the traitorous House of Representatives to recently vote down an amendment authored by Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mi.) and Adam Smith (D-Wa.) that would have prohibited the detainment, capture, or arrest of any person in the U.S under NDAA. According to The Daily Caller, the House rejected this amendment in an overwhelming vote of 238 to 182.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.bloomberg.com
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/035939_NDAA_Constitution_terrorism.html#ixzz1vyMmRYhL
Dispatches From Cairo: Testing Democracy
May 22, 2012
By Lauren Unger-Geoffroy
Source: truthdig
We asked Lauren Unger-Geoffroy, an international artist who lives in Cairo, to share her perspective of life in Egypt after the revolution. In this entry, she writes about Egypt’s imminent presidential election.
Here in Cairo every conversation turns to this week’s presidential election, hopefully the first true democratic election in the country’s history. Since Egypt’s first presidential debate May 10, which featured the two leading candidates—liberal Amr Moussa and moderate Islamist Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh—every person has reflected, discussed and rethought their choices.
It has been an amazing few weeks of logical discussions, without violence or blood. People are truly searching for a best choice, and beginning to really believe they can decide the future of their nation. In every cafe, shop, office, street and home, people are calmly exchanging their thoughts and opinions and weighing pros and cons.
It remains to be seen whether they will understand and accept the principle of democracy: The candidate chosen by the majority becomes the president, and the other contenders must yield to the voters’ decision, game over.
I watched most of the four-hour marathon debate over pastries and 7UP at the home of my former neighbors and close friends, a retired general and his wife with whom I had passed many evenings during the first 18 days of the revolution.
Advertisement
The apartment building where the general and his wife live, and I used to also, is on an isolated dark street. Near the end of the time I lived there, it had been evacuated except for my two female roommates and me, a Chinese guy who kept telling us that we would be raped and killed, and the general and his extended family, who own the building. We had no TV in our flat, where all that remained were our mattresses and piles of books. We were all about to move. I was in the middle of relocating to the apartment building I live in now when it was firebombed and the area became inaccessible. So I stayed on with my roommates huddled in our empty apartment, listening to the shots and explosions and yelling outside through bolted shutters with lights out so as not to reveal our presence. Severe curfews were in place, tanks and thugs were everywhere, gunshots were coming from all directions and men stood guard with baseball bats and sabers around campfires at street intersections, serving as block patrols. The telephone and Internet had been cut off, and food was scarce.
Back then, we gathered cautiously downstairs in front of the general’s TV while his son and grandson took their turns as street guards with the other men of the block. I remember how the general spoke of President Hosni Mubarak’s appointing Ahmed Shafik as prime minister at that time. The general knew Shafik well, having fought beside him, and didn’t like him. The general had been invited to state military affairs and honor dinners, but he had no love for those he considered corrupt and he was happy for the revolution.
As we watched the debate two weeks ago, I was looking forward to seeing how the general felt about the candidates, knowing that he was somewhat religious and sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, following a few of its religious speakers. Before the debate started, he told me he had no preference for one candidate over the other.
Two hours into it, Moussa’s lack of charisma, jerky body movements and no sense of conviction or confidence turned us off compared to the more appealing Aboul Fotouh. However, by the end of three hours Aboul Fotouh had been trapped into revealing his own insincere currying of favor from opposing camps, and we soured on him as well. The questions were well chosen—and the traps were set for both.
Moussa was forced to say that Israel is the enemy, and was goaded into losing his cool, becoming aggressive and insulting.
Aboul Fotouh was forced to say that a man could worship as he wanted, in regard to the Quran-ordered Shariah law that states if a Muslim converts to Christianity he must be killed. He had previously confirmed the opposite to the Salafists, whom he was also courting.
After three hours, the general had had enough of both of them and switched channels—first to watch wrestling, which he is convinced is true blood sport, and then to the prepared interview made by the Muslim Brotherhood with its candidate, Mohamed Morsi, who had declined to participate in the debate. The well-rehearsed Morsi came across as a savior, pure, honest, simple, warm, noble and pious yet reasonable.
I couldn’t take more than three and a half hours, so the general and his wife drove me home around 1 a.m. I asked him who they would vote for (as he, of course, decides for both of them) and he laughed, saying he wasn’t going to vote. He had never voted, he said, as there was never any point before and he didn’t want his name on anything. You never know what someone might do with it.
In the days after the debate, I talked with friends and people in the street. People of all socio-political tendencies had watched it and were talking about how they were unimpressed by the two candidates. Many said they suddenly felt a new spark of infatuation with either Morsi or one of three other lesser-known, non-majority candidates.
I have been hearing a surprising number of people say that they are considering Shafik, the former commander of the Egyptian air force, despite the fact that the street’s reaction to his election would cause a revolution more massive than we have seen yet, and the army would have to kill all the protesters. He has been helped by national media propaganda putting him forward in shamelessly invented polls, the usual tricks.
By Lauren Unger-Geoffroy
Source: truthdig
We asked Lauren Unger-Geoffroy, an international artist who lives in Cairo, to share her perspective of life in Egypt after the revolution. In this entry, she writes about Egypt’s imminent presidential election.
Here in Cairo every conversation turns to this week’s presidential election, hopefully the first true democratic election in the country’s history. Since Egypt’s first presidential debate May 10, which featured the two leading candidates—liberal Amr Moussa and moderate Islamist Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh—every person has reflected, discussed and rethought their choices.
It has been an amazing few weeks of logical discussions, without violence or blood. People are truly searching for a best choice, and beginning to really believe they can decide the future of their nation. In every cafe, shop, office, street and home, people are calmly exchanging their thoughts and opinions and weighing pros and cons.
It remains to be seen whether they will understand and accept the principle of democracy: The candidate chosen by the majority becomes the president, and the other contenders must yield to the voters’ decision, game over.
I watched most of the four-hour marathon debate over pastries and 7UP at the home of my former neighbors and close friends, a retired general and his wife with whom I had passed many evenings during the first 18 days of the revolution.
Advertisement
The apartment building where the general and his wife live, and I used to also, is on an isolated dark street. Near the end of the time I lived there, it had been evacuated except for my two female roommates and me, a Chinese guy who kept telling us that we would be raped and killed, and the general and his extended family, who own the building. We had no TV in our flat, where all that remained were our mattresses and piles of books. We were all about to move. I was in the middle of relocating to the apartment building I live in now when it was firebombed and the area became inaccessible. So I stayed on with my roommates huddled in our empty apartment, listening to the shots and explosions and yelling outside through bolted shutters with lights out so as not to reveal our presence. Severe curfews were in place, tanks and thugs were everywhere, gunshots were coming from all directions and men stood guard with baseball bats and sabers around campfires at street intersections, serving as block patrols. The telephone and Internet had been cut off, and food was scarce.
Back then, we gathered cautiously downstairs in front of the general’s TV while his son and grandson took their turns as street guards with the other men of the block. I remember how the general spoke of President Hosni Mubarak’s appointing Ahmed Shafik as prime minister at that time. The general knew Shafik well, having fought beside him, and didn’t like him. The general had been invited to state military affairs and honor dinners, but he had no love for those he considered corrupt and he was happy for the revolution.
As we watched the debate two weeks ago, I was looking forward to seeing how the general felt about the candidates, knowing that he was somewhat religious and sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, following a few of its religious speakers. Before the debate started, he told me he had no preference for one candidate over the other.
Two hours into it, Moussa’s lack of charisma, jerky body movements and no sense of conviction or confidence turned us off compared to the more appealing Aboul Fotouh. However, by the end of three hours Aboul Fotouh had been trapped into revealing his own insincere currying of favor from opposing camps, and we soured on him as well. The questions were well chosen—and the traps were set for both.
Moussa was forced to say that Israel is the enemy, and was goaded into losing his cool, becoming aggressive and insulting.
Aboul Fotouh was forced to say that a man could worship as he wanted, in regard to the Quran-ordered Shariah law that states if a Muslim converts to Christianity he must be killed. He had previously confirmed the opposite to the Salafists, whom he was also courting.
After three hours, the general had had enough of both of them and switched channels—first to watch wrestling, which he is convinced is true blood sport, and then to the prepared interview made by the Muslim Brotherhood with its candidate, Mohamed Morsi, who had declined to participate in the debate. The well-rehearsed Morsi came across as a savior, pure, honest, simple, warm, noble and pious yet reasonable.
I couldn’t take more than three and a half hours, so the general and his wife drove me home around 1 a.m. I asked him who they would vote for (as he, of course, decides for both of them) and he laughed, saying he wasn’t going to vote. He had never voted, he said, as there was never any point before and he didn’t want his name on anything. You never know what someone might do with it.
In the days after the debate, I talked with friends and people in the street. People of all socio-political tendencies had watched it and were talking about how they were unimpressed by the two candidates. Many said they suddenly felt a new spark of infatuation with either Morsi or one of three other lesser-known, non-majority candidates.
I have been hearing a surprising number of people say that they are considering Shafik, the former commander of the Egyptian air force, despite the fact that the street’s reaction to his election would cause a revolution more massive than we have seen yet, and the army would have to kill all the protesters. He has been helped by national media propaganda putting him forward in shamelessly invented polls, the usual tricks.
FDA accused of mass homicide of one million Americans each decade
May 22, 2012
by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Source: Natural News
(NaturalNews) The biggest threat to America today is not terrorists or global warming, but the mass genocide of Americans who die every year at the hands of the corrupt U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In a recent report, investigative reporter Jon Rappoport uncovers the dirty truth that FDA-approved drugs kill at least 100,000 people every single year -- the FDA actually lists this figure on its own website -- and the agency is doing absolutely nothing about this disastrous trend.
On a webpage entitled Why Learn about Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR)?, the FDA admits that 100,000 people die every single year as a result of taking FDA-approved pharmaceutical drugs. Citing figures from three different published studies, the figures also reveal that two million people a year suffer from serious ADRs, which include things like stroke, heart attack, and permanent neurological damage.
You can view the FDA page for yourself here:
http://www.fda.gov
Since these figures come from studies dating back to at least 1998, it is clear that the FDA is fully aware of the extensive harm being caused by supposedly "safe" drugs. And since it has done nothing to address the problem, the agency is complicit in willfully harming and murdering tens of millions of Americans throughout just the past several decades, which makes it one of the most murderous government regimes in history.
Based on the figures presented by the FDA, at least 30 million people have suffered serious injury or death as a result of taking FDA-approved drugs just since 1998 when the first cited study was published. If you go back several more decades, it is clear that potentially hundreds of millions of people have been directly harmed by the FDA's "negligent homicide."
"It is time for these murderous government crimes to end," writes Rappoport in his report. "It is time for all responsible parties to be brought to justice, to real justice. It is time for the public to realize that 100,000 people dying every year in the U.S., because they take medical drugs, is the equivalent of 33 airliner crashes into the Twin Towers, every year, year after year."
Why the FDA and its drug lords are the real terrorists
Since the FDA is the official gatekeeper of pharmaceutical drugs, it is directly responsible for the harm they cause. And yet agency officials have never, in any meaningful way, been held responsible for their crimes against humanity. And the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), as Rappoport points out, has failed to step in and pursue those responsible for peddling poison as medicine.
If al-Qaeda operatives were caught dispensing toxic chemicals disguised as medicine to innocent civilians, they would be sent off to Guantanamo Bay without trial, and locked away indefinitely. But when the FDA does the very same thing on a much more massive scale, nobody bats an eye. And yet the number of people that the FDA has killed with its drugs is far more than the number killed during 9/11 or the Oklahoma City bombing.
The organized crime ring that is the federal government today is the real terrorist threat that we all face on a daily basis. And until the American people collectively wake up to this reality, we will continue to watch our friends, our families, and our children, which are the casualties of this ongoing terrorist attack, lay waste at the hands of Big Pharma and the FDA.
Sources for this article include:
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com
http://www.naturalnews.com/030461_Senate_Bill_510_Food_Safety.html
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/035936_FDA_homicide_victims.html#ixzz1vyGhzPJt
by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Source: Natural News
(NaturalNews) The biggest threat to America today is not terrorists or global warming, but the mass genocide of Americans who die every year at the hands of the corrupt U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In a recent report, investigative reporter Jon Rappoport uncovers the dirty truth that FDA-approved drugs kill at least 100,000 people every single year -- the FDA actually lists this figure on its own website -- and the agency is doing absolutely nothing about this disastrous trend.
On a webpage entitled Why Learn about Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR)?, the FDA admits that 100,000 people die every single year as a result of taking FDA-approved pharmaceutical drugs. Citing figures from three different published studies, the figures also reveal that two million people a year suffer from serious ADRs, which include things like stroke, heart attack, and permanent neurological damage.
You can view the FDA page for yourself here:
http://www.fda.gov
Since these figures come from studies dating back to at least 1998, it is clear that the FDA is fully aware of the extensive harm being caused by supposedly "safe" drugs. And since it has done nothing to address the problem, the agency is complicit in willfully harming and murdering tens of millions of Americans throughout just the past several decades, which makes it one of the most murderous government regimes in history.
Based on the figures presented by the FDA, at least 30 million people have suffered serious injury or death as a result of taking FDA-approved drugs just since 1998 when the first cited study was published. If you go back several more decades, it is clear that potentially hundreds of millions of people have been directly harmed by the FDA's "negligent homicide."
"It is time for these murderous government crimes to end," writes Rappoport in his report. "It is time for all responsible parties to be brought to justice, to real justice. It is time for the public to realize that 100,000 people dying every year in the U.S., because they take medical drugs, is the equivalent of 33 airliner crashes into the Twin Towers, every year, year after year."
Why the FDA and its drug lords are the real terrorists
Since the FDA is the official gatekeeper of pharmaceutical drugs, it is directly responsible for the harm they cause. And yet agency officials have never, in any meaningful way, been held responsible for their crimes against humanity. And the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), as Rappoport points out, has failed to step in and pursue those responsible for peddling poison as medicine.
If al-Qaeda operatives were caught dispensing toxic chemicals disguised as medicine to innocent civilians, they would be sent off to Guantanamo Bay without trial, and locked away indefinitely. But when the FDA does the very same thing on a much more massive scale, nobody bats an eye. And yet the number of people that the FDA has killed with its drugs is far more than the number killed during 9/11 or the Oklahoma City bombing.
The organized crime ring that is the federal government today is the real terrorist threat that we all face on a daily basis. And until the American people collectively wake up to this reality, we will continue to watch our friends, our families, and our children, which are the casualties of this ongoing terrorist attack, lay waste at the hands of Big Pharma and the FDA.
Sources for this article include:
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com
http://www.naturalnews.com/030461_Senate_Bill_510_Food_Safety.html
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/035936_FDA_homicide_victims.html#ixzz1vyGhzPJt
Opting for This "Cheaper Food" Could Make You Age Faster
May 26 2012
By Dr.Mercola
Twenty years ago today, former Monsanto lawyer and present FDA deputy commissioner Michael Taylor declared genetically engineered foods "substantially equivalent" and declared they would not need to be labeled for consumers.
Today is also the last day of the Money Bomb Against Monsanto Campaign, which launched on May 1. Earlier this month, volunteers and staff from the California Right to Know Campaign submitted nearly 1 million signed petitions from registered voters across the state of California to county officials, to place Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act on the Ballot for November 6.
This Act will require food manufacturers to identify genetically engineered ingredients on the labels of foods sold in California.
When California voters pass this ballot initiative, the Label Genetically Engineered Food Act will also not allow the common practice of mislabeling genetically engineered foods as "natural" or "all natural." But the biotech industry is not about to let this pass without a fight.
Industry Propaganda Aimed at Confusing and Misleading Consumers
The Council for Biotechnology and the Grocery Manufacturers Association have filed as formal opposition to this initiative. Not surprisingly, Monsanto is a member of both groups.
Big Biotech and major processed food manufacturers are pooling tens of millions of dollars together to spread their propaganda in an effort to defeat the California Ballot Initiative. In a recent Organic Consumers Association article, Alexis Baden-Mayer, Esq., Political Director of the Organic Consumers Fund writesi:
"Kathy Fairbanks, spokeswoman with the Coalition Against the Costly Food Labeling Proposition, says requiring labels on genetically engineered food would increase food prices.
What she doesn't say is that she's being paid by the trade association that represents both the biotech behemoths like Monsanto that engineer the GMO crops and the food industry giants like PepsiCo that use ingredients made from these crops in their products. PepsiCo., Kraft, Kellogg's and other top food processors market so-called "natural" protects at a premium that rivals what consumers pay for non-GMO and organic foods - even though these so-called "natural" foods contain unlabeled GMOs. The money these companies swindle from us as they trick us into paying top-dollar for GMO foods disguised as "natural" dwarfs the miniscule 0.01% of food costs attributable to GMO labels...
Maryann Marino, Southern California regional director of California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse says GMO labels will make family farmers and small businesses vulnerable to lawsuits.
Her organization is a state chapter of the American Tort Reform Association (funded by Monsanto) which thinks it's okay for Monsanto to sue farmers in 143 different patent infringement lawsuits when their crops are unintentionally contaminated with Monsanto's GMOs, but it isn't okay for farmers to get together and bring one lawsuit against Monsanto to stop the harassment. Think they really care about family farmers or small businesses? Their only interests are protecting Monsanto's market share and helping companies sneak Monsanto's ingredients into their products without letting consumers know."
Why Labeling Genetically Engineered Foods Will Not Significantly Raise Prices
Baden-Mayer also explains why you shouldn't fall for such fear-mongering, as these scenarios have little if any bearing in factual truth. She writes:
"A 2002 Oregon State University study reviewed the true costs of actual laws requiring labels on genetically engineered food in other countries. According to the study, a law in the UK, like the one proposed for CA, increased food spending by only 0.01%. The most any GMO labeling proposal was projected to cost was 1.8%. (This was from a Canadian study where, the authors note, the costs of segregating crops, changing processing procedures and changing the label were exaggerated and came only from expectations expressed by industry spokespersons.)
The 0.01% to 1.8% increase in the cost of labeling GMO foods must be put in perspective by looking at what companies already spend and consumers currently pay to avoid genetically engineered ingredients. A 2005 University of Delaware study showed that consumers would pay 20-30% more for non-GMO or organicii.
The so-called "natural" food industry has taken full advantage of consumer interest in avoiding GMOs and consumer ignorance in where those GMOs may be lurking. A review by the Cornucopia Institute of "natural," non-GMO and organic cereals showed that so-called "natural" cereals that contained unlabeled GMOs were sometimes more expensive than real non-GMO and organic cerealsiii.
Once GMOs are labeled, consumers will easily be able to substitute products that contain non-GMO cane sugar for products made with GMO sugar beet sugar or high-fructose corn syrup and change from vegetable oils made from GMO canola to non-GMO sunflower or olive oil. They'll be able to eat more non-GMO wheat and rice and less GMO corn and soy. They can choose non-GMO fruits and vegetables and avoid the few that are GMO. Eating non-GMO won't involve paying a premium, just making a choice between the foods that are genetically engineered and the ones that aren't. Foods that are GMO won't be able to be falsely labeled as "natural."
Why GE Labeling Will Not Open Up Farmers and Small Businesses to Lawsuits
The claim that farmers and grocers may become more vulnerable to lawsuits as a result of the Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act is also false and nothing but a scare tactic.
Why?
First of all, farmers and grocery stores are not responsible for listing ingredients on food labels. The only way a grocer could get into trouble would be if they knowingly mislabel their own store-brand product. They cannot be held liable if a food processor or food packer fails to comply with the labeling law.
The language in the Act is also very clear—it only requires labeling of foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients. Each new genetically engineered crop must be deregulated by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which makes them easy to track. Once deregulated, farmers clearly know whether their crop is genetically engineered or not since they are required to purchase expensive patented seeds that are clearly branded and marketed as genetically engineered by the seed companies. So when they sell their crops to a food manufacturer, there's no question whether they're dealing with a GE ingredient or not.
Furthermore, under the proposed law, foods containing genetically engineered ingredients cannot be labeled as "natural." Food packers and processors are given 18 months to comply with the new labeling requirements—which is the typical timeframe within which labels are routinely updated anyway—so complying with the new regulations should not be a major problem. Baden-Mayer also points out that:
"Food packers and processors may decide to seek non-GMO sources to avoid the law's labeling requirements, and that may increase markets for farmers who grow non-GMO crops, but that is a different issue than simply complying with a new labeling requirement." And, "If PepsiCo continues to sell unlabeled genetically engineered food in CA once this law is passed, we'll definitely sue them (we'd rather see them comply), but this law creates no incentive to go after small businesses."
The Future of Your Food is at Stake
Although The Future of Food is five years old, this excellent film is more relevant now than ever. If you haven't watched it, please set aside some time to see it. It's required viewing for anyone who wants to understand what they're putting into their belly. If it's been awhile since you saw it, you may want to refresh your memory.
"This is a Flash based video and may not be viewable on mobile devices."
The Time for Action is NOW!
We need to send the biotech and food industry a clear message: We have the right to know what they put into our food!
Can we win? Yes, I believe we can! But we need to get the word out, which requires a strong campaign to educate the citizens of California to vote for the initiative on November 6. If you missed my recent panel interview with Ronnie Cummins with the Organic Consumers Association, Pamm Larry, founder of LabelGMOs.org and Dave Murphy, founder of Food Democracy Now, in which we discuss the California Right to Know Campaign, please take a moment to listen to it now.
According to Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association, we stand a good chance of winning in California because:
This time, we have far more scientific information and greater public awareness on our side. GE contamination is now a mainstream media issue. Monsanto has become the most hated corporation in the world.
This time, we have overwhelming public support. Polls show that more than 8 out of 10 voters in California want mandatory GE labeling.
This time, we have built the strongest coalition of concerned food consumers in history, for the exclusive purpose of passing this law.
So today, I ask you to invest in this Initiative. Invest in your future. And invest as generously as you can. If you've already sent in your donation, thank you! If not, please contribute to this historic and critical campaign today. And then please forward this email to your friends. Share it on Facebook and Twitter. Print it out, hand it to all your friends. Every action counts! As stated by Ronnie Cummins with the Organic Consumers Association:
"Monsanto is one of the most powerful, arrogant and destructive companies in the world. For decades, they have controlled the world's food supply by buying off politicians and regulatory agencies, intimidating small farmers, manipulating the outcome of scientific studies, lying to consumers - and threatening to sue states like Vermont if they dare to pass a GMO labeling law.
... Despite Monsanto's claims to the contrary, scientists are clear: genetically engineered food has been linked to a wide range of health hazards, including kidney and liver damage, infertility, auto-immune disorders, allergies and autism, accelerated aging, and birth defects... We have the right to know if the food we buy has been genetically engineered.... It's time to take back our food. Our farms. Our power. It's time to show Monsanto what ordinary people like us can do when we come together."
Hundreds of thousands of people making small donations can help the coalition behind this initiative run a dynamic, effective campaign to bring down Monsanto and the rest of the Biotech Bullies
Now it's time to organize, educate, and promote this cause. We won't need to spend the tens of millions that the biotech bullies are using to fight this initiative - but we will need several million to combat their propoganda adequately.
So please, join us, and make a donation right now! You can donate online, by phone, or by dropping a check in the mail.
References:
i Organic Consumers Association May 5, 2012
ii Department of Food and Resource Economics University of Delaware, Experimental Investigation of Willingness to Pay for Non-GM and Organic Food Products, Katie Gifford, John C. Bernard, Ulrich C. Toensmeyer, Richard Bacon, Department of Food and Resource Economics University of Delaware
iii Cornucopia Institute, Cereal Crimes 2011 Report
By Dr.Mercola
Twenty years ago today, former Monsanto lawyer and present FDA deputy commissioner Michael Taylor declared genetically engineered foods "substantially equivalent" and declared they would not need to be labeled for consumers.
Today is also the last day of the Money Bomb Against Monsanto Campaign, which launched on May 1. Earlier this month, volunteers and staff from the California Right to Know Campaign submitted nearly 1 million signed petitions from registered voters across the state of California to county officials, to place Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act on the Ballot for November 6.
This Act will require food manufacturers to identify genetically engineered ingredients on the labels of foods sold in California.
When California voters pass this ballot initiative, the Label Genetically Engineered Food Act will also not allow the common practice of mislabeling genetically engineered foods as "natural" or "all natural." But the biotech industry is not about to let this pass without a fight.
Industry Propaganda Aimed at Confusing and Misleading Consumers
The Council for Biotechnology and the Grocery Manufacturers Association have filed as formal opposition to this initiative. Not surprisingly, Monsanto is a member of both groups.
Big Biotech and major processed food manufacturers are pooling tens of millions of dollars together to spread their propaganda in an effort to defeat the California Ballot Initiative. In a recent Organic Consumers Association article, Alexis Baden-Mayer, Esq., Political Director of the Organic Consumers Fund writesi:
"Kathy Fairbanks, spokeswoman with the Coalition Against the Costly Food Labeling Proposition, says requiring labels on genetically engineered food would increase food prices.
What she doesn't say is that she's being paid by the trade association that represents both the biotech behemoths like Monsanto that engineer the GMO crops and the food industry giants like PepsiCo that use ingredients made from these crops in their products. PepsiCo., Kraft, Kellogg's and other top food processors market so-called "natural" protects at a premium that rivals what consumers pay for non-GMO and organic foods - even though these so-called "natural" foods contain unlabeled GMOs. The money these companies swindle from us as they trick us into paying top-dollar for GMO foods disguised as "natural" dwarfs the miniscule 0.01% of food costs attributable to GMO labels...
Maryann Marino, Southern California regional director of California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse says GMO labels will make family farmers and small businesses vulnerable to lawsuits.
Her organization is a state chapter of the American Tort Reform Association (funded by Monsanto) which thinks it's okay for Monsanto to sue farmers in 143 different patent infringement lawsuits when their crops are unintentionally contaminated with Monsanto's GMOs, but it isn't okay for farmers to get together and bring one lawsuit against Monsanto to stop the harassment. Think they really care about family farmers or small businesses? Their only interests are protecting Monsanto's market share and helping companies sneak Monsanto's ingredients into their products without letting consumers know."
Why Labeling Genetically Engineered Foods Will Not Significantly Raise Prices
Baden-Mayer also explains why you shouldn't fall for such fear-mongering, as these scenarios have little if any bearing in factual truth. She writes:
"A 2002 Oregon State University study reviewed the true costs of actual laws requiring labels on genetically engineered food in other countries. According to the study, a law in the UK, like the one proposed for CA, increased food spending by only 0.01%. The most any GMO labeling proposal was projected to cost was 1.8%. (This was from a Canadian study where, the authors note, the costs of segregating crops, changing processing procedures and changing the label were exaggerated and came only from expectations expressed by industry spokespersons.)
The 0.01% to 1.8% increase in the cost of labeling GMO foods must be put in perspective by looking at what companies already spend and consumers currently pay to avoid genetically engineered ingredients. A 2005 University of Delaware study showed that consumers would pay 20-30% more for non-GMO or organicii.
The so-called "natural" food industry has taken full advantage of consumer interest in avoiding GMOs and consumer ignorance in where those GMOs may be lurking. A review by the Cornucopia Institute of "natural," non-GMO and organic cereals showed that so-called "natural" cereals that contained unlabeled GMOs were sometimes more expensive than real non-GMO and organic cerealsiii.
Once GMOs are labeled, consumers will easily be able to substitute products that contain non-GMO cane sugar for products made with GMO sugar beet sugar or high-fructose corn syrup and change from vegetable oils made from GMO canola to non-GMO sunflower or olive oil. They'll be able to eat more non-GMO wheat and rice and less GMO corn and soy. They can choose non-GMO fruits and vegetables and avoid the few that are GMO. Eating non-GMO won't involve paying a premium, just making a choice between the foods that are genetically engineered and the ones that aren't. Foods that are GMO won't be able to be falsely labeled as "natural."
Why GE Labeling Will Not Open Up Farmers and Small Businesses to Lawsuits
The claim that farmers and grocers may become more vulnerable to lawsuits as a result of the Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act is also false and nothing but a scare tactic.
Why?
First of all, farmers and grocery stores are not responsible for listing ingredients on food labels. The only way a grocer could get into trouble would be if they knowingly mislabel their own store-brand product. They cannot be held liable if a food processor or food packer fails to comply with the labeling law.
The language in the Act is also very clear—it only requires labeling of foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients. Each new genetically engineered crop must be deregulated by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which makes them easy to track. Once deregulated, farmers clearly know whether their crop is genetically engineered or not since they are required to purchase expensive patented seeds that are clearly branded and marketed as genetically engineered by the seed companies. So when they sell their crops to a food manufacturer, there's no question whether they're dealing with a GE ingredient or not.
Furthermore, under the proposed law, foods containing genetically engineered ingredients cannot be labeled as "natural." Food packers and processors are given 18 months to comply with the new labeling requirements—which is the typical timeframe within which labels are routinely updated anyway—so complying with the new regulations should not be a major problem. Baden-Mayer also points out that:
"Food packers and processors may decide to seek non-GMO sources to avoid the law's labeling requirements, and that may increase markets for farmers who grow non-GMO crops, but that is a different issue than simply complying with a new labeling requirement." And, "If PepsiCo continues to sell unlabeled genetically engineered food in CA once this law is passed, we'll definitely sue them (we'd rather see them comply), but this law creates no incentive to go after small businesses."
The Future of Your Food is at Stake
Although The Future of Food is five years old, this excellent film is more relevant now than ever. If you haven't watched it, please set aside some time to see it. It's required viewing for anyone who wants to understand what they're putting into their belly. If it's been awhile since you saw it, you may want to refresh your memory.
"This is a Flash based video and may not be viewable on mobile devices."
The Time for Action is NOW!
We need to send the biotech and food industry a clear message: We have the right to know what they put into our food!
Can we win? Yes, I believe we can! But we need to get the word out, which requires a strong campaign to educate the citizens of California to vote for the initiative on November 6. If you missed my recent panel interview with Ronnie Cummins with the Organic Consumers Association, Pamm Larry, founder of LabelGMOs.org and Dave Murphy, founder of Food Democracy Now, in which we discuss the California Right to Know Campaign, please take a moment to listen to it now.
According to Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association, we stand a good chance of winning in California because:
This time, we have far more scientific information and greater public awareness on our side. GE contamination is now a mainstream media issue. Monsanto has become the most hated corporation in the world.
This time, we have overwhelming public support. Polls show that more than 8 out of 10 voters in California want mandatory GE labeling.
This time, we have built the strongest coalition of concerned food consumers in history, for the exclusive purpose of passing this law.
So today, I ask you to invest in this Initiative. Invest in your future. And invest as generously as you can. If you've already sent in your donation, thank you! If not, please contribute to this historic and critical campaign today. And then please forward this email to your friends. Share it on Facebook and Twitter. Print it out, hand it to all your friends. Every action counts! As stated by Ronnie Cummins with the Organic Consumers Association:
"Monsanto is one of the most powerful, arrogant and destructive companies in the world. For decades, they have controlled the world's food supply by buying off politicians and regulatory agencies, intimidating small farmers, manipulating the outcome of scientific studies, lying to consumers - and threatening to sue states like Vermont if they dare to pass a GMO labeling law.
... Despite Monsanto's claims to the contrary, scientists are clear: genetically engineered food has been linked to a wide range of health hazards, including kidney and liver damage, infertility, auto-immune disorders, allergies and autism, accelerated aging, and birth defects... We have the right to know if the food we buy has been genetically engineered.... It's time to take back our food. Our farms. Our power. It's time to show Monsanto what ordinary people like us can do when we come together."
Hundreds of thousands of people making small donations can help the coalition behind this initiative run a dynamic, effective campaign to bring down Monsanto and the rest of the Biotech Bullies
Now it's time to organize, educate, and promote this cause. We won't need to spend the tens of millions that the biotech bullies are using to fight this initiative - but we will need several million to combat their propoganda adequately.
So please, join us, and make a donation right now! You can donate online, by phone, or by dropping a check in the mail.
References:
i Organic Consumers Association May 5, 2012
ii Department of Food and Resource Economics University of Delaware, Experimental Investigation of Willingness to Pay for Non-GM and Organic Food Products, Katie Gifford, John C. Bernard, Ulrich C. Toensmeyer, Richard Bacon, Department of Food and Resource Economics University of Delaware
iii Cornucopia Institute, Cereal Crimes 2011 Report
Friday, May 25, 2012
Egypt to pick Islamist or military man as president
6 hrs ago
By Marwa Awad and Edmund Blair | Reuters
Source:Yahoo News
CAIRO (Reuters) - The Muslim Brotherhood said on Friday its candidate in Egypt's first free presidential vote would fight a run-off next month with ex-air force chief Ahmed Shafiq, the last prime minister of deposed leader Hosni Mubarak.
This week's first-round vote has polarised Egyptians between those determined to avoid handing the presidency back to a man from Mubarak's era and those fearing an Islamist monopoly of ruling institutions. The run-off will be held on June 16 and 17.
The election marks a crucial step in a messy and often bloody transition to democracy, overseen by a military council that has pledged to hand power to a new president by July 1.
The second round threatens further turbulence. Opponents of Shafiq have vowed to take to the streets if he is elected.
But to supporters, Shafiq's military background offers reassurance that he can restore security, a major demand of the population 15 months after Mubarak's ouster.
A victory for the Brotherhood's Mohamed Mursi could worsen tensions between resurgent Islamists and the powerful army, which sees itself as the guardian of the state.
Christians and secular liberals anxious about their own freedoms and the fate of Egypt's vital tourist industry will fret about a promised Brotherhood push for Islamic law.
"Now Egyptians will have to choose between the revolution and the counter-revolution. The next vote will be equivalent to holding a referendum on the revolution," Mohamed Beltagy, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood's party, told Reuters.
If Mursi becomes president, Islamists will control most ruling institutions - but not the military - in Egypt, the most populous Arab nation, consolidating electoral gains made by fellow-Islamists in other Arab countries in the past year.
By Marwa Awad and Edmund Blair | Reuters
Source:Yahoo News
CAIRO (Reuters) - The Muslim Brotherhood said on Friday its candidate in Egypt's first free presidential vote would fight a run-off next month with ex-air force chief Ahmed Shafiq, the last prime minister of deposed leader Hosni Mubarak.
This week's first-round vote has polarised Egyptians between those determined to avoid handing the presidency back to a man from Mubarak's era and those fearing an Islamist monopoly of ruling institutions. The run-off will be held on June 16 and 17.
The election marks a crucial step in a messy and often bloody transition to democracy, overseen by a military council that has pledged to hand power to a new president by July 1.
The second round threatens further turbulence. Opponents of Shafiq have vowed to take to the streets if he is elected.
But to supporters, Shafiq's military background offers reassurance that he can restore security, a major demand of the population 15 months after Mubarak's ouster.
A victory for the Brotherhood's Mohamed Mursi could worsen tensions between resurgent Islamists and the powerful army, which sees itself as the guardian of the state.
Christians and secular liberals anxious about their own freedoms and the fate of Egypt's vital tourist industry will fret about a promised Brotherhood push for Islamic law.
"Now Egyptians will have to choose between the revolution and the counter-revolution. The next vote will be equivalent to holding a referendum on the revolution," Mohamed Beltagy, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood's party, told Reuters.
If Mursi becomes president, Islamists will control most ruling institutions - but not the military - in Egypt, the most populous Arab nation, consolidating electoral gains made by fellow-Islamists in other Arab countries in the past year.
Blatant Corruption Exposed as EU Blocks France's Ban on Monsanto's GMO Maize
24 May 2012
By Anthony Gucciardi
Source: Nation of Change
France legislators and officials moved to ban Monsanto’s genetically modified strain of GMO maize over environmental and health concerns, the European Union has decided to step in and re-secure Monsanto’s presence in the country — against the very will of the nation itself. This should come as no surprise when considering the fact that the United States ambassador to France, a business partner to George W. Bush, stated back in 2007 that nations who did not accept Monsanto’s GMO crops will be ‘penalized’. In fact, ambassador Craig Stapleton went as far as to say that the nations should be threatened with military-styled trade wars.
That’s right, it appears the reason for the unprecedented move to maintain Monsanto’s deeply-rooted foothold in France has to do with the fact that the United States and other nations are continually pushing Monsanto’s agenda — even going as far as to threaten military-styled trade wars to those who oppose the company. Monsanto has major connections with political heads that have actually threatened trade wars against nations opposed to GMOs on record. As I reported back in January, WikiLeaks cables surfaced revealing startling information concerning Monsanto’s deep involvement with back-end politics.
One of the most telling details involves a statement made by Craig Stapleton, in which he said:
“Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices.”
NationofChange fights back with one simple but powerful weapon: the truth. Can you donate $5 to help us?
And that is not even the most shocking part. WikiLeaks cables go on to state that United States diplomats actually work directly for Monsanto, furthering the agenda of the company across the globe. Is it any wonder that France is being assaulted by the EU over its decision to secure the health of its citizens?
It becomes even more obvious when examining the ridiculous reasoning as to why the EU had to step in and block France’s in-house legislation. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) rejected the ban on the grounds that “there is no scientific evidence” that shows “risk to human and animal health or the environment.” Of course there is an overwhelming amount of research showing that Monsanto’s creations do in fact threaten not only human health, but the planet as a whole. Even the EPA has warned over the fact that Monsanto’s GMO crops are spawning ‘mutant’ resistant insects and subsequently requiring substantially more pesticides.
Consumers are waking up to Monsanto’s agenda and the dangers associated with their modified creations. Over 45,000 comments were submitted on the USDA website in opposition to Monsanto’s new genetically modified strain, and only 23 in favor. The corruption of Monsanto is now out in the open, and only serves to show how deeply rooted the company is within the United States government. Is it any coincidence that a major head of the FDA was a leading employee of Monsanto?
By Anthony Gucciardi
Source: Nation of Change
France legislators and officials moved to ban Monsanto’s genetically modified strain of GMO maize over environmental and health concerns, the European Union has decided to step in and re-secure Monsanto’s presence in the country — against the very will of the nation itself. This should come as no surprise when considering the fact that the United States ambassador to France, a business partner to George W. Bush, stated back in 2007 that nations who did not accept Monsanto’s GMO crops will be ‘penalized’. In fact, ambassador Craig Stapleton went as far as to say that the nations should be threatened with military-styled trade wars.
That’s right, it appears the reason for the unprecedented move to maintain Monsanto’s deeply-rooted foothold in France has to do with the fact that the United States and other nations are continually pushing Monsanto’s agenda — even going as far as to threaten military-styled trade wars to those who oppose the company. Monsanto has major connections with political heads that have actually threatened trade wars against nations opposed to GMOs on record. As I reported back in January, WikiLeaks cables surfaced revealing startling information concerning Monsanto’s deep involvement with back-end politics.
One of the most telling details involves a statement made by Craig Stapleton, in which he said:
“Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices.”
NationofChange fights back with one simple but powerful weapon: the truth. Can you donate $5 to help us?
And that is not even the most shocking part. WikiLeaks cables go on to state that United States diplomats actually work directly for Monsanto, furthering the agenda of the company across the globe. Is it any wonder that France is being assaulted by the EU over its decision to secure the health of its citizens?
It becomes even more obvious when examining the ridiculous reasoning as to why the EU had to step in and block France’s in-house legislation. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) rejected the ban on the grounds that “there is no scientific evidence” that shows “risk to human and animal health or the environment.” Of course there is an overwhelming amount of research showing that Monsanto’s creations do in fact threaten not only human health, but the planet as a whole. Even the EPA has warned over the fact that Monsanto’s GMO crops are spawning ‘mutant’ resistant insects and subsequently requiring substantially more pesticides.
Consumers are waking up to Monsanto’s agenda and the dangers associated with their modified creations. Over 45,000 comments were submitted on the USDA website in opposition to Monsanto’s new genetically modified strain, and only 23 in favor. The corruption of Monsanto is now out in the open, and only serves to show how deeply rooted the company is within the United States government. Is it any coincidence that a major head of the FDA was a leading employee of Monsanto?
Syria's rebels: Underarmed, under siege
May 23, 2012
By Portia Walker and Oren Dorell, USA TODAY
Source:Detroit Free Press
In a cave hewed into the craggy rock of the north Syrian countryside, a dozen men sit planning the future of the Syrian insurgency.
A mix of army deserters and volunteers, they are part of the Free Syrian Army, a group — one of many across Syria — that is trying to take on the army of President Bashar Assad.
The brigade of 71 men calls itself Al Haq (The Truth). Their weapons consist of battered Kalashnikovs and some machine guns. A generator powers a satellite dish providing foreign television and high-speed wireless Internet via Turkey, dodging the spies of the Syrian regime.
They say they want to create a "free zone" here, like Benghazi in last year's Libyan war, where defected soldiers and those loyal to the opposition could be safe.
"As Libya," says Abu Khalid, one of the fighters, "like Benghazi. Where people in government who want to leave the regime can go."
"In Syria," he explains, that option is not available. "If someone wants to leave the regime, he fears his family will be killed or tortured."
It has been more than a year since the arrest and torture of a few teenagers in Daraa for making anti-Assad remarks ignited a protest movement against an autocratic regime that has controlled Syria for decades. As the Arab Spring saw the toppling of governments across the region, Assad met the unrest in his country with swift and unrelenting force.
His military has killed as many as 10,000 people to put down the insurrection in much the same manner as his father, Hafez Assad, did when he faced similar uprising in 1982, according to the United Nations.
Even so, the overmatched rebels refuse to quit.
Some experts say strong intervention now — like what the West did in Libya to remove Moammar Gadhafi— is needed not just to stop the slaughter of thousands of civilians but to prevent the rise of a dangerous alliance in the Middle East that threatens the West and its allies.
"If Assad succeeded in putting down the rebellion, Iran would have effective control of one more country in the Middle East, this one right on Israel's border," says John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under President George W. Bush.
The conflict playing out in Syria, between Shiites backed by Iran and Sunnis backed by Saudi Arabia, "would spread somewhere else, Bahrain, or some place in the Arabian Peninsula, and continue," he says.
Others are not so sure of what would follow. "A sectarian war in Syria is a huge concern" whether Assad prevails or not, says Joseph Holliday, a former military intelligence analyst with the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.
Meantime, the ragtag rebels resisting the barrage of the Assad regime see themselves — though underarmed and underfunded — as a thin firewall between the Syrian government and its citizens in opposition.
This week, the Syrian army continued its pounding of rebellious towns. Dozens of people have been killed in the past few days alone in Homs, Rastan and Hama, all major population centers, says the Local Coordination Committees, an anti-Assad group in Syria.
Assad has said the rebels are "thugs" and "terrorists" backed by foreign governments and not supported by the Syrian people. The members of the Free Syrian Army, who have refused to budge from their home villages, say that's just propaganda.
"We started in a peaceful way. We didn't choose this, but the government pushed us this way," said Abu Mahmoud, one of the men in the cave.
Idlib is a sun-dappled farming region of rolling hills and low mountains near the border with Turkey. There are villages of ancient stone houses where generations of a single family live together, growing fruit and roses in their gardens and tomatoes and olives in surrounding fields.
Children play as shepherds herd goats along the roads. The ruins from storied civilizations going back 5,000 years can be found here in "dead cities," the abandoned settlements of the ancient world including Roman roads, pagan cemeteries and Byzantine churches.
Assad moves in
In December, Assad ordered his military into this province to crush the "armed terrorists." Idlib residents told Amnesty International that tanks and armored vehicles lined up a road overlooking a valley and fired shells, machine guns and anti-aircraft weapons at them.
Syrian forces executed dozens of people suspected of sympathizing with the rebels, according to Amnesty. Hundreds of homes were burned. Thousands fled to the border, but many have remained.
It was then that the people put aside their peaceful demonstrations and began joining the fight, pulling together a loose coalition of deserters from Syria's military, activists and members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
On a day in May, the rebels here drank Coke out of cans and wore a mixture of civilian clothes and tattered camouflage fatigues. Some hid their faces with scarves as they patrolled their villages in civilian cars. Barricades sat on roads that link villages to keep out Assad's forces. Some are made of boulders, others had checkpoint cabins painted with the green and black that the Syrian opposition has adopted for its flag.
"Until now, the army didn't come inside this area — so the people are safe" said Abu Khalid, 38, a salesman who had lived abroad for much of his life but returned home from Saudi Arabia when the revolution began.
Fighters say they can move confidently through several villages, past regime tanks. The men coordinate to check roads, communicating with short-wave radios bought in Turkey. Some openly carry weapons while walking on public roads. Driving through the villages in plain clothes, they receive salutes from people along the way.
Although the network of rebels can ensure some security for the people here, they are powerless against the tanks and heavy weaponry of the regime army. All they can do when government forces advance is alert people in nearby villages and give them time to flee.
The rebels in Idlib appeared to be low on weapons and ammunition. Their guns looked old, and they don't have the body armor or military boots that the Syrian army enjoys. They say they've received no help from foreign governments.
At one checkpoint, a group of men huddled under a tent sipping tea. They checked each car that passed but confessed there was little they could do when Assad's forces decide to move in.
"We need more guns, more ammunition," Abu Omara said.
When rebels in Libya asked for military help to overthrow Gadhafi, President Obama joined a coalition of NATO nations whose air raids on Libyan tanks and bases last year led to the dictator's fall, and death. Obama has said he believes Assad should go too, but that what worked in Libya should not be pursued in Syria.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, appointed by Obama as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says attacking Syria would present challenges not faced in Libya. He says Syria's air defenses are concentrated in urban areas, and so taking them out ahead of airstrikes would cause greater civilian casualties than in Libya.
Obama says that the United States wants a change in Syria through diplomatic pressure and sanctions, not military force, which he says will result in more civilian deaths.
"We believe that a political transition in Syria would be an enormous strategic blow to Iran," says Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council.
Holliday, the military analyst, said Syria does have considerable air defense equipment, but he says the U.S. Air Force is up to the task.
"We're really good at finding radar (facilities) and blowing them up," he says, noting that in the 1982 Israeli-Syrian air battle over the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, Israel destroyed 19 of 20 Syrian anti-aircraft systems.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and Middle East adviser to four presidents, says changing the regime in Syria would be a defeat to Iran and Hezbollah, Iran's terrorist proxy in Lebanon that has fought wars with Israel and killed scores of Americans in terrorist attacks. But he says it might take combat troops to oust Assad, not just airstrikes.
"We have to be careful about how we use American young men and women to promote change," Riedel says.
Several Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, pledged in March to send weapons to the Free Syrian Army, but the men from the Al Haq brigade said they've received no such support. Syrians opposed to Assad have been traveling to Arab capitals as well as Washington to seek such assistance.
'Not any support' for rebels
In Idlib, fighter Abu Khalid walks through the acquisition process for his brigade. They got their generator from an army base after a battle. The satellite dish was bought from Hatay Market in Turkey. The radios and walkie-talkies made their way from a market in Istanbul.
"Not any support from USA or any country," Abu Khalid said. "We don't want them to help us with (words); we want them to help us with weapons."
They say their guns have been mostly bought from corrupt regime soldiers. Others were purchased from the Turkish mafia. They say a Kalashnikov can cost $4,000 on the black market.
Abdullah Al Sayed, a former Free Syrian Army commander for the town of Zabadani who now helps coordinate FSA communications from Virginia, says the rebels need assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank weapons and anti-aircraft machine guns that could be used against helicopters. Contacted this week, Abu Khalid said some RPGs had arrived, but he didn't say from where.
Although the precise size of the resistance forces is impossible to ascertain, Al Sayed says 60,000 men are fighting the Assad government. USA TODAY could not independently verify this claim. In Idlib, about 300 men were watching over 18 villages.
On a recent evening in one village near the Turkish border, a few dozen children and young men gathered outside a mosque, chanting anti-regime slogans and burning pictures of Assad as village elders smoked cigarettes and sipped orange juice nearby. They were not optimistic about the ability of the Free Syrian Army to protect them.
"In this time, they're in Hama and Idlib," says Abu Ahmed, speaking of the regime forces, "but they'll come here. All the time,http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif the people in this village are in danger."
Asked how long it would take to prevail, the fighters were uncertain. "It's up to God. We don't know, because the world closed their eyes to what happens, to what Assad is doing," fighter Abu Mahmoud said.
Copyright 2012 USA TODAY
Link: http://www.freep.com/usatoday/article/55143142?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|p&utm_source=SRCC+Loyal+Contacts&utm_campaign=e339c7339f-News_Roundup&utm_medium=email&ct=t%28Syrian_Revolution_News_Round_up8_30_2011%29.
By Portia Walker and Oren Dorell, USA TODAY
Source:Detroit Free Press
In a cave hewed into the craggy rock of the north Syrian countryside, a dozen men sit planning the future of the Syrian insurgency.
A mix of army deserters and volunteers, they are part of the Free Syrian Army, a group — one of many across Syria — that is trying to take on the army of President Bashar Assad.
The brigade of 71 men calls itself Al Haq (The Truth). Their weapons consist of battered Kalashnikovs and some machine guns. A generator powers a satellite dish providing foreign television and high-speed wireless Internet via Turkey, dodging the spies of the Syrian regime.
They say they want to create a "free zone" here, like Benghazi in last year's Libyan war, where defected soldiers and those loyal to the opposition could be safe.
"As Libya," says Abu Khalid, one of the fighters, "like Benghazi. Where people in government who want to leave the regime can go."
"In Syria," he explains, that option is not available. "If someone wants to leave the regime, he fears his family will be killed or tortured."
It has been more than a year since the arrest and torture of a few teenagers in Daraa for making anti-Assad remarks ignited a protest movement against an autocratic regime that has controlled Syria for decades. As the Arab Spring saw the toppling of governments across the region, Assad met the unrest in his country with swift and unrelenting force.
His military has killed as many as 10,000 people to put down the insurrection in much the same manner as his father, Hafez Assad, did when he faced similar uprising in 1982, according to the United Nations.
Even so, the overmatched rebels refuse to quit.
Some experts say strong intervention now — like what the West did in Libya to remove Moammar Gadhafi— is needed not just to stop the slaughter of thousands of civilians but to prevent the rise of a dangerous alliance in the Middle East that threatens the West and its allies.
"If Assad succeeded in putting down the rebellion, Iran would have effective control of one more country in the Middle East, this one right on Israel's border," says John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under President George W. Bush.
The conflict playing out in Syria, between Shiites backed by Iran and Sunnis backed by Saudi Arabia, "would spread somewhere else, Bahrain, or some place in the Arabian Peninsula, and continue," he says.
Others are not so sure of what would follow. "A sectarian war in Syria is a huge concern" whether Assad prevails or not, says Joseph Holliday, a former military intelligence analyst with the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.
Meantime, the ragtag rebels resisting the barrage of the Assad regime see themselves — though underarmed and underfunded — as a thin firewall between the Syrian government and its citizens in opposition.
This week, the Syrian army continued its pounding of rebellious towns. Dozens of people have been killed in the past few days alone in Homs, Rastan and Hama, all major population centers, says the Local Coordination Committees, an anti-Assad group in Syria.
Assad has said the rebels are "thugs" and "terrorists" backed by foreign governments and not supported by the Syrian people. The members of the Free Syrian Army, who have refused to budge from their home villages, say that's just propaganda.
"We started in a peaceful way. We didn't choose this, but the government pushed us this way," said Abu Mahmoud, one of the men in the cave.
Idlib is a sun-dappled farming region of rolling hills and low mountains near the border with Turkey. There are villages of ancient stone houses where generations of a single family live together, growing fruit and roses in their gardens and tomatoes and olives in surrounding fields.
Children play as shepherds herd goats along the roads. The ruins from storied civilizations going back 5,000 years can be found here in "dead cities," the abandoned settlements of the ancient world including Roman roads, pagan cemeteries and Byzantine churches.
Assad moves in
In December, Assad ordered his military into this province to crush the "armed terrorists." Idlib residents told Amnesty International that tanks and armored vehicles lined up a road overlooking a valley and fired shells, machine guns and anti-aircraft weapons at them.
Syrian forces executed dozens of people suspected of sympathizing with the rebels, according to Amnesty. Hundreds of homes were burned. Thousands fled to the border, but many have remained.
It was then that the people put aside their peaceful demonstrations and began joining the fight, pulling together a loose coalition of deserters from Syria's military, activists and members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
On a day in May, the rebels here drank Coke out of cans and wore a mixture of civilian clothes and tattered camouflage fatigues. Some hid their faces with scarves as they patrolled their villages in civilian cars. Barricades sat on roads that link villages to keep out Assad's forces. Some are made of boulders, others had checkpoint cabins painted with the green and black that the Syrian opposition has adopted for its flag.
"Until now, the army didn't come inside this area — so the people are safe" said Abu Khalid, 38, a salesman who had lived abroad for much of his life but returned home from Saudi Arabia when the revolution began.
Fighters say they can move confidently through several villages, past regime tanks. The men coordinate to check roads, communicating with short-wave radios bought in Turkey. Some openly carry weapons while walking on public roads. Driving through the villages in plain clothes, they receive salutes from people along the way.
Although the network of rebels can ensure some security for the people here, they are powerless against the tanks and heavy weaponry of the regime army. All they can do when government forces advance is alert people in nearby villages and give them time to flee.
The rebels in Idlib appeared to be low on weapons and ammunition. Their guns looked old, and they don't have the body armor or military boots that the Syrian army enjoys. They say they've received no help from foreign governments.
At one checkpoint, a group of men huddled under a tent sipping tea. They checked each car that passed but confessed there was little they could do when Assad's forces decide to move in.
"We need more guns, more ammunition," Abu Omara said.
When rebels in Libya asked for military help to overthrow Gadhafi, President Obama joined a coalition of NATO nations whose air raids on Libyan tanks and bases last year led to the dictator's fall, and death. Obama has said he believes Assad should go too, but that what worked in Libya should not be pursued in Syria.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, appointed by Obama as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says attacking Syria would present challenges not faced in Libya. He says Syria's air defenses are concentrated in urban areas, and so taking them out ahead of airstrikes would cause greater civilian casualties than in Libya.
Obama says that the United States wants a change in Syria through diplomatic pressure and sanctions, not military force, which he says will result in more civilian deaths.
"We believe that a political transition in Syria would be an enormous strategic blow to Iran," says Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council.
Holliday, the military analyst, said Syria does have considerable air defense equipment, but he says the U.S. Air Force is up to the task.
"We're really good at finding radar (facilities) and blowing them up," he says, noting that in the 1982 Israeli-Syrian air battle over the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, Israel destroyed 19 of 20 Syrian anti-aircraft systems.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and Middle East adviser to four presidents, says changing the regime in Syria would be a defeat to Iran and Hezbollah, Iran's terrorist proxy in Lebanon that has fought wars with Israel and killed scores of Americans in terrorist attacks. But he says it might take combat troops to oust Assad, not just airstrikes.
"We have to be careful about how we use American young men and women to promote change," Riedel says.
Several Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, pledged in March to send weapons to the Free Syrian Army, but the men from the Al Haq brigade said they've received no such support. Syrians opposed to Assad have been traveling to Arab capitals as well as Washington to seek such assistance.
'Not any support' for rebels
In Idlib, fighter Abu Khalid walks through the acquisition process for his brigade. They got their generator from an army base after a battle. The satellite dish was bought from Hatay Market in Turkey. The radios and walkie-talkies made their way from a market in Istanbul.
"Not any support from USA or any country," Abu Khalid said. "We don't want them to help us with (words); we want them to help us with weapons."
They say their guns have been mostly bought from corrupt regime soldiers. Others were purchased from the Turkish mafia. They say a Kalashnikov can cost $4,000 on the black market.
Abdullah Al Sayed, a former Free Syrian Army commander for the town of Zabadani who now helps coordinate FSA communications from Virginia, says the rebels need assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank weapons and anti-aircraft machine guns that could be used against helicopters. Contacted this week, Abu Khalid said some RPGs had arrived, but he didn't say from where.
Although the precise size of the resistance forces is impossible to ascertain, Al Sayed says 60,000 men are fighting the Assad government. USA TODAY could not independently verify this claim. In Idlib, about 300 men were watching over 18 villages.
On a recent evening in one village near the Turkish border, a few dozen children and young men gathered outside a mosque, chanting anti-regime slogans and burning pictures of Assad as village elders smoked cigarettes and sipped orange juice nearby. They were not optimistic about the ability of the Free Syrian Army to protect them.
"In this time, they're in Hama and Idlib," says Abu Ahmed, speaking of the regime forces, "but they'll come here. All the time,http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif the people in this village are in danger."
Asked how long it would take to prevail, the fighters were uncertain. "It's up to God. We don't know, because the world closed their eyes to what happens, to what Assad is doing," fighter Abu Mahmoud said.
Copyright 2012 USA TODAY
Link: http://www.freep.com/usatoday/article/55143142?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|p&utm_source=SRCC+Loyal+Contacts&utm_campaign=e339c7339f-News_Roundup&utm_medium=email&ct=t%28Syrian_Revolution_News_Round_up8_30_2011%29.
Lawyer: Israel tried to silence Flotilla victims
May 25, 2012
Source: Press TV
A Turkish lawyer for the victims and the relatives of the victims of Israel’s 2010 assault on Mavi Marmara, the Turkish vessel, which was leading a Gaza-bound humanitarian fleet, says Tel Aviv had made a secret offer to silence his clients, Press TV reports.
On Thursday, Ramazan Ariturk, one of the lawyers representing 465 victims and victims’ relatives, revealed Israel’s proposal to pay his clients a lump sum of USD six million.
He said the Israeli regime had made the offer to him through an intermediary foreign ambassador in Ankara just over a month ago.
He said the money would have been paid to a Jewish foundation in Turkey for distribution followed by an “apology” from Tel Aviv in order to settle lawsuits against the Israeli military.
Ariturk said he had told the unnamed ambassador that he would not accept the offer as it was not moral.
The lawyer added that he had informed the Turkish Foreign Ministry of Israel’s proposal and his rejection, adding that officials with the ministry said his decision had been appropriate and thanked him for the refusal.
On May 31, 2010, Israeli forces attacked the humanitarian Freedom Flotilla in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea, killing nine Turkish nationals and injuring about 50 other activists, who were part of the six-ship convoy.
A Turkish national, Suleyman Soylemez, who was injured during the attack, is still in coma, according to Turkish media.
A Tel Aviv-imposed siege has been depriving 1.6 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip of food, fuel, medicine, and other necessities since mid-June 2007.
MN/MAB/HN
Source: Press TV
A Turkish lawyer for the victims and the relatives of the victims of Israel’s 2010 assault on Mavi Marmara, the Turkish vessel, which was leading a Gaza-bound humanitarian fleet, says Tel Aviv had made a secret offer to silence his clients, Press TV reports.
On Thursday, Ramazan Ariturk, one of the lawyers representing 465 victims and victims’ relatives, revealed Israel’s proposal to pay his clients a lump sum of USD six million.
He said the Israeli regime had made the offer to him through an intermediary foreign ambassador in Ankara just over a month ago.
He said the money would have been paid to a Jewish foundation in Turkey for distribution followed by an “apology” from Tel Aviv in order to settle lawsuits against the Israeli military.
Ariturk said he had told the unnamed ambassador that he would not accept the offer as it was not moral.
The lawyer added that he had informed the Turkish Foreign Ministry of Israel’s proposal and his rejection, adding that officials with the ministry said his decision had been appropriate and thanked him for the refusal.
On May 31, 2010, Israeli forces attacked the humanitarian Freedom Flotilla in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea, killing nine Turkish nationals and injuring about 50 other activists, who were part of the six-ship convoy.
A Turkish national, Suleyman Soylemez, who was injured during the attack, is still in coma, according to Turkish media.
A Tel Aviv-imposed siege has been depriving 1.6 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip of food, fuel, medicine, and other necessities since mid-June 2007.
MN/MAB/HN
Thursday, May 24, 2012
15,000 march against NATO in Chicago
22 May 2012
Kevin Zeese
Chicago, IL - In the largest anti-war protest ever held in Chicago, 15,000 people took to the streets marching against the NATO military summit. Inside McCormick Convention Center, politicians, generals and bankers discussed the faltering U.S./NATO war and occupation in Afghanistan. They also forged agreements that set the stage for destabilizing and overthrowing independent governments in places like Syria and Iran.
Outside, in the streets of Chicago’s South Loop however, waves of protesters marched in contingents with a message against NATO and G8, opposing war and poverty. Protesters were chanting and singing, surrounded by police on all sides. They were in high spirits and feeling their power, knowing their message of opposing war and poverty was reaching across the world to people suffering from NATO wars and occupations.
The day began with music and poetry at Petrillo Bandshell in Grant Park, a park famous for 1960s protests against the U.S. war in Vietnam. Rebel Diaz, Tom Morello, David Rovics and hip-hop poets performed, with an appearance by the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). As the crowd began to grow, many taking shelter in the shade of nearby trees, protesters listened to speakers from scores of groups and movements that built for the protest against NATO.
The audience listened closely when Chicano leader and anti-war activist Carlos Montes took the stage. Members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held a big banner reading “Justice for Carlos Montes” behind him. Montes said, “I am here in solidarity with you today, despite being on trial in Los Angeles as part of an FBI frame up. I am being persecuted because of my anti-war, immigrant rights and labor activism. I organized protests against the U.S. War in Vietnam in the ‘60s and I organize against NATO and the U.S. war in Afghanistan today. We were in solidarity with and inspired by the people of Vietnam in their struggle against U.S. imperialism and we act in solidarity with the struggles of the people of Colombia, the Philippines and Mexico today. I call for the U.S. out of Afghanistan and to no U.S. or NATO intervention in Syria and Iran.”
Hatem Abudayyeh, a Palestinian-American, who is one of 23 Midwest anti-war activists subpoenaed to a grand jury investigation and had his home raided by the FBI because of his solidarity work, also spoke: “We are organizing toward the day when Palestine will be a free and sovereign nation, with the right to return for refugees. We call for an end to U.S. aid to Israel and for people here to join us in demanding Palestinian liberation!” A big roar went up from the entire crowd.
Meredith Aby from the Minneapolis Anti-War Committee spoke about the need to get NATO out of Afghanistan and prevent future U.S. wars for oil and Empire. Aby is also one of the 23 who the FBI raided and she asserted, “Being anti-war is not a crime!’
The Reverend Jesse Jackson, from Chicago’s Operation PUSH and a former presidential candidate, called for an end to spending billions on war. He demanded the money be used to fund social services and end poverty. Jackson educated the crowd about poverty in this country, often portrayed in the media as only affecting African-Americans and other oppressed peoples. Reverend Jackson said, “The largest single category of poor people is white women who are single parents with children.” Reverend Jackson used the African-American call and response tradition in his speech, much to the amazement of Occupy Wall Street activists who use a similar technique.
All in all there were more than 40 speakers from students, labor, immigrant rights, war veteran, environmental, housing and healthcare groups. Speakers included Leah Bolger, the President of Vets for Peace, Larry Holmes of the International Action Center and Skye Schmelzer with Students for a Democratic Society. Many were interested to hear from the Afghan women for peace, and the International League of People’s Struggle representing many international movements for freedom.
There were dozens of international guests who came to the protest, particularly anti-NATO organizations from European NATO countries. The importance of this is not to be underestimated, as NATO is fragile and some countries have already pulled troops out of Afghanistan.
The afternoon march began with a group of Afghan women for peace joined by a large contingent of Iraq and Afghan war veterans marching together. The Coalition Against NATO and G8 (CANG8), the organizers of the march, held the lead banner, with the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) as a part of that.
A river of protesters stretched across four lanes of traffic and for nearly a mile on Michigan Avenue. Onlookers and whole families came out on apartment balconies and onto sidewalks to film and take photos.
When the march came to within a few blocks of McCormick Place, it was time for the war veterans to take command. In one of the most moving moments of any anti-war protest in a generation, U.S. military veterans made declarations against U.S. and NATO wars and occupations, throwing their medals off the stage and into the street. One war veteran describing his combat experience began choking back tears and saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” to which thousands in the streets began chanting, “It’s not your fault! It’s not your fault!”
Other veterans gave impassioned speeches against wars for oil and U.S. imperialism, denouncing the 1% and the U.S. government, while throwing their combat service awards and other medals as far as possible down the street towards the NATO summit. Jacob Flom of IVAW dedicated his medals to Carlos Montes and the Anti-War 23.
The Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) ended the day with an announcement for people to exit to the west, taking note that there was a tremendous build-up of police in riot gear and military-type uniforms. The official show of force was intimidating to people and clearly planned and funded months ahead of time.
The crowds of protesters were so large, however, that it appeared impossible for everyone to exit in time for the end of the permitted Veterans rally. It soon became a scene of police encircling and pushing and shoving a much smaller crowd of people, some who responded in kind and were beaten and arrested. Others were simply singled out for arrest or beaten at random, including a few journalists. The big business media took up this story and these images to attempt to quickly bury the largest and most successful anti-war protest ever held in the city of Chicago.
While the greatest purveyors of violence in the world were meeting inside the NATO summit, the anti-war protesters outside sent a message heard round the world: “Say no to NATO! Troops out now!”
Kevin Zeese
Chicago, IL - In the largest anti-war protest ever held in Chicago, 15,000 people took to the streets marching against the NATO military summit. Inside McCormick Convention Center, politicians, generals and bankers discussed the faltering U.S./NATO war and occupation in Afghanistan. They also forged agreements that set the stage for destabilizing and overthrowing independent governments in places like Syria and Iran.
Outside, in the streets of Chicago’s South Loop however, waves of protesters marched in contingents with a message against NATO and G8, opposing war and poverty. Protesters were chanting and singing, surrounded by police on all sides. They were in high spirits and feeling their power, knowing their message of opposing war and poverty was reaching across the world to people suffering from NATO wars and occupations.
The day began with music and poetry at Petrillo Bandshell in Grant Park, a park famous for 1960s protests against the U.S. war in Vietnam. Rebel Diaz, Tom Morello, David Rovics and hip-hop poets performed, with an appearance by the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). As the crowd began to grow, many taking shelter in the shade of nearby trees, protesters listened to speakers from scores of groups and movements that built for the protest against NATO.
The audience listened closely when Chicano leader and anti-war activist Carlos Montes took the stage. Members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held a big banner reading “Justice for Carlos Montes” behind him. Montes said, “I am here in solidarity with you today, despite being on trial in Los Angeles as part of an FBI frame up. I am being persecuted because of my anti-war, immigrant rights and labor activism. I organized protests against the U.S. War in Vietnam in the ‘60s and I organize against NATO and the U.S. war in Afghanistan today. We were in solidarity with and inspired by the people of Vietnam in their struggle against U.S. imperialism and we act in solidarity with the struggles of the people of Colombia, the Philippines and Mexico today. I call for the U.S. out of Afghanistan and to no U.S. or NATO intervention in Syria and Iran.”
Hatem Abudayyeh, a Palestinian-American, who is one of 23 Midwest anti-war activists subpoenaed to a grand jury investigation and had his home raided by the FBI because of his solidarity work, also spoke: “We are organizing toward the day when Palestine will be a free and sovereign nation, with the right to return for refugees. We call for an end to U.S. aid to Israel and for people here to join us in demanding Palestinian liberation!” A big roar went up from the entire crowd.
Meredith Aby from the Minneapolis Anti-War Committee spoke about the need to get NATO out of Afghanistan and prevent future U.S. wars for oil and Empire. Aby is also one of the 23 who the FBI raided and she asserted, “Being anti-war is not a crime!’
The Reverend Jesse Jackson, from Chicago’s Operation PUSH and a former presidential candidate, called for an end to spending billions on war. He demanded the money be used to fund social services and end poverty. Jackson educated the crowd about poverty in this country, often portrayed in the media as only affecting African-Americans and other oppressed peoples. Reverend Jackson said, “The largest single category of poor people is white women who are single parents with children.” Reverend Jackson used the African-American call and response tradition in his speech, much to the amazement of Occupy Wall Street activists who use a similar technique.
All in all there were more than 40 speakers from students, labor, immigrant rights, war veteran, environmental, housing and healthcare groups. Speakers included Leah Bolger, the President of Vets for Peace, Larry Holmes of the International Action Center and Skye Schmelzer with Students for a Democratic Society. Many were interested to hear from the Afghan women for peace, and the International League of People’s Struggle representing many international movements for freedom.
There were dozens of international guests who came to the protest, particularly anti-NATO organizations from European NATO countries. The importance of this is not to be underestimated, as NATO is fragile and some countries have already pulled troops out of Afghanistan.
The afternoon march began with a group of Afghan women for peace joined by a large contingent of Iraq and Afghan war veterans marching together. The Coalition Against NATO and G8 (CANG8), the organizers of the march, held the lead banner, with the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) as a part of that.
A river of protesters stretched across four lanes of traffic and for nearly a mile on Michigan Avenue. Onlookers and whole families came out on apartment balconies and onto sidewalks to film and take photos.
When the march came to within a few blocks of McCormick Place, it was time for the war veterans to take command. In one of the most moving moments of any anti-war protest in a generation, U.S. military veterans made declarations against U.S. and NATO wars and occupations, throwing their medals off the stage and into the street. One war veteran describing his combat experience began choking back tears and saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” to which thousands in the streets began chanting, “It’s not your fault! It’s not your fault!”
Other veterans gave impassioned speeches against wars for oil and U.S. imperialism, denouncing the 1% and the U.S. government, while throwing their combat service awards and other medals as far as possible down the street towards the NATO summit. Jacob Flom of IVAW dedicated his medals to Carlos Montes and the Anti-War 23.
The Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) ended the day with an announcement for people to exit to the west, taking note that there was a tremendous build-up of police in riot gear and military-type uniforms. The official show of force was intimidating to people and clearly planned and funded months ahead of time.
The crowds of protesters were so large, however, that it appeared impossible for everyone to exit in time for the end of the permitted Veterans rally. It soon became a scene of police encircling and pushing and shoving a much smaller crowd of people, some who responded in kind and were beaten and arrested. Others were simply singled out for arrest or beaten at random, including a few journalists. The big business media took up this story and these images to attempt to quickly bury the largest and most successful anti-war protest ever held in the city of Chicago.
While the greatest purveyors of violence in the world were meeting inside the NATO summit, the anti-war protesters outside sent a message heard round the world: “Say no to NATO! Troops out now!”
UN Wants to Stabilize Global economy With One World Currency
21 May 2012
by Susanne Posel
Source: Truth Theory
The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is proposing that the current system of world currencies and capital rules that govern the world’s economy need to be altered in order to stabilize our economic crisis.
The US dollar is the global reserve currency which means all other currencies used for trade must be transferred to their equivalent in US dollars before use as currency on the global markets.
UNCTAD issued a report which is the UN’s answer to this problem. They contend that a Bretton Woods – esque system of universal exchange would allow the central banks to intervene with support or downgrading of currencies already in use.
China, India and Russia and other members of the BRICs non-aligned nations are already using gold with equivalency of their fiat currency to trade amongst themselves for goods and services. This action is greatly affecting the US dollar as the global reserve currency.
UNCTAD wants to see those non-aligned nations, considered surplus nations, cut their imbalances, thereby taking the financial burden off of the UK and US as upholding the global reserve currency.
One way that is proposed by the report is to replace the global reserve currency with a global monetary system.
“Replacing the dollar with an artificial currency would solve some of the problems related to the potential of countries running large deficits and would help stability,” said Detlef Kotte, one of the report’s authors. “But you will also need a system of managed exchange rates. Countries should keep real exchange rates [adjusted for inflation] stable. Central banks would have to intervene and if not they would have to be told to do so by a multilateral institution such as the International Monetary Fund.”
The American monetary policy has grossly distorted the global economy. The Federal Reserve’s restart called “quantitative easing” is simply a fancy way of saying the Fed will print fiat without precious metals to back it up. This effectively makes the money worthless, yet it is this fiat that is used to purchase government bonds.
Countries like China say that this practice forces their currencies to inflate because of fake foreign capital flooding into the global markets.
A great part of the world’s trade (as foreign-exchange transactions and reserves) are conducted in US dollars.
In this current state, countries must either repair their currencies or clamp down on their domestic monetary conditions.
Under the gold standard, fiat is directly tied to gold, but does not allow for governments to inflate their currencies beyond their actual gold stores.
America has had the most trouble with this system because the Fed deals with inflation which devalues the US dollar without overtly doing so. Since the effects of inflation takes longer to surface, the Fed have enjoyed massive amounts of profits at the expense of the worth and future of the US dollar.
Since the US dollar is the global reserve currency and is also not tied to any precious metal, it is dictated by many exchange-rate and capital controls.
China’s Yuan is greatly undervalued, but influentially tied to the US dollar. The Chinese have been successful at keep their fiat afloat without raising consumer prices.
To control this ebb and flow within the global monetary markets, an international monetary system overseen by the UN through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the World trade Organization (WTO) would put the manipulative control over the world’s finances in the hands of an international governing body.
And this is the proposal by the UN.
Economist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard warned about the issue of deflation rather than inflation as the source of the global economy.
In the UNCTAD report Evans-Pritchard said: “In the present situation, with capacity utilization at historic lows and unemployment rising at a dramatic rate, there is little danger of either overheating or wage inflation for several years to come. It is a matter of years, not months, before economies that are now in deep crisis can be restored to a level of capacity utilization where supply cannot keep up with demand, or to a level of employment that could trigger demand for higher wages. This will allow central banks to gradually withdraw excess liquidity by selling revalued assets and absorbing excess money supply. Indeed, deflation – not inflation – is the real danger. Wage deflation is the imminent and most dangerous threat in many countries today, because governments will find it much more difficult to stabilize a tumbling economy when there is a large-scale fall in wages and consumption.”
The UN proposes a complete overhaul. In the report Adapting the International Monetary System to Face 21st Century Challenges , they call for “more intense debate on and reforms to the international monetary system imply that the current system is unable to respond appropriately and adequately to challenges that have appeared, or become more acute, in recent years. This paper focuses on four such challenges: ensuring an orderly exit from global imbalances, facilitating more complementary adjustments between surplus and deficit countries without recessionary impacts, better supporting international trade by reducing currency volatility and better providing development and climate finance. After describing them, it proposes reforms to enable the international monetary system to better respond to these challenges.”
They recommend movement toward a global currency that will replace all current currencies. Revaluation will be accessed and the worth of money would redistribute with oversight of the IMF, WTO and ultimately the UN.
As Kotte points out, “The fear is that the international element of this casino will remain largely untouched. But there is an increased consciousness that future crises cannot be avoided unless there is an overhaul of the financial and monetary system. What is at least encouraging is that, should another crisis happen in the coming years, at least the work is now starting to be done to come up with a superior system with which to replace the existing, battered, misshapen mess that Bretton Woods evolved into over the past few decades.”
This would be the beginning of the UN’s securitization of the world’s monetary value and ability to trade for goods and services.
Whether a country prospered or collapsed would be in the decisive right of the UN. A sort of economic terrorism by effectively controlling the flow.
Sources:
Occupy Corporatism
by Susanne Posel
Source: Truth Theory
The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is proposing that the current system of world currencies and capital rules that govern the world’s economy need to be altered in order to stabilize our economic crisis.
The US dollar is the global reserve currency which means all other currencies used for trade must be transferred to their equivalent in US dollars before use as currency on the global markets.
UNCTAD issued a report which is the UN’s answer to this problem. They contend that a Bretton Woods – esque system of universal exchange would allow the central banks to intervene with support or downgrading of currencies already in use.
China, India and Russia and other members of the BRICs non-aligned nations are already using gold with equivalency of their fiat currency to trade amongst themselves for goods and services. This action is greatly affecting the US dollar as the global reserve currency.
UNCTAD wants to see those non-aligned nations, considered surplus nations, cut their imbalances, thereby taking the financial burden off of the UK and US as upholding the global reserve currency.
One way that is proposed by the report is to replace the global reserve currency with a global monetary system.
“Replacing the dollar with an artificial currency would solve some of the problems related to the potential of countries running large deficits and would help stability,” said Detlef Kotte, one of the report’s authors. “But you will also need a system of managed exchange rates. Countries should keep real exchange rates [adjusted for inflation] stable. Central banks would have to intervene and if not they would have to be told to do so by a multilateral institution such as the International Monetary Fund.”
The American monetary policy has grossly distorted the global economy. The Federal Reserve’s restart called “quantitative easing” is simply a fancy way of saying the Fed will print fiat without precious metals to back it up. This effectively makes the money worthless, yet it is this fiat that is used to purchase government bonds.
Countries like China say that this practice forces their currencies to inflate because of fake foreign capital flooding into the global markets.
A great part of the world’s trade (as foreign-exchange transactions and reserves) are conducted in US dollars.
In this current state, countries must either repair their currencies or clamp down on their domestic monetary conditions.
Under the gold standard, fiat is directly tied to gold, but does not allow for governments to inflate their currencies beyond their actual gold stores.
America has had the most trouble with this system because the Fed deals with inflation which devalues the US dollar without overtly doing so. Since the effects of inflation takes longer to surface, the Fed have enjoyed massive amounts of profits at the expense of the worth and future of the US dollar.
Since the US dollar is the global reserve currency and is also not tied to any precious metal, it is dictated by many exchange-rate and capital controls.
China’s Yuan is greatly undervalued, but influentially tied to the US dollar. The Chinese have been successful at keep their fiat afloat without raising consumer prices.
To control this ebb and flow within the global monetary markets, an international monetary system overseen by the UN through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the World trade Organization (WTO) would put the manipulative control over the world’s finances in the hands of an international governing body.
And this is the proposal by the UN.
Economist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard warned about the issue of deflation rather than inflation as the source of the global economy.
In the UNCTAD report Evans-Pritchard said: “In the present situation, with capacity utilization at historic lows and unemployment rising at a dramatic rate, there is little danger of either overheating or wage inflation for several years to come. It is a matter of years, not months, before economies that are now in deep crisis can be restored to a level of capacity utilization where supply cannot keep up with demand, or to a level of employment that could trigger demand for higher wages. This will allow central banks to gradually withdraw excess liquidity by selling revalued assets and absorbing excess money supply. Indeed, deflation – not inflation – is the real danger. Wage deflation is the imminent and most dangerous threat in many countries today, because governments will find it much more difficult to stabilize a tumbling economy when there is a large-scale fall in wages and consumption.”
The UN proposes a complete overhaul. In the report Adapting the International Monetary System to Face 21st Century Challenges , they call for “more intense debate on and reforms to the international monetary system imply that the current system is unable to respond appropriately and adequately to challenges that have appeared, or become more acute, in recent years. This paper focuses on four such challenges: ensuring an orderly exit from global imbalances, facilitating more complementary adjustments between surplus and deficit countries without recessionary impacts, better supporting international trade by reducing currency volatility and better providing development and climate finance. After describing them, it proposes reforms to enable the international monetary system to better respond to these challenges.”
They recommend movement toward a global currency that will replace all current currencies. Revaluation will be accessed and the worth of money would redistribute with oversight of the IMF, WTO and ultimately the UN.
As Kotte points out, “The fear is that the international element of this casino will remain largely untouched. But there is an increased consciousness that future crises cannot be avoided unless there is an overhaul of the financial and monetary system. What is at least encouraging is that, should another crisis happen in the coming years, at least the work is now starting to be done to come up with a superior system with which to replace the existing, battered, misshapen mess that Bretton Woods evolved into over the past few decades.”
This would be the beginning of the UN’s securitization of the world’s monetary value and ability to trade for goods and services.
Whether a country prospered or collapsed would be in the decisive right of the UN. A sort of economic terrorism by effectively controlling the flow.
Sources:
Occupy Corporatism
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