Obama Exploiting Ukraine to Empower IMF and Dictatorships

11 March 2014
by  Alex Newman
Source: The New American

The globalist establishment, Russian authorities, and the Obama administration are pushing hard for a series of controversial “reforms” aimed at massively expanding the power and resources of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) while further scaling back U.S. influence at the institution. Using various pretexts — and especially the crisis in Ukraine — governments and dictatorships, including Vladimir Putin’s Russia, are even threatening to proceed with the radical plot to empower the IMF whether the U.S. Congress approves it or not. 

The most important and far-reaching elements of the “reform” agenda include a doubling of taxpayer resources available to the IMF. Member governments would have to supply twice as much taxpayer funding to meet their “quota” under the agreement. Even more important, the reforms would also dramatically reduce U.S. influence while handing more power to what propagandists refer to as “emerging markets.” In reality, “emerging markets” would continue to have no influence whatsoever at the powerful globalist institution. The dictators and governments that rule them, however, would be given far more authority to dictate IMF policy and decisions.

Chief among the regimes that would be empowered under the “reforms” is the communist dictatorship ruling over mainland China, which for years has been calling for the IMF to become a sort of planetary central bank in charge of a global currency. Other governments that would have more influence include those ruling over the rest of the so-called BRICS — primarily socialist and communist regimes in Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa. All of the “BRICS” regimes have been strongly pushing for more control over the IMF in recent years, even as they push to radically expand its mandate to include a planetary currency.

 “We support the reform and improvement of the international monetary system, with a broad based international reserve currency system providing stability and certainty,” the five BRICS regimes said in a joint 2013 declaration, calling for Third World dictators to have a greater say in the IMF and the emerging global monetary regime. “We welcome the discussion about the role of the [IMF’s] SDR [a proto-global currency known as Special Drawing Rights] in the existing international monetary system including the composition of SDR’s basket of currencies.”

The biggest barrier thus far to the IMF “reforms,” reportedly agreed to in 2010, has been the U.S. Congress, which is so far refusing to approve the funding. In a statement, however, the Obama administration said it was working on overcoming that obstacle. Among other demands, the administration wants lawmakers to approve a shift of some $63 billion from a “crisis” fund to the IMF’s general accounts to comply with the 2010 reform “commitments” made by the Obama administration and the IMF board.   
“We are working with Congress to approve the 2010 IMF quota legislation, which would support the IMF’s capacity to lend additional resources to Ukraine, while also helping to preserve continued U.S. leadership within this important institution,” the White House said in a “fact sheet” released last week, exploiting the ongoing fiasco in central Europe to advance the controversial agenda to empower the IMF and its less-than-friendly member regimes. The radically expanded U.S. “quota” would presumably be met going forward by borrowing from foreign governments or the Federal Reserve, which simply conjures currency into existence out of thin air and usuriously lends it to the Treasury at interest. 

Having apparently lost hope of getting the legislation through on its own, the administration is now trying to tie the IMF funding demands to a bill showering U.S. taxpayer funds on Ukraine’s new rulers. “It is imperative that we secure passage of IMF legislation now so we can show support for the IMF in this critical moment and preserve our leading influential voice in the institution,” Obama Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said last week in a congressional hearing, just months after demanding a debt-ceiling hike. It remains unclear whether the GOP-controlled House will submit to the administration’s demands.

In a report from Reuters citing “sources,” however, the news agency reported that Russian officials are working to push ahead the drastic IMF reforms without the support of the U.S. government, which holds a controlling share of votes at the institution because U.S. taxpayers are its primary source of funds. If the Kremlin and its allies succeed in advancing the reforms without U.S. congressional approval, the news agency claimed, it could result in Washington, D.C., losing its veto even over major IMF decisions. Moving ahead without Congress, though, would reportedly require “complicated” changes to IMF rules.

The anonymous “sources” cited in the Reuters article claimed that the G20 governments — the regimes ruling China and Russia are both among the members — would give the U.S. government until IMF and World Bank meetings next month to obey. If Congress remains uncooperative, the “sources,” presumably speaking to the news agency in a bid to pressure U.S. lawmakers, said the G20 regimes would be “taking more aggressive measures” to ram through the reforms empowering the controversial global institution.

“It was agreed that in the absence of progress by the United States on the 2010 package by the April meeting of the IMF and G20, that there will be formulated a list of 'bad options,' which will allow [us] to move forward in this matter, excluding the opinions of the United States,” one of the three unnamed sources told Reuters. In other words, either the U.S. Congress does the bidding of foreign governments at the G20, or those regimes will advance the radical agenda anyway.

In an editorial, the establishment mouthpieces at the New York Times urged lawmakers to promptly obey, too. “As Congress moves forward with providing financial assistance to Ukraine in the form of loan guarantees, lawmakers should also ratify much-delayed reforms that would strengthen the International Monetary Fund and give it more resources to lend to troubled nations like Ukraine,” the Times editorial board argued on Monday, adding that the Obama administration had “led a global effort” to increase IMF funding to over $750 billion while curtailing U.S. power at the institution.

“Some Republicans in the House have steadfastly refused to let the reforms come to a vote, arguing unconvincingly that the fund doesn’t need the money,” the Times complained, presumably also suggesting that the IMF and the nations it shackles with debt need the money more than struggling U.S. taxpayers. “Ukraine’s troubles serve as evidence that it’s important to increase the fund’s resources.”

Ironically, the Times suggested that it was in “America’s interest” that authorities in Ukraine and other countries receive bailouts from U.S. taxpayers through organizations such as the IMF rather than from Russia directly. The claim is especially ridiculous considering that the Kremlin is leading the push to adopt the IMF “reforms” without approval from the U.S. Congress. The argument becomes even more absurd when realizing that Moscow is participating in the IMF bailouts agreement for Ukrainian officials. And it borders on lunacy when considering a New York Times report last week acknowledging that much of the “aid” to Ukraine will end up in Russian institutions anyway.

“Providing Ukraine with $1 billion in loan guarantees from the American government is a good start, but that will not be enough to get the country back on its feet,” the Times editorial concludes. “Congress needs to go one step further and give the I.M.F. the resources it needs to help troubled nations like Ukraine.”
The conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation, while claiming that the United States “clearly” benefits from the existence of the IMF, also conceded that, “many conservatives have rightly pointed to the IMF as an enabler of moral hazard.” Those critics, the group said, “are concerned that American tax dollars are being used for IMF programs that bail out bad decisions by other governments that follow reckless fiscal and monetary policies (e.g., the flawed policies that Ukraine pursued under Yanukovych until 2011 when the IMF ended its previous program for the country).”

In response to those concerns, Heritage Research Fellow for Economic Freedom James Roberts offered Congress some suggestions. “Refuse the Obama Administration’s attempt to link urgent assistance to Ukraine to approval of the IMF governance reform package that has been pending for three years,” he advised. “Insist that the 2010 reform package be revised so that the U.S. retains the unilateral right to appoint its own representative to the executive board; and demand the abolition of the NAB [New Arrangements to Borrow] supplemental facility so that it cannot be used in the future as an additional source of potentially morally hazardous lending during the next ‘crisis’.”

Critics of the IMF and the long-term agenda of the institution and its backers, however, suggest that a better solution would be for the U.S. government to withdraw from the controversial outfit altogether. Not only is Washington, D.C., foisting unfathomable levels of odious debt on the American people to fund such globalist institutions, the IMF is now openly proposing wholesale global wealth confiscation and plundering. As if that was not bad enough, the IMF and the globalist establishment that controls it are openly working to turn the institution into a global central bank in charge of a planetary fiat currency if and when the U.S. dollar loses its status as international reserve.

For Americans, Ukrainians, and indeed, humanity, the IMF represents nothing but expensive trouble — and it is only going to get worse if current trends continue. U.S. lawmakers who take their oath of office seriously must refuse to submit.  

Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. He can be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com. 

Link:  http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/item/17817-obama-exploiting-ukraine-to-empower-imf-and-dictatorships.

Turkey protests test Obama's ties with Erdogan

3 hrs ago
By JULIE PACE | Associated Press
Source: Yahoo News

WASHINGTON (AP) — Government crackdowns against protesters in Turkey could test the close ties between PresidentBarack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a strategically important U.S. ally in a tumultuous region.

The demonstrations in Turkey, now entering their second week, cropped up after Erdogan's visit to the White House last month, which highlighted a variety of issues on which the U.S. needs Turkey's help. They include quelling the violence in Syria, stabilizing Iraq and stemming Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Erdogan, known for his brash and stubborn leadership style, has responded to the public outcry by questioning the legitimacy of the protesters. In a series of increasingly belligerent speeches to supporters Sunday, the prime minister warned that his patience was wearing thin and said those who do not respect the government will pay.

Hundreds of police in riot gear briefly fired tear gas canisters and rubber bullets at protestors in Istanbul's central Taksim Square early Tuesday, forcing many protestors who had occupied the square into a nearby park. Some groups also clashed with police at one edge of the square, setting off fireworks, firebombs and throwing stones at a police water cannon.

The clash mirrored previous confrontations between Turkish police and protestors, which have also involved the use of tear gas and water cannons. Turkish authorities are trying halt demonstrations, which have spread to nearly 80 cities across the country.

James Jeffrey, who served as Obama's ambassador to Turkey until 2010, said that in private discussions among U.S. officials "there's some wincing at the statements by Erdogan."

But in public, the White House has carefully avoided criticizing the prime minister directly, though the U.S. has urged Turkish authorities to exercise restraint. There also have been no known conversations between Obama and his Turkish counterpart since the protests began.

"We continue to have serious concerns about the reports of excessive use of force by police and large numbers of injuries and damage to property, and welcome calls for these events to be investigated," White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday. "We also continue to urge all parties to refrain from provoking violence." He did not mention Erdogan.

"This is always the quandary for the U.S. government," said Bulent Aliriza, a Turkey analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "When you get that close to an ally, you become very careful about criticizing them."

That's the pattern the U.S. fell into with former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, an autocrat who found favor with the U.S. by protecting American interests in the Middle East. The U.S. only turned on Mubarak after the Egyptian people launched mass protests against his government in 2011 as part of the Arab Spring push for democracy that swept through the region.

Despite the unrest in Turkey, Erdogan doesn't appear in danger of losing power. But the protests have exposed pent-up hostility among many Turks who fear Erdogan is backsliding on his early record of democratic reform and seeking to impose his religious views on the secular nation.

The anti-government rallies started after police launched a pre-dawn raid against a peaceful sit-in protesting plans to uproot trees in Istanbul's Taksim Square. Since then, tens of thousands of mostly secular Turks have joined the demonstrations, turning them into Turkey's biggest anti-government disturbances in years.

For the White House, Erdogan's handling of the challenge to his leadership could complicate Turkey's close but complex relationship with the U.S.

Since taking office, Obama has taken significant steps to point to Turkey as a model for other majority-Islamic nations pursuing democracy and ties with the West. Three months after winning the White House, Obama put Turkey on the itinerary for his first foreign tour as president, a 2009 trip that was aimed in part at resetting the U.S. relationship with the Muslim world. While touring Turkey alongside Erdogan, Obama cast the ties between their two countries as a "model partnership."

Since then, the two leaders have spoken frequently by phone, conferred on the sidelines of international summits and held two White House meetings, most recently in May.

Despite the robust relationship between the U.S. and Turkey, Erdogan has created headaches for Obama before. In 2010, Turkey broke with the U.S. and voted against United Nations sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear program. Erdogan also ratcheted up tensions with Israel earlier this year when he called Zionism "a crime against humanity."

The lengthy civil war in Syria has exposed perhaps the deepest rift between Erdogan and Obama. While both want Syrian President Bashar Assad out of power, the prime minister has become frustrated with Obama's reluctance to use military force to end the violence.

Erdogan pushed Obama during their recent talks to deepen U.S. involvement in Syria, but the Turkish leader received none of the assurances he sought.

Obama, however, has proven to have some measure of influence over his Turkish counterpart.

Earlier this year, Obama brokered a truce between Israel and Turkey, which had cut diplomatic ties following an Israeli attack on a Turkish aid flotilla bound for Gaza. Analysts say Erdogan would have been far less willing to accept an apology from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had Obama not also been on the line during the phone call.

Aliriza, the Turkey expert at CSIS, said Obama's success in restarting diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel underscores the influence Obama could have now in shaping the prime minister's response to the protests.

"There is only one man in this world that Erdogan listens to, and that's Barack Obama," he said.

White House demands military prisons for Americans under NDAA

September 18, 2012
Source: Secrets of the Fed

The White House has asked the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals to place an emergency stay on a ruling made last week by a federal judge so that the president’s power to indefinitely detain Americans without charge is reaffirmed immediately.

On Wednesday, September 12, US District Court Judge Katherine Forrest made permanent a temporary injunction she issued in May that bars the federal government from abiding by the indefinite detention provision in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, or NDAA. Judge Forrest ruled that a clause that gives the government the power to arrest US citizens suspected of maintaining alliances with terrorists and hold them without due process violated the Constitution and that the White House would be stripped of that ability immediately.

Only hours after Judge Forrest issued last week’s ruling, the Obama administration threatened to appeal the decision, and on Monday morning they followed through.

At around 9 a.m. Monday, September 17, the White House filed an emergency stay in federal appeals court in an effort to have the Second Circuit strip away Judge Forrest’s ruling from the week earlier.

“Almost immediately after Judge Forrest ruled, the Obama administration challenged the decision,” writes Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist that is listed as the lead plaintiff in the case. According to Hedges, the government called Judge Forrest’s most recent ruling an “extraordinary injunction of worldwide scope,” and Executive Branch attorneys worked into the weekend to find a way to file their stay.

“The Justice Department sent a letter to Forrest and the Second Circuit late Friday night informing them that at 9 a.m. Monday the Obama administration would ask the Second Circuit for an emergency stay that would lift Forrest’s injunction,” Hedges writes. “This would allow Obama to continue to operate with indefinite detention authority until a formal appeal was heard. The government’s decision has triggered a constitutional showdown between the president and the judiciary.”

Attorney Carl Mayer, a counsel for Hedges and his co-plaintiffs, confirmed to RT early Monday that the stay was in fact filed with the Second Circuit.

“This may be the most significant constitutional standoff since the Pentagon Papers case,” Carl Mayer says in a separate statement posted on Mr. Hedge’s blog.

Bruce Afran, who serves as co-lead counsel along with Mayer, tells Hedges that the White House could be waging a war against the injunction to ensure that the Obama administration has ample time to turn the NDAA against any protesters participating in domestic demonstrations.

“A Department of Homeland Security bulletin was issued Friday claiming that the riots [in the Middle East] are likely to come to the US and saying that DHS is looking for the Islamic leaders of these likely riots,” Afran tells Hedges. “It is my view that this is why the government wants to reopen the NDAA — so it has a tool to round up would-be Islamic protesters before they can launch any protest, violent or otherwise. Right now there are no legal tools to arrest would-be protesters. The NDAA would give the government such power. Since the request to vacate the injunction only comes about on the day of the riots, and following the DHS bulletin, it seems to me that the two are connected. The government wants to reopen the NDAA injunction so that they can use it to block protests.”

Hedges, who has previously reported for papers including the New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor, argued that his job as a journalist requires him to routinely interact and converse with persons that may be considered terrorists in the eyes of the US government.

Under the NDAA, Americans “who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners” can be held in prison cells “until the end of hostilities,” vague verbiage that essentially allows for those suspect of such associations to be decided under the discretion of US President Barack Obama or any federal agent underneath him.

“Because the language is so vague in this law,” Mr. Mayer explains to RT, “if any journalist or activist is seen as reporting or offering opinions about groups that could somehow be linked not just to al-Qaeda but to any opponent of the United States or even opponents of our allies”

“I spent many years in countries where the military had the power to arrest and detain citizens without charge,” Hedges wrote when he first filed his suit in January. “I have been in some of these jails. I have friends and colleagues who have ‘disappeared’ into military gulags. I know the consequences of granting sweeping and unrestricted policing power to the armed forces of any nation. And while my battle may be quixotic, it is one that has to be fought if we are to have any hope of pulling this country back from corporate fascism.”

Monday morning, Hedges once more responded to the White House’s relentless attempts to reauthorize powers granted under the NDAA, asking, “If the administration is this anxious to restore this section of the NDAA, is it because the Obama government has already used it? Or does it have plans to use the section in the immediate future?”

Iraq rejects US request to maintain bases after troop withdrawal

21 October 2011
by Ewen MacAskill
Source: The Guardian


Obama announces the full withdrawal of troops from Iraq but fails to persuade Nouri al-Maliki to allow US to keep bases there

Obama presented the troop withdrawal as the fulfilment of one of his election promises Link to this video

The US suffered a major diplomatic and military rebuff on Friday when Iraq finally rejected its pleas to maintain bases in the country beyond this year.

Barack Obama announced at a White House press conference that all American troops will leave Iraq by the end of December, a decision forced by the final collapse of lengthy talks between the US and the Iraqi government on the issue.

The Iraqi decision is a boost to Iran, which has close ties with many members of the Iraqi government and which had been battling against the establishment of permanent American bases.

Obama attempted to make the most of it by presenting the withdrawal as the fulfilment of one of his election promises.

"Today I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over," he told reporters.

But he had already announced this earlier this year, and the real significance today was in the failure of Obama, in spite of the cost to the US in dollars and deaths, to persuade the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to allow one or more American bases to be kept in the country.

Obama was formally told of Maliki's final decision on Friday morning in a video conference.

Speaking later to reporters, Obama glossed over the rejection, describing it as Iraq shaping its own future.

He told reporters that the "tide of war is receding", not only in Iraq but in Afghanistan and in Libya.

"The United States is moving forward to a position of strength. The long war in Iraq will come to an end by the end of this year. The transition in Afghanistan is moving forward and our troops are finally coming home," he said.

Obama rose to political prominence on the back of his opposition to the Iraq war.

"Over the next two months, our troops in Iraq, tens of thousands of them, will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home," he said.

"The last American soldier will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops," he said. "That is how America's military efforts in Iraq will end."

But Republicans criticised the failure to secure a deal with the Iraqis, describing it as a setback for the US.

John McCain, one of the leading foreign affairs specialists in the Senate and Obama's Republican opponent in the 2008 White House race, said: "Today marks a harmful and sad setback for the United States in the world. I respectfully disagree with the president: this decision will be viewed as a strategic victory for our enemies in the Middle East, especially the Iranian regime, which has worked relentlessly to ensure a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq."

Mitt Romney, front-runner in the race to take on Obama in the 2012 White House race, said: "The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government."

One of the sticking points in the negotiations with Iraq was a US demand that American forces remaining in the country after December would enjoy the same immunity from prosecution as they do now. The Iraqi government, conscious of public anger over many controversial incidents involving US troops and defence contractors over the last decade, refused.

The Pentagon had wanted the bases to help counter growing Iranian influence in the Middle East. Just a few years ago, the US had plans for leaving behind four large bases but, in the face of Iraqi resistance, this plan had to be scaled down this year to a force of 10,000. But even this proved too much for the Iraqis.

Denis McDonough, the White House deputy national security adviser, speaking to reporters after Obama's press conference, denied that the withdrawal was a sign of growing Iranian influence.

"You see an Iran that is weaker and more isolated," he said, noting various incidents such as a sense of international outrage over an alleged plot by Iran to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

Although the US is pulling out all troops, it will keep its embassy in Baghdad and two consulates. There will also be about 4,000-5,000 defence contractors, White House aides said.

Since the invasion in 2003, 1 million members of the US military have been deployed to Iraq, of whom 4,482 have been killed and 32,200 wounded.

Obama said there were 180,000 troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan when he took office in January 2009, and that number has been halved and will continue to fall.

A few US military personnel will be based in Iraq temporarily from time to time, just as they are in other countries with links to the US such as Egypt and Jordan, White House aides said. These would primarily be trainers helping out with new equipment bought from the US, such as F-16 fighters Iraq purchased last month.

Maliki, though he has been criticised in the past for being too close to Iran, had wanted to keep some US troops in Iraq to help train Iraqi security forces and to help in the event of a resurgence of sectarian violence. But he had to bow to pressure from pro-Iranian politicians and others in his coaliton government who wanted all US troops out.

Obama was ambivalent on the issue, seeing a total withdrawal as a good sell to a US public tired of war. But the Pentagon had wanted the bases, and the president reluctantly sided with the military staff.

It will be a major logistical exercise, moving not only the remaining 39,000 US troops but mountains of equipment from bases that are the size of small American suburbs, complete with coffee-shops, bowling alleys and cinemas.

The Pentagon is wary of a final attack as the final pullout gets under way.

• This article was corrected on 23 October 2011 because it described Nouri al-Maliki as Iraqi's president instead of as its prime minister, and at one point said he had wanted to keep some US troops "in Iran".

Israel’s chief rabbi says Obama must free Pollard if he wants another term

By Haaretz Service

The Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, Yona Metzger, told congregants in a Sabbath sermon that if U.S. President Barack Obama seeks reelection, he must release Jonathan Pollard, Israel Radio reported on Sunday.

In the sermon delivered at Yeshurun Synagogue in Jerusalem on Saturday, Metzger told said there was a feeling that many American Jews that had supported Obama in the last election were disappointed in him, in no small part because of Obama’s indifference to Pollard.

A civilian employee for the United States Navy, Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 on charges of spying for Israel. He is incarcerated at a federal jail in North Carolina.

“If Obama wishes to dictate Israeli policy, he must show that he has mutual interests with Israel,” Israel Radio quoted Metzger as saying. The rabbi reportedly added that these “mutual interests” should be shown through releasing Pollard.

Pollard’s release has long been a bone of contention between Isael and its chief ally. In January, the Prime Minister’s Office sent a letter to Obama requesting the convicted spy’s release on humanitarian grounds. This marked the first formal request by Israel for the release of Pollard.

“Even though Israel was in no way directing its intelligence efforts against the United States, its actions were wrong and wholly unacceptable,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote in the letter. “Both Mr. Pollard and the Government of Israel have repeatedly expressed remorse for these actions, and Israel will continue to abide by its commitment that such wrongful actions will never be repeated.”

Pollard’s health has reportedly been in decline, and he has been hospitalized on several occasions. Last month, he cancelled a meeting with Israel Social Affairs Minister Moshe Kahlon because he was feeling ill.

The United States responded to Netanyahu’s announcement of his decision to send the letter by saying only that Pollard at present is still incarcerated.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has raised this from time to time, both in his current incarnation and in his previous incarnation,” State Department Spokesman Philip Crowley said. “All I can tell you is Jonathan Pollard remains in prison.”

Source: The Ugly Truth

After Geneva vote, Obama policies blasted in Jordan

Amman - US President Barack Obama, at pains to improve his country's worsening image in the Arab and Islamic worlds, received a major setback at the Geneva-based Human Rights Council when the US opposed Judge Richard Goldstone's report about war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip, two prominent Jordanian politicians said Saturday. The politicians also rebuked European countries for failing to support the report, saying their credibility as independent peace brokers and advocates of human right in the world would be substantially undermined.

"Obama's moves to improve the US image has hit a major snag at Geneva. He has now proved that his policies are nothing more than an extension of those of George W Bush," Mahmoud Mhaidat, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee at Jordan's lower house of parliament told the German press agency dpa.

"Obama, who is trying to slaughter people in the region with a smooth hand, is now restoring the role as leader of the world's most oppressive and criminal nation," he said.

His comments came after the United States opposed the Goldstone report, saying it could jeopardise current efforts aimed at resuming the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

The report, written by Goldstone, a South African war crimes prosecutor, and three additional international experts, concluded that both Israel and the Hamas movement likely committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity during Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip in December and January.

The 47-member UN body adopted the report with 25 votes, while the United States and five European countries - Italy, Hungary, Netherlands, Slovakia and Ukraine - opposed it. Britain, France and three other countries did not vote, while 11 nations abstained.

Arab media said that several countries had come under US and French pressure not to support the report, the adoption of which was considered by many Arab circles as a "legal victory" because it set the stage for further action against Israel possibly at the UN Security Council and International Criminal Court.

Mhaidat said it showed once again that the US and European countries were not in charge of their own decision-making, "which instead lies with the Jewish lobbies." He then asked what they had done so far "to stop Israel's building of settlements and judaizing of Jerusalem."

Meanwhile Hamman Saeed, leader of the influential Muslim Brotherhood movement, said that by opposing the Goldstone Report, the US was defending Israel's crimes in Gaza and the rest of Palestinian lands.

Obama agrees to cover up Israel's nukes: report

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:28:52 GMT

Israel has reportedly received an assurance by US President Barack Obama that it would not be pressured into accounting for its alleged nuclear arsenal or signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

In a meeting with, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu obtained President Obama's guarantee that the White House would continue a 4-decade-old secret deal to allow Israel keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections, The Washington Times reported on Friday quoting officials familiar with the matter.

"The president gave Israel an NPT treaty get out of jail free card," said a Senate staffer speaking on the condition of anonymity. "What this means is that the president gave commitments that politically he had no choice but to give regarding Israel's nuclear program."

"However, it calls into question virtually every part of the president's nonproliferation agenda."

Israel, which has allegedly introduced nuclear weapons in the volatile Middle East, maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity and has so far refused to sign the NPT- a treaty which seeks to limit the spread of such weapons of mass destruction.

The tacit agreement prolonged the nuclear understanding reached between President Richard Nixon and Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1969.

In a reference to the May meeting with President Obama, the Israeli premier said in an interview with Israel's Channel 2 last week he had received "an itemized list of the strategic understandings that have existed for many years between Israel and the United States" regarding the nuclear arsenal.

"It was not for naught that I requested, and it was not for naught that I received [that document]," Netanyahu said.

Avner Cohen, author of the revelatory Israel and the Bomb, which has drawn upon thousands of documents and tens of interviews on the Israeli nuclear firepower, said the accord amounted to "the United States passively accepting Israel's nuclear weapons status as long as Israel does not unveil publicly its capability or test a weapon."

In 1958, Israel began building its suspected plutonium and uranium processing facility near Dimona in the Negev desert. The regime claims the facility - which was originally revealed as "textile factory" - is a "research reactor."

In early June, George Washington University's National Security Archives declassified a 1960 report by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) which had explained how Tel Aviv was to benefit from a nuclear arsenal.

"Possession of a nuclear weapon capability, or even the prospect of achieving it, would clearly give Israel a greater sense of security, self-confidence and assertiveness," the documents said.

HN/MD

PFLP: Obama's statements and actions serve only U.S/Israeli interests

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -PFLP

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said, in response to U.S. President Barack Obama's statements at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, that the U.S. position serves only U.S/Israeli interests and the ongoing strategic alliance between the major imperialist power and its Zionist colonial project partner.

By demanding that Palestinians engage in futile negotiations with the occupation state while the fascist Netanyahu regime continues its settlement project without even a freeze, the PFLP said on September 24, 2009, Obama's position reveals the U.S. support for Netanyahu's position and his extremism, racism and colonization, as it serves U.S./Israeli strategic interests, as the U.S. and Israel prepare for joint military exercises meant to intimidate the people of the region, raise tensions and instability and demonstrate strategic/military superiority of the occupation state.

Furthermore, the PFLP called upon Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO leadership to respect decisions of the PLO Executive Committee and the interests of the Palestinian people and refuse meetings with representatives of the occupation regime which plunders our land, violates our human rights, tramples on international law and resolutions, ignores global public opinion and legality and refuses to end the occupation, siege and aggression. Instead, the Front called for the occupation state to be isolated and called upon all who claim to represent the Palestinian people to take the lead in isolating the criminal state, rather than engaging in meetings and so-called "negotiations" with its representatives.

The Front said that Palestinian national interests require the first priority to be restoration of national unity, ending the division through comprehensive national dialogue, in order to confront the occupier and secure our national rights, including independence, the right to return, and self-determination. It stressed that disunity helps to provide an environment that promotes the occupier's projects and plans to liquidate the Palestinian cause.

Comrade Jamil Mizher, member of the Central Committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, described the tripartite meeting between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Zionist occupation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama as serving only U.S./Israeli interests, describing the meeting as an "escape valve for the pressures on the occupation government after the release of the UN report accusing Israel of war crimes against the Palestinian people during its recent aggression on Gaza."

Comrade Mizher, speaking on September 23, 2009 to Al-Alam News, said that the meeting is a "free gift" to the fascist Netanyahu regime, while it is subject to widespread international criticism due to its war crimes in Gaza and its ongoing settlement and Zionization project. He said that the meeting completely ignores the interests, concerns and opinions of the Palestinian people and instead shows that the Palestinian representatives in the PA are more concerned with the demands of the United States. Comrade Mizher stressed that a return to so-called "negotiations" with the Netanyahu regime is unacceptable, as the entire so-called "peace process" has achieved nothing for the Palestinian people at the level of national rights.

He called upon all Palestinian forces to review and reject the policy of Oslo and the "peace process" and instead build a new political strategy based on adherence to national principles and national rights, rather than on futile "negotiations" with the criminal Israeli state.