[wvns] US spends $75 billion a year on intelligence

US spends $75 billion a year on intelligence

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:23:02 GMT

The head of US intelligence, Dennis Blair

The head of US intelligence has disclosed for the first time the overall cost of Washington's spending on intelligence in one year.

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said on Tuesday that the US spends $75 billion a year on intelligence, including military-related activities.

Blair gave the full budget figure as he delivered his 2009 National Intelligence Strategy, a blueprint outlining the priorities for the next four years, AFP reported.

The figure represents well over 10 percent of the annual US defense budget of around $650 billion.

Budgets for the United States' 16 intelligence agencies and their 200,000 employees were a closely-guarded secret until 2007.

The figure for non-military intelligence work was given as $47.5 billion last year.

AGB/HGL

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[wvns] The Closure of Al Ram Passage

The closure of Al Ram

17.02.09 - 14:36

PNN exclusive / Maisa Abu Ghazaleh – The occupying Israeli administration closed the only remaining passage of Dahiyat Barid between the Jerusalem suburb of Al Ram and the city. The northern town was a part of the city until the Wall was imposed down the center of main street effectively prohibiting the movement of residents. There was one passage left and now that is closed. The remaining passage, which was the area of Dahiyat Barid, was closed on Monday after being declared a "closed military zone" at the beginning of the month. Now that the Wall surrounds Al Ram and that one gate is closed, any possible travel must be conducted through the Ramallah checkpoint of Qalandiya. The closure increased congestion in northern Jerusalem and Ramallah today after the Israelis declared passage between Al Ram and the rest of the city a “closed military zone” two weeks ago. The gate was the only means left of physical contiguity between the north and south of Jerusalem. Since yesterday morning the Qalandiya Checkpoint is facing a major crisis with traffic not subsiding. Israeli soldiers continue to detain cars, public buses and passengers. Students and employees en route to work widely report being late. In a meeting with the President of the Local Council of Al Ram, Sirhan Al Salama said, "I have already warned of the repercussions and the outcome of a unilateral Israeli decision which tries to impose a fait accompli." He stressed that the closure of the gate today will “turn the lives of the inhabitants of the region into hell.” Al Salama told PNN, “It has become a big prison where to enter or exit one must pass through military gates from which the Israeli occupation controls the movements of the residents of Jerusalem.” He added, "At the closing of this gate all entry and exit will be through Qalandiya which is already overcrowded. This means the transfer of approximately 60,000 Jerusalemites which increases the magnitude of the problem, particularly in the morning hours for students who will be forced to start out even earlier. And in the winter this is even more difficult. This is causing real suffering for the people, including those who are trying to get to work.” Al Salama stressed that this move was not related to geographical region but rather was being undertaken in terms of demographic. The 60,000 residents of northern Jerusalem’s Al Ram and suburbs are also being threatened with having their “blue” Jerusalem identification revoked. The head of the Al Ram council is pushing the Palestinian Authority to give more importance to the issue in negotiations with the Israelis. “How can we talk about peace at time when the Israeli government is converting large areas into prisons, even in Area B which is overseen by the Palestinian Authority in civil matters?”

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[wvns] Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for 7 years?

Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for seven years - and are the U.S. and Britain covering it up to continue war on terror?

By Sue Reid
Last updated at 10:59 PM on 11th September 2009

The last time we heard a squeak from him was on June 3 this year.

The world's most notorious terrorist outsmarted America by releasing a menacing message as Air Force One touched down on Saudi Arabian soil at the start of Barack Obama's first and much vaunted Middle East tour.

Even before the new President alighted at Riyadh airport to shake hands with Prince Abdullah, Bin Laden's words were being aired on TV, radio and the internet across every continent.

Genuine picture: Osama Bin Laden in October 2001

It was yet another propaganda coup for the 52-year-old Al Qaeda leader. In the audiotape delivered to the Arab news network Al Jazeera, Bin Laden said that America and her Western allies were sowing seeds of hatred in the Muslim world and deserved dire consequences.

It was the kind of rant we have heard from him before, and the response from British and U.S. intelligence services was equally predictable.

They insisted that the details on the tape, of the President's visit and other contemporary events, proved that the mastermind of 9/11, America's worst ever terrorist atrocity, was still alive - and that the hunt for him must go on.

Bin Laden has always been blamed for orchestrating the horrific attack - in which nearly 3,000 people perished - eight years ago this week. President George W. Bush made his capture a national priority, infamously promising with a Wild West flourish to take him 'dead or alive'.

The U.S. State Department offered a reward of $50million for his whereabouts. The FBI named him one of their ten 'most wanted' fugitives, telling the public to watch out for a left-handed, grey-bearded gentleman who walks with a stick.

Fake? Bin Laden two months later, when he was supposedly dead

Yet this master terrorist remains elusive. He has escaped the most extensive and expensive man-hunt in history, stretching across Waziristan, the 1,500 miles of mountainous badlands on the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Undeterred, Barack Obama has launched a fresh operation to find him. Working with the Pakistani Army, elite squads of U.S. and British special forces were sent into Waziristan this summer to 'hunt and kill' the shadowy figure intelligence officers still call 'the principal target' of the war on terror.

This new offensive is, of course, based on the premise that the 9/11 terrorist is alive. After all, there are the plethora of 'Bin Laden tapes' to prove it.

Yet what if he isn't? What if he has been dead for years, and the British and U.S. intelligence services are actually playing a game of double bluff?

What if everything we have seen or heard of him on video and audio tapes since the early days after 9/11 is a fake - and that he is being kept 'alive' by the Western allies to stir up support for the war on terror?

Incredibly, this is the breathtaking theory that is gaining credence among political commentators, respected academics and even terror experts.

Of course, there have been any number of conspiracy theories concerning 9/11, and it could be this is just another one.

But the weight of opinion now swinging behind the possibility that Bin Laden is dead - and the accumulating evidence that supports it - makes the notion, at the very least, worthy of examination.

The theory first received an airing in the American Spectator magazine earlier this year when former U.S. foreign intelligence officer and senior editor Angelo M. Codevilla, a professor of international relations at Boston University, stated bluntly: 'All the evidence suggests Elvis Presley is more alive today than Osama Bin Laden.'

9/11: Bin Laden originally insisted in official press statements that he had played no role in the atrocity

Prof Codevilla pointed to inconsistencies in the videos and claimed there have been no reputable sightings of Bin Laden for years (for instance, all interceptions by the West of communications made by the Al Qaeda leader suddenly ceased in late 2001).

Prof Codevilla asserted: 'The video and audio tapes alleged to be Osama's never convince the impartial observer,' he asserted. 'The guy just does not look like Osama. Some videos show him with a Semitic, aquiline nose, while others show him with a shorter, broader one. Next to that, differences between the colours and styles of his beard are small stuff.'

There are other doubters, too. Professor Bruce Lawrence, head of Duke University's religious studies' department and the foremost Bin Laden expert, argues that the increasingly secular language in the video and audio tapes of Osama (his earliest ones are littered with references to God and the Prophet Mohammed) are inconsistent with his strict Islamic religion, Wahhabism.

He notes that, on one video, Bin Laden wears golden rings on his fingers, an adornment banned among Wahhabi followers.

Bin Laden in 1998 (above) and, allegedly, in 2002: Sceptics have pointed to a thicker nose and the ring on his right hand as proof it is an imposter

This week, still more questions have been raised with the publication in America and Britain of a book called Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?

Written by political analyst and philosopher Professor David Ray Griffin, former emeritus professor at California's Claremont School of Theology, it is provoking shock waves - for it goes into far more detail about his supposed death and suggests there has been a cover-up by the West.

The book claims that Bin Laden died of kidney failure, or a linked complaint, on December 13, 2001, while living in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains close to the border with Waziristan.

His burial took place within 24 hours, in line with Muslim religious rules, and in an unmarked grave, which is a Wahhabi custom.

The author insists that the many Bin Laden tapes made since that date have been concocted by the West to make the world believe Bin Laden is alive. The purpose? To stoke up waning support for the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To understand Griffin's thesis, we must remember the West's reaction to 9/11, that fateful sunny September day in 2001. Within a month, on Sunday, October 7, the U.S. and Britain launched massive retaliatory air strikes in the Tora Bora region where they said 'prime suspect' Bin Laden was living 'as a guest of Afghanistan'.

This military offensive ignored the fact that Bin Laden had already insisted four times in official Al Qaeda statements made to the Arab press that he played no role in 9/11.

Indeed, on the fourth occasion, on September 28 and a fortnight after the atrocity, he declared emphatically: 'I have already said I am not involved. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge... nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act.'

Within hours of the October 7 strikes by the U.S. on Tora Bora, Bin Laden made his first ever appearance on video tape. Dressed in Army fatigues, and with an Islamic head-dress, he had an assault rifle propped behind him in a broadly lit mountain hideout. Significantly, he looked pale and gaunt.

Although he called President George W. Bush 'head of the infidels' and poured scorn on the U.S., he once again rejected responsibility for 9/11.

'America was hit by God in one of its softest spots. America is full of fear, from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that.'

Then came a second videotape on November 3, 2001. Once again, an ailing Bin Laden lashed out at the United States. He urged true Muslims to celebrate the attacks - but did not at any time acknowledge he had been involved in the atrocity.

And then there was silence until December 13, 2001 - the date Griffin claims Bin Laden died. That very day, the U.S. Government released a new video of the terror chief. In this tape, Bin Laden contradicted all his previous denials, and suddenly admitted to his involvement in the atrocity of 9/11.

The tape had reportedly been found by U.S. troops in a private home in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, after anti-Taliban forces took over the city. A label attached to it claimed that it had been made on November 9, 2001.

Bush made Bin Laden's capture a national priority, claiming he could get his man - dead or alive

The tape shows Bin Laden talking with a visiting sheik. In it, he clearly states that he not only knew about the 9/11 atrocities in advance, but had planned every detail personally.

What manna for the Western authorities! This put the terrorist back in the frame over 9/11. The Washington Post quoted U.S. officials saying that the video 'offers the most convincing evidence of a connection between Bin Laden and the September 11 attacks'.

A euphoric President Bush added: 'For those who see this tape, they realise that not only is he guilty of incredible murder, but he has no conscience and no soul.'

In London, Downing Street said that the video was 'conclusive proof of his involvement'. The then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, added: 'There is no doubt it is the real thing. People can see Bin Laden there, making those utterly chilling words of admission about his guilt for organising the atrocities of September 11.'

Yet Professor Griffin claims this 'confessional' video provokes more questions than answers. For a start, the Bin Laden in this vital film testimony looks different.

He is a weighty man with a black beard, not a grey one. His pale skin had suddenly become darker, and he had a different shaped nose. His artistic hands with slender fingers had transformed into those of a pugilist. He looked in exceedingly good health.

Furthermore, Bin Laden can be seen writing a note with his right hand, although he is left-handed. Bizarrely, too, he makes statements about 9/11 which Griffin claims would never have come from the mouth of the real Bin Laden - a man with a civil engineering degree who had made his fortune (before moving into terrorism) from building construction in the Middle East.

For example, the Al Qaeda leader trumpets that far more people died in 9/11 than he had expected. He goes on: 'Due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the explosion from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. That is all we had hoped for.' (In reality the Twin Towers' completely fell down).

The words of the true Bin Laden? No, says Griffin, because of the obvious mistakes. 'Given his experience as a contractor, he would have known the Twin Towers were framed with steel, not iron,' he says.

'He would also known that steel and iron do not begin to melt until they reach 2,800 deg F. Yet a building fire fed by jet fuel is a hydrocarbon fire, and could not have reached above 1,800 deg F.'

Griffin, in his explosive book, says this tape is fake, and he goes further.

'A reason to suspect that all of the post-2001 Bin Laden tapes are fabrications is that they often appeared at times that boosted the Bush presidency or supported a claim by its chief 'war on terror' ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

'The confession tape came exactly when Bush and Blair had failed to prove Bin Laden's responsibility for 9/11 and both men were trying to win international public support, particularly in the Islamic world, for the anti-terrorist campaign.'

Griffin suggests that Western governments used highly sophisticated, special effects film technology to morph together images and vocal recordings of Bin Laden.

So if they are fakes, why has Al Qaeda kept quiet about it? And what exactly happened to the real Bin Laden?

The answer to the first question may be that the amorphous terrorist organisation is happy to wage its own propaganda battle in the face of waning support - and goes along with the myth that its charismatic figurehead is still alive to encourage recruitment to its cause.

As for the matter of what happened to him, hints of Bin Laden's kidney failure, or that he might be dead, first appeared on January 19, 2002, four months after 9/11.

This was when Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf told America's news show CNN: 'I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a kidney patient. The images of him show he is extremely weak.'

In his book, Professor Griffin also endorses this theory. He says Bin Laden was treated for a urinary infection, often linked to kidney disease, at the American Hospital in Dubai in July 2001, two months before 9/11. At the same time, he ordered a mobile dialysis machine to be delivered to Afghanistan.

How could Bin Laden, on the run in snowy mountain caves, have used the machine that many believe was essential to keep him alive? Doctors whom Griffin cites on the subject think it would have been impossible.

He would have needed to stay in one spot with a team of medics, hygienic conditions, and a regular maintenance programme for the dialysis unit itself.

And what of the telling, small news item that broke on December 26, 2001 in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Wafd? It said a prominent official of the Afghan Taliban had announced that Osama Bin Laden had been buried on or about December 13.

'He suffered serious complications and died a natural, quiet death. He was buried in Tora Bora, a funeral attended by 30 Al Qaeda fighters, close members of his family and friends from the Taliban. By the Wahhabi tradition, no mark was left on the grave,' said the report.

The Taliban official, who was not named, said triumphantly that he had seen Bin Laden's face in his shroud. 'He looked pale, but calm, relaxed and confident.'

It was Christmas in Washington DC and London and the report hardly got a mention. Since then, the Bin Laden tapes have emerged with clockwork regularity as billions have been spent and much blood spilt on the hunt for him.

Bin Laden has been the central plank of the West's 'war on terror'. Could it be that, for years, he's just been smoke and mirrors?

More...

• The monster who wants to be a martyr: 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is now aiming for execution
• Behind all terror attacks against Britain, Bin Laden's Holy Warrior

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[wvns] Abortion Used to Improve Life Expectancy Statistics

Perhaps I have not been following the abortion debate closely enough, but Dr. Javed Jamil has provided an argument that I have not seen previously on the pro-life side in Abortion Used to Improve Life Expectancy Statistics:

This article aims to bring to the attention of the world the horrible fact that
the killing of human foetuses, euphemistically called induced abortion, is being
used to increase life expectancy, not only through statistical manoeuvres but
also through misuse, unknowingly, of the Nature's growing preference for human
life. It will be shown that the life expectancy, as defined by the current
international organizations, is directly proportional to the ratio of abortion.
The more a country kills its unborn human beings the better its life expectancy.
The question will be asked: are foetuses not human beings deserving the right to
life; and if killed their deaths to be counted as human deaths? If their deaths
are counted as deaths of human beings, the whole scenario changes, and the
claims of "development" prove to be ridiculous. The paper introduces True Life
Expectancy, i.e., life expectancy at conception as the true measurement of life
expectancy.

Demographers have long realized that important factors decreasing life expectancy are the number of births (e.g., risks to the youngest children and women recently haven given birth tend to skew the data).

I am not sure we have good statistics on abortion before the modern period.

The economy of the Greek colony of Cyrene depended upon the export of the supposed abortifacient Silfium, which according to one theory was driven to extinction by overharvesting.

Abortion is probably a lot more common historically than commonly assumed, and many women executed for crimes of witchcraft in the past were probably supplying herbal abortifacients.

The greater tolerance of Muslim and Jewish jurists for abortion (in comparison with Christians) may explain the lesser concern of Muslims and Jews with violations by women of laws against witchcraft. Sphere: Related Content

Cindy Sheehan to join Sept. 29 Conference to Ban Economic Sanctions

[Joachim Martillo will also take part in the morning discussions in order to address the role of sanctions in domestic politics]

"Death by Sanctions"


The Conference to Ban Economic Sanctions
September 29, 2009
Trinity Washington University
125 Michigan Ave. NE
Washington DC, 20017
9:00am-5:30pm

Registration: $50.00 per person, $25.00 for students

Full lunch menu will be served
Keynote Speaker

Dr. Douglas Johnston served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Among his other duties, he chaired the CSIS programs on maritime studies and preventive diplomacy.

Dr. Johnston has edited and authored several books, including Religion, the Missing Dimension of Statecraft (Oxford University Press, 1994); Foreign Policy into the 21st Century: The U.S. Leadership Challenge (CSIS, 1996); and Faith-based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik (Oxford University Press, 2003).

Sara Flounders, Moderator

Sara Flounders is Co-Director of the International Action Center and coordinator of Stop War on Iran Campaign. From 1993 to 2003 she coordinated the Iraq Sanctions Campaign and the Medicine to Iraq Campaign. She edited and co-authored 8 books focused on U.S. economic strangulation and interventions in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Haiti. She has organized delegations to Iraq, Palestine, Sudan, and Cuba to focus on the impact of U.S. sanctions and blockades.

Discussants

Cindy Sheehan is a nationally known anti war activist. She is author of the book Peace Mom, and Myth America: 10 Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution. Cindy also has her own radio program Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox. Cindy's son was killed in the Iraq war, and since his death she has worked to expose the injustices of the Iraq war, and to call for an end to both wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Kathy Kelly co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence, (www.vcnv.org) a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare. As a co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, she helped form 70 delegations, from 1996 - 2003, that openly defied economic sanctions by bringing medicines to children and families in Iraq. Kathy and her companions lived in Baghdad throughout 2003. Kathy also has a newly published book that will be available at the conference bookstore.

Rev. Simon Harak is an American peace activist and professor of theology and Director of the Center for Peacemaking at Marquette University.^[1][2] From 2003 to January 2007, Fr. Harak served as the Anti-Militarism Coordinator of the National Office of the War Resisters League. He also helped found Voices in the Wilderness, which was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, 2002, and 2003. Fr. Harak was named "Metro New York Peacemaker of the Year" and "National Peacemaker of the Year" by Pax Christi Metro New York and Pax Christi Long Island in 2005.^[3]


Brother Bahram Nahiddian is the Imam at the Manassas Mosque in Manassas Virginia. He is a noted Islamic scholar, student of Irfan and ethicist that specializes in tafsir (understanding) of the Qur'an for Muslims. He has spent more than 20 years fostering interfaith understanding and cooperation between Christians, Muslims and Jews in the metro Washington DC area, and is author of numerous articles on issues related to Islamic doctrine, devotion and rituals.

Noura Erakat is a Palestinian attorney and an activist. She is currently an adjunct professor of international human rights law in the Middle East at Georgetown University. Most recently she served as Counsel for a Congressional Committee in the House of Representatives. Noura has appeared on national and international television programs including Al Jazeera International, MSNBC, HBO’s “Politically Incorrect” and Fox’s “The O’Reilly Factor.”

Phil Wilayto is a co-founder of the Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality in Richmond, Va., and editor of The Virginia Defender newspaper. (www.DefendersFJE.org) A life-long anti-war activist, he is a board member of the Campaign Against Sanctions & Military Intervention in Iran and author of “In Defense of Iran: Notes from a U.S. Peace Delegation's Journey through the Islamic Republic.”

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich has a Master's of Public Diplomacy from USC Annenberg for Communication and USC School of International Relations. She is an independent researcher with a focus on U.S. foreign policy towards the Middle East, Iran's nuclear program, and the influence of lobby groups. She is a writer, commentator, public speaker, and activist.

Abubaker Y. Ahmed Shingieti has had a distinguished career in government and the foreign service of the Republic of Sudan. He held Ambassador rank in his capacity as Director of Political Affairs for the Presidency (1995-98) and before that served as Councilor at the Embassy of Sudan in Washington, DC (1990-1993), and Secretary General of the External Information Council in Khartoum (1993-95).

Bassam Haddad is Director of the Middle East Studies Program at George Mason University and Visiting Professor at Georgetown University. He serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal (www.arabstudiesjournal.org), a peer-reviewed research publication and is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad (www.aboutbaghdad.com), and director of a film series on “Arabs and Terrorism”

Anisa Abd el Fattah, is a freelance writer, human rights activist and political analyst. She is a former Executive director of the Center for Public Policy Research, and is the former Editor of the Middle East Affairs Journal. She is the founder of the Committee to Ban Economic Sanctions.

Online registration is closed. Please register and pay fees at the event. Thank you for your participation and support!

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In Re: The persistence of the Massad question

Subject: Dealing With Intimidation of Arab and Muslim Faculty Members
To: cs2816@columbia.edu
CC: lva2@columbia.edu, psa21@columbia.edu, apb2@columbia.edu, ld12@columbia.edu, af7@columbia.edu, alg18@columbia.edu, gross@cs.columbia.edu, jsj4@columbia.edu, rk566@columbia.edu, em142@columbia.edu, yemini@cs.columbia.edu, bollinger@columbia.edu, damyers@jtsa.edu

Dear Provost Steele:

I received notice of the following two items that were published on the web:

• The persistence of the Massad question by David Myers and
• Profs protesting Massad tenure case to meet with provost.

I became aware of the abuse to which Arab and Muslim American academics are subjected by Jewish Zionist organizations and individuals when about seven years ago I participated in a meeting in Newton, MA of several Israel Advocacy groups that were trying to develop a joint strategy to "neutralize" Nadia Abu el-Haj, who had recently received a professorship at Barnard.

I am surprised that Columbia tolerates behavior that almost certainly amounts to Criminal Conspiracy Against Rights (18 USC 241 - Sec. 241. Conspiracy against rights).

Not only is there an element of racketeering in the coordinated actions of the participating Jewish Zionist entities and individuals, but they are almost certainly engaging in civil violations including

• Interference with Business Relations,
• Defamation,
• Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, and probably
• other torts and breeches that do not immediately come to mind.

In addition, by tolerating persistent racist Jewish Zionist abuse of Arab and Muslim American faculty and staff, Columbia is

• facilitating the creation of a hostile work or educational environment and almost certainly
  
• jeopardizing its status as a 501(c)(3) organization under the US tax code.

Instead of meeting with the racist criminal conspirators, you probably should be investigating dismissal procedures. Students involved in the conspiracy should probably receive probation and at least a semester forced leave of absence to reconsider their unacceptable behavior toward Arab and Muslim faculty members.

This criminal conspiracy will not go away and will become even more obnoxious until the Columbia administration cracks the legal and managerial whip against insiders and outsiders that are attempting to poison the University with anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism.

Sincerely yours,

Joachim Martillo

President

Ethnic Ashkenazim Against Zionist Israel

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[wvns] Egypt delivers 135 tons medical aid to Gaza via Rafah

Egypt delivers 135 tons medical aid to Gaza via Rafah

Bethlehem - Ma'an/Agencies - A shipment of medical supplies from the Egyptian Red Crescent arrived at the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip Tuesday, and was sent through the following day, Egyptian government sources reported.

According to official at the North Sinai Governorate Ahmed Kamel, 135 tons of medicine plus renal-dialysis equipment, was included in the delivery.

Patients in Gaza City receive dialysis [MaanImages]

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[wvns] Blogger Gets Life Sentence

Lebanese-Born Swede Gets Life for Terror Camp Plot

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: September 15, 2009

Filed at 5:23 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Lebanese-born Swede was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday for plotting to open a terrorism training camp in Oregon in 1999 to help al-Qaida.

U.S. District Judge John Keenan called Oussama Kassir ''a clear threat to public safety'' when he announced the sentence. Kassir was convicted in May on charges that he supported al-Qaida by trying to help open the camp in Bly, Ore.

Before the sentence was imposed, Kassir spoke through an interpreter, telling the judge that witnesses during his trial lied. He also said the jury could not have adequately studied the evidence because the deliberations lasted only two hours.

Kassir, 44, complained about his treatment in U.S. custody, saying that he was subjected to psychological and religious torture. He said he initially was not allowed to have a Quran and was not given food appropriate to his religion. When he refused to eat, he was tied to a chair and a tube was inserted ''in a violent fashion,'' causing him to feel close to death, he said.

The judge said he had ordered that Kassir be provided with a Quran and newspapers before his trial.

''In an effort to keep him alive, they force-fed him,'' Keenan said.

In a statement, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Kassir ''trained men to become terrorists on American soil.''

Prosecutors said in a release that for two months in late 1999 and early 2000, Kassir provided men at a Seattle mosque with jihad training lessons that included how to assemble and disassemble an assault rifle and how to alter it to launch a grenade.

To the defendants in the case, ''jihad meant defending Islam against its enemies through violence and armed aggression, including, if necessary, by using murder to expel nonbelievers from Muslim holy lands,'' prosecutors said.

Prosecutors also said Kassir told witnesses in Bly that he supported Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, and he established at least six terrorist Web sites between December 2001 and his December 2005 arrest in the Czech Republic.

Two of Kassir's co-defendants are detained in England and awaiting extradition to the United States.

At trial, prosecutors argued that Kassir tried to set up a weapons-training post in Oregon so al-Qaida could take advantage of relaxed U.S. gun laws and train European recruits for Islamic militancy.

Prosecutors also said Kassir distributed manuals over the Internet that trained militants on how to make bombs, poison people and slit throats.

Kassir spent several months in the United States in early 2000 before returning to Europe.

At Kassir's trial, James Ujaama, a Denver-born man who was a government witness, testified that Kassir became angered when he took him to Oregon because the camp there lacked young recruits and weapons.

Ujaama testified that he had wanted to start the camp to prepare Muslims to go to Afghanistan and fight the Taliban's enemies, but the camp never really got off the ground.

Ujaama is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to providing material support to terrorists by trying to set up the camp. His testimony could win him leniency from a potential 30-year prison term.

In court documents, Kassir is described by his lawyer as a father of four with a history of drug abuse and psychiatric problems who was extradited to the United States after spending roughly nine months in a Czech prison.

He was born and raised in Lebanon, where his father was killed by Israeli soldiers, according to his lawyer, Mark DeMarco. He then was sent by his mother to Stockholm where he became a citizen, attended college and worked for three years as a foreman for Pipeline Swedish, the lawyer wrote.

In court, DeMarco said his client was ''not this animal that is portrayed in the media.''

The Swedish Ministry of Justice said Kassir could apply to be transferred to Sweden and complete his sentence there, but that such a move would require approval from both Sweden and the United States.

Judicial experts say it is unlikely that the U.S. would allow Kassir to transfer soon. A Swedish woman, who was convicted of double murder in California in 1983, wasn't allowed to transfer to Sweden until April this year, after serving more than 25 years in prison.

--------

Associated Press writer Malin Rising in Stockholm contributed to this report.

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[Wait] Garcetti standard dooms Almontaser's free speech case

A Southern District judge has dismissed a First Amendment lawsuit brought by a high school principal who was forced to resign after she gave an interview with the New York Post about a controversial t-shirt which made reference to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The case is Almontaser v. New York City Department of Education, 2009 WL 2762699 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 1, 2009) decided by Judge Stein. This case previously went to the Second Circuit, which affirmed Judge Stein's order denying Almontaser's motion for preliminary relief. That case can be found at 519 F.3d 505 (2d Cir. 2008). The Court of Appeals' ruling is among the few to interpret the Supreme Court's ruling in Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006), which altered the rules governing the free speech rights of public employees. I wrote about Amontaser's Second Circuit ruling here.

Almontaser was interim acting principal of Khalil Gibran International Academy. The New York Post wanted comment on the t-shirt. The Board of Education make arrangements for the telephonic interview, and it also arranged, guided and directly participated in the interview. Almontaser testified that she gave the interview "because I was told it was in the best interest of the school. Otherwise I wouldn't have done the interview." Although she claimed the newspaper misquoted her, it was her comments during the interview which led to her forced resignation.

[To read the entire article, click here.] Sphere: Related Content

[wvns] Inside Hanford's B Reactor

Most Americans are only aware of a fictionalized history published by a controlled, corporate publishing empire which spreads the most sophisticated propaganda ever devised. The fiction includes a tale about how we "had to drop nuclear bombs on Japan," and that nuclear weapons by the thousands are necessary for our defense.

Nuclear weapons and their associated launch and delivery systems are mostly made for one reason: billions of dollars can be stolen from such super secret projects and few will know about it. When I asked Admiral Gene LaRocque if we had enough nuclear weapons for our defense, he replied "How can you defend someone with a nuclear weapon?"

Further, our lands and people have been exposed to some of the most toxic pollutants on the planet from making tens of thousands of these unnecessary weapons for the greed of a few. The following piece just out at Counterpunch is about the Hanford Plant in Washington State, the first full-scale plutonium production reactor in the world.

My uncle and grandfather, who worked at the Hanford plant, both died of cancer. I attended many of the annual Hanford picnics as a boy, never knowing that we were all exposed to massive doses of radiation from the new plant. The corporate capitalists who ran it, including General Electric, with profit as their only goal, have a long history of exposing the public and their own employees to deadly toxins, best illustrated in the award-winning film, "Deadly Deception," about GE's nuclear programs --Jack

A Tour of the World's Most Toxic Nuclear Site
Inside Hanford's B Reactor
By JOSHUA FRANK
Liberty Underground - libertyuv@hotmail.com

Sitting inside an old nuclear reactor, gazing up at a wall that holds over 2,000 cylinder rods that once produced plutonium for our nation's atom bombs. That's how I spent my Labor Day weekend.

Located just outside of Richland, in Eastern Washington State, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation spans 586 square miles on high desert plains. The mighty Columbia River marks the site's eastern boundary where its waters once served as the depository for a few of the reactors' contaminated effluent. Belly-high barbwire fencing, with phallic smoke stacks positioned next to its aging boxy structures, surrounds Hanford's dry austere landscape. The aura of this rough terrain, taken from the Wanapum tribe only 66 years ago, is evocative to say the least.

At noon on this particular Saturday a group of us climbed onto a bus in Richland to tour Hanford's notorious B Reactor, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in August of 2008. Constructed by DuPont in just 11 months back in the early 1940s, B was the first full-scale plutonium production plant in the world. This summer the Department of Energy, along with the help of the Fluor Corporation, provided regular public tours of the reactor, hoping that one day the facility will be turned into a national museum of sorts.

By all accounts the B Reactor is historic. For starters, it's the most polluted nuclear site on the planet. "It was the perfect marriage of science and engineering," one of our guides expressed almost tearfully. "The brave men that built this left us a history we should not ever forget."

I certainly agree we ought not disregard the B Reactor's true legacy. Beyond the lofty rhetoric of scientific achievements and marvelous engineering feats lives a story our government would rather not recall. It's a tale of death and environmental destruction, the remnants of which are with us to this day.

Perhaps most significantly, the plutonium produced in B was used as fuel for the "Fat Man" bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945 at the behest of President Truman. While educational video rolled, explaining this fact to reactor tourists, the scenes that followed were not of the devastation the bomb had on these innocent Japanese. Over 80,000 men, women and children eventually died as a result of that brutal bombing. Bodies were broiled with radiation, maimed and so badly charred that friends and family were only left with unrecognizable skeletal fragments to remember their loved ones by. Yet, not one photograph of this was on display in any of the documentary footage shown on the big television screens at B. Instead we were simply told that "six days later the war ended." Hallelujah and pass the kool-aid.

Of course it was not Truman's nuclear bombings that ended the war and crushed the morale of the Japanese. In 1944 the War Department set up the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, which focused its efforts on interviewing the civilian and military leaders in Japan shortly after they surrendered. As the report noted:

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

President Truman and others most certainly knew this prior to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. American intel had infiltrated and broken Japanese code and the Japanese military knew they were being intercepted by our military forces. Over in Moscow, as early as June 1945, the Japanese ambassador there was already working on a peace agreement with the Allies. Discussions of a Japanese surrender were noted a full year before Truman dropped the first atom bomb on Hiroshima.

But history from our government's point of view rarely reveals the truth behind its military exploits, or in this case its mass murder. If one were to only watch the video screens and listen to the guides on the B Reactor tour, they would walk away with a distorted and glorified perception of our deleterious nuclear era.

Aside from the Japanese death toll, back home the environmental impact of Hanford is also not represented in the glossy flyers handed out to visitors after the tour comes to an end. The Columbia River, which maintains the country's most productive salmon fishery and provides irrigation water for tens of thousands of Northwest farmers, was for over two decades polluted with radioactive runoff from B.

It went something like this: In order to cool off the uranium slugs that were used to produce plutonium, water, after being treated, was pumped from the Columbia River and flowed through the aluminum tubes that held the uranium in order to reduce the slugs' high temperatures. Around 75,000 gallons of water rushed in at regular river temperatures every minute and was then released back into the Columbia at around 200 degrees Celsius. Early studies showed that young salmon were most susceptible to the effluent's radiation, and by the late 1950s, salmon runs in the mid-Columbia began to rapidly decline in number.

As historian Michelle Gerber writes in On the Home Front: The Cold War Legacy of the Hanford Nuclear Site, "In 1959, Hanford biologists reported that the number of chinook salmon spawning in the vicinity was only about 19 percent of 1958." Gerber adds that nearby towns along the Columbia were also affected, "In mid-1947, river water at Pasco and sanitary (city) water at Kennewick first showed detectable levels of gross beta-emitting radiation ... Values in the river water at Richland were even higher, reaching up to four times that at Pasco by late 1948."

Studies to this day are seeking to unravel the extent to which the Columbia River is being contaminated by several of Hanford's slow-leaking radioactive tanks, which are at the heart of the largest environmental cleanup this country has ever undertaken. Interestingly enough, Michelle Gerber, now an in-house historian for Fluor Hanford, was trailing along behind our tour group, jotting down notes and chiming in on occasion. It's too bad her knowledge of the environmental consequences of Hanford were not shared with all visitors that day. Perhaps Fluor now pays her to perform other mundane tasks.

It wasn't just the Columbia River that Hanford's reactors filled with radioactive toxins, so too was the air in the region. Smoke stacks, built 200 feet high, were meant to release the reactor's toxic debris when winds were strongest as to not contaminate the facility workers below. However, when production of plutonium reached its peak during the Cold War, plant operators were forced to ignore the wind patterns and released toxic debris into the air throughout the day. Only two years into operation, radioactivity levels at two testing sites, as well as the nearby cities of Richland, Pasco, Kennewick and Benton City, all exceeded acceptable levels of radioactive contamination.

At certain periods, such as the December, 1949 "Green Run", where raw uranium fuel slugs were being processed, winter storm events hit the region, causing heavy deposits of radioiodine (I-131) and Xenon (Xe-133) to literally rain down on local communities. Samples taken during the "Green Run" incident were one thousand times the government's recommended level. Towns as far as away as 70 miles, such as Walla Walla, Washington, even registered high readings.

The product produced inside the B Reactor helped to kill countless people and the poisoning of the land, air and water from this one facility alone outshines the catastrophe of Three Mile Island. Yet none of our guides on the tour shared any of this with us that day.

It is a travesty too. If we do not learn from our history, no matter how awful and unsavory it may be, we are apt to repeat it.

Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of the brand new book Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, published by AK Press in July 2008.

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[wvns] Musharraf exit brokered by 'foreign powers'

Musharraf exit brokered by 'foreign powers'

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:07:49 GMT

Ex-Pakistani general Pervez Musharraf

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has revealed that his predecessor Pervez Musharraf was given a "safe exit" due to a secret deal in place with foreign powers.

International and local powers were guarantors in Musharraf's resignation, Zardari said at an informal dinner meeting with journalists.

The president added that he was part of the discussions that eventually led to the former military ruler's resignation in August 2008.

"During those talks it was decided that after quitting power, Musharraf will play golf, but now he is doing other things," Zardari said.

Musharraf, who left Pakistan in mid-April and has been living in London for more than four months, has delivered a series of lectures commenting on Pakistani politics over the past few months.

Although Zardari did not name any countries that guaranteed immunity deal, Pakistan's main opposition party Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N) has said the UK and the Saudi Arabia were guarantors in the deal, the BBC reported.

JR/MD

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[wvns] Brzezinski: U.S. Should Attack Israel

Zbig Brzezinski: Obama Administration Should Tell Israel U.S. Will Attack Israeli Jets if They Try to Attack Iran

September 20, 2009 11:10 AM

The national security adviser for former President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, gave an interview to The Daily Beast in which he suggested President Obama should make it clear to Israel that if they attempt to attack Iran's nuclear weapons sites the U.S. Air Force will stop them.

"We are not exactly impotent little babies," Brzezinski said. "They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? ... We have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a 'Liberty' in reverse."

The USS Liberty was a U.S. Navy technical research ship that the Israeli Air Force mistakenly attacked during the Six Day War in 1967.

Brzezinski endorsed then-Sen. Obama's presidential campaign in August 2007, which at the time was portrayed in the media as a boost to Obama's foreign policy cred. The Washington Post reported: "Barack Obama, combating the perception that he is too young and inexperienced to handle a dangerous world, got a boost yesterday from a paragon of foreign policy eminence, Zbigniew Brzezinski."

Brzezinski was never an official campaign adviser, but Republicans jumped on the endorsement to push the meme that Obama wouldn't be a friend to Israel, as Brzezinski's views of Israel attracted criticism from some quarters in the American Jewish community.

“Brzezinski is not an adviser to the campaign,” former Ambassador Dennis Ross, then a senior adviser on Middle East affairs to the Obama campaign, said at the time. “There is a lot of disinformation that is being pushed, but he is not an adviser to the campaign. Brzezinski came out and supported Obama early because of the war in Iraq. A year or so ago they talked a couple of times. That’s the extent of it, and Sen. Obama has made it clear that on other Middle Eastern issues, Brzezinski is not who he looks to. They don’t have the same views.”

Brzezinski plays no role in the Obama administration; the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brzezinski's comments come within the same week that the White House distanced itself from comments made by former President Carter, who said he thinks "an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man."

-jpt

UPDATE: Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev told CNN that Israeli President Shimon Peres assured him that Israel would not attack Iran.

"This is the worst thing that one can imagine," Medvedev said. "What would happen afterwards? A humanitarian catastrophe, a huge number of refugees. And Iran would want revenge, and not only over Israel, but over other countries as well. The events in the region would become completely unpredictable. I think the scope of such a disaster would not be comparable to anything. Therefore, before taking the decision to launch any attacks, you need to think the situation through. It would be the most irrational way to deal with the situation. But my Israeli colleagues told me they do not plan to do that. And I trust them.`

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[Moftasa] The NDP synagogue

In April 2008, in Hadayeq el Qobba I stumbled upon this synagogue which was turned into a public affairs office, NDP office, a nursery and a small mosque.

Taking photos is strictly prohibited. But I managed to snap some shots while claiming that I am studying architecture and interested in the building style.

This is apparently the most looked after synagogue in Egypt. Thanks to Farouk Hosni. Probably the next president of the UNESCO.

UPDATE: Yes, it is "the most looked after" synagogue as in the wooden floors are in a horrible shape, cables coming and going everywhere, horrible neon lights, overstuffed filing cabinets piled over each other rusting, broken window panes replaced with cardboard and the whole sanctity of the place, that was once there and can be vaguely felt radiating from the large dome and the star of David windows, is replaced with a grim dark grey Mogama3 feel.

[To see the rest of the pictures, click here.]

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[wvns] Washington’s “good war”

Washington’s “good war”

Death squads, disappearances and torture in Pakistan

16 September 2009

As the Obama administration prepares a major escalation of the so-called AfPak war, reports from Pakistan’s Swat Valley, near Afghanistan’s eastern border, provide a gruesome indication of the kind of war that the Pentagon and its local allies are waging.

While touted by Obama and his supporters as the “good war,” there is mounting evidence that the Pentagon and the CIA are engaged in a war against the population of the region involving death squads, disappearances and torture.

The Pakistani army sent 20,000 troops into Swat, part of the country’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), last April to wage war against ethnic Pashtun Islamist movements (routinely described as the Pakistani Taliban) that have supported fellow Pashtuns across the border who are resisting the US-NATO occupation of Afghanistan.

This offensive, which was carried out on the direct and highly public insistence of US envoy Richard Holbrooke and senior American military officers during repeated trips to Islamabad, unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe. In what amounted to a massive exercise in collective punishment, many civilians were killed or wounded and some 2.5 million people were driven from their homes.

Now, the Pakistani military continues to occupy the area, carrying out a reign of terror in which individuals identified as opponents of the government and the US occupation across the border are being picked up and tortured to death.

According to a report published September 15 in the New York Times, with the military occupation of the Swat Valley “a new campaign of fear has taken hold, with scores, perhaps hundreds, of bodies dumped on the streets in what human rights advocates and local residents say is the work of the military.”

While the Pakistani military has denied responsibility for this wave of killings—blaming them on civilians seeking revenge against the Islamists—the Times quotes local residents, politicians and human rights workers as blaming the army. They point, the article states, to “the scale of the retaliation, the similarities in the way that many of the victims have been tortured and the systematic nature of the deaths and disappearances in areas that the military firmly controls.”

In addition to bearing marks of brutal torture, many of the bodies are discovered with their hands tied behind their backs and with a bullet in the back of the neck. In some cases corpses have been beheaded.

On September 1, the Pakistani newspaper Dawn quoted government officials as saying that 251 bodies had been found dumped along the roadside in the Swat Valley since July. On August 27, the newspaper reported that 51 bodies had been found in the area in the space of just 24 hours.

Dawn has also reported the discovery of a number of mass graves containing victims of the military and referred to local residents who had “witnessed the crude and inhuman lumping together of the living and the dead.”

The Times cites the case of Akhtar Ali, 28, arrested by the military at his electrical repair shop on September 1. While military officials repeatedly told his family that he would be released, four days later his corpse was dumped on their doorstep, bearing cigarette burns and with nails hammered into his flesh. “There was no place on his body not tortured,” his family said in a petition seeking justice.

American officials have praised the Pakistani military for its campaign in the Swat Valley, with US Ambassador Anne Patterson visiting Mingora, Swat’s largest town, last week to congratulate the army.

Now US officials are pressing the Pakistani government to replicate this bloody campaign in South Waziristan. A similar offensive is already underway in the Khyber Agency, site of the Khyber Pass, a key route for supplies to the US occupation force in Afghanistan. UN officials report that 100,000 people have been displaced by the attack.

Washington stands behind the atrocities being carried out against the Pakistani people. It is funding the Pakistani military operations, with some $2.5 billion in overt military aid this fiscal year. Meanwhile, CIA drone attacks continue, having claimed nearly 600 Pakistani victims over the past year, the majority of them civilians.

There is every reason to suspect that the wave of disappearances, torture and death squad assassinations in Pakistan is also “made in the USA.”

Before becoming the US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal headed the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the secret special operations unit that investigative journalist Seymour Hersh described as an “executive assassination wing.”

US special forces “trainers” are operating on Pakistani soil, instructing Pakistani forces in the kind of tactics favored by JSOC—tactics that yield the bound and battered bodies dumped in the streets of Swat.

These tactics fit a long pattern of US counterinsurgency warfare, from Operation Phoenix in Vietnam to the US-backed death squads that terrorized the population of El Salvador in the 1980s.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen warned again Tuesday in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the military will almost certainly seek an increase in troop levels over the 70,000 American soldiers and Marines that are to be deployed in Afghanistan by the end of this year.

Citing diplomatic sources, Dawn reported that Gen. McChrystal is calling for a shift in the war’s focus to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area.

Having lost control of most of Afghanistan after nearly eight years of US occupation, the Pentagon is preparing to launch a new wave of bloodletting and terror against the population on both sides of the border in the hope of breaking popular resistance.

The administration of Barack Obama, elected on a wave of antiwar sentiment, is already implicated in war crimes that rival those carried out by his predecessor. Support for the war within the US has declined to levels approaching those reached over Iraq, with the latest CNN poll showing 58 percent of Americans opposing the US occupation of Afghanistan and only 39 percent supporting it.

Driven by the interests of the US ruling elite, the escalation of this dirty war, together with the escalating assault on jobs and living standards at home, is creating the conditions for the emergence of a mass political movement of working people against the Obama administration and the profit system which is the driving force of imperialist war.

Bill Van Auken

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[wvns] TIDAL WAVE OF HOMELESS STUDENTS HITS SCHOOLS

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

‘Tidal wave’ of homeless students hits schools

School districts across U.S. struggling to pay for needs of uprooted kids

By Kari Huus

Reporter

msnbc.com

updated 7:20 a.m. ET, Mon., March. 2, 2009

Kari Huus Reporter • Profile • E-mail

OXNARD, Calif. - Nine-year-old Daniel Valdez is absorbed in “The Swiss Family Robinson,” the fictional story of a family shipwrecked on a tropical island. In real life, he and his family also are marooned, but there is little romance in their tale of survival in this seaside town northwest of Los Angeles.

Daniel, his mother and five brothers, ages 1 to 17, live in a garage without heat or running water in a modest, low-lying neighborhood that sits between celebrity-owned mansions in the hills and the Pacific Ocean. Each morning, they arise at 6:30, get dressed and then leave quietly; they return only after dark — a routine born out of the fear that detection could mean the loss of even this humble dwelling.

Daniel and his brothers have been sleeping in the garage for more than a year — members of what school officials and youth advocates say is a rapidly growing legion of homeless youth.

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[wvns] Iraqi Resistance Responds to Obama

Exclusive: The Iraqi Resistance Responds to President Obama

Rafidan
The Political Committee
Baghdad
The Republic of Iraq

Statement in Response to President Obama’s Remarks made on the 27^th or February 2009 regarding the proclaimed ending to the occupation of The Republic of Iraq.

Official English Transcript Release No: 57

March 02, 2009 "Information Clearing House" --

Good Evening,

In Respect to the remarks of President Barak Hussain Obama, The president of the United States of America. The Political Committee of a number of factions in the Iraqi Resistance, mainly the factions present in our front, respond with our point of view on the contents of his speech.

Over the last four months, as the battle of our people continues to free Iraq of all foreign occupation. We have been studying the movements on the ground as well as analyzing the intelligence in order to assess the next strategy that the US administration will take under the leadership of the new presidency.

We had formulated our own plan of action based on the above mentioned, but have chosen to give the new president enough time to gather his thoughts and have a suitable amount of reports & briefings that would give him also a good picture of the daily developments on the ground.

President Obama, After listening to your speech on the 27^th of February 2009, in which you declared your general and public understanding of the ongoing war against our people, and gave your military and the honorable people of the United States brief points on your intentions in our country, we felt the spirit of the speech that your predecessor President JFK gave on the 20^th of January 1961, on his inaugural address. In this speech, he offered a turbulent world, a way out of tensions and paid with his own blood for challenging the interests of those in your consecutive governments who hold the true keys to power. Those who would do anything to preserve their interests, wealth, & power to create wars & conflict.

We mention this with great honesty in hope to spread awareness and remembrance that a new Caesar may be betrayed, by his own, if he chooses to follow a different path. We do believe, on the other hand, that the spirit of the speech was well chosen.

We have listened well to your economic plans for your country released before this speech as well, and as ambitious as it may seem, we believe that if intentions are genuine within your congress, a considerable number of what you seek will eventually be fulfilled, but in case of failure, the republicans will be looking for a scapegoat to relate all their failures to. In this case it would be your administration. This will guarantee them a fast comeback.

You have inherited a nation at war, a failed economy, and a desperate people who are bearing the full brunt of an economic crisis that was not of their making. As well as thousands of young men dead and handicapped.

We have inherited a foreign occupation, endless counts of innocent dead, injured, and handicapped, millions of refugees, in essence, Mr. President, the complete and planned disintegration of our nation and people.

We believe that the funds wasted in this war would have been more useful if it were spent on research to develop alternative energy, which no doubt would have reduced energy conflicts, cures for cancer, agricultural solutions to prevent worldwide poverty, advancements to develop Africa, where people still die of starvation and intentional neglect. Endless causes, all in need of immediate attention.

By the will of God almighty, the resilience of our men, and the patience of our humble people, we have so far managed to halt and render useless all imperialist agendas set for Iraq and the region in whole. Simply by choosing to resist occupation, a right guaranteed by God first and then by international conventions to all men. A right your country’s policies continue to disrespect and dishonor, in clear example to state sponsored Terrorism.

You have spoken to our people in part of your speech, and we thank you for these words, you have displayed a far better understanding our nation, than your predecessor, who preferred to dive deep into the oceans of illiteracy and ignorance. Despite the fact that you did not mention the Iraqi resistance in your speech, and chose to label us as terrorists along with those who arrived with your troops, we will set that aside for now, and mention a few facts for the record.

1- The people of Iraq whom you addressed, in all their sects colors and religions, refuse your occupation, and those who accept it, are those who benefit from it.

2- The Iraqis you addressed, as we truly hope, are not the ones who bathe in the riches of treason, behind your walls of the green zone, nor are they the likes of Ahmed Al Chalabi, whom your previous government conspired with and his likes from the dark alleys of 5 star hotels in the US and Europe prior to your occupation.

3- The Iraqi people you talked to, are those who never invited your occupation, and were trying their best to survive on what was possible, under the criminal sanctions that went on for 13 years only to be crowned with a foreign occupation, unmatched in criminal acts, in today’s modern world.

President Obama, The suffering, that our people had to go through is beyond comprehension. And the endless crimes of your troops as well as that of neighboring countries, cannot simply be undone or dismissed, nor can they be brushed under the carpet. Your troops still occupy the land and kill the innocent, that is why we can only address you as the president of an occupying nation.

The Iraqi People are disappointed in your plan. They expect your troops to leave our country in full and not in part. Our people, seek a complete end of occupation and not the fulfillment of a strategic treaty that was rushed against the will of our people, in the last few days of your predecessor.

Our people, as well as the majority of people around the world, and in your country, want to see the last president be presented to an international war crime tribunal for all the crimes he has committed in the name of your country, only to benefit those who brought him to power in the first place.

We have never invited your occupation, nor have we asked your country to steal our country’s resources to benefit your corporations and to those neighboring states which historically fall under your influence. We have never asked you for your precious blood or ours, to us, all blood is precious even that of the your soldiers sent by your government to die not knowing what they were truly fighting for. This has to be addressed to the man who started this war, and is hiding now in Texas, while you try to undo his damage.

We the Iraqi People and their resistance demand the following:

1- The fulfillment of all the conditions presented to your government through the mediators you

Sent in 2006.

2- The hand over of all the traitors & Collaborators in the green zone to the Iraqi people where

They will be dealt with as any nation would do with in cases of high treason.

3- The full & just compensation for our people for the losses they have suffered.

4- The halting of all compensations paid to those who fall under your umbrella in the region from the resources of our people.

5- The return of all land stolen from our country.

6- The departure of all foreign corporations mainly in the sectors of energy, communication, & infrastructure rebuilding, specifically those linked to Neocon interests. Our people are more than qualified to rebuild and operate our institutions.

7- The hand over of all mercenaries accused of killing innocent civilians mainly security contractors in Black Water and their CEO to be tried for murder.

8- All foreign advisors are to leave Iraq with your troops.

9- The dismantling of all militias equipped by your country and Iran together to shift the nature of battle towards the sectarian nature in order to allow your troops to concentrate on the major resistance activities in the central region of Iraq.

10- The halting of all support to the sectarian government elected in the orchestrated elections in the green zone.

11- The reduction of the influence of your Persian allies in Iraq which your previous government worked with in close conjunction and who continue to fund Al Qaeda on behalf of your intelligence agency’s behalf.

12- The return to the old constitution of a unified Iraq. And the Upholding of new elections

Within 6 months of the resistance taking power of the nation, this will be supervised,

By must be conducted in the presence of a number of credible international monitors. Not the ones

Sponsored by the CIA.

13- Cities and provinces are to be handed over one by one starting with the four main cities and airports of Baghdad, Basra, then Mosul and Kirkuk in the same order. The rest will fall immediately in our hands. The borders will have other arrangements.

The list goes on, but the intention is to give you an idea of what we pledged our people to achieve. In return for our people’s demands, we will cease to attack all occupation forces withdrawing to the south and beyond the border post of Safwan.

Without these straightforward moves on your part, we regret to inform you that the resistance of the people of Iraq will continue until that last boot of US/British/Persian occupation is thrown across the borders of our country.

If you choose change as you claim, then you must have reached the conclusion that to continue dealing with the same people your predecessor appointed to fulfill his dirty work, will fail to deliver positive results for both our people. It is not the thieves of the green zone who brought the defeat of your military.

You must search further for the honest Iraqis and from the ranks of our people and not those of your collaborators to achieve a just solution. You can also recognize the right for the Iraqi people to resist and publicly ask for our advice and representation. The Iraqi people intend to be masters of their own house as they always have, and by following the plan you have declared, you have not yet fully understood Iraq well.

There are those who will claim, that a quick withdrawal from Iraq will cause civil war, and that is a possibility, but we would also like to clarify that the forces of the puppet government which has been equipped to defeat the resistance will not stand ground, nor will they block our efforts to liberate our cities one by one if we had to, and all the efforts of your collaborators to move to the north and south of the country and create their own federal states have been studied well for their weaknesses and will be crushed within a short period. This is a more realistic scenario. True there will be still the Persian occupation which will offer it’s militias support, but we know that the US cannot leave the oil rich south to be occupied by Iran, and they would rather see it fall in our hands instead. As it would be giving too much to a close yet not so trust worthy ally, and would deprive your military necessary funds that would support long-term military presence necessary in Iraq and throughout the region. Funds that some in your government think they can still rely on. Funds that your economy can no longer bear in the midst of the turmoil in the globalized economy of your nation, to control the world.

The Iraqi resistance understands well that the US could not continue to sell oil at a high price

of 120 USD/Barrel to cover the costs of it’s war, as this strengthens old adversaries. And it would be only a matter of time before this tactic backfires on the US foreign policy. But it also understands that the US cannot fund foreign occupation any more without depending on local resources and revenues to cover the expenses. This is the true cause of the change of “Strategy” as you named it President Obama.

With oil prices falling to their true realistic market values, & the winter ending in the consuming economies, the oil prices should fall to 30 USD plus mark, which is also effecting the local economies of your allies in the region, as anything below 55 USD per barrel, is already becoming a burden on these economies, which in turn can no longer assist to their full potential in funding and supporting the costs of US aggression in the Region.

The Declining of oil revenues, which we truly thank you for mentioning in your speech, will make it more difficult to fund your military’s operations in Iraq, and that is why the numbers of your troops is to be reduced. To match the income predicted from the oil projects sponsored by your corporations in the south and the oil theft operations run by your agent, Hamid Jaffar in the north of Iraq in collaboration with NGO oil of Norway, is what your strategists think is possible.

Yes President Obama, we do agree with you, that the US needs a smarter, more sustainable & comprehensive approach, but rest assured, that what your predecessor has failed to achieve with all the military might at his disposal, we will make sure that you will fail to achieve the same goals through the soft hand of the Democratic party.

In fact, it is more logical and practical to follow the alternative energy programs that you have set wisely, to ensure the non reliance of your economy on oil as well as the utilization of advancements and added fruits of R&D to employ the unemployed, and support a new and young market for the shift in energy dependence, and in turn end the monopolization of energy, practiced by the corporations that control it and control world political and social stability, than to merely dream of expecting the Iraqi People to hand you over their resources.

We on the other hand intend to nationalize and use our resources to build an alternative energy base our selves and offer our people a life of prosperity, & stability, as well as supporting the energy transition of other nations that are oil dependant, a task we truly believe is noble and worthwhile.

The Iraqi Resistance will not accept any short term or long term energy contracts with the US until we ensure that the rights of our people are properly addressed. And within the parameters of relations based on mutual respect first and mutual interests second.

President Obama, It is time that people in Washington understand that there are no shared interest between an occupying tyrant and an oppressed victim of occupation.

Your government would have stayed forever in Iraq if the traitors who conspired with your consecutive administrations had their way in starving the Iraqi people into submission and force them to welcome your occupying troops with flowers as Chalabi promised you. But after three wars and over a decade of sanctions, there were enough honest men to defeat the world’s most powerful army & play a major role in destroying the most imperialistic Globalized economy ever developed by expansionary capitalism.

These are the type of people you are speaking to Mr. Obama. And if you were not presented with this reality throughout the briefings that occurred, and understood the true scale of the economic disaster with all the social and geopolitical implications of your military defeat in Iraq, then please allow us to mention a few of the major achievements that the Iraqi Resistance have promised it’s people and the free people of the world and has delivered:

1- We promised to pin down your troops in Iraq and drain your economy until you admit defeat and withdraw your troops. And this we fulfilled.

2- We promised to halt the US plan for Middle East in full, and prevent the loss of other innocent lives in other neighboring countries, and that we fulfilled.

3- We embraced the war and continue the fight on behalf of all the oppressed world, which not only stood still and watched the massacre of our people and the illegal occupation of our nation, but many of it’s leaders participated and continue in harming our people inside and outside Iraq and assist in the theft of our resources. This, apart from the support of honest people all around the world,

4- including citizens of your country, who marched day and night to support the cause of Iraq’s right to resist, marches that defied the weather, and weathered criminal defiance and ignorance of world politicians. Marches that we will ever be indebt to, and in gratitude & in appreciation for. May god bless those people wherever they are. And this we fulfilled and continue to do so.

5- We have understood the nature of international balances of power and most importantly predicted the primitive mind of the occupation and played a major role in forcing the US to increase oil prices in clear desperation for cash. And use that to allow other powers to recover. And the numbers never lied, this we also fulfilled.

6- The Iraqi People wrote a new chapter in Urban warfare, and invented the art of remote combat, and in turn gave the world lessons and set a new standard in how to defeat the world’s most powerful army. In this, the most dangerous achievement that threatens US global influence is that all the oppressed people who suffer from negative US influence, can use this experience to free themselves as well. This also has been delivered.

7- The Resistance has already drafted its 2, 5 and 10 year plan to engage Iraq in rebuilding programs that will set a new standard for development in the Region and restore Iraq to it’s rightfully earned place in world politics and positive human development. This while maintaining Iraq’s isolation from harmful neighboring countries at the same time, these plans was prepared and drafted in the early months of 2007 and are ready to implement once we see the end of your occupation.

8- The resistance created a new battle field and utilized every tool available to break free of the corporate media and tell, inform, and educate the world of the true nature of the struggle, and present every curious man and woman daily reports and videos of your military’s defeat and in every language possible. People from all over the world, chose out of their own free will and time, people of different religions and backgrounds chose to be soldiers of the cyber wars and translated all what we had to tell, asking nothing in return but the truth. The true casualties of your war are yet to be declared. (We refer to the green card soldiers)

9- The resistance has sparked not only the collapse of the US economy, but also caused the domino effect and the destruction of your fine tuned and delicate Globalized economy, and forced the return to national economic protection, and the rights of local and regional economies to grow and ensure a decent life and practice their right to develop as well. All your efforts to restore the globalized economy will deliver nothing of value, and puppet governments that maintain your oversight of world resources will eventually fall, one after the other, as their faults will be more evident to their average citizens, and that is why you are now receiving daily reports, from the CIA about the world economy.

ALL THE ABOVE, AND YOU STILL CHOOSE TO IGNORE THE RESISTANCE OF THE IRAQI PEOPLE AND THE RESISTANCE OF THE GLOBAL ALLIANCE OF THE FREE, WHICH WE INTENT TO PROPOSE TO THE WORLD AS THE NEXT STAGE OF FREEING THE PLANET FROM YOUR DOMINENCE WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT.

ALL THIS SAID, AND THE GLOBAL MEDIA WHICH YOU STILL MAINTAIN CONTROL OVER STILL LABELS FREE PEOPLE AS TERRORISTS AND EQUALS THE RESISTANCE OF OCCUPATION WITH CRIMINAL ACTS OF STRIKING CIVILIANS IN BUILDING AND TERRORISING THE LIVES OF THE INNOCENT.

TRULY IRONIC !! Nevertheless represents the true state of shock you policy makers have reached. But all can be reversed if you truly believe in Change Mr. President.

The resistance along with the votes of the peace loving people in your country and choice of the world

Who brought you to power, are more than capable to pull you down and defeat your new strategy, if you choose to lie to them and follow the plans of your predecessor.

You must understand that the time when your foreign policy bullied and bribed people into submission is over and for a considerable time. And your politicians and strategists have to understand that to be accepted as a superpower you must first learn to speak to the world with modesty and respect that others in this planet, also have the right to provide for their families a decent life, the right to food and water, the right to education and knowledge, the right to industry and employment, and free from your corporate despotism.

We in the Iraqi resistance, renew our pledge to our people and to our brothers and sisters in the global family, to continue the fight and struggle to free Iraq and give our allies the chance to follow suite.

While you were preparing your new strategy in leaving the streets and highways of Iraq to your collaborators, and hiding your troops behind the walls of the castles and green zones you have prepared for your minimized long term presence, we have been preparing to address your new tactics and will deal with them in the proper manner.

Remember, that hiding behind and holding castles is no longer sustainable in modern warfare!

Your finest fighting force as you name it, is up against the most witty, resilient & innovative self-propelled resistance honorable humanity has ever presented. Rest assured that we are not impressed with your plan and will follow your movements on the ground and cross examine them to your declared intentions and daily economic reports. There is no such thing as friendly occupation, and we advise you to revise your plans to vacate Iraq at a time suitable for our people and not suitable for your agents in the green zone.

And if you need to talk to honest Iraqis, then you know very well, where to find them. John F Kennedy also said “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but never fear to negotiate”

You choose to negotiate with all the parties that worked for your predecessor and have caused all this harm, yet you choose to ignore the only true party that can offer you a decent outcome.

Good Luck President Obama!

Radfidan

The Political Committee - Baghdad – The Republic of Iraq

The 3^rd of Rabi' Awwal 1430 H

The 28^th of February 2009 M

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