[replaced video July 12, 2011]
1:33:37- 2007
Award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist and author, Naomi Klein, talks about her latest book, “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”.
pdxjustice on Apr 24, 2011 Continue reading
Day: September 10, 2007
Hardball: General Petraeus or Betray-Us (video)
Chris Matthews talks to Eli Pariser from Move On and Markos Moulitsas of the Daily KOS about the Move On ad on General Petraeus.
see:
American Economy: R.I.P. By Paul Craig Roberts
Dandelion Salad
By Paul Craig Roberts
09/10/07 “ICH‘
The US economy continues its slow death before our eyes, but economists, policymakers, and most of the public are blind to the tottering fabled land of opportunity.
In August jobs in goods-producing industries declined by 64,000. The US economy lost 4,000 jobs overall. The private sector created a mere 24,000 jobs, all of which could be attributed to the 24,100 new jobs for waitresses and bartenders, and the government sector lost 28,000 jobs.
In the 21st century the US economy has ceased to create jobs in export industries and in industries that compete with imports. US job growth has been confined to domestic services, principally to food services and drinking places (waitresses and bartenders), private education and health services (ambulatory health care and hospital orderlies), and construction (which now has tanked). The lack of job growth in higher productivity, higher paid occupations associated with the American middle and upper middle classes will eventually kill the US consumer market.
The unemployment rate held steady, but that is because 340,000 Americans unable to find jobs dropped out of the labor force in August. The US measures unemployment only among the active work force, which includes those seeking jobs. Those who are discouraged and have given up are not counted as unemployed.
With goods producing industries in long term decline as more and more production of US firms is moved offshore, the engineering professions are in decline. Managerial jobs are primarily confined to retail trade and financial services.
Franchises and chains have curtailed opportunities for independent family businesses, and the US government’s open borders policy denies unskilled jobs to the displaced members of the middle class.
When US companies offshore their production for US markets, the consequences for the US economy are highly detrimental. One consequence is that foreign labor is substituted for US labor, resulting in a shriveling of career opportunities and income growth in the US. Another is that US Gross Domestic Product is turned into imports. By turning US brand names into imports, offshoring has a double whammy on the US trade deficit. Simultaneously, imports rise by the amount of offshored production, and the supply of exportable manufactured goods declines by the same amount.
The US now has a trade deficit with every part of the world. In 2006 (the latest annual data), the US had a trade deficit totaling $838,271,000,000.
The US trade deficit with Europe was $142,538,000,000. With Canada the deficit was $75,085,000,000. With Latin America it was $112,579,000,000 (of which $67,303,000,000 was with Mexico). The deficit with Asia and Pacific was $409,765,000,000 (of which $233,087,000,000 was with China and $90,966,000,000 was with Japan). With the Middle East the deficit was $36,112,000,000, and with Africa the US trade deficit was $62,192,000,000.
Public worry for three decades about the US oil deficit has created a false impression among Americans that a self-sufficient America is impaired only by dependence on Middle East oil. The fact of the matter is that the total US deficit with OPEC, an organization that includes as many countries outside the Middle East as within it, is $106,260,000,000, or about one-eighth of the annual US trade deficit.
Moreover, the US gets most of its oil from outside the Middle East, and the US trade deficit reflects this fact. The US deficit with Nigeria, Mexico, and Venezuela is 3.3 times larger than the US trade deficit with the Middle East despite the fact that the US sells more to Venezuela and 18 times more to Mexico than it does to Saudi Arabia.
What is striking about US dependency on imports is that it is practically across the board. Americans are dependent on imports of foreign foods, feeds, and beverages in the amount of $8,975,000,000.
Americans are dependent on imports of foreign Industrial supplies and materials in the amount of $326,459,000,000–more than three times US dependency on OPEC.
Americans can no longer provide their own transportation. They are dependent on imports of automotive vehicles, parts, and engines in the amount of $149,499,000,000, or 1.5 times greater than the US dependency on OPEC.
In addition to the automobile dependency, Americans are 3.4 times more dependent on imports of manufactured consumer durable and nondurable goods than they are on OPEC. Americans no longer can produce their own clothes, shoes, or household appliances and have a trade deficit in consumer manufactured goods in the amount of $336,118,000,000.
The US “superpower” even has a deficit in capital goods, including machinery, electric generating machinery, machine tools, computers, and telecommunications equipment.
What does it mean that the US has a $800 billion trade deficit?
It means that Americans are consuming $800 billion more than they are producing.
How do Americans pay for it?
They pay for it by giving up ownership of existing assets–stocks, bonds, companies, real estate, commodities. America used to be a creditor nation. Now America is a debtor nation. Foreigners own $2.5 trillion more of American assets than Americans own of foreign assets. When foreigners acquire ownership of US assets, they also acquire ownership of the future income streams that the assets produce. More income shifts away from Americans.
How long can Americans consume more than they can produce?
American over-consumption can continue for as long as Americans can find ways to go deeper in personal debt in order to finance their consumption and for as long as the US dollar can remain the world reserve currency.
The 21st century has brought Americans (with the exception of CEOs, hedge fund managers and investment bankers) no growth in real median household income. Americans have increased their consumption by dropping their saving rate to the depression level of 1933 when there was massive unemployment and by spending their home equity and running up credit card bills. The ability of a population, severely impacted by the loss of good jobs to foreigners as a result of offshoring and H-1B work visas and by the bursting of the housing bubble, to continue to accumulate more personal debt is limited to say the least.
Foreigners accept US dollars in exchange for their real goods and services, because dollars can be used to settle every country’s international accounts. By running a trade deficit, the US insures the financing of its government budget deficit as the surplus dollars in foreign hands are invested in US Treasuries and other dollar-denominated assets.
The ability of the US dollar to retain its reserve currency status is eroding due to the continuous increases in US budget and trade deficits. Today the world is literally flooded with dollars. In attempts to reduce the rate at which they are accumulating dollars, foreign governments and investors are diversifying into other traded currencies. As a result, the dollar prices of the Euro, UK pound, Canadian dollar, Thai baht, and other currencies have been bid up. In the 21st century, the US dollar has declined about 33 percent against other currencies. The US dollar remains the reserve currency primarily due to habit and the lack of a clear alternative.
The data used in this article is freely available. It can be found at two official US government sites: http://www.bea.gov/international/bp_web/simple.cfm?anon=71&table_id=20&area_id=3 and http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t14.htm
The jobs data and the absence of growth in real income for most of the population are inconsistent with reports of US GDP and productivity growth. Economists take for granted that the work force is paid in keeping with its productivity. A rise in productivity thus translates into a rise in real incomes of workers. Yet, we have had years of reported strong productivity growth but stagnant or declining household incomes. And somehow the GDP is rising, but not the incomes of the work force.
Something is wrong here. Either the data indicating productivity and GDP growth are wrong or Karl Marx was right that capitalism works to concentrate income in the hands of the few capitalists. A case can be made for both explanations.
Recently an economist, Susan Houseman, discovered that the reliability of some US economics statistics has been impaired by offshoring. Houseman found that cost reductions achieved by US firms shifting production offshore are being miscounted as GDP growth in the US and that productivity gains achieved by US firms when they move design, research, and development offshore are showing up as increases in US productivity. Obviously, production and productivity that occur abroad are not part of the US domestic economy.
Houseman’s discovery rated a Business Week cover story last June 18, but her important discovery seems already to have gone down the memory hole. The economics profession has over-committed itself to the “benefits” of offshoring, globalism, and the non-existent “New Economy.” Houseman’s discovery is too much of a threat to economists’ human capital, corporate research grants, and free market ideology.
The media has likewise let the story go, because in the 1990s the Clinton administration and Congress overturned US policy in favor of a diverse and independent media and permitted a few mega-corporations to concentrate in their hands the ownership of the US media, which reports in keeping with corporate and government interests.
The case for Marx is that offshoring has boosted corporate earnings by lowering labor costs, thereby concentrating income growth in the hands of the owners and managers of capital. According to Forbes magazine, the top 20 earners among private equity and hedge fund managers are earning average yearly compensation of $657,500,000, with four actually earning more than $1 billion annually. The otherwise excessive $36,400,000 average annual pay of the 20 top earners among CEOs of publicly-held companies looks paltry by comparison. The careers and financial prospects of many Americans were destroyed to achieve these lofty earnings for the few.
Hubris prevents realization that Americans are losing their economic future along with their civil liberties and are on the verge of enserfment.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
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Al Jazeera: A local fight for security in al-Anbar province (video)
General Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, is holding up the Iraqi western province of al-Anbar as an icon of the success of the United State’s troop increase in the country.
He says it is now peaceful, thanks to their security plan.
But as Al Jazeera’s James Bays has been finding out, residents in the area are telling a very different story.
see:
09.07.07 Uncensored News Reports From Across The Middle East (video; over 18 only)
Warning
This video contains images depicting the reality and horror of war and should only be viewed by a mature audience.
Selected Episode
Sept. 7, 2007
For more episodes and other Link TV programs:
http://www.linktv.org/originalseries“Moroccan Women Assert their Rights in Parliamentary Elections,” Al Jazeera English, Qatar
“Algerian President Targeted,” Dubai TV, UAE
“Military Operation Inside the Gaza Strip Inevitable,” IBA TV, Israel
“Violating Syrian Airspace Unacceptable,” Syria TV, Syria
“Woman Dies at Checkpoint,” Palestine TV, Ramallah
“Al Anbar is Now under Control,” Al Jazeera TV, Qatar
“Bush and Putin at Odds over Missile Defense,” IRIB2 TV, Iran
“MIR: Bin Laden Preaches,” Link TV, USA
(Yet More) Rumours of War and other tales from Psy-Ops Central by William Bowles
by William Bowles
Atlantic Free Press
Monday, 10 September 2007
“Reports that the Bush administration will put Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the terrorism list can be read in one of two ways: It’s either more bluster or, ominously, a wind-up for a strike on Iran. Officials I talk to in Washington vote for a hit on the IRGC, maybe within the next six months.” — Robert Baer, a former high-ranking CIA field officer in the Middle East. [1]
It was early in 2006 when the first stories about an ‘imminent’ hit on Iran surfaced with everybody from Seymour Hersh to Michel Chossudovsky wading in with the ‘inside dope’ on the impending attack. So was it just their timing that was out?
“Unrecognized” Palestinians by Stephen Lendman
by Stephen Lendman
Global Research, September 9, 2007
Israel’s population today is about 7,150,000. About 5.4 million are Jews (76%) plus another 400,000 Jewish settlers in over 200 expanding settlements on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank that includes Palestinian East Jerusalem. They’re the chosen ones afforded full rights and privileges under the laws of the Jewish state for Jews alone.
Palestinian Arabs are another story. Their population is around 5.3 million (plus six million or more in the Palestinian diaspora). Around 3.9 million live in occupied Gaza and the West Bank, and another 1.4 million are Jewish citizens of Israel (20% of the population), including about 260,000 classified as internally displaced. Palestinians get no rights afforded Jews even though those inside Israel are citizens of the Jewish state, have passports and IDs, and can vote in Knesset elections for what good it does them. They’re subjected to constant abuse and neglect, are confined to 2% of the land plus 1% more for agricultural use, and are treated disdainfully as nonpersons.
Arab Israeli citizens live mainly in all-Arab towns and villages in three heartlands – the Galilee in the north; what’s called the “Little Triangle” in the center that runs along the Israeli side of the Green Line separating Israel from the West Bank; and the Negev desert region in the country’s south. These communities aren’t geographically consolidated and are surrounded by established Jewish communities, hostile to Arab neighbors, and with Israel’s full military might backing them. A minority of Palestinians also live uneasily in mixed Jewish-Arab cities like Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Jerusalem in the West Bank and others.
The Plight of Palestinian Nonpersons in “Unrecognized Villages”
The term is Orwellian in its worst sense. How can something real not officially exist? Around 150,000 or more (accurate numbers are hard to come by) Palestinian Arabs today live in over 100 so-called “unrecognized villages,” mainly in the Galilee and the Negev desert. They’re unrecognized because their inhabitants are considered internal refugees who were forced to flee their original homes during Israel’s 1948 “War of Independence” and were prevented from returning when it ended.
These villages were delegitimized by Israel’s 1965 Planning and Construction Law that established a regulatory framework and national plan for future development. It zoned land for residential, agriculture and industrial use, forbade unlicensed construction, banned it on agricultural land, and stipulated where Israeli Jews and Palestinians could live. That’s how apartheid worked in South Africa.
Existing communities are circumscribed on a map with blue lines around them. Areas inside the lines can be developed. Those outside cannot. For Jewish communities, great latitude is allowed for future expansion, and new communities are added as a result. In contrast, Palestinian areas are severely constricted leaving no room for expansion. Their land was reclassified as agricultural meaning no new construction is allowed. This meant entire communities became “unrecognized” and all homes and buildings there declared illegal, even the 95% of them built before the 1965 law passed. They’re subject to demolition and inhabitant displacement at the whim of Israeli officials. They want new land for Jews and freely take it from Arab owners, helpless to stop it.
All Israeli public land is administered by the Israel Land Authority (ILA) that has a legal obligation to treat all its citizens fairly. Instead and with impunity, it serves Jewish interests only using various methods to do it.
It restricts and prohibits Palestinian land development by:
— putting large Arab areas under its control through the creation of regional councils;
— zoning restrictions mentioned above;
— transferring public land adjacent to Arab communities to Jewish National Fund (JNF) ownership that mandates it’s only for Jews;
— connecting the cost of leasing land to military service that discriminates against Palestinians not required to serve and almost none do;
— declaring national priority town areas for Jews only;
— delaying, restricting and prohibiting local development in Arab communities;
— ignoring Arab needs in regional and national plans;
— allowing Palestinians little or no representation on national planning committees;
— enforcing a policy of forced evictions and demolitions of buildings without appropriate permits. In “unrecognized villages,” no permits are allowed Palestinians on their own land. Entire villages thus face prosecution in the courts and loss of their homes, land and possessions through a state-sponsored policy to remove them judicially.
It gets worse. No new Palestinian communities are allowed, and existing “unrecognized villages” are denied essential municipal services like clean drinking water, electricity, roads, transport, sanitation, education, healthcare, postal and telephone service, refuse removal and more because under the Planning and Construction Law they’re illegal. The toll on their people is devastating:
— clean water is unavailable almost everywhere unless people have access to well water,
— the few available health services are inadequate,
— many homes have no bathrooms, and no permits are allowed to build them,
— only villages with private generators have electricity enough for lighting only,
— no village is connected to the main road network,
— some villages are fenced in prohibiting their residents from access to their traditional lands,
— in the North, only one school remains open and children must travel 10 – 15 kilometers to attend another; as a result, achievement levels are low and dropout rates high.
It’s worse still when home demolitions are ordered. It may stipulate Palestinians must do it themselves or be fined for contempt of court and face up to a year in prison. They may also have to cover the cost when Israeli bulldozers do it under a system of convoluted justice penalizing Palestinians twice over.
Discriminatory Israeli Law
Israel is a signatory to the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Its Preamble states “the obligation of (signatory) States under the Charter of the United Nations to promote universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and freedom.” It then covers what states must observe in 53 Articles that stipulate the following:
— “All people have the right of self-determination.”
— “Each state party….undertakes to respect and ensure to all individuals within its territory the rights in this Covenant, without distinction of any kind” for any reason.
— “Every human being has the inherent right to life,” to “be protected by law,” and no activity may be undertaken to destroy any rights and freedom covered under this Covenant.
— “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
— “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention.”
— “Everyone….within the territory (shall) have the right to liberty of movement and freedom to chose his residence (and) to be free to leave any country (and not be) deprived of the right to enter (or return to) his own country.”
— “All persons shall be equal before the courts and tribunals.”
— “Everyone shall have the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.”
— “All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law.”
— In states with “ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities (those persons) shall not be denied the (same) right(s)….as the other members.”
In Israel, for all intents and purposes, the ICCPR is a nonstarter. It applies to Jews alone, not to Arabs and other non-Jews. Israeli laws allow it by subjecting non-Jews, and specifically Arabs, to three types of discrimination:
— legal direct discrimination guaranteeing Jews alone the right to immigrate and become citizens; it also gives various Jewish organizations in the country quasi-government status serving Jews only.
— indirect discrimination through “neutral” laws and criteria applying principally to Palestinians; government preferences and benefits are predicated on prior military service most Palestinians don’t perform; the categorization of the country into preferential zones for Jews provides them privileges and benefits denied Palestinians.
— institutional discrimination through a legal framework facilitating a pattern of privileges afforded Jews only; they’re allocated through budgets and resources showing preferential treatment for Jews and discrimination against Palestinians; Israeli courts enforce the bias by refusing to hear cases where Palestinians claim their rights have been denied;
— even when courts hear cases and rule favorably, Palestinians get only crumbs; an example was in the early September Supreme Court decision that Israel reroute part of its illegal apartheid wall and return a small portion of stolen land to the people of Bil’in; a far greater issue was ignored by allowing the illegal Modiin Illit settlement on Bil’in land to remain intact; for anti-occupation Gush Shalom, the court decision message to settlers is do as you please, build fast and expect court approval retrospectively.
Israel professes to be a democracy. It is not by any reasonable standard. It defines itself as a Jewish state which contradicts its claimed democratic credentials. It treats Jews preferentially and entitles them to special consideration denied non-Jews who are discriminated against as second-class citizens and denied comparable rights.
Israel has no formal constitution and instead is governed by its Basic Laws that before 1992 guaranteed no basic rights. That year, the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom passed authorizing the Knesset to overturn laws contrary to the right to dignity, life, freedom, privacy, property and to leave and enter the country. The law states “There shall be no violation of the life, body or dignity of any person. All persons are entitled to protection” of these rights, and “There shall be no deprivation or restriction of the liberty of a person by imprisonment, arrest, extradition or otherwise.”
For a nation committed to violence, the irony is particularly galling that a section of the Basic Law also deals with “The Right to Life and Limb in Israeli Law.” It states “Israeli law has abolished the death penalty for murder (and corporal punishment).” It notes this penalty exists in principle but only under limited circumstances such as for treason during war and under the Law for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. It further notes Israel’s 1998 Good Samaritan Law requires assistance be given in situations “of immediate and severe danger to another.” Omitted from the Basic Law is the right to equality so all rights in it apply to Jews only.
Palestinian Arabs have none, yet can stand for public office in the Knesset. Some do, a few are elected but have no power beyond a public stage to state their views and be shouted down or ignored. They’re also constrained by the 1992 Law of Political Parties and section 7A(1) of the Basic Law that prohibits candidates for office from denying “the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people.” No candidate may challenge the fundamental Jewish character of the state or demand equal rights, privileges and justice under the law for Arabs and Jews. The essential Zionist identity is inviolable, the rule of law works for Jews alone, and Palestinians are denied all rights, equal treatment and justice under a legal system for Jews that discriminates against Arab Muslims. In South Africa it was called apartheid.
The Current Plight of Palestinian Israeli Citizens in the Negev
About half the 160,000 Bedouin Arabs today face forced displacement in the Negev. Why? Because they live in dozens “unrecognized villages” making their homes illegal under Israeli law. They face imprisonment and fines if they refuse to leave so their land can be cleared, homes demolished, and the area Judaised for a Negev development plan. It’s described as “A Miracle in the Desert” that aims to populate the area with a half million new Jewish residents in the next decade. Plans are for 25 new communities and 100,000 homes on cleared Bedouin lands. For the past two years, Israel has been ethnically cleansing the Negev and erasing Bedouin villages to make it possible.
All Bedouin Arabs in “unrecognized villages” face what those living in Tawil Abu Jarwal endured in January. The entire village was destroyed when the Israeli military (IDF), a large police contingent and special task forces, a helicopter and bulldozers came in January 9. They demolished all 21 of its homes that consisted of shacks, brick rooms and tents. It followed a month earlier assault when 17 other homes were destroyed and their residents forcibly displaced. The people became homeless, and 63 of them in January were children. In late 2006, Israel’s interior minister, Roni Bar-On, announced his intention to destroy all 42,000 “illegal structures” in the Negev in a bandit declaration of planned forced ethnic cleansing against people helpless to stop it.
It’s happening in Al-Sadir, Tel-Arad, Amara-Tarabin and on June 25 to Bedouin families in the small villages of Um al-Hiran and Atir that are homes to about 1000 people. Hundreds of police and Israeli security forces destroyed over 20 of their homes to make way for a Jewish community called Hiran to replace them. People living in them lost everything including their possessions they had no chance to remove. Haaretz reported Atir villagers lived there for 51 years after being transferred to the area in 1956 under martial law. The article continued saying the Israeli Regional Council of “Unrecognized Villages” will move displaced families to a refugee camp in the center of Jerusalem (where Bedouins don’t wish to live) “as part of the government’s (forced ethnic cleansing) relocation project” to make the “desert bloom” for new Jewish only communities.
This is what all Negev Bedouin Arabs now face unless something can stop it. Large numbers of them attended an early August protest conference. It was held in solidarity with unaffected Palestinians who together called on Arab and other countries to support their right to remain in their homes and denounce Israel’s racist apartheid laws.
Arab Knesset member, Talab Al Sane, spoke on their behalf. So did Hussein Al Rafay’a, head of the regional council of the “unrecognized villages,” who said Israel wants Palestinians to be refugees in their own lands and has been forcing them into this status by a policy of home demolitions and continued displacement. Arabs once owned 5.5 million dunams of land (550,000 hectares) in the Negev, he said. They now own less than 200,000 (20,000 hectares) and are threatened with losing all of it. “We will resort to the Security Council, and the international court (in the Hague) to provide the residents and their lands with needed protection.”
With an assured US veto in the Security Council and Israel’s record of ignoring UN resolutions and World Court rulings against it, there’s little chance for success and every likelihood legal Israeli Arab citizens will continue being displaced from their own land.
Advocacy for Palestinian Arabs in “Unrecognized Villages”
Israel denies all Palestinians their basic rights. However, those living in so-called “unrecognized villages” face a special threat – demolition of their homes, loss of their land and possessions, and frightening displacement that will make them refugees along with millions of others in their own land. Few organizations advocate on their behalf, but a group that does is called The Association of Forty.
It’s a grassroots NGO in Israel committed to promoting social justice for Israeli Arabs and to gain official recognition for their “unrecognized villages.” It was formed in December, 1988 when Arab and Jewish residents from several of the affected villages and other areas formed the Association. It now “represents the residents of the ‘unrecognized villages’ and their problems, and promotes support locally and internationally” on their behalf. It seeks official recognition for the villages, an improvement in their living conditions, and “full rights and equality for the Arab citizens of the state” of Israel.
Its work consists of initiating “the preparation and implementation of active projects within these villages such as paving roads, improving existing roads and helping the residents to achieve their rights, to connect their villages to the network of water, electricity and telephones, to establish and operate kindergartens and clinics for mother and child care, and to obtain educational non-curricular activities for the schoolchildren….” It publishes a monthly newspaper, Sawt Al-Qura, has photographic exhibitions, films and documentaries that reflect the plight of the villages. It also organizes study days, holds local and international conferences, and participates in other international ones.
The Palestinians Enduring Struggle for Freedom and Justice
Palestinians today live under horrendous conditions. By any standard, they’re appalling, repressive and in violation of fundamental human rights principles under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stating:
— “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
— “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms….in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind.”
— “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”
— “Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.”
— “All are equal before the law and are entitled….to equal protection.”
— “Everyone has the right to own property (nor shall anyone) be arbitrarily (be) deprived of his property.”
Israel offers these rights to Jews alone. It denies them to Palestinian Arab Muslims in violation of its own Basic Law professing “Fundamental human rights….founded upon recognition of the value of the human being, the sanctity of human life, and the principle that all persons are free.” It continues stating the Basic Law of Israel “is to protect human dignity and liberty….(that) There shall be no violation of the property of a person….(that) All persons are entitled to protection of their life, body and dignity….(that) All government authorities are bound to respect the rights under this Basic Law.”
The Basic Law also states Israel is a Jewish state, and the message is clear. All rights, benefits, privileges and protections are for Jews alone. All others are unwelcome, unwanted, unprotected, and unequal under the law. For them, justice unrecognized is justice denied and for Palestinians it’s willful and with malice.
They face constant harassment, abuse and near daily assaults in the West Bank and even worse treatment under virtual imprisonment in Gaza. Their democratically elected government was ousted by a US-Israeli orchestrated coup in June to the shameless applause of Western leaders and silence from Arab ones. They’re now isolated, surrounded and dangerously close to a humanitarian disaster affecting 1.4 million people.
It’s no better for Israeli Palestinian citizens. They’re nonpersons in their own land, are treated like intruders, given no rights, face constant harassment and mistreatment, get no justice, and face imminent loss of their homes, land, freedom and lives any time Israeli authorities wish to act against them. Yet they persist and endure as do their brethren in the Occupied Territories. They reach out to the world community, press their case, and a delegation from occupied Palestine stated it at the World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya in January.
It was a call to action and cry for help for “freedom, justice and (a) durable peace” and an end to six decades of repression. It called for a “global Campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel until it ends its apartheid-like regime of discrimination, occupation and colonization, and respects the right of return of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons.”
It called for “Consumer boycotts of Israeli products; boycott of Israeli academic, athletic and cultural events and institutions complicit in human rights abuses; divestment from Israeli companies (and) international companies involved in perpetuating injustice, and pressuring governments to impose sanctions on Israel….”
Silence is not an option, and people of conscience can help. Noted author and documentary filmmaker, John Pilger, believes “something is changing,” and he saw it in a recent full page New York Times ad having a “distinct odour of panic.” It called for boycotting Israel, and Pilger senses the “swell….is growing inexorably, as if an important marker has been passed (and it’s) reminiscent of the boycotts that led to sanctions against apartheid South Africa…..once distant voices,” notes Pilger, have “gone global,” it caught Israel off guard and may signal change. But not easily or fast and may not happen at all unless global pressure becomes mass public outrage that this injustice no longer will be tolerated by people of conscience anywhere.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at www.sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to the Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on www.TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.
Stephen Lendman is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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Fmr. President Jimmy Carter: Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (video link)
Monday, September 10th, 2007
Fmr. President Jimmy Carter on “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” Iraq, Greeting the Shah of Iran at the White House, Selling Weapons to Indonesia During the Occupation of East Timor, and More
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In his first interview with Democracy Now!, former President Jimmy Carter talks about what led him to write “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid”, his controversial book that argues Israel’s settlements in the Occupied Territories are the main barrier to peace. Carter also discusses his regrets over sending arms to Indonesia during the occupation of East Timor and recounts his dealings with the Shah of Iran. The 39th president also assesses the Iraq war and reflects on the 25th anniversary of the Carter Center, which has focused on election monitoring and health initiatives around the world. [includes rush transcript]
Today, a conversation with Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States. He served from 1977 to 1981. During his time in the White House, he helped negotiate the Camp David Accords, which secured a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt. After leaving office, Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, founded the Carter Center which – among other things – monitors elections around the world. In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Carter is also the author of over 20 books. His most recent is also his most controversial – “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” I sat down with former President Carter on Friday at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
- Former President Jimmy Carter. Thirty-ninth President of the United States.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This material is distributed without profit.
see:
Link TV: Global Pulse: A Week of Protests (video)
Does the act of protest have a cost? That depends on where you live. Thi…
For more episodes and other Link TV programs:
http://www.linktv.org/originalseriesDoes the act of protest have a cost? That depends on where you live. This week saw demonstrations in Athens, Gaza, Yangon and Sydney — with different causes and different outcomes.
GOP Senators, should we start training our kids now? (video; TV ad)
Nuclear Feudalism: Terror War Profits and the Crack-Up of Pakistan by Chris Floyd
Written by Chris Floyd
Empire Burlesque
Monday, 10 September 2007
I.
There is high drama in Pakistan these days, as terror, tribalism and repression cut a deadly swathe through the collapsing regime of military strongman Pervez Musharraf. The latest upheaval came on the political front this weekend, as the nation’s last elected leader was forcibly barred from entering the country — while yet another former leader was frantically negotiating a backroom deal, with Washington’s blessing, on sharing power upon her own imminent return from exile, as the Times of India notes.
The dictator is being propped up by the largess of his Terror War patron, George W. Bush, who for years has overlooked (or abetted) the entwining of Pakistan’s military and security organs with the Taliban, their support for a range of terrorist groups, and the clandestine peddling of nuclear weapons technology to “rogue regimes” all over the world. The military alliance between the United States and Pakistan — toasted again last week by Pentagon warlord Bob Gates — is far too profitable for elites on both sides to relinquish over such quaint notions as democracy, stability, human rights, national interest or nuclear non-proliferation.
But the tensions in Musharraf’s increasingly disfunctional realm are becoming too great to sustain the status quo. A rising, discontened Islamic militancy on one side; a rising, dicontented middle class, long shut out of power and influence, on the other; rising, discontented tribal and ethnic groups — many of them forcibly incorporated into the country decades ago — seeking independence or greater autonomy, and meeting wtih violent repression: all of these are wreaking havoc with Washington’s aim of a sturdy client state to serve as a bulwark on the empire’s Central Asian frontier. And so the Bushists are casting about to find some way to bring a measure of cosmetic “change” to Pakistan’s government, in hopes of easing some of the intolerable pressures — while at the same time keeping the military-security organs firmly in control of the nation.
Continued…
FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This material is distributed without profit.
Where was Osama on September 11, 2001? by Michel Chossudovsky
by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, September 9, 2006
“Going after bin Laden” has served, over the last five years, to sustain the legend of the “world’s most wanted terrorist”, who “haunts Americans and millions of others around the world.”
Donald Rumsfeld has repeatedly claimed that the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden remain unknown: “It is like looking for a needle in a stack of hay”.
In November 2001, US B-52 bombers carpet bombed a network of caves in the Tora Bora mountains of eastern Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden and his followers were allegedly hiding. These caves were described as “Osama’s last stronghold”.
CIA “intelligence analysts” subsequently concluded that Osama had escaped from his Tora Bora cave in the first week of December 2001. And in January 2002, the Pentagon launched a Worldwide search for Osama and his top lieutenants, beyond the borders of Afghanistan. This operation, referred to by Secretary of State Colin Powell as a “hot pursuit”, was carried out with the support of the “international community” and America’s European allies. US intelligence authorities confirmed, in this regard, that
“while al Qaeda has been significantly shattered, … the most wanted man – bin Laden himself remains one step ahead of the United States, with the core of his worldwide terror network still in place. (Global News Wire – Asia Africa Intelligence Wire, InfoProd, January 20, 2002)
For the last five years, the US military and intelligence apparatus (at considerable expense to US taxpayers) has been “searching for Osama”.
A CIA unit with a multimillion dollar budget was set up, with a mandate to find Osama. This unit was apparently disbanded in 2005. “Intelligence experts agree”, he is hiding in a remote area of Pakistan, but “we cannot find him”:
“Most intelligence analysts are convinced that Osama bin Laden is somewhere on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Lately, it has been said that he’s probably in the vicinity of the a 7700m Hindu Kush peak Tirich Mir in the tribal Chitral area of northwest Pakistan.” Hobart Mercury (Australia), September 9, 2006)
President Bush has repeatedly promised to “smoke him out” of his cave, capture him dead or alive, if necessary through ground assaults or missile strikes. According to a recent statement by president Bush, Osama is hiding in a remote area of Pakistan which “is extremely mountainous and very inaccessible, … with high mountains between 9,000 to 15,000 feet high….”. We cannot get him, because, according to the president, there is no communications infrastructure, which would enable us to effectively go after him. (quoted in Balochistan Times, 23 April 2006)
The pursuit of Osama
has become a highly ritualized process which feeds the news chain on a daily basis. It is not only part of the media disinformation campaign, it also provides a justification for the arbitrary arrest, detention and torture of numerous “suspects”, “enemy combatants” and “accomplices”, who allegedly might be aware of Osama’s whereabouts. And that information is of course vital to “the security of Americans”.
The search for Osama serves both military and political objectives. The Democrats and Republicans compete in their resolve to weed out “islamic terrorism”.
The Path to 9/11, a five-hour ABC series on “the search for Osama” –which makes its debut on the 10th and 11th of September to marks the fifth anniversary of the attacks– casually accuses Bill Clinton of having been “too busy with the Monica Lewinsky scandal to fight terrorism.” The message of the movie is that the Democrats neglected the “war on terrorism”.
The fact of the matter is that every single administration, since Jimmy Carter have supported and financed the “Islamic terror” network, created during the Carter administration at the outset of the Soviet-Afghan war. (See Michel Chossudovsky, Who is Osama bin Laden, 12 September 2001). al Qaeda is a instrument of US intelligence: a US sponsored intelligence asset.
Where was Osama on Septembers 11?
There is evidence that the whereabouts of Osama are known to the Bush Administration.
On September 10. 2001, “Enemy Number One” was in a Pakistani military hospital in Rawalpindi, courtesy of America’s indefectible ally Pakistan, as confirmed by a report of Dan Rather, CBS News. (See our October 2003 article on this issue)
He could have been arrested at short notice which would have “saved us a lot of trouble”, but then we would not have had an Osama Legend, which has fed the news chain as well as George W’s speeches in the course of the last five years.
According to Dan Rather, CBS, Bin Laden was hospitalized in Rawalpindi. one day before the 9/11 attacks, on September 10, 2001.
“Pakistan. Pakistan’s Military Intelligence (ISI) told CBS that bin Laden had received dialysis treatment in Rawalpindi, at Pak Army’s headquarters.
DAN RATHER, CBS ANCHOR: As the United states and its allies in the war on terrorism press the hunt for Osama bin Laden, CBS News has exclusive information tonight about where bin Laden was and what he was doing in the last hours before his followers struck the United States September 11.
This is the result of hard-nosed investigative reporting by a team of CBS news journalists, and by one of the best foreign correspondents in the business, CBS`s Barry Petersen. Here is his report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BARRY PETERSEN, CBS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Everyone remembers what happened on September 11. Here`s the story of what may have happened the night before. It is a tale as twisted as the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
CBS News has been told that the night before the September 11 terrorist attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan.
Pakistan intelligence sources tell CBS News that bin Laden was spirited into this military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment. On that night, says this medical worker who wanted her identity protected, they moved out all the regular staff in the urology department and sent in a secret team to replace them. She says it was treatment for a very special person. The special team was obviously up to no good.
“The military had him surrounded,” says this hospital employee who also wanted his identity masked, “and I saw the mysterious patient helped out of a car. Since that time,” he says, “I have seen many pictures of the man. He is the man we know as Osama bin Laden. I also heard two army officers talking to each other. They were saying that Osama bin Laden had to be watched carefully and looked after.” Those who know bin Laden say he suffers from numerous ailments, back and stomach problems. Ahmed Rashid, who has written extensively on the Taliban, says the military was often there to help before 9/11.
(…)
PETERSEN (on camera): Doctors at the hospital told CBS News there was nothing special about that night, but they refused our request to see any records. Government officials tonight denied that bin Laden had any medical treatment on that night.
(voice-over): But it was Pakistan’s President Musharraf who said in public what many suspected, that bin Laden suffers from kidney disease, saying he thinks bin Laden may be near death. His evidence, watching this most recent video, showing a pale and haggard bin Laden, his left hand never moving. Bush administration officials admit they don`t know if bin Laden is sick or even dead.
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: With respect to the issue of Osama bin Laden`s health, I just am — don`t have any knowledge.
PETERSEN: The United States has no way of knowing who in Pakistan`s military or intelligence supported the Taliban or Osama bin Laden maybe up to the night before 9/11 by arranging dialysis to keep him alive. So the United States may not know if those same people might help him again perhaps to freedom.
Barry Petersen, CBS News, Islamabad.
(END VIDEOTAPE) END
(CBS News, 28 January 2002 emphasis added, the complete transcript of CBS report sis contained in annex to this article)
It should be noted, that the hospital is directly under the jurisdiction of the Pakistani Armed Forces, which has close links to the Pentagon. U.S. military advisers based in Rawalpindi. work closely with the Pakistani Armed Forces. Again, no attempt was made to arrest America’s best known fugitive, but then maybe bin Laden was serving another “better purpose”. Rumsfeld claimed at the time that he had no knowledge regarding Osama’s health. (CBS News, 28 January 2002)
The CBS report is a crucial piece of information in our understanding of 9/11.
It refutes the administration’s claim that the whereabouts of bin Laden are unknown. It points to a Pakistan connection, it suggests a cover-up at the highest levels of the Bush administration.
Dan Rather and Barry Petersen fail to draw the implications of their January 2002 report. They suggest that the US had been deliberately misled by Pakistani intelligence officials. They fail to ask the question:
Why does the US administration state that they cannot find Osama?
If they are to stand by their report, the conclusion is obvious. The administration is lying. Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts were known.
If the CBS report is accurate and Osama had indeed been admitted to the Pakistani military hospital on September 10, courtesy of America’s ally, he was either still in hospital in Rawalpindi on the 11th of September, when the attacks occurred or had been released from the hospital within the last hours before the attacks.
In other words, Osama’s whereabouts were known to US officials on the morning of September 12, when Secretary of State Colin Powell initiated negotiations with Pakistan, with a view to arresting and extraditing bin Laden. These negotiations, led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, head of Pakistan’s military intelligence, on behalf of the government of President Pervez Musharraf, took place on the 12th and 13th of September in Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage’s office.
He could have been arrested at short notice on September 10th, 2001. But then we would not have been privileged to five years of Osama related media stories. The Bush administration desperately needs the fiction of an “outside enemy of America”.
Known and documented Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda is a construct of the US intelligence apparatus. His essential function is to give a face to the “war on terrorism”. The image must be vivid.
According to the White house, “The greatest threat to us is this ideology of violent extremism, and its greatest public proponent is Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden remains the number one target, in terms of our efforts, but he’s not the only target.” Recent Statement of White House Assistant for Homeland Security Frances Townsend, 5 September 2006).
The national security doctrine rests on the fiction of Islamic terrorists, led by Osama who are portrayed as a “threat to the civilized World”. In the words of President Bush, “Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say? We are on the offensive. We will not rest. We will not retreat. And we will not withdraw from the fight until this threat to civilization has been removed.” (quoted by CNN, September 5, 2006)
The “hot pursuit” of Osama in the rugged mountainous areas of Pakistan must continue, because without Osama, referred to ad nauseam in news reports and official statements, the fragile legitimacy of the Bush administration collapses like a deck of cards.
Moreover, the search for Osama protects the real architects of the 911 attacks. While there is no evidence that Al Qaeda was behind the 911 attacks, as revealed by nuerous studies and documents, there is mounting evidence of complicity and coverup at the highest levels of the State, Military and intelligence apparatus.
The continued arrest of alleged 911 accomplices and suspects has nothing to do with “national security”. It creates the illusion that Arabs and Muslims are behind the terror plots, while shunting the conduct of a real criminal investigation into the 911 attacks. And what were dealing with is the criminalization of the upper echelons of State.
Michel Chossudovsky is the author of the international best America’s “War on Terrorism” Global Research, 2005. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization.
To order Chossudovsky’s book America’s “War on Terrorism”, click here
Note: Readers are welcome to cross-post this article with a view to spreading the word and warning people of the dangers of a broader Middle East war. Please indicate the source and copyright note.
media inquiries crgeditor@yahoo.com
CBS Evening News with Dan Rather;
Author: Dan Rather, Barry Petersen
CBS, 28 January 2002
DAN RATHER, CBS ANCHOR: As the United states and its allies in the war on terrorism press the hunt for Osama bin Laden, CBS News has exclusive information tonight about where bin Laden was and what he was doing in the last hours before his followers struck the United States September 11.
This is the result of hard-nosed investigative reporting by a team of CBS news journalists, and by one of the best foreign correspondents in the business, CBS`s Barry Petersen. Here is his report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BARRY PETERSEN, CBS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Everyone remembers what happened on September 11. Here`s the story of what may have happened the night before. It is a tale as twisted as the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
CBS News has been told that the night before the September 11 terrorist attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan.
Pakistan intelligence sources tell CBS News that bin Laden was spirited into this military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment. On that night, says this medical worker who wanted her identity protected, they moved out all the regular staff in the urology department and sent in a secret team to replace them. She says it was treatment for a very special person. The special team was obviously up to no good.
“The military had him surrounded,” says this hospital employee who also wanted his identity masked, “and I saw the mysterious patient helped out of a car. Since that time,” he says, “I have seen many pictures of the man. He is the man we know as Osama bin Laden. I also heard two army officers talking to each other. They were saying that Osama bin Laden had to be watched carefully and looked after.” Those who know bin Laden say he suffers from numerous ailments, back and stomach problems. Ahmed Rashid, who has written extensively on the Taliban, says the military was often there to help before 9/11.
AHMED RASHID, TALIBAN EXPERT: There were reports that Pakistani intelligence had helped the Taliban buy dialysis machines. And the rumor was that these were wanted for Osama bin Laden.
PETERSEN (on camera): Doctors at the hospital told CBS News there was nothing special about that night, but they refused our request to see any records. Government officials tonight denied that bin Laden had any medical treatment on that night.
(voice-over): But it was Pakistan`s President Musharraf who said in public what many suspected, that bin Laden suffers from kidney disease, saying he thinks bin Laden may be near death. His evidence, watching this most recent video, showing a pale and haggard bin Laden, his left hand never moving. Bush administration officials admit they don`t know if bin Laden is sick or even dead.
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: With respect to the issue of Osama bin Laden`s health, I just am — don`t have any knowledge.
PETERSEN: The United States has no way of knowing who in Pakistan`s military or intelligence supported the Taliban or Osama bin Laden maybe up to the night before 9/11 by arranging dialysis to keep him alive. So the United States may not know if those same people might help him again perhaps to freedom.
Barry Petersen, CBS News, Islamabad.
(END VIDEOTAPE) END
Copyright CBS News 2002
Hospital Worker: I Saw Osama
Jan. 28, 2002
Quote
“They military had him surrounded. I have seen many pictures of the man. He is the man we know as Osama bin Laden.” Hospital employee
(CBS) Everyone remembers what happened on Sept. 11 and, reports CBS News Correspondent Barry Petersen, here’s the story of what may have happened the night before.
In a tale as twisted as the hunt for Osama bin Laden, CBS Evening News has been told that the night before the Sept. 11 terrorists attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan.
Pakistan intelligence sources tell CBS News that bin Laden was spirited into a military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment.
“On that night,” said a medical worker who wanted her identity protected, “they moved out all the regular staff in the urology department and sent in a secret team to replace them.” She said it was treatment for a very special person and “the special team was obviously up to no good.”
“They military had him surrounded,” said a hospital employee who also wanted his identity masked, “and I saw the mysterious patient helped out of a car. Since that time,” he said, “I have seen many pictures of the man. He is the man we know as Osama bin Laden. I also heard two army officers talking to each other. They were saying that Osama bin Laden had to be watched carefully and looked after.”
Those who know bin Laden say he suffers from numerous ailments — back and stomach problems.
Ahmed Rashid, who has written extensively on the Taliban, said the military was often there to help before Sept. 11.
“There were reports that Pakistan intelligence had helped the Taliban buy dialysis machines and the rumor was that these were for wanted for Osama bin Laden,” said Rashid.
Doctors at the hospital told CBS News there was nothing special about that night, but they declined our request to see any records. Government officials reached Monday night denied that bin Laden received any medical treatment that night.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday the United States has seen nothing to substantiate the report.
It was Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf who said in public what many suspected: that bin Laden suffers from kidney disease, saying he thinks bin Laden may be near death.
His evidence — watching the most recent video, showing a pale and haggard bin Laden, his left hand never moving. Bush administration officials admit they don’t know if bin Laden is sick or even dead.
“With respect to the issue of Osama bin Laden’s health, I just am…don’t have any knowledge,” said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The U.S. has no way of knowing who in Pakistan’s military or intelligence supported the Taliban or Osama bin Lade, maybe up to the night before Sept. 11 by arranging dialysis to keep him alive. So the U.S. may not know if those same people might help him again — perhaps to freedom.
Copyright CBS News 2002
Michel Chossudovsky is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Michel Chossudovsky
see:
Bush-Bin Laden Symbiosis Reborn by Robert Parry
Al Jazeera: Inside Story: New Bin Laden tape (videos)
The Mystery of al-Qaeda by Justin Raimondo + The Myth of AQI By Andrew Tilghman
The Truth behind 911: Who is Osama bin Laden? by Michel Chossudovsky (posted on 9/12/01)
Karma Chameleon: The Pimpernelian Shape-Shifting of Osama bin Laden by Chris Floyd
© Copyright Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 2006
The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20060909&articleId=3194
Undermining peace by Jimmy Carter
by Jimmy Carter
The Guardian
September 9, 2007 2:00 PM
By abandoning many of the nuclear arms agreements negotiated in the last 50 years, the United States has been sending mixed signals to North Korea, Iran, and other nations with the technical knowledge to create nuclear weapons. Currently proposed agreements with India compound this quagmire and further undermine the global pact for peace represented by the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
At the same time, no significant steps are being taken to reduce the worldwide arsenal of almost 30,000 nuclear weapons now possessed by the United States, Russia, China, France, Israel, Britain, India, Pakistan, and perhaps North Korea. A global holocaust is just as possible now, through mistakes or misjudgments, as it was during the depths of the cold war.
The key restraining commitment among the five original nuclear powers and more than 180 other nations is the 1970 non-proliferation treaty (NPT). Its key objective is “to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology … and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament.” In the last five-year review conference at the United Nations in 2005, only Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea were not participating – the first three have nuclear arsenals that are advanced, and the fourth’s is embryonic.
Continued… on Malcolm’s Blog
h/t: Malcolm
FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This material is distributed without profit.
see:
Fmr. President Jimmy Carter: Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (video link)
Al Jazeera: Inside Story: New Bin Laden tape (videos)
On Inside Story we investigate Osama bin Laden’s latest message to the world, which focuses on calling US citizens to reconsider their judgments on Bush’s policies in the Middle East.
see:
Bush-Bin Laden Symbiosis Reborn by Robert Parry
The Mystery of al-Qaeda by Justin Raimondo + The Myth of AQI By Andrew Tilghman
Al Qaeda: Bin Laden in New 9/11 Hijacker Video h/t: Antiwar.com
Announcing a Planetary Visualization for World Peace Tuesday, September 11, 2007 – 8:45 a.m. EST
If one person can create their future with their thoughts, imagine what a large group of people can do together… Imagine if a million or more people around the world visualized World Peace at the same time! Imagine what the positive collective consciousness of a million or more people can do!
~ Announcing a Planetary Visualization for World Peace ~
~ Tuesday, September 11, 2007 – 8:45 a.m. EST ~
~ Be a part of change! Be a part of history! Add us to your friends to be counted! ~
h/t:
~PLANETARY VISUALIZATION FOR WORLD PEACE~9/11/07~
See:
What the Bleep Do We Know? + Quantum Pt 1 (videos)
“Fire the Grid” on July 17 at 11:11 AM GMT (Pray for the Planet) (updated: video)
Dandelion Salad 