Time for impeachment yet? ~ Lo
Added: November 20, 2007
More stories:
Joe Wilson: Bush either ‘out of touch’ or accessory to a crime
Dodd calls for investigation into Bush role in Plame affair
see
McClellan implicates Bush, Cheney in Plame lie by Tim Grieve
William Mac strays away from the normal This Week in Time format to thank his first two donors EVER, which encouraged Jon and William so much, that William decided to explain why in the hell This Week in Time was even started. Added: November 20, 2007
Nov. 20, 2007
Where Does the Buck Stop?
Keith gives his report on the latest revelations about the Scott McClellan book. David Shuster weighs in.
Conspiracy Theories
Keith discusses the potential legal ramifications from McClellan’s book with John Dean in Countdown’s continuing series on broken government.
Gonzo But Not Forgotten
Alberto Gonzales was met with protesters when he appeared for a speaking engagement at the University of Florida in Gainsville. Eugene Robinson from the Washington Post weighs in.
Best Person
Funding Fight
Jack Murtha and David Obey gave a press conference today where they slammed the Pentagon for not being truthful with the American people. Richard Wolffe weighs in on the fight over the funding.
Worst Person
And the winner is….the Pentagon. Runners up Tom DeLay and Glenn Beck.
by Guadamour
Dandelion Salad
featured writer
Guadamour’s Blog
Nov. 20, 2007
This past Saturday I went riding with some friends. They each rode a horse they recently acquired and I rode my gelded older mule, Toby, and trailed my other mule, Matilda [also know as Diabilita].
We went for about a five hour ride. We road west along an old rail bed, and then turned south towards the border.
I hadn’t ridden that far out for quite awhile [I normally take a shorter ride].
Riding out, Mary remarked about the number of baby bottles and small children’s and infants clothing left by the undocumented border crossers.
I had a contract for two years where I scoured the desert, walking for hundreds if not thousands of miles, picking up trash left by undocumented border crossers.
It was a great position for me because I love hiking in the desert and it allowed me access to land that wasn’t open to the public.
I picked up tons of trash left by border crossers, and quite a little trash left by the Border Patrol.
I learned during that time that the Border Patrol did much more damage to the desert with their ATVs and four-wheel drive vehicles than the border crossers ever did.
I picked up so any different things, that seldom anything would surprise me.
I found unopened cans of sardines, tins of tuna, backpacks of every type and description, every imaginable piece of clothing, including bras and panties.
Various times I found the burlap that bundles of marijuana are wrapped in and fashioned as backpacks. Usually I found items like this alongside the highway where the bundles of dope were quickly stripped out and tossed into the vehicle that was summoned by cell phone [I also found cell phones].
One time, unbeknownst to the smugglers, I watched them load up a vehicle with nine [approximately 50 pound] bundles. The operation didn’t take three minutes.
It wasn’t all trash I carted out from the desert. One time I found ten thousand pesos [nine hundred and three dollars], and on that same day I found a wrist watch that a jeweler friend of mine valued at two hundred dollars.
Anyway, Mary was surprised at the infant items.
We turned and followed the border, and I was surprised, because the grossly ugly fence that closes off Douglas, Arizona from Agua Prieta, Sonora never used to run out that far.
I was even more surprised as we turned back towards town, following the border fence. We came to a large depot of equipment and fencing. This had to represent millions of dollars in material, not to mention the millions more involved in labor costs.
I wondered where the coyote, deer and javelina would cross, because I know that it represents not much more than a SPEED BUMP for border crossers.
To prove that to myself, I drove my trusty four-wheel drive, four cylinder, twenty-three-year-old pick-up along the border on Sunday. I spotted eight border crossers at different locations with no Border Patrol in sight.
Monday I had the opportunity to accompany some Israeli brass out to the normally inaccessible Border Patrol facility. I trailed along with them when they went out there in the daytime and when they made another trip out there after dark.
The Brass were being shown the high tech virtual fence. It was most impressive. In a room with numerous color television monitors, one could see almost every inch of the border and what was moving on it.
When we were there, twenty-three border crossers were seen crossing at different locations.
One could see them as well at night as in the daytime.
I asked what happens then? How do you track them?
I was told agents were dispatched to the precise locations.
I wonder out loud, how long does it take for an agent to get to a location, knowing that the border crossers aren’t going to wait around in any one location.
Then we were introduced to the seven men and women operating areal drones as if they were operating video games.
I learned that the video drone operators were receiving the same salaries as experienced pilots.
The Israelis are anxious to acquire this technology for themselves, and apparently the Federal government is just as anxious to sell it to them.
It is going to cost the US government and its taxpayers billions of dollars a year to operate this equipment and man the fence.
A buddy of mine, who has lived in Agua Prieta for twenty years or better, and who is an expert on the border, and I talked over what I had seen.
We both agree that it is going to slightly change the dynamic of what goes on along the border, but fundamentally it will change nothing.
For a while it will slow things down and make smuggling more expensive, but it will change nothing, because the smuggling will continue.
He and I both agree that the only way to stop the flow of undocumented workers into the country is to invest in Mexico and the rest of the third world.
We are both aware of how corrupt third world governments are, and believe that the only viable way to raise the standard of living in the third word countries is to institute a massive micro-loan program administered by the UN or other such international agency.
If someone wants to get involved in micro lending in a small way and do something about this, and actually earn interest while doing it, they should contact www.kiva.com.
This morning while I was wondering just what I should do with this information, I took a drive east about twenty miles towards New Mexico. There are some plains and lovely rolling grazing land out there, and a couple of bans of small southwestern pronghorn antelope frequent this area. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of them. Their bounding run and their freedom and sense of flight as they hurl over fences always cheers me up.
I didn’t see the antelope, but I saw two different groups of border crossers being picked-up. I didn’t see anyone picking up dope, but if they are picking up border crossers….
Joe Biden (3008) 4%
Hillary Clinton (10189) Chris Dodd (2295) John Edwards (5165) Rudy Giuliani (5213) Mike Gravel (1604) Mike Huckabee (4769) Duncan Hunter (1911) Dennis Kucinich (2788) John McCain (4702) Barack Obama (8165) Ron Paul (4513) Bill Richardson (4428) Mitt Romney (5217) Tom Tancredo (1746) Fred Thompson (4445)
Updated: Nov. 22, 2007 9:17 PM CT
| [71554 votes total] | |
| Joe Biden (3116) | 4% |
| Hillary Clinton (10433) | 15% |
| Chris Dodd (2395) | 3% |
| John Edwards (5191) | 7% |
| Rudy Giuliani (5224) | 7% |
| Mike Gravel (1623) | 2% |
| Mike Huckabee (4829) | 7% |
| Duncan Hunter (1934) | 3% |
| Dennis Kucinich (2999) | 4% |
| John McCain (4755) | 7% |
| Barack Obama (8398) | 12% |
| Ron Paul (4663) | 7% |
| Bill Richardson (4432) | 6% |
| Mitt Romney (5328) | 7% |
| Tom Tancredo (1777) | 2% |
| Fred Thompson (4457) | 6% |
Dandelion SaladBy Oren Ben-Dor
ICH
11/20/07 “Counterpunch”
Thus Spoke Equality
Yet again, the Annapolis meeting between Olmert and Abbas is preconditioned upon the recognition by the Palestinian side of the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. Indeed the “road map” should lead to, and legitimate, once and for all, the right of such a Jewish state to exist in definitive borders and in peace with its neighbours. The vision of justice, both past and future, simply has to be that of two states, one Palestinian, one Jewish, which would coexist side by side in peace and stability. Finding a formula for a reasonably just partition and separation is still the essence of what is considered to be moderate, pragmatic and fair ethos.
Thus, the really deep issues–the “core”–are conceived as the status of Jerusalem, the fate and future of the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories and the viability of the future Palestinian state beside the Jewish one. The fate of the descendants of those 750000 Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed in 1948 from what is now, and would continue to be under a two-state solutions, the State of Israel, constitutes a “problem” but never an “issue” because, God forbid, to make it an issue on the table would be to threaten the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. The existence of Israel as a Jewish state must never become a core issue. That premise unites political opinion in the Jewish state, left and right and also persists as a pragmatic view of many Palestinians who would prefer some improvement to no improvement at all.Only “extremists” such as Hamas, anti-Semites, and Self-Hating Jews–terribly disturbed, misguided and detached lot–can make Israel’s existence into a core problem and in turn into a necessary issue to be debated and addressed.
The Jewish state, a supposedly potential haven for all the Jews in the world in the case a second Holocaust comes about, should be recognised as a fact on the ground blackmailed into the “never again” rhetoric. All considerations of pragmatism and reasonableness in envisioning a “peace process” to settle the ‘Israeli/Palestinian’ conflict must never destabilise the sacred status of that premise that a Jewish state has a right to exist.
Notice, however, that Palestinian are not asked merely to recognise the perfectly true fact and with it, the absolutely feasible moral claim, that millions of Jewish people are now living in the State of Israel and that their physical existence, liberty and equality should be protected in any future settlement. They are not asked merely to recognise the assurance that any future arrangement would recognise historic Palestine as a home for the Jewish People.What Palestinians are asked to subscribe to recognition the right of an ideology that informs the make-up of a state to exist as Jewish one. They are asked to recognise that ethno-nationalistic premise of statehood.
The fallacy is clear: the recognition of the right of Jews who are there–however unjustly many of their Parents or Grandparents came to acquire what they own–to remain there under liberty and equality in a post-colonial political settlement, is perfectly compatible with the non-recognition of the state whose constitution gives those Jews a preferential stake in the polity.
It is an abuse of the notion of pragmatism to conceive its effort as putting the very notion of Jewish state beyond the possible and desirable implementation of egalitarian moral scrutiny. To so abuse pragmatism would be to put it at the service of the continuation of colonialism. A pragmatic and reasonable solution ought to centre on the problem of how to address past, present, and future injustices to non-Jew-Arabs without thereby cause other injustices to Jews. This would be a very complex pragmatic issue which would call for much imagination and generosity. But reasonableness and pragmatism should not determine whether the cause for such injustices be included or excluded from debates or negotiations. To pragmatically exclude moral claims and to pragmatically protect immoral assertions by fiat must in fact hide some form of extremism. The causes of colonial injustice and the causes that constitutionally prevent their full articulation and address should not be excluded from the debate. Pragmatism can not become the very tool that legitimate constitutional structures that hinder de-colonisation and the establishment of egalitarian constitution.
So let us boldly ask: What exactly is entailed by the requirement to recognise Israel as a Jewish state? What do we recognise and support when we purchase a delightful avocado or a date from Israel or when we invite Israel to take part in an international football event? What does it mean to be a friend of Israel? What precisely is that Jewish state whose status as such would be once and for all legitimised by such a two-state solution?
A Jewish state is a state which exists more for the sake of whoever is considered Jewish according to various ethnic, tribal, religious, criteria, than for the sake of those who do not pass this test. What precisely are the criteria of the test for Jewishness is not important and at any rate the feeble consensus around them is constantly reinvented in Israel. Instigating violence provides them with the impetus for doing that. What is significant, thought, is that a test of Jewishness is being used in order to constitutionally protect differential stakes in, that is the differential ownership of, a polity. A recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state is a recognition of the Jews special entitlement, as eternal victims, to have a Jewish state. Such a test of supreme stake for Jews is the supreme criterion not only for racist policy making by the legislature but also for a racist constitutional interpretation by the Supreme Court.The idea of a state that is first and foremost for the sake of Jews trumps even that basic law of Human Freedom and Dignity to which the Israeli Supreme Court pays so much lip service. Such constitutional interpretation would have to make the egalitarian principle equality of citizenship compatible with, and thus subservient to, the need to maintain the Jewish majority and character of the state. This of course constitutes a serious compromise of equality, translated into many individual manifestations of oppression and domination of those victims of such compromise–non-Jews-Arabs citizens of Israel.
In our world, a world that resisted Apartheid South Africa so impressively, recognition of the right of the Jewish state to exist is a litmus test for moderation and pragmatism. The demand is that Palestinians recognise Israel’s entitlement to constitutionally entrench a system of racist basic laws and policies, differential immigration criteria for Jews and non-Jews, differential ownership and settlements rights, differential capital investments, differential investment in education, formal rules and informal conventions that differentiate the potential stakes of political participation, lame-duck academic freedom and debate.
In the Jewish state of Israel non-Jews-Arabs citizens are just “bad luck” and are considered an ticking demographic bomb of “enemy within”. They can be given the right to vote–indeed one member one vote–but the potential of their political power, even their birth rate, should be kept at bay by visible and invisible, instrumental and symbolic, discrimination. But now they are asked to put up with their inferior stake and recognise the right of Israel to continue to legitimate the non-egalitarian premise of its statehood.
We must not forget that the two state “solution” would open a further possibility to non-Jew-Arabs citizens of Israel: “put up and shut up or go to a viable neighbouring Palestinian state where you can have your full equality of stake”.Such an option, we must never forget, is just a part of a pragmatic and reasonable package.
The Jewish state could only come into being in May 1948 by ethnically cleansing most of the indigenous population–750000 of them. The judaisation of the state could only be effectively implemented by constantly internally displacing the population of many villages within the Israel state.
It would be unbearable and unreasonable to demand Jews to allow for the Right of Return of those descendants of the expelled. Presumably, those descendants too could go to a viable Palestinian state rather than, for example, rebuild their ruined village in the Galilee. On the other hand, a Jewish young couple from Toronto who never set their foot in Palestine has a right to settle in the Galilee. Jews and their descendants hold this right in perpetuity. You see, that right “liberates” them as people. Jews must never be put under the pressure to live as a substantial minority in the Holy Land under egalitarian arrangement. Their past justifies their preferential stake and the preservation of their numerical majority in Palestine.
So the non-egalitarian hits us again. It is clear that part of the realisation of that right of return would not only be a just the actual return, but also the assurance of equal stake and citizenship of all, Jews and non-Jews-Arabs after the return. A return would make the egalitarian claim by those who return even more difficult to conceal than currently with regard to Israel Arab second class citizens. What unites Israelis and many world Jews behind the call for the recognition of the right of a Jewish state to exist is their aversion for the possibility of living, as a minority, under conditions of equality of stake to all. But if Jews enjoys this equality in Canada why can not they support such equality in Palestine through giving full effect to the right of Return of Palestinians?
Let us look precisely at what the pragmatic challenge consists of: not pragmatism that entrenches inequality but pragmatism that responds to the challenge of equality.
The Right of Return of Palestinians means that Israel acknowledges and apologises for what it did in 1948. It does mean that Palestinian memory of the 1948 catastrophe, the Nakbah, is publicly revived in the Geography and collective memory of the polity. It does mean that Palestinians descendants would be allowed to come back to their villages. If this is not possible because there is a Jewish settlement there, they should be given the choice to found an alternative settlement nearby. This may mean some painful compulsory state purchase of agricultural lands that should be handed back to those who return. In cases when this is impossible they ought to be allowed the choice to settle in another place in the larger area or if not possible in another area in Palestine. Compensation would be the last resort and would always be offered as a choice. This kind of moral claim of return would encompass all Palestine including Tel Aviv.
At no time, however, it would be on the cards to throw Israeli Jews from their land.An egalitarian and pragmatic realisation of the Right of Return constitutes an egalitarian legal revolution. As such it would be paramount to address Jews’ worries about security and equality in any future arrangement in which they, or any other group, may become a minority. Jews national symbols and importance would be preserved. Equality of stake involves equality of symbolic ownership.
But it is important to emphasis that the Palestinian Right of Return would mean that what would cease to exist is the premise of a Jewish as well as indeed a Muslim state. A return without the removal of the constitutionally enshrined preferential stake is return to serfdom.
The upshot is that only by individuating cases of injustice, by extending claims for injustice to all historic Palestine, by fair address of them without creating another injustice for Jews and finally by ensuring the elimination of all racist laws that stems from the Jewish nature of the state including that nature itself, would justice be, and with it peace, possible. What we need is a spirit of generosity that is pragmatic but also morally uncompromising in terms of geographic ambit of the moral claims for repatriation and equality. This vision would propel the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. But for all this to happen we must start by ceasing to recognize the right Israel to exist as a Jewish state. No spirit of generosity would be established without an egalitarian call for jettisoning the ethno-nationalistic notion upon which the Jewish state is based.
The path of two states is the path of separation.Its realisation would mean the entrenchment of exclusionary nationalism for many years. It would mean that the return of the dispossessed and the equality of those who return and those non-Jew-Arabs who are now there would have to be deferred indefinitely consigned to the dusty shelved of historical injustices.Such a scenario is sure to provoke more violence as it would establish the realisation and legitimisation of Zionist racism and imperialism.
Also, any bi-national arrangement ought to be subjected to a principle of equality of citizenship and not vice versa. The notion of separation and partition that can infect bi-nationalism, should be done away with and should not be tinkered with or rationalised in any way. Both spiritually and materially Jews and non-Jews can find national expression in a single egalitarian and non-sectarian state.
The non-recognition of the Jewish state is an egalitarian imperative that looks both at the past and to the future. It is the uncritical recognition of the right of Israel to exist at a Jewish state which is the core hindrance for this egalitarian premise to shape the ethical challenge that Palestine poses. A recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state means the silencing that would breed more and more violence and bloodshed.
The same moral intuition that brought so many people to condemn and sanction Apartheid South Africa ought also to prompt them to stop seeing a threat to existence of the Jewish state as the effect caused by the refugee ‘problem” or by the “demographic threat” from the non-Jew-Arabs within it. It is rather the other way round. It is the non-egalitarian premise of a Jewish state and the lack of empathy and corruption of all those who make us uncritically accept the right of such a state to exist that is both the cause of the refugee problem and cause for the inability to implement their return and treating them as equals thereafter.
We must see that the uncritically accepted recognition of Israel right to exist is, as Joseph Massad so well puts it in Al-Ahram, to accept Israel claim to have the right to be racist or, to develop Massad’s brilliant formulation, Israel’s claim to have the right to occupy to dispossess and to discriminate. What is it, I wonder, that prevent Israelis and so many of world Jews to respond to the egalitarian challenge? What is it, I wonder, that oppresses the whole world to sing the song of a “peace process” that is destined to legitimise racism in Palestine?
To claim such a right to be racist must come from a being whose victim’s face must hide very dark primordial aggression and hatred of all others.How can we find a connective tissue to that mentality that claims the legitimate right to harm other human beings? How can this aggression that is embedded in victim mentality be perturbed?
The Annapolis meeting is a con. As an egalitarian argument we should say loud and clear that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state.
Oren Ben-Dor grew up in Israel. He teaches Legal and Political Philosophy at the School of Law, University of Southampton, UK. He can be reached at: okbendor@yahoo.com
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. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Dandelion Salad
By Times Of India
ICH
11/20/07 “TOI“
WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are already under American control even as analysts are working themselves into a lather on the subject, a well-regarded intelligence journal has said.
In a stunning disclosure certain to stir up things in Washington’s (and in Islamabad and New Delhi’s) strategic community, the journal Stratfor reported on Monday that the “United States delivered a very clear ultimatum to Musharraf in the wake of 9/11: Unless Pakistan allowed US forces to take control of Pakistani nuclear facilities, the United States would be left with no choice but to destroy those facilities, possibly with India’s help.”
“This was a fait accompli that Musharraf, for credibility reasons, had every reason to cover up and pretend never happened, and Washington was fully willing to keep things quiet,” the journal, which is widely read among the intelligence community, said.
The Stratfor commentary came in response to an earlier New York Times story that reported that the Bush administration had spent around $100 million to help Pakistan safeguard its nuclear weapons, but left it unclear if Washington has a handle on the arsenal.
Over the past fortnight, even since the crisis in Pakistan broke and eclipsed every other geopolitical story, including Iraq, US officials and analysts have been speaking in different voices on the subject of a jihadi takeover of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
Some officials have expressed deep concern at the possibility and suggested US is ready with contingency plans to defang Pakistan of its nuclear weapons, while others have tried to assuage Islamabad by saying they believe the country’s military rulers have good custodial control over their crown jewels.
On Monday, a State Department official once again addressed the issue and hinted that Washington was in control of the situation.
“… ultimately, the major responsibility for that falls with the Pakistani government. They have made public comments to the effect that the arsenal is secure, that they have taken a number of different steps to ensure that,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
“We ourselves see no indication to indicate to the contrary. It is secure. We obviously have an interest in seeing that it is secure,” McCormack added.
Stratfor , too, appears confident that the Bush administration has a handle on Pak’s nukes.
Not everyone is so sanguine. In a separate commentary over the weekend that had some US and Pakistani analysts blowing their gasket, two prominent Washington commentators detailed a US military action plan inside Pakistan, possibly with the cooperation of moderate Pakistani forces, to seize the nuclear arsenal if there was imminent danger of an extremist takeover.
“As the government of Pakistan totters, we must face a fact: the United States simply could not stand by as a nuclear-armed Pakistan descended into the abyss,” proposed Frederick Kagan and Michael O’Hanlon, analysts at two Washington DC think-tanks. “One possible plan would be a Special Forces operation with the limited goal of preventing Pakistan’s nuclear materials and warheads from getting into the wrong hands.”
Pakistan’s own leaders have spoken about the subject — of nuclear weapons falling into extremist hands –with different emphasis and objectives.
General Pervez Musharraf has suggested continued Western support to his military regime is the best way to prevent the nukes from falling into extremist hands, an “after-me-the-deluge” argument that some analysts see as unabashed blackmail.
The country’s opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has also invoked the loose nukes scenario to urge US to abandon the military regime, which she says has given rise to growing extremism and fissiparous tendencies that increase the danger of the nuclear arsenal going awry.
Officially though, Islamabad is touchy about any commentary on its nuclear arsenal, and goes into transports of hysteria to assert that it is a responsible country with good command and control over its crown jewels.
In the latest outburst, the country’s out-going foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri asserted that Pakistan is fully capable of securing its nuclear assets and some Western lobbies are busy in creating confusion taking the advantage of ongoing conditions in Pakistan.
The multi-layer security structure of the nuclear assets has a strong command and control system in place and there is no need for anyone at home or abroad to worry about the security of these assets, he insisted.
But judging by the volume of worried commentary and analysis the subject is now getting, there aren’t many takers for such assurances and the last word on the matter hasn’t been said or written.
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. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
By George Monbiot
ICH
11/20/07 “The Guardian”
When will the US and the UK tell the truth about Israeli weapons? Iran isn’t starting an atomic arms race, it’s joining one
George Bush and Gordon Brown are right: there should be no nuclear weapons in the Middle East. The risk of a nuclear conflagration could be greater there than anywhere else. Any nation developing them should expect a firm diplomatic response. So when will they impose sanctions on Israel?
Like them, I believe that Iran is trying to acquire the bomb. I also believe it should be discouraged, by a combination of economic pressure and bribery, from doing so (a military response would, of course, be disastrous). I believe that Bush and Brown – who maintain their nuclear arsenals in defiance of the non-proliferation treaty – are in no position to lecture anyone else. But if, as Bush claims, the proliferation of such weapons “would be a dangerous threat to world peace”, why does neither man mention the fact that Israel, according to a secret briefing by the US Defence Intelligence Agency, possesses between 60 and 80 of them?
Officially, the Israeli government maintains a position of “nuclear ambiguity”: neither confirming nor denying its possession of nuclear weapons. But everyone who has studied the issue knows that this is a formula with a simple purpose: to give the United States an excuse to keep breaking its own laws, which forbid it to grant aid to a country with unauthorised weapons of mass destruction. The fiction of ambiguity is fiercely guarded. In 1986, when the nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu handed photographs of Israel’s bomb factory to the Sunday Times, he was lured from Britain to Rome, drugged and kidnapped by Mossad agents, tried in secret, and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He served 12 of them in solitary confinement and was banged up again – for six months – soon after he was released.
However, in December last year, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, accidentally let slip that Israel, like “America, France and Russia”, had nuclear weapons. Opposition politicians were furious. They attacked Olmert for “a lack of caution bordering on irresponsibility”. But US aid continues to flow without impediment.
As the fascinating papers released last year by the National Security Archive show, the US government was aware in 1968 that Israel was developing a nuclear device (what it didn’t know is that the first one had already been built by then). The contrast to the efforts now being made to prevent Iran from acquiring the bomb could scarcely be starker.
At first, US diplomats urged Washington to make its sale of 50 F4 Phantom jets conditional on Israel’s abandonment of its nuclear programme. As a note sent from the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to the secretary of state in October 1968 reveals, the order would make the US “the principal supplier of Israel’s military needs” for the first time. In return, it should require “commitments that would make it more difficult for Israel to take the critical decision to go nuclear”. Such pressure, the memo suggested, was urgently required: France had just delivered the first of a consignment of medium range missiles, and Israel intended to equip them with nuclear warheads.
Twenty days later, on November 4 1968, when the assistant defence secretary met Yitzhak Rabin (then the Israeli ambassador to Washington), Rabin “did not dispute in any way our information on Israel’s nuclear or missile capability”. He simply refused to discuss it. Four days after that, Rabin announced that the proposal was “completely unacceptable to us”. On November 27, Lyndon Johnson’s administration accepted Israel’s assurance that “it will not be the first power in the Middle East to introduce nuclear weapons”.
As the memos show, US officials knew that this assurance had been broken even before it was made. A record of a phone conversation between Henry Kissinger and another official in July 1969 reveals that Richard Nixon was “very leery of cutting off the Phantoms”, despite Israel’s blatant disregard of the agreement. The deal went ahead, and from then on the US administration sought to bamboozle its own officials in order to defend Israel’s lie. In August 1969, US officials were sent to “inspect” Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant. But a memo from the state department reveals that “the US government is not prepared to support a ‘real’ inspection effort in which the team members can feel authorised to ask directly pertinent questions and/or insist on being allowed to look at records, logs, materials and the like. The team has in many subtle ways been cautioned to avoid controversy, ‘be gentlemen’ and not take issue with the obvious will of the hosts”.
Nixon refused to pass the minutes of the conversation he’d had with the Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, to the US ambassador to Israel, Wally Barbour. Meir and Nixon appear to have agreed that the Israeli programme could go ahead, as long as it was kept secret.
The US government has continued to protect it. Every six months, the intelligence agencies provide Congress with a report on technology acquired by foreign states that’s “useful for the development or production of weapons of mass destruction”. These reports discuss the programmes in India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran and other nations, but not in Israel. Whenever other states have tried to press Israel to join the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the US and European governments have blocked them. Israel has also exempted itself from the biological and chemical weapons conventions.
By refusing to sign these treaties, Israel ensures it needs never be inspected. While the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors crawl round Iran’s factories, put seals on its uranium tanks and blow the whistle when it fails to cooperate, they have no legal authority to inspect facilities in Israel. So when the Israeli government complains, as it did last week, that the head of the IAEA is “sticking his head in the sand over Iran’s nuclear programme”, you can only gape at its chutzpah. Israel is constantly racking up the pressure for action against Iran, aware that no powerful state will press for action against Israel.
Yes, Iran under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a dangerous and unpredictable state involved in acts of terror abroad. The president is a Holocaust denier opposed to the existence of Israel. During the Iran-Iraq war, Iran responded to Saddam Hussein’s toxic bombardments with chemical weapons of its own. But Israel under Olmert is also a dangerous and unpredictable state involved in acts of terror abroad. Two months ago it bombed a site in Syria (whose function is fiercely disputed). Last year, it launched a war of aggression against Lebanon. It remains in occupation of Palestinian lands. In February 2001, according to the BBC, it used chemical weapons in Gaza: 180 people were admitted to hospital with severe convulsions. Nuclear weapons in Israel’s hands are surely just as dangerous as nuclear weapons in Iran’s.
So when will our governments speak up? When will they acknowledge that there is already a nuclear power in the Middle East, and that it presents an existential threat to its neighbours? When will they admit that Iran is not starting a nuclear arms race, but joining one? When will they demand that the rules they impose on Iran should also apply to Israel?
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This video contains images depicting the reality and horror of war and should only be viewed by a mature audience.
we are going to war, we pay taxes, taxes buy bullets, bullets hit people, some ones dies, someone else makes a profit.
Not good.
2 Million marched 5 years ago, 6000 on October 8th 2007.
What gives?
This video says how I feel about this.
Added: October 19, 2007
Warning
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This video contains images depicting the reality and horror of war and should only be viewed by a mature audience.
Selected Episode
Nov. 19, 2007
For more: http://www.linktv.org/originalseries
“Abbas & Olmert Hold Last Meeting Before Annapolis Summit” Al Jazeera TV, Qatar
“30 Years to Sadat’s Visit to Jerusalem” IBA TV, Israel
“Jordanians Gear Up For Elections” Jordan TV, Jordan
“Jordan Passes Law to Constrict Internet Usage” New TV, Lebanon
“Istanbul Hosts International Jerusalem Conference” Syria TV, Syria
“Makes it Harder for Iraqis to Obtain Visas” Baghdad TV, Iraq
“Chavez Meets Ahmadinejad in Tehran” Al-Alam TV, Iran
“Iraqis Flee to Europe” Al Jazeera English, Qatar
Produced for Link TV by Jamal Dajani
by Tim Grieve
After Downing Street
Salon.com
Nov. 20, 2007
On Oct. 10, 2003, White House press secretary Scott McClellan stood before the cameras and proclaimed Karl Rove and Scooter Libby innocent of any involvement in the outing of Valerie Plame. “Those individuals — I talked — I spoke with those individuals, as I pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. And that’s where it stands.”
And that’s where it stood, until — well after George W. Bush was reelected — it became clear that both Libby and Rove were very much involved in outing Plame. McClellan has since acknowledged, albeit implicitly, that Libby and Rove had lied to him. Now he seems ready to go much further. In “What Happened,” a chronicle of his years in the White House to be published this spring, McClellan will apparently implicate George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card in the false exoneration of Libby and Rove.
From an excerpt posted on McClellan’s publisher’s Web site and discovered by Editor and Publisher:
“The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
“There was one problem. It was not true.
“I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president’s chief of staff, and the president himself.”
Update: We’d like to tell you how Dana Perino responded to questions about McClellan’s charge at today’s White House press briefing. And we would, if only anyone in the White House press corps had asked her any.
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. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
By Robert Parry
Consortium News
November 20, 2007
The Bush administration is turning Iraq into a test tube for modern techniques of repression, from sophisticated biometrics that track populations to devastating weapons systems that combine night-vision optics from drone aircraft, heat resonance imaging and deadly firepower from the sky to kill suspected insurgents.
Democracy Now!
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act Raises Fears of New Government Crackdown on Dissent
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A little-noticed anti-terrorism bill quietly making its through Congress is raising fears of a new affront on activism and constitutional rights. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act was passed in an overwhelming 400 to six House vote last month. Critics say it could herald a new government crackdown on dissident activity under the guise of fighting terrorism.
A little-noticed anti-terrorism bill quietly making its through Congress is raising fears of a new affront on activism and constitutional rights. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act was passed in an overwhelming 400 to six House vote last month. Critics say it could herald a new government crackdown on dissident activity and infiltration of universities under the guise of fighting terrorism. The bill would establish two government-appointed bodies to study, monitor and propose ways of curbing what it calls homegrown terrorism and extremism in the United States. The first body, a National Commission, would convene for eighteen months. A university-based “Center for Excellence” would follow, bringing together academic specialists to recommend laws and other measures.Critics say the bill’s definition of “extremism” and “terrorism” is too vague and its mandate even more broad. Under a false veil of expertise and independence, the government-appointed commissions could be used as ideological cover to push through harsher laws.Following last month’s approval in the House, the Senate version is expected to go before the Judiciary Committee this week.
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transcript available later today
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. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
see
The U.S. Congress Legislates Genocide Of The Mind By Jeff Knaebel
Mentes Peligrosas: Confession of an American Thought Criminal By Jason Miller
It’s Time to Fire Washington! by Debbie Lewis (Homegrown Terrorism)
One Nation Under Siege – What if everything you were ever told was a lie? (vid; over 18 only)
by Cindy Sheehan
Dandelion Salad
featured writer
Nov. 20, 2007
This pattern of immunity for presidents must stop. Impeaching George Bush for lying to get us into war will not only protect us from him, but also send an unmistakable message to future presidents: Never again. Elizabeth Holtzman, former Congresswoman in the forward to: Constitution in Crisis by Congressman John Conyers, Jr. and Staff
I was recently given an award by the Cranbrook Peace Institute and the ceremonies were held in Detroit, the hometown of Rep. John Conyers. I was pretty surprised that he agreed to introduce me at the event considering that the last time I saw him I was being hauled out of his office in DC in handcuffs and I have been very outspoken about the Democrats failure to hold BushCo accountable. I must give the Congressman a lot of credit to always show up to events where he knows he is going to be harassed about impeachment and he gave me a nice introduction reading part of my testimony in Congress regarding the Downing Street Minutes that Rep. Conyers conducted in a cramped room in the basement of Congress on June 16, 2005. In the intro he called me the “mother of the modern peace movement.”
John Conyers and I have had a cordial relationship that goes back to that June day when we believed that we were taking profound first steps in peacefully and lawfully overthrowing the Bush crime regime. Rep. Conyers wrote the intro to my first book: Not One More Mother’s Child; I am mentioned in his brilliant analysis of the reasons to impeach BushCo and I was with him at the People’s State of the Union in 2006 just hours before I was arrested at the War Pig State of the Union address for wearing a t-shirt. Whenever I am in DC, I just have to call his office and he always makes time to see me. His commitment to our country is decades long: from being a veteran of the military and Civil Right’s campaigns to serving in Congress for over 40 years. He is on the right track by seeking universal, single payer health care. He has been correct on so many issues that progressives hold dear and that’s why it is so puzzling to me and the so many others in the progressive community why he will not institute impeachment proceedings for the criminals who are only getting worse since Conyers wrote the book on impeachment, not better. It’s not as if BushCo has found a new propensity to follow the law and as a matter of fact, the 110th Congress has made a habit of legitimizing and legalizing the crimes.
A brief recount of the reasons Conyers lists for impeachment in his book is: Deception (lies that led to war), manipulation (of intelligence and the tragic events of 9-11), torture (our new AG is not so sure about torture), retribution (against “enemies” i.e.: Valerie Plame and Bunnatine Greenhouse: Halliburton whistleblower), illegal surveillance (which Congress recently approved) and cover-ups. All of the charges are brilliantly documented and proved by John Conyers’ brilliant staff, that has also inexplicably become anti-impeachment along with most of the rest of the failed and failing 110th Congress.
At the peace events in Detroit, I also had the high honor of holding a dialogue with young peace and social justice activists in the Detroit area. A young Hispanic girl had the floor and she recounted the feeling of hopelessness that she and her peers were feeling about the future. She cried when she said: “We feel like we have no future.” If BushCo are allowed to continue their crimes against peace, humanity, civil rights, basic human rights and the environment, unchecked, then the young lady may be tragically correct in her analysis.
The Democratic leadership has made a mockery of our Constitution by excising “awkward” parts out of it. For example, by invoking “Title X” (Contempt of Congress) which is a harsher punishment against protesters that leads to harsher penalties, such as being banished from Capital Hill for a determined amount of time, they have killed the pesky First Amendment Rights to free speech and peaceable assembly.
By confirming Michael Mukasey for Attorney General and approving the Military Commissions Act, Congress has stripped away our Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. By suspending habeas corpus we are denied our Sixth Amendment rights to fair and speedy trials and to confront our accusers with an attorney present. Congress has also abrogated its Constitutionally mandated role of declaring war to a bloodthirsty Executive Branch and have invalidated Article II; Section 4 which states that a President and Vice-President “shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
The Dems were swept back into power off of the backs and energy of the anti-war left and they have betrayed us by surgically removing important parts of the Constitution. Cardinal Mahoney of the Los Angeles Diocese calls such picking and choosing of what to believe or disbelieve in the Church as “Cafeteria Catholicism,” I call disregarding parts the Constitution: “Treason,” and the only way that Congress can redeem itself from infamy is to follow the road map that has been laid out for us centuries ago and declare the phony “War on Terror” over and restore our country to sanity by impeaching the people who have led us down this highway to hell.
We must not let Congress off the hook by allowing them to let BushCo off the hook.
We are collecting handwritten letters to Speaker Pelosi to deliver to her office demanding that Resolution (H Res 799 introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich) to impeach the cruel and callous puppet master, Dick Cheney, be given the attention and resources that are needed to go forward with an indictment in the house and a trial in the Senate on the crimes outlined by the Resolution. We already have a couple thousand and we will deliver them to the Speaker when we reach 10,000. Let’s flood her office with letters as if she is Santa and we want impeachment on our Christmas table.
We need to leave the young people of the world with hope that rule of law will be restored in the US and that future presidents will know that their hands are at least restrained by two co-equal branches when it comes to invading countries contrary to international law, US law, and basic human dignity.
Send your letters demanding the Speaker go forward with HRes 799 to:
Cindy for Congress
1260 Mission St.
San Francisco, Ca 94103
For a sample letter go to: www.CindyforCongress.org
“People before Politics”
Support Cindy for Congress!
www.CindyforCongress.org
Update: Nov. 29, 2007
See:
Kucinich considers GOP Ron Paul as his running mate by Sabrina Eaton (audio)
Update: Nov. 28, 2007
See After the Rep Debate: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell + Ron Paul VP Question (videos)
Update: Nov. 26, 2007
See: Kucinich suggests a Republican running mate by Sabrina Eaton & Stephen Koff
Note: replaced video June 24, 2013
Washington Post caller asks Ron Paul about Dennis Kucinich
Dandelion Salad 