Iran asks Interpol to arrest Israeli war criminals + Israel dismisses Tehran demand

Dandelion Salad

Updated: 3.2.09 Press TV changed the title to this report, and DS added another news report, the Israeli response

Press TV
Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:36:57 GMT

At a news briefing on Sunday, Tehran’s Public Prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, said that Iran had referred the case to the organization, known as Interpol, drawing on the Interpol charter and Israel’s violation of the Geneva Conventions.

“ICPO has notified governments of 180 countries to arrest the suspects,” who were involved in the 23-day Israeli offensive on Gaza in December and January he said.

In December, Iran’s judiciary announced its decision to set up a court to look into complaints made by the Palestinian envoy in Iran and wounded Palestinians delivered to Iran, against Israeli atrocities in Gaza, saying it was ready to try the Israelis in absentia.

[…]

via Press TV – Interpol issues arrest warrants for 15 Israelis (original title)

h/t: CLG

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Updated

Israel dismisses Tehran demand to arrest Israeli ‘war criminals’

By Reuters
16:44 02/03/2009

The foreign ministry on Monday dismissed Iran’s request that Interpol arrest Israeli “war criminals” as a “political stunt.”

“This does not even deserve to be dignified with a comment, this is crude propaganda, it is ridiculous, why don’t they investigate Hamas war crimes?” Palmor asked.

Iran on Sunday had asked Interpol to arrest what it says are 15 Israeli “war criminals” who were involved in the conflict in Gaza in December and January, the Tehran prosecutor said.

[…]

via Israel dismisses Tehran demand to arrest Israeli ‘war criminals’ – Haaretz – Israel News

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.

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Gaza: Death’s Laboratory

The Cleanser – Lobby Whistles Up Cordesman to “Prove” Israel Waged a Clean War in Gaza By Norman Finkelstein

Suspend military aid to Israel, Amnesty urges Obama after detailing US weapons used in Gaza

Focus on Gaza: A Crime of War?

War Crimes

Israel-Palestine-Gaza-Occupation

As Political Crisis Deepens, U.S. Special Forces Secretly Train Pakistani Commandos

Dandelion Salad

byTom Burghardt
Antifascist Calling…
2.28.09

Wednesday’s ruling by Pakistan’s Musharraf-installed Supreme Court to bar former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his younger brother Shabaz, the chief minister of Punjab–the country’s most populous and powerful province–from elected office, has widened that nation’s growing political chasm.

The faux alliance between the two main parties of the capitalist grift, President Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), forged in the wake of the reemergence of Pakistan’s pro-democracy movement in 2007, has definitively broken down, hurtling the country further along the bumpy road of political crisis.

Sharif, every bit as corrupt and venal as Zardari, for tactical reasons hitched the PML-N’s political wagon to the mass movement launched by lawyers’ groups, democracy activists and the labor movement to restore Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Choudhry to office.

The Sharif family, rich Punjabi industrialists, came to prominence during General Zia ul-Haq’s military dictatorship during the 1980s. Sharif, a right-winger with close ties to the Saudi monarchy, spent a comfortable exile in Riyadh after being deposed by Musharraf. Indeed “democracy champion,” the late Benazir Bhutto, had initially welcomed Musharraf’s 1999 coup.

As socialist critic and historian Tariq Ali points out in The Duel, “neither Bhutto’s daughter, Benazir, nor Zia’s protégé, Nawaz Sharif, showed any ability to govern the country in interests other than their own. Clientilism, patronage, and corruption on a gigantic scale were the hallmarks of their weak regimes.”

[…]

via Antifascist Calling…

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Pakistan protest at Sharif ban – 26 Feb 09

AlJazeeraEnglish

A Pakistani court’s decision to continue banning a key opposition figure from politics, and nullify the election of his brother – has drawn angry crowds to the streets. Nawaz Sharif called for demonstrations after Wednesday’s ruling, a move that threatens to reignite long-standing political tensions. Al Jazeera’s Iram Khan reports.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Pakistan protest at Sharif ban – 26 F…“, posted with vodpod

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The Pakistan puzzle, with Gareth Porter

Mosaic News – 2/25/2009: World News From The Middle East

Obama expands US military intervention in Pakistan

Destabilizing Pakistan, America Plays with Fire by Tom Burghardt

Surging towards a US-NATO Military Disaster: Obama’s Escalating War in Central and South Asia by Tom Burghardt

Pakistan on Dandelion Salad

Obama’s helicopter info leaked via P2P

Dandelion Salad

Press TV
Sun, 01 Mar 2009 08:27:44 GMT

A US Defense contractor has reportedly leaked classified military information about Marine One, President Barack Obama’s helicopter.

Triversa, an Internet security monitor headquartered in Pennsylvania, reported late Saturday that a US Defense contractor’s errant use of a file-sharing network has disclosed sensitive Marine One information, including ‘entire blueprints, engineering upgrades, avionic schematics’.

[…]

“What appears to be a defense contractor in Bethesda, MD had a file sharing program on one of their systems that also contained highly sensitive blueprints for Marine One,” Boback said. Tiversa also found information detailing the cost of Marine One.

[…]

via Press TV – Obama’s helicopter info leaked via P2P

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.

Religion and money, the way to complete power – or not? By Siv O’Neall

By Siv O’Neall
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
axisoflogic.com
March 1, 2009

Religion and money have always been the sacred pillars of American civilization, ever since the time when it was a British colony, ever since the Puritans in New England branded the philosophy of the new country as a god-fearing and materialistic new world. Thus it was and thus it still is. Today’s merciless invasions and bombings of various foreign countries is simply a continuation of the century-old U.S. expansionist strategy that has from the very beginning been the trade mark of the self-righteous and the most powerful country in the New World.

Expansionism is part of their religion

Long before Hollywood, television and Disney World surfaced on the horizon of the entertainment-hungry masses, the worship of money and the mostly innocent belief that the one and only God created the world in seven days were the solid corner stones of their society. From there came the convenient belief that the colonists and later the Unites States government had the moral right to decimate the native Americans, to wipe out their culture and to take over their healthy lands in exchange for barren desert land where their souls were stifled, even in those whose bodies survived.

Gates contradicts Mullen on Iran N-case + Mullen: Iran fissile fuel enough for nuke

Dandelion Salad

Press TV
Sun, 01 Mar 2009 22:27:27 GMT

US Defense Secretary says that Iran is not close to having a nuclear weapon, contradicting recent comments made by a US military official.

“They’re not close to a stockpile, they’re not close to a weapon at this point, and so there is some time,” Robert Gates said Sunday on NBC.

This is while earlier in the day, head of the US military Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen in an interview with CNN had stated that Iran had enough fissile material to make a nuclear bomb. “We think they do, quite frankly.”

[…]

via Press TV – Gates contradicts Mullen on Iran N-case

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Mullen: Iran fissile fuel enough for nuke

Press TV
Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:53:54 GMT

US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen says Washington believes Iran has accumulated enough nuclear material to make an atom bomb.

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” program when Mullen was asked whether Iran has enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon, he said, “We think they do, quite frankly.”

[…]

Iran denies the allegation that it is seeking to build a bomb and argues that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – to which it is a signatory – allows for a domestic, civilian nuclear industry.

[…]

via Press TV – Mullen: Iran fissile fuel enough for nuke

see

Israel lobbies for war on Iran

Israel launches covert war against Iran

Iran on Dandelion Salad

Iran Israel US Nukes

The Destabilization of Haiti: February 29, 2004, by Michel Chossudovsky

Dandelion Salad

by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, February 28, 2009
– 2009-02-27

This article was written five years ago in the last days of February 2004 in response to the barrage of disinformation in the mainstream media.

It was completed and published on Global Research on February 29th, the day of President Jean Bertrand Aristide’s kidnapping and deportation, with the complicity of France and Canada.  The article focusses on the history of the US led coup, including its preparations. It also outlines the process of economic destabilization under the helm of the IMF and the World Bank which played a key role in the events leading up to the military coup.

On the fifth anniversary of the US sponsored military coup, which led to the unseating of Haiti’s democratically elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide, the legitimacy of US and allied military presence under UN mandate in Haiti is being actively questioned. A one day conference is being held at the University of Ottawa to debate Canada’s role in Haiti.

To view the live webcast of this event on Feb 28, 9am-5.30pm click below

http://www.mogulus.com/akasantv

Michel Chossudovsky, 28 February 2009

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The armed insurrection which contributed to unseating President Aristide on February 29th 2004 was the result of a carefully staged military-intelligence operation.

The Rebel paramilitary army crossed the border from the Dominican Republic in early February. It constitutes a well armed, trained and equipped paramilitary unit integrated by former members of Le Front pour l’avancement et le progrès d’Haiti (FRAPH), the  “plain clothes” death squadrons, involved in mass killings of civilians and political assassinations during the CIA sponsored 1991 military coup, which led to the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Jean Bertrand Aristide

The self-proclaimed Front pour la Libération et la reconstruction nationale (FLRN) (National Liberation and Reconstruction Front) is led by Guy Philippe, a former member of the Haitian Armed Forces and Police Chief. Philippe had been trained during the 1991 coup years by US Special Forces in Ecuador, together with a dozen other Haitian Army officers. (See Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News, 24 February 2004).

Chavez says Obama same as Bush on drug war

Dandelion Salad

2.28.09

CARACAS (AFP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Saturday condemned a US report on global counternarcotics, saying President Barack Obama is continuing the policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

“Is there a new government in the United States or is it Bush still in power? Obama seems to be a continuation of the Bush era. But it doesn’t matter to me. Regardless of US imperialism, this revolution will continue its course,” Chavez said in a speech.

“The Obama administration has again attacked Venezuela. He said that Venezuela and I, even citing my name, do not cooperate in the fight against drug trafficking. The country that most supports drug trafficking on this planet is the United States.

via AFP: Chavez says Obama same as Bush on drug war

h/t: brian jonestown massacre

see

Barack Obama on Dandelion Salad

Meet the new boss the same as the old boss

Kucinich on Iraq Troop Withdrawal: You Can’t be In and Out at the Same Time + Pelosi on Afghanistan

Dandelion Salad

Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Washington, Feb 27, 2009

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who led the effort in the House of Representatives against the war in Iraq as far back as 2002, today made the following statement after President Obama announced that the combat mission in Iraq will end by August 31, 2010. The President also indicated that between 35-50,000 troops will remain in Iraq to advise and train Iraqi security forces and protect American civilian and military personal.

“I support President Obama for taking a step in the right direction in Iraq, but I do not think that his plan goes far enough. You cannot leave combat troops in a foreign country to conduct combat operations and call it the end of the war.  You can’t be in and out at the same time.

“America must determine at some point to end the occupation, close the bases and bring the troops home. We must bring a conclusion to this sorry chapter in American history where war was waged under false pretense against an innocent people. Taking troops out of Iraq should not mean more troops available for deployment in other operations.

“In February of 2007 I presented H.R. 1234, legislation that would end the war in Iraq, and the process I outlined is still necessary. We should immediately bring home American service members and contractors, convene a regional conference to prepare an international peace-keeping force and accelerate Iraq-driven reconstruction.”

Congressman Kucinich led opposition to the Joint Resolution on Iraq, known as the Iraq war resolution, beginning in 2002, and has consistently opposed funding the ongoing war.

View Kucinich’s 2002 analysis of the Joint Resolution on Iraq here.

View H.R. 1234 here.

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Rachel Maddow Interviews Nancy Pelosi About Afghanistan

Aaron Glantz: The War Comes Home

Dandelion Salad

talkingsticktv

Talk by Aaron Glantz author of “The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle Against America’s Veterans” recorded February 26, 2009 at Town Hall Seattle.