Thursday, November 29, 2007

McCain blames Rise of Hitler on Ron Paul
Not Invading and Occupying other Countries Branded 'Isolationism'

In a new low of despicable looniness, at the Republican debate in St. Petersburg, John McCain equated those Americans who want to stop militarily occupying Iraq with Hitler-enablers. He actually said that, saying that it was 'isolationism' of a sort that allowed Hitler to come to power.

It gives a person a certain amount of faith in one's fellow Americans that McCain was booed by the Republican crowd for this piece of calumny. Comparisons to Hitler should be automatic grounds for a candidate to be disqualified from being president.

But then McCain is the same person who joked about bombing Iran. He thinks that killing all those children from the air would be funny?

McCain also repeated his standard lie that Iraqis would attack the United States if US troops were withdrawn from that country. He contrasted the Vietnamese Communists, who, he said, just wanted to build their workers' utopia in Vietnam once the US left, with Iraqis, who he continues to confuse with Usamah Bin Laden (a Saudi living far from Iraq who never had anything to do with Iraq).

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خالد الهاشمي - جريدة الأيام - البحرين

Khaled alhashemy - alayam newspaper - Bahrain

By FELICE PACE

All Things Considered coverage of the Annapolis meeting reinitiating Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks was a big disappointment. Ordinarily, such an event would prompt ATC to present a solid half hour of coverage, including providing listeners with the historical and factual background needed to understand and interpret the event.

We got the half hour. But in this case, little to no contextual information was provided. Instead ATC editors chose to give us a cute feature (apparently the parking situation today in Annapolis was essential news!) and a story about Syria's attendance--a side aspect of the event that told us nothing new. Even the on-line "time-line" was disappointing. Not only does it commence abruptly in the year 2000, it also assumes "final status" would require "evacuation" of only "some Jewish settlements" located on Palestinian land. Nowhere is it stated that all West Bank Settlements are illegal.

What possible explanation is there for this uncharacteristic lapse in what is a hallmark of ATC's reporting on world events?

Sad to say, the most likely explanation is fear--plain, simple fear.

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Summary

Special Reports:

• Congress Watch: A Conservative Total for U.S. Aid to Israel: $91 Billion—and Counting

• Congressional Research Report on Israel: US Foreign Assistance by Clyde Mark (213K pdf file)

• U.S. Aid To Israel: The Strategic Functions

• U.S. Aid to Israel: What U.S. Taxpayer Should Know

• U.S. Aid to Israel: Interpreting the 'Strategic Relationship'

• The Cost of Israel to U.S. Taxpayers: True Lies About U.S. Aid to Israel

A report Monday on potential terrorist infiltration of the US was based largely on "raw, uncorroborated information" from a source of "unknown reliability."

Given the opportunity to fear-monger, though, the folks at Fox & Friends ignored those caveats and painted a picture of weapon-wielding terrorists who are plotting an attack on a US army base as we speak.

"It was one base in particular ... Fort Huachuca, they have tunnels that go right into it, they have 60 people ... Iraqis and Afghanis, some of which made it through and are still here, coming through with high-powered, lethal weapons to bomb out some of the 12,000 that are housed at that fort," anchor Brian Kilmead warned in that ominous-yet-cheerful tone that is a hallmark of the Fox News morning crew.

Of course, the idea that Mexican smugglers have tunnels that go "right into" a fortified US Army base is ridiculous on its face, although authorities have discovered more than 20 drug-smuggling tunnels leading from Mexico into the US since Sept. 11, 2001.

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by Patrick Tagbo Oguejiofor / November 23rd, 2007

Biafra Revisited
by Professor Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe
Publisher: African Renaissance, Berkshire, England
Pages: 175 pages
Year of Publication: 2007

Biafra Revisited, a book by Professor Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, trained at the Universities of Ibadan and Lancaster and a leading scholar on conflict and change in contemporary Africa and a well-known literary critic, reminds the world of the large-scale killings in Nigeria that took place in 1960s calling for the perpetrators to be punished even more than forty years after they have committed their ‘forgotten’ crimes.

Biafra Revisited is as astounding as it is provocative. It is one angry book the reader can not put down the from moment he starts reading until finishing the last sentence. It is a book full of tears and pain, a tragic history retold and revisited.

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by Keith Harmon Snow / November 23rd, 2007

The Darfur region of Sudan possesses the third largest copper and the fourth largest uranium deposits on the planet, in addition to strategic location and significant oil resources of its own. Is the US-based “Save Darfur” movement snowing the US public on the fundamental nature of the conflict in Sudan? Are “Save Darfur” and the prevention of genocide the covers of convenience for the next round of US oil and resource wars on the African continent?

The Darfur region of western Sudan has been a hotbed of clandestine activities, gunrunning and indiscriminate violence for decades.

“The humanitarian tragedy in Darfur revolves around natural resources… Given current realities, no intervention in Darfur will proceed, and if it did it would fail.”

So opined the authors of the September 2006 OPED “Keeping Peacekeepers out of Darfur” [GN1](DHG, 9/15/06). Now, over a year later, the situation in Sudan is grimmer than ever, the Darfur conflict remains widely mischaracterized, and many of the predictions of that OPED have come true. Meanwhile, the “Save Darfur” advocates pressing military intervention in Darfur as a “humanitarian” gesture have escalated pressure in the face of mounting failures, including allegations that millions of “Save Darfur” dollars fundraised on a sympathy for victims platform have been misappropriated.                                                   More................

The search for Middle East peace started on a discordant note at a meeting with Gush Shalom (peace bloc) spokesperson Uri Avnery, the most notable advocate for a just peace with the Palestinians. Uri used the words “unsure” and “window dressing” to describe the intended conference. He didn’t sense that Hamas, with whom he has close contacts, would agree to a piece of paper and voiced the opinion that Hamas would “only make a truce and not a peace pact.”

Kadima’s Knesset member Amira Dotan spoke of “Annapolis as a symbol,” with its “success defined as starting a process.” Deputy Speaker Dr. Ahmed Tibi said: “The U.S. should create the conditions for making it a success. Its failure will strengthen Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian/Syrian axis.” Other official sources were more open; expressing views that Israel is an army that has a state and Defense Minister Barak is the major culprit in preventing any peace initiative.

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The Spectre of Continental Genocide

by Keith Harmon Snow / November 24th, 2007

President Bush met with Uganda’s President-for-life Yoweri Museveni in the White House on October 30, 2007. Meanwhile, a broad swath of Africa is engulfed in interrelated genocides and covert operations involving both the U.S. and Uganda, there is a growing demand to probe the accounts of “Save Darfur” to find out how the tens of millions collected are being spent due to allegations of arms-deals and bribery, and the “Save Darfur” movement has become the false flag action of the West, supported by most everyone, people who know little or nothing about what it is they are supporting.

When President George Bush met with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni at the White House on October 30 they certainly discussed much more than “Uganda’s leadership in Somalia, the Lord’s Resistance Army, and President Museveni’s development plan for northern Uganda” or their “strong partnership to combat malaria and HIV/AIDS in Uganda,” as announced by the White House Office of the Press Secretary.                                                                                      More................

In fact, indigenous people have offered such a model; since 1970 they have marked the fourth Thursday of November as a Day of Mourning in a spiritual/political ceremony on Coles Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, one of the early sites of the European invasion of the Americas.

Not only is the thought of such a change in this white-supremacist holiday impossible to imagine, but the very mention of the idea sends most Americans into apoplectic fits -- which speaks volumes about our historical hypocrisy and its relation to the contemporary politics of empire in the United States.

That the world's great powers achieved "greatness" through criminal brutality on a grand scale is not news, of course. That those same societies are reluctant to highlight this history of barbarism also is predictable.

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1st Thanksgiving: praying to a Christian god in front of Indians who saved them from starvation

Thursday-Saturday, November 22-24, 2007

This is the time of the year when we are inundated with propaganda about the U.S. holiday, Thanksgiving. Recently, the History Channel showed its rendition. The same old story: weary Pilgrims were taught how to plant crops in the new land of America by some savvy Native Americans. Then, to thank the Indians and God, the Pilgrims held a celebration in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Everybody had a great time. This was brotherhood among human beings at its best. Then, the documentary went forward in time to the 18^th century. What happened between 1621 and 1675 was completely ignored. Most U.S. history books rarely mention the fate of the Indians who helped the Pilgrims survive.

Growing up in the U.S., I was told that we should be thankful and Thanksgiving is the time for this. School teacher-after-school teacher told their students to "thank God" for what they had. There was never any thought or consideration whether the students did not believe in God. God was always present and had to be thanked once a year.

In the sixth grade, I had the audacity to ask the teacher, "What about poor people? Should they be thankful?" I got my cul reamed for making such a flippant inquiry. "Poor people especially have to be thankful," I was told. "God works in mysterious ways." I did not have the nerve to tell her I did not believe in God.

In my 12 years of schooling in Rhode Island and Fall River, Massachusetts, I was taught nothing about Native American culture of the area, except at Thanksgiving. In grammar school, it was obligatory for students to create a drawing with Crayola crayons that depicted the first Thanksgiving: some weary, but benevolent white settlers mingling with Native Americans over a feast. The Indians always looked savage and the whites so civilized.

We also were told that turkey was the main fare for the feast, but again we were told another lie. Fish and small fowl, along with native vegetables, some of which the Pilgrims were unaware, adorned the menu.

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Rami Almeghari writing from the Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine

21-day-old Ahmad Abu Nada with his mother in the intensive care unit of the Gaza Children's Hospital. (Rami Almeghari) November 22, 2007 "We had been waiting for an urgent referral to an outside hospital for the past six days, until he died today," said Dr. Ismail Yassin Monday, in response to the death of one more patient at the Gaza Children's Hospital. Tamer al-Yazji, a 12-year-old chicken pox patient, died on Monday on his hospital bed after his referral to an Israeli hospital had been delayed. Dr. Yassin explained that Tamer's condition had gotten worse over the past few weeks, showing symptoms of blood problems in his brain, so the ill-equipped hospital requested his urgent referral for an MRI scan and follow-up, which meant accessing medical care facilities in Israel or Egypt. Working in less than ideal conditions with fuel supplies cut and medicine not entering the strip, Gaza Children's Hospital is currently hospitalizing a number of patients, including many infants and 10 cases of cardiac disease patients. Director of the hospital's infant intensive care unit, Dr. Shirin Abed, said that her unit provides care to a number of infants who are in bad need of medication. Ahmad Abu Nada, a 21-day-old infant, Dr. Abed said, has been suffering from poor suckling since was born and that his condition is getting much worse. "This baby's condition has been deteriorating and unless he is referred for [outside] medical care, his brain could be damaged in the course of few days or few weeks, so we ask for help. We filed a request to the concerned authorities for his referral, yet we have not received any response," she stated. According to the health care workers at the hospital, usually the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza determines to where a patient will be referred: either to the Israeli Hadasah hospital or to the Palestinian-run al-Maqased hospital in East Jerusalem. Now that the Hamas government has been in complete control of the Gaza Strip since June, the processing of such medical care transfer requests is taking longer than ever. Earlier this month, a breast cancer patient died as her entry to Israel for treatment was delayed. According to hospital officials, Gaza hospitals in general lack basic equipment such as MRI scanners or dialysis machines; therefore, many cases are being referred to outside Gaza every month. In addition to the delay of access of Gaza patients to outside hospitals, mainly Israeli ones, the internal Israeli intelligence agency, the Shabak (Shin Bet) is reportedly pressuring applicants to give information in exchange for permission. "Upon arrival at the Erez crossing in northern Gaza, the Shabak officers start interrogating patients, demanding them to give the Shabak information about friends and neighbors. When a patient refuses to give such information, the Shabak sends him back to Gaza," explained Miri Weingarten of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR), based in Tel Aviv. Weingarten said that PHR had filed a petition to the Israeli high court requesting three demands: allowing treatment for 11 patients enlisted in the petition, allowing all those in need for referral outside Gaza to travel and stopping the Israeli Shabak's interrogation of Gaza patients who cross the Erez checkpoint. "Among the eleven patients we requested for their entry, was Na'el al-Kordi, 21, who died early this week after having been denied access, while four others got the permission, with only two of them managing to enter the Erez checkpoint," Weingarten added. Neither the Israeli government, nor the Israeli high court, has yet responded to PHR's petition or to any other appeals by various local and international bodies to allow smooth access of Gaza patients to treatment outside Gaza. According to PHR, Israel delays the access of 40 patients every month, thus causing death or deterioration of health condition in many cases. In September, Israel declared Gaza a "hostile entity," stepping up attacks on the coastal strip and cutting large quantities of fuel supplies to the 1.4-million-strong population which is dependant on Israel for many basic needs, from water to medication. Israel cites security reasons for all its actions against the Gaza Strip, namely preventing Palestinian resistance factions from firing homemade rockets onto nearby Israeli towns. However, in the words of Weingarten, "It is not a matter of security, it's rather a matter of revenge." Link:  http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m38481&hd=&size=1&l=e