US cable tells of Israel’s ‘harsh measures’

 

US government officials have been well aware of Israel’s harsh methods of dealing with peaceful protests in the occupied Palestinian territory of West Bank for quite some time, according to a recently leaked WikiLeaks diplomatic cable.

A cable from the embassy in Tel Aviv from February 16, 2010, titled “IDF plans harsher methods with West Bank demonstrations”, reveals a premeditated effort by the Israeli army to use force against peaceful demonstrators in the West Bank.

In the cable, the US ambassador to Israel noted that government officials considered any rally as grounds for use of military force.

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The Pending US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement: False Claims Versus Hard Realities

by James Jordan

This article appeared at Upside Down World.

With a little more than a year until the 2012 elections, the White House and Congressional leadership are anxious to pass pending Free Trade Agreements (FTA) as soon as possible.

Most worrisome of all is the pending FTA between the US and Colombia. Corporate leaders and US and Colombian government officials with their public relations operatives are peddling lie after lie to justify passage.

The following guide put together by The Alliance for Global Justice will help people to better understand and counter the falsehoods they will be hearing in the coming weeks.

Distinguishing between fact and fiction with claims regarding the pending US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement

CLAIM: Passing the FTA will put the US in a better position to pressure Colombia to improve its labor and human rights record.

REALITY: US intervention in Colombia has caused more problems than it has helped and the FTA would only make things worse. Recent investigations by the Colombian Attorney General have uncovered extensive US involvement regarding domestic spying by former President Álvaro Uribe’s administration. Information was shared with and analyzed by embassy staff and domestic spying programs were funded by the CIA. Activities included gaining access to the bank accounts, following the families and bugging the offices of Colombian magistrates.

Targets also included labor leaders. According to an August 20, 2011 Washington Post article: “Another unit that operated for eight months in 2005, the Group to Analyze Terrorist Organization Media, assembled dossiers on labor leaders, broke into their offices and videotaped union activists. The United States provided equipment and tens of thousands of dollars, according to an internal DAS report, and the unit’s members regularly met with an embassy official they remembered as ‘Chris Sullivan.'”

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The Coming Conflict

Soumaya Ghannoushi in the Guardian on the emerging conflict between the NATO-backed TNC, which mainly consists of old regime people, and more grassroots revolutionary forces.

After six months of defiant resistance, fiery speeches, chilling threats and blood-curdling brutality, Gaddafi has finally fallen on his sword. His collapse, however, is far from the end of the story. Instead, it heralds the start of a more complicated chapter in his country’s history. As tanks surround Gaddafi’s last outposts in Sirte, the cold war over the country’s future gathers pace. The common enemy has been forced out of the scene, and now the vast differences between those he had brought together return to occupy the centre stage.

The vacuum created by Gaddafi’s departure is now filled by two polarised camps. The first is the National Transitional Council (NTC), made up largely of ex-ministers and prominent senior Gaddafi officials who jumped from his ship as it began to sink. These enjoy the support of Nato and derive their current power and influence from the backing of western capitals. The second is composed of political and military local leaders who have played a decisive role in the liberation of the various Libyan cities from the Gaddafi brigades.

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Faiz Shakir, Author of “Fear, Inc” Report on Islamaphobia

A new report by the Center for American Progress called, “Fear Inc: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,” shows how a small group of self-proclaimed experts backed by a host of donors are spreading fear and hostility toward Muslims in the United States.

In the following clip, Faiz Shakir, an author of the report, speaks with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now.

DSEi: playground of the power elite

by Brenda Heard

DSEi 2009: Guy Tinsley of the Nottingham-based branch of Heckler & Koch, a German arms manufacturer

The images have become commonplace.  Pick-up trucks laden with rocket launchers and machine guns.  Dusty men with their rifles, poised as so many Rambo’s.  Billows of smoke that linger after the bomber has flown on to its next target.  These are the images of contemporary conflict.  Differences of socio-political opinion are settled by bloody confrontation.

True, violent conflict is as old as mankind itself.  True, self-defence is a necessity, even a responsibility.  But the business of war has become the norm rather than the exception.  The significance of this development lies not merely in the multitude of violent and unnecessary deaths—but more so in our readily viewing this reality with a novel brand of bold nonchalance.

In business-speak for international arms dealing, DSEi—Defence & Security Equipment International—boasts that its biennial exhibition ‘provides a time-effective opportunity to meet the whole defence and security supply chain’.  DSEi further promises that this year’s event will exceed attendance figures from 2009: 25,170 attendees; 1280 exhibitors; 98 countries; 70 official delegations; 27 national pavilions.   Just have a look at its slick website offering ‘infinite opportunities’ to those who would jump on the weapons carousel.

The DSEi exhibit organiser, Clarion Events, offers a patronising disclaimer:

While we would all wish to see a world in which no nation has any need of equipment for defence or peacekeeping, it is not the world we live in now.

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UN School of Etiquette: How to Conduct an “Appropriate” Blockade

Just as I arrived in Bil’in for the Friday weekly demonstration, word came that the UN Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Inquiry on the 31 May 2010 Flotilla Incident (a.k.a. “The Palmer Committee Report”) has named the blockade of the Gaza Strip “legal and appropriate”. Which is rather surprising, seeing as the blockade was defined by the UN as “illegal” as well as  “illegal and inhumane”, time and time again. (And again.)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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Crimes Against Humanity

The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4 ran a segment on Amnesty International’s investigation of 88 deaths by torture in Syrian custody in recent months. The 88 include 10 children. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Thousands are missing. Following the report there’s an interview with Andrew Green, a former British ambassador to Syria, and with me. I agree with Andrew Green’s final comment, that the lack of a recognisable alternative to the regime constitutes a major obstruction in the way of the revolution. It does seem, however, that a consensus opposition council is now slowly emerging, including Syrians inside and outside the country, and of a broad range of political inclinations. Best of all, it seems that Burhan Ghalyoun is emerging as the opposition’s leader or figurehead. Ghalyoun is a popular secular intellectual. If Islamist voices are accepting him as a compromise figure, this is proof of their growing maturity.

Here’s the audio:

Norman Mailer vs. Marshall McLuhan

Norman Mailer and Marshall McLuhan expound on violence, alienation and the electronic envelope. The clash of two great minds. (1968)

The Syrian People

picture by Zdzisław Beksiński

walls to scrawl graffitti on

slabs of stone for carving

if you crush it it sings a song

changes colour with a stamping

meat to hang upon a hook

wire conducting electricity

balls to kick around the yard

to reduce to pure simplicity

wet cloth to dessicate

sweet sounds to silence

flaps and buttons to be tugged off

obscenities to be licensed

unruly features to be trimmed and then

punished, then punished, then punished –

the guilty corpse, the damned – to be

punished, dissected, turned inside out

so all the world can see

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