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Saturday 13th March 2010
Glorification of torture and terrorism is becoming common amongst Britain's closest allies. Following on from glorifying Israeli terrorism by Tipi Livni, Karl Rowe does the same for torture. Western civilisational values are being coated by hubristic barbarity. Instead of dealing with these glaring cases of barbarity, officialdom is pre-occupied in framing laws for perceived thought crime(s) by Muslims! Unlike thoughts, we know that glorification of on-going hubristic barbarity has led to Abu Ghuraib, Guantanamo Gulag, Bagram and many other indefensible episodes.
Related Links
Tortured logic of intelligence chief
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Saturday 13th March 2010
Afghans can be forgiven if they think that the NATO "freedom" crusaders are simply glorified murderers. A night raid carried out by US and Afghan gunmen led to the deaths of two pregnant women, a teenage girl and two local officials in an atrocity which Nato then tried to cover up. The operation on Friday, February 12, was a botched pre-dawn assault on a policeman’s home a few miles outside Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, eastern Afghanistan. In a statement after the raid titled “Joint force operating in Gardez makes gruesome discovery”, Nato claimed that the force had found the women’s bodies “tied up, gagged and killed” in a room.
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Saturday 13th March 2010
With the rubbishing of the Obama administration, could the Israeli government make it any more obvious they have no intention of sharing the Over-Promised Land with its other inhabitants? Palestinian land has been relentlessly taken and given to fundamentalist settlers who claim it was given to them by God. They watched while Israeli Prime Ministers said they didn't exist - "there are no Palestinians", announced Golda Meir - or described them as animals: Menachem Begin called them "beasts walking on two legs", while Yitzhak Shamir said they should be "crushed like grasshoppers... heads smashed against the boulders and walls." They tried peacefully resisting, launching a programme of sit-downs and civil disobedience. Yitzhak Rabin responded by ordering the occupying Israeli army to "break their bones." And so today - with the active support of the governments of the Western world - the Palestinians live in a permanent military headlock. Should the Palestinians put their faith in the criminally complicit West or think of a more bolder initiative appealing to the rest of teh "civilised" world?
Related Links
Biden: US has 'no better friend' than Israel
Israel's unfair 'law of return'
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Saturday 13th March 2010
"In our current armed conflicts, there are two U.S. drone offensives. One is conducted by our armed forces, the other by the CIA. Every day, CIA agents and CIA contractors arm and pilot armed unmanned drones over combat zones in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including Pakistani tribal areas, to search out and kill Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. In terms of international armed conflict, those CIA agents are, unlike their military counterparts but like the fighters they target, unlawful combatants. No less than their insurgent targets, they are fighters without uniforms or insignia, directly participating in hostilities, employing armed force contrary to the laws and customs of war. Even if they are sitting in Langley, the CIA pilots are civilians violating the requirement of distinction, a core concept of armed conflict, as they directly participate in hostilities....... If the CIA civilian personnel recently killed by a suicide bomber in Khost, Afghanistan, were directly involved in supplying targeting data, arming or flying drones in the combat zone, they were lawful targets of the enemy, although the enemy himself was not a lawful combatant. It makes no difference that CIA civilians are employed by, or in the service of, the U.S. government or its armed forces. They are civilians; they wear no distinguishing uniform or sign, and if they input target data or pilot armed drones in the combat zone, they directly participate in hostilities -- which means they may be lawfully targeted." Gary Solis in The Washington Times
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Friday 12th March 2010
Turkey has withdrawn its ambassador to Sweden after the parliament voted narrowly to describe as genocide the killing of Armenians in World War I. The Turkish government condemned the resolution, saying it was "based upon major errors and without foundation". The Swedish government opposed the opposition resolution but it passed by one vote after some MPs voted against party lines. It comes days after a US congressional panel passed a similar resolution. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cancelled a visit to Stockholm scheduled next week and issued a statement criticising the vote.
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Friday 12th March 2010
After the elections, Iraq faces a long period of horse-trading as factions struggle to form a coalition government. Estimates suggest a marginal lead for the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law coalition, with Ayad Allawi second – though Allawi has failed to meet similar expectations in the past – and the Iraqi National Alliance (INA) a close third. The leading Kurdish bloc, the Kurdistan Alliance of the PUK and KDP could come either third or fourth. This outcome – which would be the result of the sectarian vote being split – would mean at least a month of horse-trading and uncertainty as parties and blocks jockey for positions of power and concessions on outstanding disputes.
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Wednesday 10th March 2010
With President Hosni Mubarak holding the dubious title of Likudnic neocons most acceptable face of Islam, clerics appointed by him also loose credibility. Meanwhile, a disillusioned Egyptian society is turning inwards at a rapid pace.
Related Links
Egypt's chilling conservatism
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Friday 12th March 2010
The chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, has been summoned to appear next week before an inquiry into devastating riots in 2002.
Mr Modi faces questions over the murder of Congress MP Ehsan Jafri. "Yes, we have summoned Mr Modi," the head of the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) RK Raghavan told the BBC. "On 21 March, we will ask him a few questions. Then we will send a report to the Supreme Court," he said. The court set up the inquiry into the riots in March 2008.
Related Links
India's unequal political landscape
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Wednesday 10th March 2010
The West may "adore" him to bits to gain access to Libya's oil moolah. Libya's despot remains a despised figure everywhere else. This month's Arab League summit hosted by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli has hit a snag. Lebanon is threatening a boycott over the mysterious disappearance of a renowned Lebanese political and religious figure 32 years ago. The inscrutable Gaddafi may have skeletons in his cupboard on this controversy
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Friday 12th March 2010
Balming the financial crisis on accounting gimmicks rather than systemic flaws has become fashionable. The underlying "fraud" undepinning "free market" capitalism is once again laid bare in the detailed report on the collapse of leading US investmetn bank, Lehman Brothers. Unlike petty thieves, these gigantic establishment frausters are expected to return to lucrative jobs after a "decent" pause. Most others are still pocketing massive bonuses for their contribution to society!
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Wednesday 10th March 2010
Soldiers were out in force last night in the troubled Nigerian city of Jos where aid workers were still counting the dead after a sectarian massacre in which hundreds of villagers were hacked to death or burned in their homes. Jos has become an explosive fault line between the country's Muslim dominated north and predominantly Christian south. Sunday's killings left Nigeria's already embattled acting-President Goodluck Jonathan scrambling to avoid a full scale conflict in a state that has been rocked by religious violence in recent years.
Related Links
Jonathan Fires NSA Over Jos Mayhem
Buhari - Yar'Adua's Impeachment Only Viable Option
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