Torture crimes officially, permanently shielded

Salon
Glen Greenwald

In August, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder -- under continuous, aggressive prodding by the Obama White House -- announced that three categories of individuals responsible for Bush-era torture crimes would be fully immunized from any form of criminal investigation and prosecution:  (1) Bush officials who ordered the torture (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld); (2) Bush lawyers who legally approved it (Yoo, Bybee, Levin), and (3) those in the CIA and the military who tortured within the confines of the permission slips they were given by those officials and lawyers (i.e., "good-faith" torturers).  The one exception to this sweeping immunity was that low-level CIA agents and servicemembers who went so far beyond the torture permission slips as to basically commit brutal, unauthorized murder would be subject to a "preliminary review" to determine if a full investigation was warranted -- in other words, the Abu Ghraib model of justice was being applied, where only low-ranking scapegoats would be subject to possible punishment while high-level officials would be protected.

Yesterday, it was announced that this "preliminary review" by the prosecutor assigned to conduct it, U.S. Attorney John Durham, is now complete, and -- exactly as one would expect -- even this category of criminals has been almost entirely protected, meaning a total legal whitewash for the Bush torture regime:

The Justice Department has opened full criminal investigations of the deaths in CIA custody of two detainees, including one who perished at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, U.S. officials said Thursday.

The decision, announced by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., means continued legal jeopardy for several CIA operatives but at the same time closes the book on inquiries that potentially threatened many others. A federal prosecutor reviewed 101 cases in which agency officers and contractors interrogated suspected terrorists during years of military action after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but found cause to pursue criminal cases in only two. . . .

The two token cases to be investigated involve the most grotesque brutality imaginable: they apparently are (1) a detainee who froze to death in an American secret prison in Afghanistan in 2002 after being ordered stripped and chained to a concrete floor, and (2) the 2003 death of a detainee at Abu Ghraib whose body was infamously photographed by guards giving a thumbs-up sign.  All other crimes in the Bush torture era will be fully protected.  Lest there be any doubt about what a profound victory this is for those responsible for the torture regime, consider the reaction of the CIA:

"On this, my last day as director, I welcome the news that the broader inquiries are behind us," said a statement from CIA Director Leon Panetta, who will take over as defense secretary on Friday. "We are now finally about to close this chapter of our agency's history" . . . . At CIA headquarters on Thursday, Holder’s announcement was greeted with relief. . . .

Consider what's being permanently shielded from legal accountability.  The Bush torture regime extended to numerous prisons around the world, in which tens of thousands of mostly Muslim men were indefinitely imprisoned without a whiff of due process, and included a network of secret prisons -- "black sites" -- purposely placed beyond the monitoring reach of even international human rights groups, such as the International Red Cross.

Over 100 detainees died during U.S. interrogations, dozens due directly to interrogation abuse.  Gen. Barry McCaffrey said: "We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A."  Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who oversaw the official investigation into detainee abuse, wrote:  "there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

Thanks to the Obama DOJ, that is no longer in question.  The answer is resoundingly clear: American war criminals, responsible for some of the most shameful and inexcusable crimes in the nation's history -- the systematic, deliberate legalization of a worldwide torture regime -- will be fully immunized for those crimes.  And, of course, the Obama administration has spent years just as aggressively shielding those war criminals from all other forms of accountability beyond the criminal realm: invoking secrecy and immunity doctrines to prevent their victims from imposing civil liability, exploiting their party's control of Congress to suppress formal inquiries, and pressuring and coercing other nations not to investigate their own citizens' torture at American hands.

All of those efforts, culminating in yesterday's entirely unsurprising announcement, means that the U.S. Government has effectively shielded itself from even minimal accountability for its vast torture crimes of the last decade.  Without a doubt, that will be one of the most significant, enduring and consequential legacies of the Obama presidency.

US may make UN funds conditional on Israel's treatment

Jerusalem Post
HILARY LEILA KRIEGER 

House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen: Support for world body must serve US interests and reflect American values.

Talkbacks (54)   WASHINGTON – Members of Congress threatened to withhold US funding for the UN unless it increased transparency, countered a culture of corruption and reformed its Human Rights Council.

Several members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which held a hearing on “The United Nations: Urgent Problems that Need Congressional Action” on Tuesday, took the Geneva-based Human Rights Council to task for singling out Israel and allowing major human rights abusing nations off the hook.

“US policy on the United Nations should be based on three fundamental questions: Are we advancing American interests? Are we upholding American values? And are we being responsible stewards of American taxpayer dollars? Unfortunately, right now, the answer to all three questions is ‘No,’” committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida) said in her opening statement, read in absentia as a family emergency kept her out of town.

“In the past, Congress has gone along by willingly paying what successive administrations asked for – without enough oversight,” she said.

Ros-Lehtinen announced she would be reintroducing legislation that would make American contributions to the UN budget – which now comprise about 20 percent of the total – voluntary.

The US now contributes more than $6 billion a year to the UN, and Republicans have been keen to cut the budget deficit in a time of financial crisis. Several have pointed to international assistance as a key target.

Ros-Lehtinen particularly objected to the US “paying onefifth of the bills for the UN’s anti- Israel activities, including the UN Human Rights Council, a rogues’ gallery dominated by human rights violators who use it to ignore real abuses and instead attack democratic Israel relentlessly.”

Committee ranking member Howard Berman (D-California) agreed that he was “repelled by these examples of corruption, mismanagement and bias” at the UN, including the rights council’s “obsession with and biased treatment of Israel.”

But he defended the organization for also addressing issues important to US interests, including providing peace-keeping missions, humanitarian aid and sanctions resolutions against Iran.

Berman pushed for engagement with rather than defunding of the UN, and similarly pressed the US to make strong use of its position of the rights council rather than walk away, noting its achievements such as keeping Iran out of the body.

He pressed Hillel Neuer, the head of UN Watch and one of the witnesses at the hearing, on whether the US should leave and defund the UN.

Neuer said that his organization supported the US paying all its dues and taking advantage ofits position on the rights council rather than ignoring it. However, he also criticized the US for not doing more.

Though he said that it can’t stop the deluge of resolutions against Israel, despite its best efforts, he did think that it could use the bully pulpit of the council to draw more attention to abuses.

Peru Cancels Canadian-Owned Mine After 6 Protesters Killed In Clash

Internet Free Press

Peru's government canceled a Canadian-owned silver mine in the southern highlands Friday after six people were killed and at least 30 wounded when police fired on mostly indigenous protesters opposing the project.

Protesters also attacked a police station and a state bank in a second city.

The bloodshed occurred when police turned back protesters who tried to take over an airport near the city of Juliaca in Puno state, an area they have paralyzed with road blockades since May 9 in a bid to cancel the Santa Ana mine as well as a proposed hydroelectric project on the Inambari river.

The outgoing government of President Alan Garcia announced after leftist military man Ollanta Humala won the presidential election June 5 that it was scrapping the Inambari project. In April, it canceled a huge copper mining project in another southern state after three protesters died in clashes with police.

Mining accounts for two-thirds of Peru's export earnings and has been the underpinning of a decade of robust economic growth, but the rural poor have benefited little from mining and complain it contaminates their water and crops.

Dr. Percy Casaperalta, who directed the evacuation of wounded after Friday's clash at Manco Capac airport, said at least 4,000 protesters were involved. He provided the toll of six dead and at least 30 wounded by telephone from the local hospital Carlos Monge Medrano.

Television images of the airport showed its perimeter walls breached and tires burning on the tarmac.

Speaking with journalists in Lima, Interior Minister Miguel Hidalgo said police in Azangaro, about 68 kilometers from Juliaca, were “in a difficult situation.” Local radio reports said about 500 protesters angry over the deaths at the airport burned tires and threw rocks at the local police station and a state bank.

Hours after the violence, Deputy Mining Minister Fernando Gala announced that the government had revoked a 2007 decree granting approval to Bear Creek Mining Corp. of Victoria, British Columbia, to mine silver at Santa Ana in Puno. The decree was required because the mine site is within 80 kilometers of an international border, in this case with Bolivia.

Bear Creek's director, Andrew Swarthout, told the Associated Press that the company had not received formal notification of the decree's revocation.

He said any government attempt to cancel the project would be illegal and amount to “expropriation.”

Israel warns media against boarding Gaza flotilla

Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel on Sunday threatened to ban international journalists for up to a decade from the country if they join a flotilla planning to breach the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The warning reflected Israeli jitters about the international flotilla, which comes just over a year after a similar mission ended in the deaths of nine Turkish activists in clashes with Israeli naval commandos.

Israel is eager to avoid a repeat of last year's raid, which drew heavy international condemnations and ultimately forced Israel to loosen a blockade on Hamas-controlled Gaza. Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent Hamas from smuggling weapons into the territory.

It remains unclear when the current flotilla will actually set sail, but organizers have hinted it could be as soon as this week.

In a letter to foreign journalists, the Government Press Office's director, Oren Helman, called the flotilla "a dangerous provocation that is being organized by western and Islamic extremist elements to aid Hamas."

"I would like to make it clear to you and to the media that you represent, that participation in the flotilla is an intentional violation of Israeli law and is liable to lead to participants being denied entry into the State of Israel for 10 years, to the impoundment of their equipment and to additional sanctions," Helman said.

The letter, he added, had been reviewed and approved by Israel's attorney general.
Organizers of the flotilla say the mission is necessary to draw attention to the plight of Gaza's 1.6 million residents. The Israeli blockade has caused heavy damage to Gaza's economy: Unemployment is estimated at close to 50 percent, and the territory still suffers from a shortage of badly needed construction materials.

Hizbollah members 'confess to spying for CIA'

Telegraph

Hassan Nasrallah

Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Friday announced that members of his militant movement had confessed to being CIA agents and accused arch-foe Israel of turning to the US spy agency when it failed to infiltrate his Iran-backed party.

In the first such acknowledgement of infiltration since the group's founding in the 1980s, Nasrallah refused to disclose the identities of the two party members but said a third case was under investigation, slamming the US embassy in Lebanon as a "den of spies."

"When the Israeli enemy failed to infiltrate Hizbollah, it turned to the most powerful intelligence agency," Nasrallah said in a television speech broadcast in Lebanon, referring to the Central Intelligence Agency.

"Our investigation has found that ... intelligence officers (in the CIA) have recruited two of our members separately, whom we shall not name out of respect for the privacy of their families," he added.

"The first confessed he was recruited five months ago ... while the second confessed he had been recruited even before that," he said, adding that the recruiters were CIA agents posing as diplomats at the US embassy east of Beirut.

Video of Previous Act of Israeli Piracy Against Flotilla Mavi Mamara

Exclusive: Top U.S. admiral admits we are trying to kill Qaddafi

ForeignPolicy
Josh Rogin

U.S. Admiral Samuel Locklear

The top U.S. admiral involved in the Libya war admitted to a U.S. congressman that NATO forces are trying to kill Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi. The same admiral also said he anticipated the need for ground troops in Libya after Qaddafi falls, according to the lawmaker.

House Armed Services Committee member Mike Turner (R-OH) told The Cable that U.S. Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of the NATO Joint Operations Command in Naples, Italy, told him last month that NATO forces are actively targeting and trying to kill Qaddafi, despite the fact that the Obama administration continues to insist that "regime change" is not the goal and is not authorized by the U.N. mandate authorizing the war.

"The U.N. authorization had three components: blockade, no fly zone, and civil protection. And Admiral Locklear explained that the scope of civil protection was being interpreted to permit the removal of the chain of command of Qaddafi's military, which includes Qaddafi," Turner said. "He said that currently is the mission as NATO has defined."

"I believed that we were [targeting Qaddafi] but that confirmed it," Turner said. "I believe the scope that NATO is pursuing is beyond what is contemplated in civil protection, so they're exceeding the mission."

Israeli Undercover Agents Boast of Killing Palestinians on TV

Gilad Atzmon

Undercover Israeli intelligence officers appeared on national television Saturday to talk about assassinating Palestinians in a program broadcast on Israel's Channel 10.

Oren Beaton presented a photo album of Palestinians he killed during his time as a commander of an undercover Israeli unit operating in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Beaton explained that he kept photos of his victims.

"This is a photo of a Palestinian young man called Basim Subeih who I killed. This is another young man. I shredded his body, and the photo shows the remnants of his body," he said.

The TV program also featured an undercover agent referred to as "D", who openly admitted killing "wanted Palestinians."

He complained of suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and said that the state had rejected his demands for compensation.

The Channel 10 presenter appealed to the Israeli government to meet the agent's demands.

"Those are the Shin Bet agents we only hear about and never see, and thanks to them we live safely," she said.

The report was filmed in the Palestinian territories, and showed agents wandering around the streets of Ar-Ram in occupied East Jerusalem with handguns under their shirts, illustrating that the agents were still operating in Palestinian cities.

The agents, who speak fluent Arabic, are shown surrounded by masked Palestinian collaborators secretly deployed to the area to protect them.

The program provided previously unconfirmed details about the operational methods of undercover agents.

The report explained that officers conducted surveillance before an assassination, investigating the target's friends and classmates.

Use of drones sparks debate in US military

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Large or small, drones raise questions about the growing disconnect between the American public and its wars.

Military ethicists concede that drones can turn war into a video game, inflict civilian casualties and, with no Americans directly at risk, more easily draw the United States into conflicts.

Drones have also created a crisis of information for analysts on the end of a daily video deluge.

Not least, the Federal Aviation Administration has qualms about expanding their test flights at home, as the Pentagon would like.

Last summer, fighter jets were almost scrambled after a rogue Fire Scout drone, the size of a small helicopter, wandered into Washington’s restricted airspace.

Within the military, no one disputes that drones save American lives.

Many see them as advanced versions of “stand-off weapons systems,” like tanks or bombs dropped from aircraft, which the United States has used for decades.

“There’s a kind of nostalgia for the way wars used to be,” said Deane-Peter Baker, an ethics professor at the US Naval Academy, referring to noble notions of knight-on-knight conflict.

Drones are part of a post-heroic age, Baker said. In his view, it is not always a problem if they lower the threshold for war.

“It is a bad thing if we didn’t have a just cause in the first place,” he said. “But if we did have a just cause, we should celebrate anything that allows us to pursue that just cause.”

The debate over drones is like debating the merits of computers in 1979, according to Peter W. Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution and the author of “Wired for War.”

Drones are here to stay, and the boom has barely begun, Singer argued. “We are at the Wright Brothers Flier stage of this.”

Help Us Transmit This Story

&   Add to Your Blogger Account
    Put it On Facebook
    Tweet this post
    Print it from your printer
     Email and a collection of other outlets
     Try even more services

Six Yemenis injured in US drone attack

PressTV

At least six Yemeni civilians have been wounded in a non-UN-sanctioned US drone attack in Abyan Province in south of the country.

The Saturday strike came after a US decision to escalate drone attacks in Yemen, under the pretext of curbing what it calls a growing terror threat in the country.

In Mid-June the Central Intelligence Agency said it was preparing to take charge of the drone strikes in Yemen.

Since December 2009, US strikes in Yemen have been carried out by the US military with intelligence support from the CIA. Now, the spy agency will carry out aggressive drone strikes itself alongside the military campaign, which has been stepped up in recent weeks after a nearly yearlong hiatus.

The Yemeni government has denounced the use of the drone attacks by the American forces.

Officials with Yemen's Defense Ministry have confirmed that the US has been launching drone strikes on a daily basis against the nation in June, with more than 15 confirmed strikes already this month. The deputy governor of Abyan Province said that at least 130 were killed in those attacks.

Although, Washington claims its drone attacks are aimed at targeting militants, civilians have also fallen victims to the strikes. According to the Yemeni officials, 28 out of more than 60 civilians killed in the US drone attacks are children.

SWAT killing is, "justified"?

Examiner
William Heuisler

"Justified" is a strange word to use about the mistaken, unnecessary death of a homeowner. “Justified,” sounds almost triumphant – or self-satisfied – about tragic incompetence.
Yesterday afternoon the Pima County Attorney’s Office said Pima County SWAT members who fired 71 shots at Marine veteran, Jose Guerena (and into a surrounding neighborhood) were “reasonable and justified”. Chief Criminal Deputy David Beckman reported, "Under the circumstances, and based upon our review of all the available evidence, we have concluded that the use of deadly force by the SWAT Team members was reasonable and justified under the law. Accordingly the Pima County Attorney's Office finds no basis to prosecute." (KGUN 9 TV) http://www.kgun9.com/story/14900676/tucson-swat-officers-cleared

A County Attorney states the obvious, and Tucsonans are expected to sigh in relief.

The County Attorney has confirmed there was no intentional criminal act committed by SWAT on May 5th. More important, the County Attorney specified there was not enough evidence to charge the SWAT team with a crime.

For criminal prosecution, intent must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court. Not a chance.
But there never was a question of criminal liability. The question was of incompetence and reckless disregard for the safety of innocent civilians. The question was about the briefing, timing, method and training of an assault team on a disastrous search warrant.

The team did not commit a crime. No one with real knowledge of our justice system and our laws ever accused the ill-chosen SWAT team of committing a crime. Their actions, statements and video showed a badly prepared and poorly led group of men placed in a deadly situation by incompetent superiors. Community condemnation is not for those who shot Jose Guerena in his home, but for those who implemented those policies of clumsy overreaction and needless overkill in pursuit of an erratic drug investigation.

A Marine veteran with no criminal record was shot in his home; a young widow and two small sons are without a husband and father; a residential neighborhood was sprayed with bullets. And Tucsonans are told the SWAT raid and responses were "reasonable and justified”?

Where is the remorse, admission, and abject apology from our County Sheriff?

US to Sign Trade Agreement with Colombia, The Deadliest Place on Earth for Unionists

North American Interpress Service

Two days ago, on Jun. 7, Ana Fabricia Cordoba was killed in the Santa Cruz neighbourhood of Medellin, Colombia. A community leader with the women's organisation Ruta de Pacifica de Mujeres working with displaced workers, Cordoba had been receiving death threats, which she reported to the police and national government.

Her pleas were met with silence and finally with bullets.

Cordoba's untimely death coincides with renewed efforts by free-trade advocates in Washington to pressure the United States Congress to pass the long-debated U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA), a deal brokered in 2006 by then-U.S. President George W. Bush that is now inching closer to ratification by U.S. President Barack Obama and Colombia's recently elected Juan Manual Santos.

According to the White House fact sheet on the FTA – which is slated to be voted on before the August recess – the agreement would immediately slash 70 percent of tariffs on U.S. farm exports to Colombia, as well as phase out a host of other trade barriers, such as the Andean Price Bands, within a five to 15 year timeframe, allowing an unchecked flow of labour, goods and services between the two countries.

While U.S. exporters and multinationals are lobbying hard for the administration to sign and seal the deal, labour organisers and advocates have red-flagged Colombia's bloody track record of violence and impunity in order to hinder its passage.

"U.S. organised labour has raised a stink about the murder of unionists in opposition to the [FTA] but the real story of labour organising in Colombia is a positive one," Dan Griswold, director of the Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies (CTPS) at the Cato Institute, said at a panel discussion in Washington Wednesday.

Referencing several studies by the CTPS on murder rates in Colombia, which calculate the homicide rate for the overall population to be six times higher than for union members, Griswold concluded that fears of rights violations and extra-judicial killings of union leaders should be chalked up to the general violence in the country and not used as an excuse to halt the FTA.

"Colombia contains 45 million upwardly mobile consumers of U.S. products, making them the third largest consumer of U.S. exports," Griswold said. "The economic advantages to zero-tariffs are indisputable and will result in a win-win situation for both sides."

No-win for unions, labour organisers

Counted a different way – from the perspective of millions of displaced labourers, families of murdered labour organisers, defenders of trade unions and proponents of agricultural workers' rights – the situation is akin to a slowly unfolding nightmare.

On Wednesday, the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) released its annual survey of violations of trade union rights, which singled out Colombia as the most dangerous place in the world for trade unionists.

The report documented 49 union member deaths in Colombia in 2010 alone, bringing the total number of slain unionists since 1986 to nearly 3,000. In fact, more than half the assassinated union organisers between 2005 and 2009 were Colombian.

"The rules in the FTA exist to strengthen protections for investors, to tilt the field towards business interests and away from workers," Karen Hansen-Kuhn, international programme director of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), told IPS. "So there is every reason to believe that labour conditions will not improve after its implementation."

Manuela Chavez, the human rights officer for the Human and Trade Unions Rights Department at the ITUC, believes that the FTA will pave the way for multinational corporations (MNCs), whose quest for quick profits in the region is often coupled with scant regard for labour rights.

"Not only are [MNCs] killing trade unionists, they are also killing trade unions themselves," Chavez told IPS. "There is no more collective bargaining power and the rates of association in Colombia are terribly low – somewhere between five and seven percent. Allowing the FTA will be like giving the Colombian government an award for doing nothing for its workers."

Labor action plan: too little, too late?

To mute domestic outcry, Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Miriam Sapiro and Colombian Ambassador Gabriel Silva presented a Labor Action Plan on Apr. 7, which has been blasted by organisations such as the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Education in the Americas Project (USLEAP) for falling "far short" of the impetus required to compel Santos to comply with international labour law.

An Apr. 13 USLEAP statement claimed, "the Plan does not require an actual reduction in violence against trade unionists or advances on impunity& does not address& human rights violations, militarization, impact on agriculture, internal displacement or the rights of Afro- Colombians, and provides no way to ensure compliance once the Colombia FTA is implemented."

"There is a historical pattern here that is quite disturbing," Adam Isacson, senior associate for regional security policy at the Washington Office on Latin America, told IPS.

"The year before the U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), union member killings dropped precipitously. The year after it was ratified we saw a sharp increases in killings of unionists especially in Guatemala and Honduras." "Colombia still hasn't managed to investigate, try or punish even the most recent union killings – there is neither the political will nor the judicial capacity to ever get the trigger pullers, much less the actual people behind the killings, behind bars," he added.

Corporate-security collaboration

The fact that paramilitaries, government security forces and corporate interests are closely linked in Colombian society only compounds the crisis further.

Michael Evans, director of the Colombia Documentation Project at the National Security Archive – who recently exposed Chiquita Brands International for making millions of dollars worth of "security" payments to illegal armed groups in Colombia – told IPS that opponents of the FTA in the U.S. are seriously questioning the wisdom of a deal that nurtures economic ties with a country where "much of the economy remains in the hands of violent criminal gangs with a history of ties to Colombian politicians and security force members."

"Security is paramount for big multinational corporations operating in Colombia - Chiquita's payments to armed groups were simply [called] the "cost of doing business in Colombia"," Evans told IPS.

"Today, dozens of Colombian politicians, military officers and intelligence officials stand accused or have been convicted of collaboration with paramilitary forces responsible for thousands of killings, many of them unionists and left-leaning politicians," he added.

"In many cases, victims of paramilitary violence have waited more than 10 years for justice. We're now only beginning to understand how these illegal networks operated - the Chiquita Papers show us that strengthened commercial ties do not necessarily translate into greater respect for human rights or the rule of law."

Obama Attempts to Secretly Meet Bahrain’s Crown Prince

Wall Street Journal
By Carol E. Lee and Jay Solomon

President Barack Obama will meet with the crown prince of Bahrain at the White House on Tuesday, an administration official said. But in a show of how delicate relations with the U.S. ally have become, the sit-down is not officially on the president’s schedule.

Instead Mr. Obama will “drop by” a meeting that Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has Tuesday afternoon with National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, the administration official said.

The White House said last week that senior officials would use Prince Salman’s visit to push for political reforms in Bahrain, where the government’s harsh response to uprisings has created a diplomatic challenge for Washington, because of the Khalifa family’s role in helping U.S. efforts to combat terrorism and Iran’s nuclear program.

Last week, a senior administration official said the White House views Prince Salman as “a serious interlocutor” and believes there is “value in engaging with him directly.” The official said the White House sees as a “positive sign” the recent call from Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa for a national dialogue.

In a speech at the State Department last month, Mr. Obama criticized the crackdown in Bahrain, including the government’s detainment of hundreds of political prisoners.

It is unclear how long the president will spend with the crown prince on Tuesday. The White House does not plan to open any portion of the meeting to media coverage. The administration official said the White House will issue a written statement afterwards.

Formal calls for probe into reporter's name on no-fly list

CNN

A House representative said Thursday she is requesting an investigation after learning a CNN reporter was put on the federal no-fly list shortly after his investigation of the Transportation Security Administration.

Michael Chertoff:  Has a stake in the TSA machines

Sheila Jackson Lee

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas asked Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff about "a curious and interesting and troubling phenomenon" that CNN Investigative Correspondent Drew Griffin was added to the list.

"My question is, why would Drew Griffin's name come on the watch list, post-his investigation of TSA?" Jackson Lee said.

"What is the basis of this sudden recognition that Drew Griffin is a terrorist? Are we targeting people because of their critique or criticism?"

In response, Chertoff said it was "not my understanding the reporter was put on," but that Griffin may share a name with someone put on the list.

"We do have circumstances where we have name mismatches," he said.
Griffin learned in May he was on the list, about two months after he reported on the federal air marshals program.

In a March story, Griffin reported that of the 28,000 commercial flights taking off in the United States every day, fewer than 1 percent have on-board, armed federal air marshals on board.
In response to Griffin's story, TSA said on its Web site that it would not disclose the number of air marshals flying on a daily basis so as not to "tip our hand to terrorists."

"The actual number of flights that air marshals cover is thousands per day," read a statement on the Web site.

Jackson Lee said she was using Griffin as an example. Committee members noted during the meeting that Congressman John Lewis, D-Georgia, is also on the no-fly list and has been trying for years to get removed.

"He's still having trouble," said committee chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, showing a letter from Lewis.

"And according to this letter, it's still not happening," Thompson said, "even to the point that the department gave him a letter attesting that he was John Lewis and he should be allowed to get on planes."

He asked Chertoff to "find out how many other John Lewises are out there, who are having difficulty explaining to the department who they are so they can get off this no-fly list. We see more and more of it happening and I know Sen. Kennedy had a problem with it, and for whatever reason it was worked out."

Chertoff said he would be "happy" to help Lewis in his efforts to get removed from the list.

Former Egyptian Interior Minister Accused of Collusion in Alexandria Church Bombing

Vlad Tepes

The Egyptian attorney general has reopened the investigation into the bombing of the Two Saints Church in Alexandria on New Year’s Eve, which killed 24 Copts and injured more than 90. On May 25 Coptic Church attorney Joseph Malak presented a petition to the Attorney General to reopen the investigations into the church bombing. The petition accused former Minister of Interior, Habib el-Adly, of criminal responsibility and collusion.


The Attorney General assigned the case to the Supreme State Security Prosecution to question the former Minister of Interior, who is presently in prison on other charges, including ordering the shooting of more than 900 protesters in Tahrir Square on January 28.

“We expect el-Adly to appear for interrogation before prosecution within the next few days,” said Malak in an interview on Egyptian TV. He said that everyone was surprised when in mid April it was reported that all 20 Muslim suspects in the church attack were released and that they had been held as “political detainees.”
 



The bombing of the church shocked Egypt and the world and brought international condemnation of Egypt, including from Pope Benedict, for not protecting its Christian minority against violence, especially as Egyptian churches had received repeated threats of retaliatory action from al-Qaida militants in Iraq, immediately after the massacre of 58 Assyrians at Our Lady of Deliverance Church in Baghdad.

In both the Iraq and Egypt attacks the reason was allegedly over female Christian-converts to Islam who were held against their will by the Coptic Church. The Coptic church has denied the accusation.
The lack of security forces guarding the threatened Egyptian churches was heavily criticized, especially as the security forces withdrew nearly one hour before the blast, leaving only four policemen and an officer to guard the church and nearly 2000 people attending the midnight mass. Coptic activists had called at the time for the resignation of Habib el-Adly, who was then Interior Minister, and pointed fingers at Muslim Salafists in Egypt (AINA 1-2-2011). Following this announcement and the arrest three weeks later of 20 suspects in the church bombing, a media blackout was imposed by the General Prosecutor’s Office.

The church in Alexandria assigned Malak to pursue the case. “I had an unofficial meeting with the prosecution in Alexandria, requesting information on the decision to release the suspects in the church bombing, the disclosure of the investigations conducted with them, as well as the progress in the case and if it was still open.”

Malak said he was stunned to learn the case had been “frozen” since January 25 and the file was transferred to the Supreme State Security Prosecution. Also, there were no accused, as previously claimed by the Interior Minister, and those who were detained were never investigated. “I was told by prosecution that they do not even have the names of the accused, and the only role they played was investigating the witnesses and the injured.”

Malak said he sent a complaint to the Military Council, but never received a reply, so he approached the Attorney General.

“We believe the Interior Minister had a security breach and there was a certain security policy which was evident in this case.” He added that after the Egyptian church got direct and clear threats from Al-Qaida in November 2010, the security forces should have been fully prepared for this threat.
On January 23, 2011, during Police Day celebrations, Habib el-Adly accused the Palestinian group Army of Islam, which has links to Al-Qaeda, of having masterminded the New Year’s church attack in Alexandria, an accusation denied by the group. But the Interior Minister stood by his accusation and named an Egyptian, Ahmad Lotfi Ibrahim, of being the group’s accomplice and who had admitted in writing to his involvement.

An Al-Qaida affiliated group calling itself the “Salafist Combat Group in Iraq” claimed responsibility for the Alexandria church attack. A statement from the group said that a combat battalion went from Iraq to Egypt to perform the operation in order to launch what they called “the release of Muslim captive women from the prisons of the Coptic Church.” The group noted that one of its agents blew himself up.

“After the attack we got mixed messages,” said Coptic activist Mark Ebeid, “was it a car bomb which detonated in front of the church or was it a suicide bomber? No one knows what happened.”
The current Interior Minister, Mansour al-Issawi, ordered on June 1 the arrest of the main suspect in the church bombing, Ahmad Lotfi Ibrahim.
By Mary Abdelmassih

Is The Willis Tower Being Set Up For A False Flag Terror Attack?

A Shameless Secretary General versus Freedom Flotilla 2

Richard Falk

It is expected that at the end of June, Freedom Flotilla 2 will set sail for Gaza carrying various forms of humanitarian aid, including medical, educaional, and construction materials. This second flotilla will consist of 15 ships, including the Mavi Marmara sailing from Istanbul, but also vessels departing from several European countries, and carrying as many as 1500 humanitarian activists as passengers. If these plans are carried out, as seems likely, it means that the second flotilla will be about double the size of the first that was so violently and unlawfully intercepted by Israeli commandos in international waters on May 31, 2010, resulting in nine deaths on the Turkish lead ship.

            Since that shocking incident of a year ago the Arab Spring is transforming the regional atmosphere, but it has not ended the blockade of Gaza, or the suffering inflicted on the Gazan population over the four-year period of coerced confinement. Such imprisonment of an occupied people has been punctuated by periodic violence, including the sustained all out Israeli attack for three weeks at the end of 2008 during which even women, children, and the disabled were not allowed to leave the deadly killing fields of Gaza. It is an extraordinary narrative of Israeli cruelty and deafening international silence, a silence broken only by the brave civil society initiatives in recent years that brought both invaluable symbolic relief in the form of empathy and human solidarity, as well as token amounts of substantive assistance in the form of much needed food and medicine. It is true that the new Egypt has opened the Rafah crossing a few days ago (but not fully or unconditionally), allowing several hundred Gazans to leave or return to Gaza on a daily basis. At best, this opening even if sustained provides only partial relief. Rafah is not currently equipped to handle goods, and is available only to people and so the blockade of imports and exports continues in force, and may even be intensified as Israel vents its anger over the Fatah/Hamas unity agreement.

            As the Greek coordinator of Freedom Flotilla 2, Vangelis Pisias, has expressed the motivation of this new effort to break the blockade: “We will not allow Israel to set up open prisons and concentration camps.”  Connecting  this Gazan ordeal to the wider regional struggles,” Pisias added, “Palestine is in our heart and could be the symbol of a new era in the region.” Such sentiments reinforce the renewal of Palestinian militancy as exhibited in the recent Nabka and Naksa demonstrations.

            A highly credible assessment of the Israeli 2010 attack on Freedom Flotilla 1 by a fact finding mission appointed by the UN Human Rights Council concluded that the Israelis had violated international law in several respects: by using excessive force, by wrongfully attacking humanitarian vessels in international waters, and by an unacceptable claim to be enforcing a blockade that was itself unlawful. Such views have been widely endorsed by a variety of respected sources throughout the international community, although the panel appointed by the UN Secretary General to evaluate the same incident has not yet made public its report, and apparently its conclusions will be unacceptably muted by the need to accommodate its Israeli member.

            In light of these surrounding circumstances, including the failure of Israel to live up to its announced promise after the attack in 2010 to lift the blockade, it shocks our moral and legal sensibilities that the UN Secretary General should be using the authority of his office to urge member governments to prevent ships from joining Freedom Flotilla 2. Ban Ki-moon shamelessly does not even balance such a call, purportedly to avoid the recurrence of violence, by at least sending an equivalent message to Israel insisting that the blockade end and demanding that no force be used by Israel in response to humanitarian initiatives of the sort being planned. Instead of protecting those who would act on behalf of unlawful Palestinian victimization, the UN Secretary General disgraces the office, by taking a one-sided stand in support of one of the most flagrant and long lasting instances of injustice that has been allowed to persist in the world. True, his spokesperson tries to soften the impact of such a message by vacuously stating that “the situation in the Gaza Strip must be changed, and Israel must conduct real measures to end the siege.” We must ask why were these thoughts not expressed by the Secretary General himself and directly to Israel? Public relations is part of his job, but it is not a cover for crassly taking the wrong side in the controversy over whether or not Freedom Flotilla 2 is a legitimate humanitarian initiative courageously undertaken by civil society without the slightest credible threat to Israeli security and in the face of Israeli warnings of dire consequences.

            Appropriately, and not unexpectedly, the Turkish Government refuses to bow to such abusive pressures even when backed by the UN at its highest level. Ahmet Davutoglu, the widely respected Turkish Foreign Minister, has said repeatedly in recent weeks when asked about Freedom Flotilla 2, that no democratic government should ever claim the authority to exercise control over the peaceful initiatives of civil society, as represented by NGOs. Davutoglu has been quoted as saying “[N]obody should expect from Turkey…to forget that nine civilians were killed last year..Therefore we are sending a clear message to all those concerned. The same tragedy should not be repeated again.” Underscoring the unresolved essential issue he asked rhetorically, “[D]o we think that one member state is beyond international law?” Noting that Israel has still not offered an apology to Turkey or compensation to the families of those killed, Davutoglu makes clear that until such reasonable preconditions for diplomatic normalization are met, Israel should not be accepted “to be a partner in the region.

             In the background of this sordid effort to interfere with Freedom Flotilla 2 is the geopolitical muscle of the United States that blindly (and dumbly) backs Israel no matter how outrageous or criminal its behavior. And undoubtedly, this geopolitical pressure helps explain this attempted interference by the UN with a brave and needed humanitarian initiative that deserves to be strongly supported by the UN rather than condemned. Despite the near universal verbal objections of world leaders, including even Ban Ki-moon, to the Israeli blockade, no meaningful action has been yet taken by either governments or the UN. Israel’s undisguised defiance of the requirements of belligerent occupation of Gaza as set forth in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and the First Additional Protocol appended thereto in 1977, is an unacknowledged scandal of gigantic proportions.

            Liberating Palestine from oppressive occupation and refugee regimes should become a unifying priority for peoples and leaders during this second stage of the Arab Spring. Nothing could do more to manifest the external as well as the internal turn to democracy, constitutional governance, and human rights than displays of solidarity by new and newly reformist governments in Arab countries with this unendurably long Palestinian struggle for justice and sustainable peace. It would also offer the world a contrast with the subservience to Israel recently on display in Washington, highlighted by inviting Benjamin Netanyahu to address an adoring U.S. Congress, a rarity in the country’s treatment of foreign leaders. Its impact was heightened by the pandering speech given by President Obama to AIPAC, the notorious Israeli lobbying organization, at about the same time. It is unprecedented in the history of diplomacy that a leading sovereign state would so jeopardize its own global reputation and sacrifice its values to avoid offending a small allied partner. It is in the American interest, as well as in the interest of the peoples of the Arab world, particularly the Palestinians, to end the conflict.

             The United States Government has long discredited itself as an intermediary in the conflict. Its partisanship, driven mainly by domestic politics, represents a costly sacrifice of its own interests, but is also objectionable as lending support to intolerable Israeli policies of apartheid occupation and colonialist expansionism. It is time to shift the locus of diplomatic responsibility for resolving the conflict from Washington to the far more geopolitically trustworthy auspices of Brazil, Turkey, Nordic countries, even possibly Russia or China, and to encourage a more active regional role. If the encouraging recent Fatah/Hamas unity arrangements hold up and move forward, Palestinian representation will be regarded as increasingly credible, and hopefully will actively incorporate elements of the refugee communities in the bordering countries into their diplomacy. It is time for the world to realize, and the Palestinians to highlight, that the conflict is not just about territory (‘land for peace’), or even to ensure an adequate Palestinian presence in Jerusalem, it is most fundamentally about people. Insisting on respect for the moral, legal, and political rights of Palestinian refugees is the litmus test of a people-centered approach to the conflict, and should not be allowed to drift off into peripheral space, as has happened in the past.

Group protests SWAT death of Tucson Marine

AZFamily



TUCSON, Ariz. – The death of a former Marine near Tucson continues to stir controversy.

A group spent this Memorial Day protesting the SWAT raid which led to his death. Investigation documents reveal officers seized guns, banking documents and other items from the home but did not find drugs or cash.

The original search warrants, along with other documents relating to the investigation, remain sealed.

Jose Guerena, 26, had no history of violent crime but was listed as a possible suspect in a complex drug investigation.

On May 5, officers raided four homes around Tucson including Guerena's in connection with the drug case.

When they arrived to serve the search warrant, Guerena reportedly grabbed a gun. He didn't aim it at officers but they opened fire, shooting him 60 times. 

The Pima County Sheriff's Office maintains the officers followed protocol during the raid.

A group called the Oath-keepers, made of former officers and service members, led a protest of the raid Monday.

"The SWAT team never should have been there. It's a problem to put trained individuals against each other. Having officers come face-to-face with a veteran Marine in his home is unnecessary," said Stewart Rhodes, the head of the Oath-keepers group.
Print

UN Secretary-General trying to scupper flotilla plans

My Catbird Seat
Stuart Littlewood

Blockade illegal… collective punishment illegal… interception illegal…

The UN called for “unimpeded” humanitarian assistance for Gaza

So why is the Secretary-General trying to scupper latest flotilla plans? 

It’s in the report of the UN fact-finding mission set up by the Human Rights Council to investigate violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, resulting from the Israeli attacks a year ago on the flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian assistance to Gaza, during which nine people were killed and many others injured.

Reporting last September the Mission was “satisfied that the blockade was inflicting disproportionate damage upon the civilian population in the Gaza Strip and that as such the interception could not be justified and therefore has to be considered illegal…

“The Mission considers that one of the principal motives behind the imposition of the blockade was a desire to punish the people of the Gaza Strip for having elected Hamas. The combination of this motive and the effect of the restrictions on the Gaza Strip leave no doubt that Israel’s actions and policies amount to collective punishment as defined by international law… No case can be made for the legality of the interception and the Mission therefore finds that the interception was illegal.”


And that wasn’t all. The Mission considered that the naval blockade was implemented in support of the overall closure regime. “As such it was part of a single disproportionate measure of armed conflict and as such cannot itself be found proportionate. Furthermore, the closure regime is considered by the Mission to constitute collective punishment of the people living in the Gaza Strip and thus to be illegal and contrary to Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

The action of the Israel Defense Force in intercepting the Mavi Marmara on the high seas was “clearly unlawful” and could not be justified even under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations [the right of self-defense].

Pack your bags, Mr Ban

So just what did the Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, think he was doing last week when he attempted to scupper the latest humanitarian effort by sending a letter to governments around the Mediterranean calling on them to use their influence to discourage any more flotillas such as the one due to sail towards the end of June, which he says “carry the potential to escalate into violent conflict”.

There is, of course, nothing potentially violent about an unarmed mercy ship. There is everything potentially violent about an illegal naval blockade that the United Nations should have squelched long ago.

A press release from Mr Ban’s office said that flotillas were not helpful in resolving the basic economic problems in Gaza, though the situation there remains unsustainable, and that assistance and goods destined to Gaza should be channeled through legitimate crossings and established channels.

No, Mr Ban. What has been unhelpful in resolving the basic economic problems in Gaza is the yellowbellied failure of the UN to discharge its duty to implement its own resolutions and enforce humanitarian law.

The Secretary-General ought to remind himself of Security Council resolution 1860 (2009), which emphasises “the need to ensure sustained and regular flow of goods and people through the Gaza crossings” and calls for “the unimpeded provision and distribution throughout Gaza of humanitarian assistance, including of food, fuel and medical treatment”.
“Unimpeded”, Mr Ban, as in u-n-i-m-p-e-d-e-d. Do we need to buy a megaphone?

So what is this talk about using “legitimate crossings and established channels”? Everyone knows that those channels, operated by the criminal blockader itself, are designed to impede the flow of everything and everyone to and from Gaza.

It’s bad enough that the wimp Obama is busy rewriting international law, circumventing inconvenient UN resolutions and trying to give his Zionist friends the green light to keep the Palestinian lands and resources they have already stolen and create opportunities for them to grab more.

But who are you working for, Mr Ban Ki-Moon? Why aren’t you, as Secretary-General, exhorting member states around the Mediterranean to do their duty under the UN Charter and ensure that the aid gets through to Gaza DIRECT?

I hear that back home in Korea Ban’s nickname is “Ban-chusa”, tagging him as a blasted pen-pusher. Some say he’s noted for his subservience. In other words, he’s a yes-man.
As if we hadn’t enough of them already.

If you cannot uphold international law or insist on compliance with the raft of UN resolutions requiring an end to Israeli occupation and a permanent halt to interference with the Palestinian Territories, Mr Ban, you bring the UN into disrepute. You should pack your bags and clear off back to Korea.

The Secretary-General’s spokesman, Martin Nesirky, sings the same tune and says that Freedom Flotillas are useless. He urges the Government of Israel to take further meaningful and far-reaching steps to end the closure of Gaza, within the framework of Security Council resolution 1860, and emphasises that the operation of legitimate crossings must be adequate to meet the needs of Gaza’s civilian population. That’s real bright when everyone and his dog knows you can “urge” Israel all you like but the regime will take no notice until it is forced to.

Israel is a member of the United Nations and a signatory to the UN’s Charter, whose principles it happily violates repeatedly. It now plans to continue its crazed defiance of the law, the UN and international opinion by committing the same crime again and blocking the next flotilla. A report today in Ha’aretz http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-prepping-to-block-next-gaza-flotilla-1.365036 shows how futile the words of Ban and Nesirky are. Israeli prime minister Netanyahu warns that his military will if necessary use force against anyone who tries to disobey his navy’s orders and head to Gaza’s shore. There is also talk of deploying snipers.

It’s clear that peace-workers and the decent folk of the world cannot look to the UN for action under present management. For all its poncing around it has done nothing effective. So while we wait for Mr Ban to be replaced by someone with guts and gumption, perhaps Mr Nesirky would kindly explain what is so “useless” about a humanitarian flotilla trying to burst through a cruel and illegal blockade that’s operated by a bunch of delinquents who may soon have to answer to charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity? Especially when his employers just sit there scratching their ass.

A letter two months ago to my MP about the need to protect the next Gaza flotilla from unlawful interference has gone unanswered. What arrangements were being made, I wanted to know, to defend these civilians from the sort of murderous harassment on the high seas that caused worldwide uproar last year?

The Med is full of NATO ships at the moment in the service of freedom and democracy, or so we’re told. It would not surprise me if the brass hats have agreed to steer well clear of the area where Israel does its marauding and leave the Zionist extremists free to terrorise and assault the unarmed crews and passengers of a brave little fleet of mercy ships.


 

Stuart Littlewood is a marketing specialist turned writer-photographer in the UK. His articles are published widely on the web. He is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. More posts by the Author

US Troops discuss "Drop-Weapons"