Showing posts with label William Hague. Show all posts
Showing posts with label William Hague. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Syria at the Mercy of the West's "Ministers of Terrorism"

Global Research
Finian Cunningham

Murder, sabotage, bribery, contract killings -- and that’s just the behavior of Western political leaders and their Arab allies. Forget the fancy titles, manners and clothes -- ongoing violence in Syria shows that the foreign policy of these powers is being conducted by terrorists and thugs in high offices. Which let’s one glimpse what level of barbarity is being perpetrated by the Western terror army, running amok in the streets and villages of Syria.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague (L)
and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
The latest display of criminality in high office is the call by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius for the “smashing” of Syria and the killing of its president, Bashar al-Assad. The words may have been spoken with an eloquent French accent, but their practical meaning has all the savagery of cold-blooded bludgeoning.

What we are seeing is a descent into barbarism and an open embrace of international lawlessness -- by the same governments that appoint themselves to lecture the rest of the world on the principles of democracy and human rights.

Reports and videos, showing that the Western-backed mercenaries of the so-called Free Syrian Army are bolstered by al-Qaeda brigades and other terrorists, have been greeted with barely veiled glee in Washington and European capitals.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice have pointedly refused to condemn the surge in bombing atrocities across Syria that have accompanied the influx of terrorists into the country over recent months. Indeed, Washington officials have effectively condoned such barbarities by their studied silence. Rice has even made statements, suggesting that more such atrocities will follow until the Syrian president does what her government demands and surrenders office. In mafia terminology, it’s called “making an offer he can’t refuse.”

The “terror” that Washington and other Western governments have promoted as the defining existential threat to democratic civilization over the past 10 years, has suddenly and seamlessly morphed into “war with terror” when it comes to Syria. And Western media that are intoxicated with hubris over supposed “free, independent thinking” do not even raise a timid question about this glaring contradiction. Indeed, these organs compound their intellectual bankruptcy with moral bankruptcy by concealing their government’s outrageous duplicity.

However, for those with eyes, when it comes to Syria, the mask of Western pretence at defending international law and human rights has now been ripped off. The face revealed is a grotesque, salivating monster, whose motives are evidently selfish elite power and domination in the strategic Middle East region. And this objective is to be achieved by any means necessary -- foremost by the collusion with bloodthirsty killers.

In asserting their geopolitical objective over Syria, the Western governments are openly deploying terrorists and killers who supposedly were the reason, why Western governments spent trillions of dollars fighting foreign wars, invading and occupying sovereign countries, destroying millions of innocent lives, incarcerating and torturing thousands, and turning over democratic societies into draconian police states.

US President Barack Obama has time and again lauded American military veterans for their sacrifices in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 4,500 US forces were killed in Iraq, thousands more maimed and psychologically destroyed, with record numbers committing suicide once back home in Civvy Street. In Afghanistan, the death toll continues to rise -- with a spate of ‘green on blue’ attacks, in which Afghan security personnel turn their guns on American troops.

How must the families in the Iraqi city of Haditha feel where, in 2005, US marines shot dead 25 inhabitants, including women and children? -- Just one of countless other such massacres and war crimes. Why were they killed in the putative “war on terror” that has now become a US “war with terror”? Or how about the family of the 14-year-old Iraqi girl, who was gang-raped by an American platoon, which then butchered her broken body to cover up their crime? Or the families in Iraq’s Fallujah city, whose loved ones where incinerated with the Pentagon white phosphorus bombs during 2004-2005? What was that holocaust all about in the pursuit of a supposed war against terrorists, the same terrorists, who are now armed, trained, and directed by Washington, London, and Paris to overthrow the legal government of Syria?

Or how about the thousands of unnamed villagers, killed in remote areas of Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia in continuing American drone attacks?

Fabius recently told reporters in Turkey, “The Syrian regime must be smashed fast.” He also called for Assad’s death.

Elsewhere, it is reported that Qatar, the West’s Arab ally in the sabotage of Syria, has resorted to bribery to destabilize the government in Damascus. Apparently, the Al Thani royal rulers of the Persian Gulf emirate offered USD 1 million to the Syrian ambassador in Mauritania to defect, thereby attempting to tarnish Assad’s government. The Syrian Ambassador, targeted by the honey-trap, Hamad Albni, denounced the bribe as “blatant interference” in his country’s affairs.

It was just the latest in a barrage of dirty tricks that Qatar and the royal rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have engaged in against Syria, including bribing the nation’s Army ranks to dessert, fabricating news stories on Arab media channels, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, and jamming the satellite signals for the Syrian national broadcaster. The latter is a war crime, but don’t expect the Western crime bosses in office to bat an eyelid over that.

This is on top of these billionaire rulers funneling USD 100 million from their own impoverished, downtrodden countries to pay for American and Israeli weapons and explosives that are being used by the Western terrorist army to kill and maim women and children across Syria.

Meanwhile, Oxbridge-educated British Foreign Secretary William Hague announces with his ever-so-polite plumy accent that “Her Majesty’s” government is to supply an extra USD eight million to Syria. Not to help refugees or victims of Western-orchestrated violence, but to help the terrorists escalate their campaign of tearing that country apart and no doubt creating more refugees.

Clinton, Fabius, Hague and their royal Arab friends may dress in fine clothes, speak with polished accents, and have manicured, scented hands. But make no mistake. They may not pull the triggers, slit throats, or switch the detonators. That’s for the goons on the ground to do and to keep the blood from appearing on those scented, lily-white hands of their bosses.

In the Orwellian world of Western governments, these politicians are called “Foreign Ministers.” In the world of normative reasoning and language, they are known simply as “Ministers of Terrorism.”


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Saturday, August 4, 2012

Britain pledges to support terrorists fighting Syrian govt.

PressTV

British Foreign Secretary William Hague
The UK government has vowed to step up support for terrorists fighting the Syrian government forces in the wake of the UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan resignation.

Foreign Secretary William Hague disclosed that Britain had been providing support for terrorists in Syria, adding that the country will be providing even more “practical and non-lethal” support for them.

“We will over the coming weeks increase our practical but non-lethal support to the opposition," Hague said. "We have helped with communications and matters of that kind and we will help them more in this situation given the scale of death and suffering and the failure so far of the diplomatic process."

Hague described Annan’s decision to resign as a “bleak moment” in the armed insurgency that has been seeking to overthrow the popular government of president Bashar al-Assad.

He claimed that the diplomatic approach was not dead, but that “other things” also needed to be done to bring an end to al-Assad government.

“That doesn't mean ... that we give up on diplomacy," Hague said, adding "We don't give up on the diplomacy with Russia and with China. But we will have to do other things as well."

Moscow and Beijing have frequently complained about Western and Arab backing for the insurgents locked in an increasingly bloody drive to topple the Syrian President, saying pressure should be put on both sides to stop the violence.

President Bashar al-Assad says the insurgency is the work of foreign-backed "terrorists", with his own forces acting to restore stability.

Monday, March 12, 2012

GCHQ civilian staff face war crimes charge over drone strikes in Pakistan

Guardian
Mark Townsend

Human rights lawyers claim in High Court that civilians are 'parties to murders'


Civilian staff at GCHQ risk being prosecuted for war crimes as a result of a legal action being launched tomorrow over the alleged use of British intelligence in the CIA's "targeted killing" programme.

Human rights lawyers will issue proceedings saying that employees at the UK intelligence agency who assist the US in directing drone attacks in Pakistan could be liable as "secondary parties to murder" and that any UK guidance allowing the passing of information to the CIA for use in the strikes is unlawful.

Pakistan has previously condemned the attacks as a violation of its sovereignty, amid concern that the use of US drones contravenes international humanitarian law. Hundreds of innocent civilians are thought to have been killed as a result of drone attacks.

Questions are also mounting over the role of British officials in assisting the CIA's targeting of alleged militants in Pakistan. Reports suggest that GCHQ, the intelligence agency for which the foreign secretary, William Hague, is responsible, provides "locational intelligence" to the US.

The legal action, brought by the law firm Leigh Day & Co and the legal action charity Reprieve, is directed against Hague on behalf of Noor Khan, whose father was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan last year.

Malik Daud Khan was presiding over a peaceful council of tribal elders in the North Waziristan tribal area when a missile was fired from a drone, believed to have been CIA-operated. Khan was one of more than 40 people killed.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Syria: Rogue Elements Rampant

Global Research
Felicity Arbuthnot
"The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists." (J.EdgarHoover, 1895-1972.)

Smelt any proverbial rats, lately? If not, you have not been paying attention, there are plenty about.

Consider for instance this: "Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now" and "must step aside ...” Hilary Clinton (Asia Times, 9th February 2012.)

“I strongly condemn the Syrian government's unspeakable assault  ... and I offer my deepest sympathy to those who have lost loved ones.  Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now.  He must step aside ...” said President Barack Hussein Obama. (i)

Yet responsibility for US victims, in their hundreds of thousands, spanning Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, in Guantanamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, are wholly unaccountable – and uncounted..

Responsibility for tyrannicide (including the horrific, state sponsored assassinations of Osama bin Laden and others, Libya’s Head of State, Colonel Quaddafi, have, seemingly entered a Presidential memory hole.)

"This (Syria’s) is a doomed regime as well as a murdering regime. There is no way it can get its credibility back either internationally or with its own people”, Britain’s little Foreign Secretary, William Hague, chimed in obediently, from the Washington script, on Sky News.

“Because the regime is so intransigent, because it is conducting ten months unmitigated violence and repression – more than 6,000 killed, with 12,000 or 14,000 in detention and subject to every kind of torture and abuse – it is driving some opponents to violent action themselves”, concluded Hague.

Hypocrisy reigns supreme. Walking distance from Hague’s office: “living in style and protection”, is Bashar Al Assad’s Uncle Rifaat, under whose Defence Brigades onslaught killed up to perhaps thirty thousand people in the city of Hama, which was also partially destroyed, Falluja style. The thirtieth anniversary of  a truly terrible event is commemorated today, 25th February. (See Robert Fisk, Independent, 25th February 2012.)

Of Libya, in March 2011, Obama stated: "Going forward, we will continue to send a clear message: The violence must stop. Muammar Gaddafi has lost legitimacy to lead, and he must leave. Those who perpetrate violence against the Libyan people will be held accountable. And the aspirations of the Libyan people for freedom, democracy and dignity must be met.”(ii.)

An anomaly (apart from the script similarity): In Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya,  deaths resultant from US-UK and “allied” actions are: “impossible to verify”, by Washington and Whitehall.

Indeed, this month, the (UK) Parliamentary Select Committee on Defence, issued a Report, after an Inquiry in to operations in Libya, stating that: “Britain has no way of knowing how many civilians died in the Libyan conflict as a result of Nato bombing.” (iii)

Back in March 2011, however, the exact figure of Quaddafi’s victims was “known.” Coincidentally, it was also exactly 6,000, stated a “political analyst” - using remarkably State Department-similar phraseology.(iv)

As under Saddam Hussein in Iraq (with no diplomatic presence) in Libya and now little in Syria - with no point of contact bar, seemingly, a satellite dish fitter, in Coventry, England, alleged to be the “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” - exact death and casualty figures are always miraculously available.

A new nemesis appears on the horizon – or “Arab street”- and precise numbers are trumpeted. Yet when Western forces, “Viceroys”, “Intelligence” services, “mentors” and myriad, general meddlers, mercenaries and marauders pitch up, murder and occupy, none are available.

Of course no proposed invasion (sorry, “humanitarian intervention”) regime change and accompanying mass  slayings would be complete without forces of a wicked tyrant switching off electricity to babies incubators.

For anyone who has forgotten the details, the (1990-1991) Iraq model went like this: vast US government employed PR agency, Hill and Knowlton (“we create value by shaping conversations: we start them, we amplify them, we change them. We can connect seamlessly with all of your audiences...”)produced a fifteen year old girl called “Nayirah”, a “Kuwaiti with first hand knowledge of ... her tortured land.”

“I volunteered (tears) at the Al Addan Hospital .. I saw the Iraqi soldiers ..with guns, they took fifteen babies out of incubators, left them on the cold floor and took the incubators.”

Strangely, no one asked why she didn't pick them up and wrap and tend to them, or checked who she really was.

She was the daughter of Saud al Sabar, the Kuwaiti Ambassador to US. The incubators story of course, was a complete fabrication.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

UK to take major role in making new 'eurodrones'

The Independent
John Lichfield
Nigel Morris



Plans to build a new generation of "fighter drones" that can wage war by remote control are set to be agreed today by Britain and France. David Cameron and President Nicolas Sarkozy are preparing to put their recent tensions behind them to launch proposals for the pilotless stealth aircraft at a summit in Paris. In a second agreement, they will promise closer co-operation on civil nuclear power.

Western nations increasingly regard the deployment of drones to launch surgical strikes on targets as a way of keeping military casualties to a minimum.

Several senior al-Qa'ida figures have been killed by unmanned American drones flying over Pakistan, while British drone missions could begin within months over Afghanistan. Critics claim the aircraft can cause "collateral damage" among civilians and that the low risk to service personnel from their use can encourage countries to turn to military force rather than diplomacy.

But the two leaders are preparing to put any qualms to one side as they sign a letter of intent of cross-Channel cooperation on the project.

Under the plan, Britain's BAE and the French planemaker Dassault – rivals in the battle for sales of the present generation of fighter planes – will be asked to collaborate in the creation of a prototype of a Star Wars-type, ground-controlled "fighter drone" by 2020. Mr Cameron and Mr Sarkozy are expected to present the project as proof of continuing – or revived – Anglo-French friendship despite last year's rift over tighter fiscal discipline in the eurozone.

The Paris summit, delayed from last November, will be the first lengthy one-on-one meeting between the two leaders since Mr Cameron vetoed an EU-wide fiscal pact in early December.

Mr Cameron will be accompanied by Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, and Ed Davey, the Energy Secretary. The two governments will sign a declaration signalling their commitment to nuclear power as a source of safe and affordable energy that will also help cut carbon emissions.

Under the agreement, British and French public and private sector bodies in the civil nuclear power industry will work more closely on education and training, research and development and security. The two sets of ministers will also discuss cooperation in transport. Mr Cameron last night stressed the "strength and depth of Britain's ties with France". He said: "Our commercial relationship is deep and growing with exports increasing and French investment sustaining almost 10,000 jobs in the UK. Our militaries are working together on cutting-edge military technology. This relationship is vital for the national security and the prosperity of both Britain and France."

The Franco-British "fighter drone" would take aerial combat into a new age, replacing all the "conventional" piloted fighter-planes now on offer. The two governments are thought to be ready to put a modest amount of public cash into the project at this stage.

The possibility of French and British co-operation on a drone aircraft – or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) – was first mentioned in November 2010 when Mr Cameron and Mr Sarkozy signed a defence treaty committing the two countries to co-operate in military deployment and research. French sources said yesterday that German or Italian, or wider European, participation in the project would be welcomed. But the newspaper Les Echos reported yesterday the letter of intent to be signed by Mr Sarkozy and Mr Cameron was intended as a signal that the project would be under Anglo-French leadership.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Iran warns US to avoid clash over nuclear programme

Guardian

Iranian foreign minister says America has 'lost its wisdom and prudence' as tensions mount over Tehran's enrichment efforts
The Iranian foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said
his country was 'prepared for the worst'
Iran has warned the US not to set the two countries on a collision course over Tehran's nuclear enrichment programme, as diplomatic tensions reflected growing concern that the Middle East might be on the verge of new conflict.

The Iranian foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, spoke amid reports that the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has been trying to rally support within his country for an attack.

The Guardian revealed that the UK was advancing contingency plans for joining American forces in a possible air and sea campaign against military bases in Iran.

The revelations led to Nato insisting on Thursday that it would play no part in any military action, and provoked the rebuke from Salehi, who insisted that any attack by either Israel or the US would provoke immediate retaliation. He also accused Washington of recklessness.

"The US has unfortunately lost its wisdom and prudence in dealing with international issues," he told reporters during a visit to Libya. "Of course we are prepared for the worst, but we hope that they think twice before they put themselves on a collision course with Iran."

In a separate interview with a Turkish newspaper, Salehi claimed Tehran was ready for war with Israel. "We have been hearing threats from Israel for eight years. Our nation is a united nation … such threats are not new to us," he said. "We are very sure of ourselves. We can defend our country."

The pressure on Iran has been building since allegations surfaced of a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington. The White House insists Tehran was behind the plot, but the Iranian regime has denied that.

The episode added to US concerns about Iran's nuclear enrichment programme and the increasing belligerence of its regime. Intelligence suggests that some of the Iranian centrifuges that can produce weapons-grade uranium are being hidden inside a fortified military base in Qom, about 100 miles south-west of Tehran.

The International Atomic Energy Authority will next week deliver its latest bulletin on Iran's nuclear programme and is expected to provide fresh evidence of covert plans to engineer warheads.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

David Cameron Wanted Internet Shutdown During Britain’s Summer Riots

International Business Times

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron wanted the internet shut-down during the riots that swept England in August in order to prevent rioters from communicating with each other over social media networks, according to media reports.

Fears grew at the time that the disturbances were largely organized by youths using their mobile phones.

However, Cameron was persuaded against taking any such drastic measures by the Foreign Secretary William Hague over worries that such steps would lead to accusations of hypocrisy over the rights of free speech in Britain.

Reportedly, during a meeting of COBRA (the government's crisis response committee) on August 9 – in the wake of massive looting and vandalism across London, Manchester and Birmingham, Hague warned against closing down Facebook, Twitter and the BlackBerry network. He cited that nations like China and Syria would jump on the issue since Cameron has criticized their practice of state censorship.

Nonetheless, on August 11, in a speech in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister said his government was “working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services".

Moreover, Hague’s fears were somewhat realized, when a Chinese newspaper editorialized against British hypocrisy when it emerged the government considered curbs on internet access.

The column, published in the state-run Xinhua news service, said: "We may wonder why western leaders, on the one hand, tend to indiscriminately accuse other nations of monitoring, but on the other take for granted their steps to monitor and control the internet. They are not interested in learning what content those nations are monitoring, let alone their varied national conditions or their different development stages."

The Telegraph reported that in speech Tuesday before the London Conference on Cyberspace, Hague reiterated his adherence to free online speech.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Libya: NATO Humiliation Increasing per Airstrike

The rebels, led on ground by NATO special forces and
protected by NATO planes in the air have still failed
to take Tripoli after a week of fighting. Attempts to
seize other cities still under Libyan government
control are also significant tactical failures. The media,
unable to point to a victorious rebel government
seated in Tripoli is now attempting to sell the "chaos"
angle - that combat is degenerating into genocide, in
hopes the world will beg for a stabilization force.
The only problem is that "genocidal" rebels are led, armed,
trained, and organized by NATO officers on the ground.
Activist Post
Tony Cartalucci

Each NATO warplane that passes over Libya's coast and releases its ordnance upon the city of Tripoli is a glaring reminder that not only have the NATO-backed rebels failed to take the city, but the fighting there is beyond their ability to face without constant air support. As each bomb tears through Tripoli's already NATO-battered infrastructure - most recently destroying a fire station in the Abu Salim district - the world is given daily affirmations of just how duplicitous and premature NATO's desperate claims of "victory" were, made now nearly a week ago. To add injury to insult, UK's Foreign Secretary William Hague was imploring South Africa to release funding to NATO's proxies in Benghazi and suggested that failing to do so would be "risking a humanitarian disaster." Hague has not yet explained how the persistent aerial bombardment of a heavily populated city isn't already causing a verified humanitarian disaster. 

There are now reports that NATO's Al Qaeda brigades have been stalled before entering the coastal cities of Sirte and Bin Jawad, both lying between Benghazi and Misrata. In fact, by reading between the rhetoric, we see that the rebels have not only failed to achieve anything beyond the most symbolic of victories amidst immense chaos sown throughout Tripoli, they are in fact in a more tenuous position than ever before, with their forces stretched in multiple locations facing an entrenched Libyan army on multiple fronts.

By claiming victory while conducting daily air strikes upon a "captured city," for those that are able to put the pieces together, NATO exposes a tenuous grip on a bungled drawn out campaign. Of course there is no possible way NATO believed Libya could be taken over within days, not weeks, and must be acutely aware that even if Tripoli fell tomorrow - which it most likely won't - there will still be entire cities under Libyan government control along with Libya's vast southern interior. Occupation was NATO's true endgame from the beginning, waiting only for the proper pretext to begin landing troops on the ground. Getting that pretext has proven to be difficult.

Occupation cannot begin until either Benghazi's terrorist leaders are able to squat in Tripoli long enough to call in NATO forces for assistance, or if NATO can create enough chaos, murder, and mayhem to get the "international community" to beg for a "stabilization force." However it appears that the rebel forces are incapable of producing either result without NATO's constant bombardments from overhead, betraying media reports that "Tripoli has fallen" or that NATO has achieved any sort of victory.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Libya: western leaders call for Nato to target Gaddafi

Telegraph

Senior western leaders called for Nato to adopt an assassination policy against Col Muammar Gaddafi to salvage the bombing campaign in Libya from a descent into stalemate.

The calls came as Col Gaddafi was reported to have strengthened his grip on power by repatriating billions of dollars in overseas assets that should have been frozen by UN sanctions.
On Sunday, there was growing pressure on Coalition forces to directly target Col Gaddafi with military strikes.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican member of the Senate Armed Services committee, said that the quickest way to end the emerging stalemate was to "cut the head of the snake off". He said: "The people around Gaddafi need to wake up every day wondering, 'Will this be my last?'
Senator John McCain, who visited Libya at the weekend, also said that the Libyan dictator should be targeted but argued that it was more important to increase American firepower over Libya. He said: "It's pretty obvious to me that the US has got to play a greater role on the air power side. Our Nato allies neither have the assets, nor frankly the will - there's only six countries of the 28 in Nato that are actively engaged in this situation."
William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, also on Sunday refused to rule out using remote-controlled American drones to assassinate Col Gaddafi. Mr Hague said "who and what is a legitimate target depends on their behaviour." However, he denied that there was a stalemate in Libya and ruled out proposals to partition the country.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Syrian forces kill 72 at 'Good Friday' protests

DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syrian forces shot dead at least 72 people as they tried to disperse thousands on the streets for "Good Friday" protests to test long-sought freedoms, drawing Western condemnation, activists said.

A day after President Bashar al-Assad scrapped decades of emergency rule, his forces used live ammunition against demonstrators in several towns and cities nationwide, witnesses and activists told AFP by telephone.

The official SANA news agency said security forces intervened using tear gas and water cannon to "prevent clashes" between protesters and passers-by.
SANA spoke of 10 dead, including police.

"The Syrian security forces committed massacres in several towns and regions today (Friday), so far killing 72 people and wounding hundreds," said the London-based Syrian Human Rights Committee in a statement received by AFP.

Several rights activists also published provisional lists recording the deaths of more than 70 people.
Earlier, witnesses and activists said at least 38 people were killed on one of the bloodiest days since pro-democracy protests erupted in Syria in mid-March.

Ammar Qurabi, chairman of the Syrian National Human Rights Organisation, spoke to AFP of "49 deaths and 20 people reported missing" on Friday.

Rights activists and groups reported 15 killed at Ezreh in the southern Daraa province, hub of the anti-regime protests. They also reported 15 dead in the central city of Homs.
They said another 30 people were killed near Damascus, and the rest were killed in other towns.
Two deaths were earlier reported in the northern city of Hama, site of a government-sponsored massacre of Islamists in 1982, and two more in the main Syrian port of Latakia.

The official SANA news agency spoke of "eight dead and 20 wounded including members of the security forces in an attack by armed criminals in Ezreh," and "two policemen killed and 11 wounded in Homs and Damascus by armed groups."

Friday's death toll was one of the bloodiest in protests for democratic change -- the first since emergency rule was imposed by the ruling Baath Party when it seized power in 1963.
"The Syrian authorities have again responded to peaceful calls for change with bullets and batons," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa director.
"They must immediately halt their attacks on peaceful protesters and instead allow Syrians to gather freely as international law demands."

A coalition of protesters from across Syria earlier issued a list of demands in a statement blasting "attempts by the Syrian tyrannical machine to thwart and circumvent the acquisition of our basic rights and needs."

The White House condemned Friday's violence, calling for action from all sides. "We call on the Syrian government to cease and desist from the use of violence, we call on all sides to cease and desist from the use of violence," it said.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague condemned the "unacceptable" killing of demonstrators and called for emergency law to be lifted in practice, not just in theory.

"Political reforms should be brought forward and implemented without delay. The emergency law should be lifted in practice, not just in word," he said.

SANA said security forces "intervened" using tear gas and water cannon "to prevent clashes between protesters and citizens and protect public property."

Thousands of protesters swarmed the mainly Kurdish city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria and Banias in the north.

Protesters in Zabadani, northwest of Damascus, called for Assad's regime to quit and also chanted slogans hostile to key regional Syria allies Iran and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, witnesses said.

About 200 people chanting "freedom, freedom" marched in central Damascus but were quickly dispersed by police, said an activist, while 100 who protested in the central city of Raqqa were scattered by baton-wielding pro-regime supporters, lawyer Abdullah Khalil said.

Assad, in power since replacing his father Hafez as president in 2000, issued decrees Thursday scrapping emergency rule, abolishing the state security court and allowing citizens to hold peaceful demonstrations.

But his detractors said the moves were not enough, and the so-called Syrian Local Coordinating Committees of protesters made a raft of demands, urging a halt to the torture, killings and arrests of protesters.

Friday's protests came after a call by Facebook group The Syrian Revolution 2011 for rallies spanning the Christian and Muslim faiths on "Good Friday," which commemorates Jesus Christ's crucifixion.
Friday is also the Muslim day of rest when the biggest demonstrations have been staged across Syria after weekly prayers.

Assad's scrapping of emergency rule and abolition of the state security court was the latest in a series of concessions over the past month to placate protesters.
Before Friday, security forces and plain-clothes police had killed about 220 people in a brutal crackdown on the protests.

Friday, April 8, 2011

AIPAC is a useful tool when you want to predict the future of any peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.


Prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu is being heavily criticized in Israel for his blatant exploitation of the murder of five members of one family (including three children) at the Itamar settlement near Nablus. Particularly egregious has been Netanyahu's demand that president Mahmoud Abbas personally appear on Palestinian radio and television to condemn the killings, although Abbas had issued an unusually strong statement as soon as he heard of the tragedy.

Forget for a minute that no one knows who committed the crime and that certainly no one believes that the killer was associated with Abbas. Also, lay aside the fact that Netanyahu has never condemned or even expressed remorse over the killing of 300 plus Palestinian children by the IDF during the Gaza War. (In fact, one would be hard pressed to find any Israeli government that ever even criticized the killing of Palestinian children by the IDF, although many hundreds have been killed over the last decade).

None of that is anything new. What is new is Israel's decision to libel the Palestinian Authority (and not just Hamas) which until very recently has been praised by Israel as its partner. That change became evident during the last month when AIPAC (Israel's lobby in America) started attacking Abbas and the PA, returning to the style of the bad old days when the lobby viewed all Palestinians as one and the same: as enemies of Israel.

There are three reasons why monitoring AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is a valuable use of time for anyone following events in the Middle East.

The first is that AIPAC faithfully reflects the positions of the Netanyahu government (actually it often telegraphs them before Netanyahu does).

The second is that AIPAC's policies provide advance notice of the positions that will, not by coincidence, be taken by the United States Congress.

And third, AIPAC provides a reliable indicator of future policies of the Obama administration, which gets its "guidance" both from AIPAC itself and from Dennis Ross, former head of AIPAC's think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and now the president's top adviser on Middle East issues.

The next few months, as AIPAC prepares for its annual conference (May 22-24), will be especially fruitful for AIPAC watchers. The conference is a huge event, attended by most members of the House and Senate, the prime minister of Israel, and either by the president or vice president of the United States. It is also attended by thousands of delegates from around the country and by candidates for Congress who raise money for their campaigns at the event. This year, the leading Republican candidates for president will also be in attendance, all vying for support by promising undying loyalty to the AIPAC agenda.

The conference or the egg?

The conference actually beginslong before it convenes at the massive Washington Convention Centre. Right now, AIPAC's top officials are deciding which policies are the most important to be conveyed to the hundreds of officials who will be in attendance. Those policies will constitute AIPAC's agenda not just for the conference but for the next 12 months.

In recent years, AIPAC's main message has been about Iran and its view of the dangers posed by the Iranian nuclear program. Speaker after speaker at various AIPAC conferences over the past decade (including, most histrionically, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu) has invoked the Holocaust when discussing the possibility of an Iranian nuclear weapon.

These speakers laid the groundwork for AIPAC's presentation of legislation imposing "crippling sanctions" on Iran — along with the declaration that the military option remained "on the table" if sanctions failed to end Iran's nuclear program. Most of the sanctions legislation enacted by Congress and signed into law by the president originated at AIPAC.

But this year Iran will have to compete for attention with AIPAC's worries about the democratic revolutions that are sweeping the Arab world. For AIPAC, as for Netanyahu, those revolutions have already turned 2011 into an annus horribilis and the year is not even half over.

Early indications are that the main theme that will dominate the conference will be that Israel, once again, has "no partner" to negotiate with. This is an old theme, but one that receded as the Israeli right came to view the Palestinian Authority (led by Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad) as not only partners but as collaborators in maintaining the status quo.

As Al Jazeera's "Palestine Papers" demonstrated, Abbas and Fayyad rarely said "no" to the Netanyahu government — which made them the only kind of partners acceptable to the Netanyahu-Lieberman-Barak troika.

But, fearing that it might be next to fall to democracy, the PA started showing some spine recently. It refused to yield to U.S. and Israeli demands that it shelve the United Nations Security Council resolution condemning settlements. It absolutely refuses to negotiate with Israelis until Israel stops gobbling up the land they would be negotiating over. And, most disturbing of all to Netanyahu and company, it says that it intends to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state this summer.

Netanyahu, who needs the illusion of movement to ensure that there isn't any, is suddenly feeling the heat. Even Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor and a staunch Israel backer, both supported the UN resolution condemning settlements and told Netanyahu, in a well-publicized February 24 phone call, that the Europeans are sick and tired of him. Haaretz reported:

Netanyahu told Merkel he was disappointed by Germany's vote....

Merkel was furious. "How dare you," she said...."You are the one who disappointed us. You haven't made a single step to advance peace."

A shaken Netanyahu immediately put out the word that he is getting ready to announce his own plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He told political allies that he has to act fast to deter pressure from the so-called Quartet (composed of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and Russia). It is due to meet later this month to set out the parameters for a final agreement. In advance of that meeting, British Foreign Minister William Hague said that the territorial basis for any agreement must be the pre-'67 borders, the last thing Netanyahu wants to hear.

Reports from Israel indicate that Netanyahu's plan rules out any withdrawal to the '67 lines, offering instead a Palestinian state within temporary borders and only a very partial settlement freeze (no freeze in East Jerusalem at all).

Knowing that the PA can no longer afford to even consider such an offer, Netanyahu has decided to preemptively label Israel's old friends in the Palestinian Authority as extremists, with the goal of ensuring that both Congress and the Obama administration back his plan. His hope is that with the United States safely in his corner, any Quartet initiative will be blocked. As always, his goal is to maintain the status quo, which requires U.S. acquiescence in his schemes. Thus far, the tactic has worked.

Hence, the new AIPAC approach: smear the PA. By the time the AIPAC conference ends, the "there is no partner" mantra will have returned to its position as one of Israel's greatest hits —- a true golden oldie.

Check out a few of the messages AIPAC has sent out over Twitter these past few days (the message is old but the technology is new):

AIPAC: PA doesn't want a terrorist organization to be called a terrorist organization, instead wants unity gov with it

AIPAC: PA seeks to isolate Israel to gain statehood; Obama admin plans to block the effort, calling it a "strategic mistake"

AIPAC: Palestinian Authority to Israel: NO.

By contrast, this is a typical AIPAC tweet before the Palestinian Authority started pushing back.
AIPAC: Can direct talks with PA President Abbas lead to a peace agreement in a year? "Yes, I think so," says Israeli PM Netanyahu.

The bottom line is this. The Europeans, the United Nations, and, it is safe to say, the entire world (except the United States) fear that the Palestinian Authority is on the verge of collapsing and, along with it, the whole notion of a peace process. These same forces are determined to re-start negotiations, which will require seeing Israel actually freeze settlements, at the very least. It seems to understand that a PA that is perceived as Israel's lackey (which is precisely how it is perceived) will not survive. It has no faith whatsoever in the good intentions of the Netanyahu government.

Deflecting the issue

The Israeli government, understanding all this, is determined to put the onus back on the Palestinians to forestall any pressure. Most important of all, it is terrified that the Palestinian Authority will go ahead with its plan to unilaterally declare a state this summer, the only PA plan in years that actually has real momentum.

It needs the United States to block that plan by any means necessary, including a full cut-off of U.S. (and even international) aid to the Palestinians (this at a time when Defense Minister Barak is requesting another $20 billion in aid to Israel from the United States). Stopping a Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence dead in its tracks is now Netanyahu's number one goal. And getting Obama to go along with him (which shouldn't be too difficult with the 2012 election looming) is the way he intends to do it.

That is why we are about to see a new Netanyahu plan. It is why AIPAC is busy denigrating the PA. And it is why AIPAC will soon have the United States Congress saying, practically in unison, that "there is no Palestinian partner."  That will be followed by the demand that the Obama administration support the Netanyahu plan, which will be labeled the most generous offer in history.

At this rate, the Israeli government and its lobby will soon be back to its old mantra (1948-1977) that "there is no such thing as the Palestinian people" at all.

All this to preserve an ugly and deadly status quo. So far, this tactic has worked every time. Don't bet against it winning again. As so often, a winning strategy for AIPAC and Netanyahu is a losing strategy for Israel and the United States.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, would do well to work on achieving some kind of unified strategy and to stick with the idea of a unilateral declaration. As David Ben-Gurion would tell them, self-determination often requires going it alone.

Friday, March 25, 2011

US-led warplanes drop depleted uranium on Libyan civilians

Aletho News via INN

“[Depleted uranium tipped missiles] fit the description of a dirty bomb in every way… I would say that it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people.” – Marion Falk, chemical physicist (retd), Lawrence Livermore Lab, California, USA


In the first 24 hours of the Libyan attack, US B-2s dropped forty-five 2,000-pound bombs. These massive bombs, along with the Cruise missiles launched from British and French planes and ships, all contained depleted uranium (DU) warheads.

DU is the waste product from the process of enriching uranium ore. It is used in nuclear weapons and reactors. Because it is a very heavy substance, 1.7 times denser than lead, it is highly valued by the military for its ability to punch through armored vehicles and buildings. When a weapon made with a DU tip strikes a solid object like the side of a tank, it goes straight through it, then erupts in a burning cloud of vapor. The vapor settles as dust, which is not only poisonous, but also radioactive.

An impacting DU missile burns at 10,000 degrees C. When it strikes a target, 30% fragments into shrapnel. The remaining 70% vaporises into three highly-toxic oxides, including uranium oxide. This black dust remains suspended in the air and, according to wind and weather, can travel over great distances. If you think Iraq and Libya are far away, remember that radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales.

Particles less than 5 microns in diameter are easily inhaled and may remain in the lungs or other organs for years. Internalized DU can cause kidney damage, cancers of the lung and bone, skin disorders, neurocognitive disorders, chromosome damage, immune deficiency syndromes and rare kidney and bowel diseases. Pregnant women exposed to DU may give birth to infants with genetic defects. Once the dust has vaporised, don’t expect the problem to go away soon. As an alpha particle emitter, DU has a half life of 4.5 billion years.

In the ‘shock and awe’ attack on Iraq, more than 1,500 bombs and missiles were dropped on Baghdad alone. Seymour Hersh has claimed that the US Third Marine Aircraft Wing alone dropped more than “five hundred thousand tons of ordnance”. All of it DU-tipped.

Al Jazeera reported that invading US forces fired two hundred tons of radioactive material into buildings, homes, streets and gardens of Baghdad. A reporter from the Christian Science Monitor took a Geiger counter to parts of the city that had been subjected to heavy shelling by US troops. He found radiation levels 1,000 to 1,900 times higher than normal in residential areas. With its population of 26 million, the US dropped a one-ton bomb for every 52 Iraqi citizens or 40 pounds of explosives per person.

William Hague has said that we are in Libya ” to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas”.You don’t have to look far for who and what are being ‘protected’.

In that first 24 hours the ‘Allies’ ‘expended’ £100 million on DU-tipped ordnance. The European Union’s arms control report said member states issued licences in 2009 for the sale of £293.2 million worth of weapons and weapons systems to Libya. Britain issued arms firms licences for the sale of £21.7 million worth of weaponry to Libya and were also paid by Colonel Gadaffi to send the SAS to train his 32nd Brigade.

For the next 4.5 billion years, I’ll bet that William Hague will not be holidaying in North Africa.