US drones target anything vaguely Taliban looking

Statement of the Special Rapporteur following meetings in Pakistan

[....] In discussions with the delegation of tribal Maliks from North Waziristan the Special Rapporteur was informed that drone strikes routinely inflicted civilian casualties, and that groups of adult males carrying out ordinary daily tasks were frequently the victims of such strikes. They emphasized that to an outsider unfamiliar with Pashtun tribal customs there was a very real risk of misidentification of targets since all Pashtun tribesmen tended to have similar appearance to members of the Pakistan Taliban, including similar (and often indistinguishable) tribal clothing, and since it had long been a tradition among the Pashtun tribes that all adult males would carry a gun at all times. They considered that civilian casualties were a commonplace occurrence and that the threat of such strikes instilled fear in the entire community.

They emphasized that drone attacks had fractured their existing tribal structures, and destroyed their way of life. They also pointed out that their local tribal law, the Pashtunwali, prescribed revenge for the loss of a life and that this entrenched tribal tradition had given rise to a desire, particularly among young men, to seek revenge for the drone strikes, thus radicalizing a new generation.

Full statement here

24 Gaza hours: 21 dead civilians ...1 dead informer (alleged)

 By yesterday afternoon, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) was reporting 31 Palestinians killed in the Israeli assault over the previous 24 hours – 21 of them civilians – in perhaps the worst bloodletting yet of the military campaign against Gaza.

Alleged informer faces 'justice' Gaza style

Children killed by Israeli 'surgical' strike

Libya - a multibillion dollar pay day for the humanitarians

(War is a racket)

13 Stocks That Will Rebuild Libya

Oil fields in the region provide the biggest opportunity

Oct 24, 2011, 1:21 pm EDT | By Jonathan Berr, InvestorPlace Writer

Libya will be a multibillion-dollar payday for U.S. stocks if the political situation stabilizes itself. And stocks like Exxon (NYSE:XOM), General Electric (NYSE:GE) and Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) will be first in line to benefit from the rebuilding.

Below is a list of potential winners in Libya. Some have well-known ties to the country while others are well-established in the Middle East and could easily pick up business from the new government in Tripoli. Read More

Sirte Liberated!

Resolution 1973 didn't apply here. Sirte civilians were unworthy victims.

Tax Payers Say Ceasefire Now In Libya

Come on, where are you? You think US is giving us those s m a r t weapons for free?
For g.o.d's sake stop the bombing. Before it causes us all financial inconvenience.

Maybe there are other good reasons for a ceasefire. What would MLK do?

Alastair Campbell 'misled' Chilcot over dossier

We were explicitly told to make case for war, says top intelligence official

"Alastair Campbell said to the inquiry that the purpose of the dossier was not 'to make a case for war'. I had no doubt at that time this was exactly its purpose and these very words were used. I and those involved in its production saw it exactly as that, and that was the direction we were given. The previous paper... was rejected because it did not make a strong enough case. From then until September we were under pressure to find intelligence that could reinforce the case."

"We could find no evidence of planes, missiles or equipment that related to WMD, generally concluding that they must have been dismantled, buried or taken abroad. There has probably never been a greater detailed scrutiny of every piece of ground in any country. During the drafting of the final dossier, every fact was managed to make it as strong as possible, the final statements reaching beyond the conclusions intelligence assessments would normally draw from such facts. We knew at the time that the purpose of the dossier was precisely to make a case for war, rather than setting out the available intelligence, and that to make the best out of sparse and inconclusive intelligence the wording was developed with care." Link

Ellsberg: “Every attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time.”

DANIEL ELLSBERG
A former government analyst, Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, a secret government history of the Vietnam War to the New York Times and other newspapers in 1971. He was an admirer of Sam Adams when they were both working on Vietnam and in March 1968 disclosed to the New York Times some of Adams’ accurate analysis, helping head off reinforcement of 206,000 additional troops into South Vietnam and a widening of the war at that time to neighboring countries. http://www.ellsberg.net/archive/public-accuracy-press-release#more-451

Not a hitlist - a shitlist

'Hitlist' of pro-Iraq war MPs removed from website Link

It may be best to refrain from stabbing, shooting, lynching or otherwise physically harming your local MP. However whilst I wouldn't advocate any of the above I would certainly advocate withdrawal of support at the ballet box maybe even shouting at slapping them. (pdf)

Wikileaks Press Conference, London October 23rd 2010

The Iraq war informed our understanding of conflict and of power. It continues to do so.

This is a link to the press conference from Wikileaks which took place in London today 23rd October 2010.

Gordon Brown: Some mothers!

"The truth is that globally and nationally we should have been regulating them more. I've learnt from that. So you don't listen to the industry when they say 'This is good for us' ".

Financial Times
23-May-2005
By Gordon Brown

Today, Alan Johnson, trade and industry secretary, John Hutton, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and I will announce details of a new, risk-based approach to regulation to break down barriers holding enterprise back. The modern challenge is to enhance the flexibility needed for a successful economy and to tackle the regulatory concerns we know all industrial economies face, without sacrificing the standards a good society needs.

Under the old regulatory model - which started in Victorian times - the implicit principle has been to inspect all premises, procedures and practices, irrespective of known risks or past results. Under this model, everyone was inspected continuously, information demanded wholesale, and forms filled in at all times, the only barrier being a lack of regulatory resources.

The new model we propose is quite different. Under a risk-based approach, there is no unjustifiable inspection, form-filling or requirement for information. Not just a light but a limited touch. Instead of routine regulation trying to cover all, the risk-based approach targets the necessary few.

This risk-based approach will help move us a million miles away from the old belief that business, unregulated, will invariably act irresponsibly. The better view is that business wants to act responsibly. Reputation with customers and investors is more important to behaviour than regulation. Transparency, backed by a light touch, can be more effective than a heavy hand.

So a new trust between business and government is possible, founded on the responsible company, the engaged employee, the educated consumer - and government concentrating its energies on dealing not with every trader but with the bad trader, who should not be allowed to undercut the good. This new risk-based approach has wide application from environmental health to financial services and even taxation.

So how will we ensure a one-third cut in inspections - or 1m fewer checks every year - and a 25 per cent reduction in form filling?

Following the Hampton review of regulation, we will legislate in the new year to reduce 29 regulators to just seven, embed the risk-based approach at the heart of regulators' statutory duties, and make it quicker and easier to remove unnecessary regulations. And in the next session we will introduce a second bill removing outmoded and unnecessary regulations. We will begin a widespread consultation with businesses to identify regulations that should be removed or simplified.

But regulators must not wait for legislation to apply the principles of the risk-based approach and instead immediately begin working together, for example, with joint inspection.

Reforms in local authorities must form a central part of this new approach. Every year 73 per cent of all business inspections are carried out by 611 separate local inspectorates. Even with the "home authority principle" a supermarket chain could be subject to inspection by 203 separate trading standards offices. In future, it would only have to deal with one set of standards, working through a new Consumer and Trading Standards Agency. An incentive scheme will promote more joint work between local authorities and may consolidate local inspectorates.

David Varney, the new chairman of HM Revenue & Customs, is rigorously applying the risk-based approach to tax administration, consulting with business on a single tax account for small businesses. This will mean a single point of contact for all taxes, piloting single inspection, a risk-based approach to visits, and flexible payment options that suit modern business needs. Take value added tax: already 70,000 companies no longer have to provide forms that account for every VAT transaction but make one calculation and pay one flat rate. Working with the chambers of commerce, we will encourage the 600,000 companies eligible to benefit from this simplification to take up the opportunity.

European Union regulations account for 50 per cent of significant new rules imposed on business. From July, our presidency of the EU will give us the opportunity not only to apply a competitiveness test to EU rule-making but to extend the risk-based approach to benefit businesses across Europe. As the Better Regulation Task Force has recommended, Britain will set challenging, quantifiable targets to cut the administrative burden of regulation.

To ensure that this agenda and the necessary culture change in government take place, a Better Regulation Executive has been created, with an externally recruited chairman, extending this new relationship of trust between government and business.

The writer is chancellor of the exchequer

Fear of violence from cops wielding tasers

When Jackie Smith, the porn-loving milker of 'parliamentary benefits' - aka money for old rope - unveiled plans to purchase 10,000 tasers you didn't think it was to target 'Muslim extremism' did you?

There are growing fears that protests at the summit venue, the ExCeL centre in London's Docklands could be marred by violence. Scotland Yard will be deploying specialist officers trained to use 50,000-volt Taser stun guns. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/G20/article5993184.ece

abcde23

50,000 Hezbollahis in State of High Alert

Al-Manor: The Lebanese newspaper Assafir reported Saturday that the Hezbollah has put 50,000 of its resistance fighters in a state of high alert
and evacuated all buildings in the area designated for social or political purposes in recent days. Hezbollah vowed to retaliate the assassination of it resistance commander Imad Moghniyeh who was killed in Damascus by Mossad agents. Israel has denied any involvement.

Meanwhile, another Lebanese newspaper, Al-Akhbar, reported that Lebanese officials believe a serious military confrontation with Israel will erupt in the near future. "This possibility has been raised in intensive discussions being held between Hezbollah officials and Iranian and Syrian officials. The various militant Palestinian organizations have also declared a state of high alert," the report added. Link


Nasrallah promises to expand fight

Militants bulldoze Gaza wall, thank Caterpillar

It's unusual to witness a Cat doing something useful for the Palestinians:

UN slams Israel over Gaza

The UN Human Rights Council criticised Israel on Thursday for its blockade of Gaza, in a resolution that EU member states on the council abstained from voting on, citing a lack of balance.

By a vote of 30 to one, the council adopted the resolution that had been tabled by Pakistan and Syria on behalf of the Islamic and Arab blocs. Canada cast the lone opposing vote, while a total of 15 other states abstained.

The resolution called for "urgent international action to put an immediate end to the grave violations committed by the occupying power, Israel, in the occupied Palestinian territory". Link

Gazans find a brief freedom, and food

FANTASTIC:

Starbucks could start making decent coffee

Starbucks, Threatened by McDonald's, Brings Back Schultz as CEO

Howard Schultz was peddling a unique idea when he turned a Seattle coffee-bean roaster into a chain of U.S. cafes called Starbucks Corp. Now he is returning to lead a company battered by the competitive landscape it created. Link

db: Can you imagine your favourite European coffee shop coming under competitive threat from McDonalds? This just confirms what we all know - Starbucks coffee is foul piss.

Justice Scalia: Let them die in pain

"This is an execution, not surgery," [Justice] Scalia said, adding, "Where does this come from, that ... in the execution of a person who has been convicted of killing people we must choose the least painful method possible? Is that somewhere in our Constitution?" Link

db: Are the families of the executed as innocent as the families of the victims? Can you not compare the pain inflicted on them, by the state, with the pain inflicted on the families of the murdered victims? Governments have no moral right to kill their citizens under any circumstances. Losing your son, brother, father under such conditions must bring unbearable suffering.

Jean Charles de Menezes would be 30 today

The family of Jean Charles de Menezes today remembered Jean Charles de Menezes on what would have been his 30th birthday and vowed to continue their struggle for justice until those responsible are held accountable for his killing.

Alex Perriera, cousin of Jean Charles de Menezes, today said:

"If Jean were alive today, I imagine he would have been living back in Brazil and celebrating his 30th birthday with his parents, family and maybe even a girlfriend. Instead, today there will be no celebration; his birthday only serves as a painful reminder to our family that it is two and a half years since we lost him and despite our long struggle no-one has been held accountable for his death. The police officers involved in his killing still carry on as normal while our lives exist in turmoil, fighting to get the answers and justice we deserve. We thank the public for their ongoing support which means a lot to us."

A spokesperson from the Justice4Jean Campaign said:

"Today is an extremely difficult day for the Menezes family and we commend their strength in continuing to fight for justice in the face of the determination by state agencies to close ranks and not hold anyone to account for his death. It is a disgrace that after two and a half years, two lengthy and critical IPCC reports and a damning jury verdict at the Old Bailey, still there has been no disciplinary action against a single person for the shooting dead of Jean Charles de Menezes"

The Menezes family now await the inquest into Jean's death which is expected to take place later this year and last approximately 3 months. The next date for a pre-inquest review is 8 February at Southwark Coroners Court where the Coroner is expected to name the date, location and presider of the inquest.

Balance of world power is changing rapidly

Many wished and believed a decade after the Cold War ended that the future world would be a multipolar one. But at the same time, they also believed that as the overwhelming superpower, United States hegemony would persist for at least another 50 years or even longer.

But recent years have shown that this is not the case.

Affected by economic globalization and the pursuit of profit maximization, and pushed particularly by "borderless information" and "hi-tech's invisible hand", the progress of world multipolarity has not been slow, but has accelerated in recent years. Changes to the international balance of power has taken place faster than some American "futurists" had expected. Who would have ever imagined that China and India could develop at such surprising speed? Who would have thought that China's (official) foreign exchange reserve could jump to be the world's No 1? Who would have thought that Russia would regain its great power status so rapidly?

After the quick rise of "BRIC" (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), 2007 has witnessed the emergence of "VISTA" (Vietnam, Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey, and Argentina).

According to statistics, the foreign exchange reserves of developing countries make up three quarters of the world's total. Three (China, Russia, and India) of BRIC are all "tycoons" in this area. Emerging countries' proportion in the world economy has increased from 39.7 percent in the early 1990s to 48 percent last year. Apart from China's impressive speed, the annual economic growth rate of India has been maintained at 6 to 7 percent over the past decade, and is expected to be 8.5 percent this year. Both China and India rank among the top three most attractive investing countries in the world (the US is obviously the other one).

Russia has also been enjoying rapid growth in the past seven years, with an annual GDP growth rate of 7.8 percent and gold exchange reserves of $404.8 billion. More than $200 billion in debt left by the break up of the Soviet Union has almost been repaid. The country has returned to the list of the world's top 10 biggest economies. Seeking to be among the top five by 2020, Russia's GDP per capital may reach $30,000 by then.

Among the five VISTA countries, the annual GDP of Vietnam has increased 8.7 percent this year compared to 2006. The country has now become a leading one for trade and investment in Asia.

The total value of external trade of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) exceeded $1,400 billion in 2006, and its total domestic trade value was about $340 billion. The goal of forming an ASEAN Community will possibly be realized before 2015. The value of trade between China and ASEAN is expected to be $190 billion this year. The establishment of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone is accelerating. Having becoming the biggest exporter to the Japanese and South Korean markets, the value of trade between China and Japan has exceeded $200 billion, and that between China and South Korea $160 billion. Conspicuous growth was also seen between China and the US, Australia, New Zealand, and Russia.

Some international economic groups have pointed out that the world economy is experiencing its biggest transformation since the Industrial Revolution. Economic centers have been shifting from the developed world to emerging markets in Asia, East Europe, Middle East, and Latin America. BRIC and VISTA are changing the economic structure of the world. These factors are persuasive.

Obviously, it cannot be said at this stage BRIC, VISTA, and some other states have become "polars" of the world. But it is an irreversible trend.

It also cannot be said that the US, which still dominates international markets, has lost it leading position. But it is a fact it is going "down hill", and shrinking in relative power.

These changes, continuous and historical, will significantly affect future international relations.

In another development, regional conflicts and wars are likely to continue and intensify because the nature of the global strategy of the US will remain unchanged.

The US, whether under the Republicans or the Democrats, will continue to be the main antagonist. At the same time, the development of the international and regional situation will not change according to the whims of Washington. Under such circumstances, contradictions and conflicts are virtually inevitable and are likely to crop up from time to time. If dealt with inappropriately, it could likely to lead to wars. Currently, there is no shortage of international hot spots - the "Horn of Africa", Iran-US, and America's deployment of anti-ballistic missiles in some Eastern European countries. The number of such hot spots will tend to increase in the future, a cruel reality that none of us want to see.

Conclusion:

Development of the international situation requires China to fully make use of the strategic opportunities though tough challenges still exist.

President Hu Jintao's report to the 17th Party Congress gives a better answer on to how to cope with such a situation. Hu's words of "constructing a harmonious world", is highly welcomed by the international community, and has "brought China and the world closer".

However, we should be prudent and modest, enhance our sense of urgency and never lose our head.

Now some people with ulterior motives are singing a "song of praise" for China on the international platform, and are even advocating "China-US jointly lead the world". Some domestic media and "experts" are also espousing the belief that China is getting ready to "lead the world".

China's long-term strategic principle is peaceful development. We should maintain a balance between the two and avoid overly stressing any of them.

Policies and strategies are the lifeblood of our diplomacy, yet we should not confuse their roles. If we do so, we will face a significant loss in the future.

The author is a researcher of internatioanl relations based in Beijing

(China Daily 12/28/2007 page11)

Richard Dawkins to lecture US bible belt

Richard Dawkins, the scourge of pseudo-science, Christianity and homeopathy, is to step up his campaign for rational thinking with a series of high-profile lectures deep in the heart of the American Bible Belt.

The Oxford University professor travels to the US next year as part of his battle to promote evolutionary theory in the face of a backlash against the concept in the world's most-advanced industrial nation.

He is to address a series of 2,000-seater venues in the American heartlands. The tour will coincide with the publication of his best-seller The God Delusion in paperback in the US in January and act as a prelude to a series of global events to mark the bicentenary of Charles Darwin in 2009.

Professor Dawkins has charities in his own name on both sides of the Atlantic to promote reason and science. He has said that it is in the US, where 50 per cent of the population believes the universe is less than 10,000 years old, that the Enlightenment is most threatened.

However, he said he did not expect audiences to be too tough on his atheist beliefs and that many thanked him for speaking out. "The Bible Belt is a lot less monolithic than it portrays itself. I have a feeling that there is rather a large groundswell of people who agree with me," he said. Link

db: A groundswell of bible belters agree with Richard Dawkins? If this is an evidence based feeling I would like to see it, because my guess is that there will be an even larger groundswell of folk advocating a lynching, or a bullet, or some other Christian remedy for that which does not please.

Quantum xMas: The Two Slit Experiment

Greetings from Def Brain. This is a reasonably accessible - we almost understood it - video illustrating the 'reality' bending nature of the Quantum world.

Killing for Peace in Gaza

Israel killed 13 Palestinian militants in air strikes in the Gaza Strip that marked its most deadly military response in months to frequent rocket attacks from the Hamas-controlled territory.

Islamic Jihad, the group behind many of the rocket launchings that have been disrupting life in southern Israel, said four of its members were killed on Tuesday as they walked out of a mosque in the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Hours earlier, air strikes killed seven Islamic Jihad militants, including a senior Gaza commander, prompting the group to threaten suicide bombings inside the Jewish state.

Israel has not been hit by a suicide bombing in 11 months, a respite that helped pave the way for renewed peace efforts with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who opposes such attacks. Read more

Neo-Labour's Britain: Left versus right is the wrong war

Henry Porter

Propaganda is theft because it attempts to deprive people of the truth. Our sister paper, the Guardian, ran a debate on liberty, rights and privacy and in it we saw two examples of government propaganda. The first came from the Justice Minister Jack Straw, who held that New Labour had 'deepened and extended' civil liberties - yes, and I am Scary Spice. The second was from columnist Polly Toynbee, New Labour's unblushing champion, who accused people like me - actually, especially me - of being right-wingers in liberal clothing and middle-class paranoids seeking victimhood.

Neither was successful because the authors do not understand the difference between refuting an argument and rebutting it. Straw is an old fashioned statist who believes if you go on saying a lie people will eventually believe it. Toynbee is something different. One senses panic rising from the realisation that it is very hard to deny Labour's programme against liberty when most of it is on the statute book.

So she scurries around wondering how she is going to hold the line. Her first ploy was to muddy the waters by questioning what is a reasonable freedom. For instance, she presents Labour's campaign against free speech as merely anti-discrimination laws, which is nothing like the whole truth. There is, she says, a clash between the right to free speech and the right not to be abused. The point is abuse is the corollary of free speech. I would prefer everyone to be well-mannered and respectful yet I believe gays have the right to be rude about the church and the church to be rude about gays, without either running to the law.

Next step is for her to practise this free speech by referring to what she calls my paranoia. That's fine by me but I'd just point out that there is a difference between fear and paranoia, as there is between sounding the alarm and being alarmist. And again, it's not as if I, or any of the other contributors to the debate, are making this up. It is irrefutably all there in Labour's record.

The breathtaking dishonesty of her argument is to describe anyone who opposes Labour on these grounds as a being a right-winger. In our democracy liberals exist in all parties - thank God - and it is eloquent of her desperation that she seeks to portray those who stand for liberty, rights and privacy as being individualists who are seeking the aura of victimhood, which of course decrypts as privileged middle-class dilettantes. The allegation comes from the hard-line sectarian communists of my student days, and it is hardly surprising to find the same generation still at it in New Labour, yet now adding notes of vanity, self-righteousness and priggishness.

The striking thing is how few in the government and among its supporters really grasp the substance of our complaints about liberty over the last 10 years. With dismal familiarity, we watch them move hastily from the matter in hand to rattle on about social justice. The trick, you see, is to portray concerns about liberty as a luxury for the privileged classes when what really matters is poverty and inequality. She must know that there can be no social justice without liberty, and vice versa. Besides, as the gap between the rich and poor widens every day, New Labour and its cheerleaders are at risk of causing nationwide symptoms of motion sickness when they strike this particular pose.

We are all victims of Labour's authoritarian laws but often the people whose interests New Labour claims to represent are especially penalised - for instance, the defendants who are pressurised in police stations to plead guilty by video link to crimes they have not committed because there is no adequate legal representation to hand. Why doesn't Toynbee write about the measures smuggled into the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act which will combine with the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act to make it legal for bailiffs to enter someone's home and seize property on a civil order? Jack Straw's Department of Justice is currently formulating the rules that will govern the force that may be offered to single mothers, old ladies, teenagers and young children who happen to be at home when the bailiffs come. Will she be reminding us that Labour has buried 400 years of protection against this outrage? Read more

db: Toynbee and people like her seem to have made an error. The Left vs Right paradigm is a useless platform from which to view the encroachments upon civil liberties inflicted on us by the neo-Labour government. The class war - if our warriors are the Blairs and Jack Straws of the world - is a conflict that has long since been lost. Much better to focus on what is real - the civil liberties won for us by our ancestors - and find your allies in this new war where ever you can find them [short of the dastardly BNP]. Henry Porter is an ally; left, right ... whatever.

Time Magazine- Iran's Nukes: Now They Tell Us?

The President looked awful. He stood puffy-eyed, stoop-shouldered, in front of the press corps discussing the stunning new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that Iran halted its nuclear-weapons program in 2003. He looked as if he'd spent the night throwing chairs around the Situation Room. A reporter noted that he seemed dispirited, and the President joked, "This is like — all of a sudden, it's like Psychology 101, you know?" He added, "No, I'm feeling pretty spirited, pretty good about life, and I made the decision to come before you so I can explain the NIE." And then, defiantly, "And so, kind of Psychology 101 ain't working. It's just not working. I understand the issues, I clearly see the problems, and I'm going to use the NIE to continue to rally the international community for the sake of peace." And then he walked out. More

db: Who will tell Israel?

USA Neocon 'Iran Lies' Exposed Before War Shock

President George W Bush today insisted that Iran remained a "dangerous" threat as he struggled to justify continued isolation of the country despite the "great discovery" that it had suspended its nuclear weapons programme in 2003. Link

Brown makes the crime a funding issue

Gordon Brown has again sought to diffuse the row over hidden donations to the Labour Party by arguing the case for funding reform. Link

db: The debate is not about party funding. It's about criminal government. Why should we pay out our taxes to propagate British 'ruling class' lies and propaganda? They don't need any more cash than they can LEGALLY raise. Cut back a bit ... like we do in the real world, scum bags.

Teddy row teacher freed from jail

A UK teacher has been released and handed over to British officials in Sudan after being jailed for letting her class name a teddy bear Muhammad. Link

db: But what about Him? Won't He be angry? The Teddy totally got off with it ... as did the kids. What kind of religion is this?

Annapolis: A Poor Theatrical Production [video]

From: LinkTV

The Teddy must die

Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied Friday in a central square and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Muhammad."

The protesters streamed out of mosques after Friday sermons, as pickup trucks with loudspeakers blared messages against Gillian Gibbons, the teacher who was sentenced Thursday to 15 days in prison and deportation. She avoided the more serious punishment of 40 lashes.

They massed in central Martyrs Square outside the presidential palace, where hundreds of riot police were deployed. They did not try to stop the rally, which lasted about an hour.

"Shame, shame on the U.K.," protesters chanted.

They called for Gibbons' execution, saying, "No tolerance: Execution," and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad." Link

db: This says as much about the fractured political relationship between Islamic countries [excluding puppet states] and Britain/US as it does about the mindless nature of religion.

Fisk: A different venue, but the pious claims and promises are the same

Haven't we been here before? Isn't Annapolis just a repeat of the White House lawn and the Oslo agreement, a series of pious claims and promises in which two weak men, Messrs Abbas and Olmert, even use the same words of Oslo.

"It is time for the cycle of blood, violence and occupation to end," the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday. But don't I remember Yitzhak Rabin saying on the White House lawn that, "it is time for the cycle of blood... to end"?

Jerusalem and its place as a Palestinian and Israeli capital isn't there. And if Israel receives acknowledgement that it is indeed an Israeli state – and in reality, of course, it is – there can be no "right of return" for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled (or whose families fled) what became Israel in 1948.

And what am I to make of the following quotation from the full text of the joint document: "The steering committee will develop a joint work plan and establish and oversee the work of negotiations (sic) teams to address all issues, to be headed by one lead representative from each party." Come again?

We went through all these steering committees before – and they never worked. True we've got a date of 12 December for the first session of this so-called "steering committee" and we have the faint hope from Mr Bush, embroidered, of course, with all the usual self-confidence, that we're going to have an agreement by 2008. But how can the Palestinians have a state without a capital in Jerusalem? How can they have a state when their entire territory has been chopped up and divided by Jewish settlements and the settler roads and, in parts, by a massive war?

Yes of course, we all want an end to bloodshed in the Middle East but the Americans are going to need Syria and Iran to support this – or at least Syrian support to control Hamas – and what do we get? Bush continues to threaten Iran and Bush tells Syria in Annapolis that it must keep clear of Lebanese elections, or else...

Yes, Hizbollah is a surrogate of Iran and is playing a leading role in the opposition to the government of Lebanon. Do Bush and Condoleezza Rice (or Abbas or Olmert for that matter) really think they're going to have a free ride for a year without the full involvement of every party in the region? More than half of the Palestinians under occupation are under the control of Hamas.

Reading the speeches – especially the joint document – it seems like an exercise in self-delusion. The Middle East is currently a hell disaster and the President of the United States thinks he is going to produce the crown jewels from a cabinet and forget Afghanistan and Iraq and Iran – and Pakistan, for that matter. The worst element of the whole Annapolis shindig is that once again millions of people across the Middle East – Muslims, Jews and Christians – will believe all this and will then turn – after its failure – with fury on their antagonists for breaking these agreements.

For more than two years, the Saudis have been offering Israel security and recognition by Arab states in return for a total withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied territories. What was wrong with that? Mr Olmert promised that "negotiations will address all the issues which thus far has been evaded". Yet the phrase "withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territories" simply doesn't exist in the text.

Like most people who live in the Middle East, I would like to enjoy these dreams and believe they are true. But they are not. Wait for the end of 2008. Link

Dalai Lama: Reincarnation-u-like

Faced with Chinese plans to seize control of his reincarnation, the Dalai Lama has come up with two revolutionary proposals — either to forgo rebirth, or to be reborn while still alive. Link

Teacher on blasphemy charge over 'Muhammad' teddy bear

A British primary school teacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of blasphemy for allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad, it emerged today.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was arrested yesterday at her home inside Unity high school, a British international school, after a number of parents made a complaint to Sudan's education ministry.

The school's director, Robert Boulos, said Gibbons had since been charged with blasphemy, an offence he said was punishable with up to three months in prison and a fine. Link

db: Dawkins will love this

Bush launches Annapolis 'launch pad'

"This conference will signal international support for the Israelis' and Palestinians' intention to commence negotiations on the establishment of a Palestinian state and the realization of peace between these two peoples," Bush said in welcoming the two Middle East leaders who arrived over the weekend.

Having largely shunned personal Middle East diplomacy during his seven years in office, Bush will meet Olmert and Abbas separately and together. They will be joined at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis by envoys from more than 40 countries.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has argued that Annapolis would be an opportunity for Israel and Sunni Arabs to close ranks against regional "extremism" -- an allusion chiefly to Iran's nuclear programme, many political analysts believe. Link

db: Hamas? Winners of a democratic election? No place on the launch pad!

U.N: Tasers Are A Form Of Torture [seen as safe in UK]

A United Nations committee said Friday that use of Taser weapons can be a form of torture, in violation of the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

Use of the electronic stun devices by police has been marked with a sudden rise in deaths - including four men in the United States and two in Canada within the last week.

Canadian authorities are taking a second look at them, and in the United States, there is a wave of demands to BAN them.

The U.N. Committee Against Torture referred Friday to the use of TaserX26 weapons which Portuguese police has acquired. An expert had testified to the committee that use of the weapons had "proven risks of harm or death."

"The use of TaserX26 weapons, provoking extreme pain, constituted a form of torture, and that in certain cases it could also cause death, as shown by several reliable studies and by certain cases that had happened after practical use," the committee said in a statement.

Tasers have become increasingly controversial in the United States, particularly after several notorious cases where their use by police to disable suspects was questioned as being excessive. Especially disturbing is the fact that six adults died after being tased by police in the span of a week. Link

db: Meanwhile Britain has loosened up the law to permit the issue of Tasers to untrained cops needing to assert 'conflict management' skills:

Lords Hansard 19 July 2007

Firearms: Taser

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): My honourable friend the Minister of State for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing (Tony McNulty) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

Taser has been available to all authorised firearms officers since September 2004 as a less lethal alternative for use in situations where a firearms authority has been granted in accordance with criteria laid down in the Association of Chief Police Officers manual of guidance on police use of firearms.

I am giving my approval from 20 July 2007 for chief officers throughout England and Wales to

Column WS33

deploy Taser for use by authorised firearms officers in operations or incidents where the criteria for the authorisation to issue firearms does not apply, but where officers are facing violence or threats of violence of such severity that they would need to use force to protect the public, themselves and/or the subject(s) of their action.

I am also approving a 12-month trial of the deployment of Taser by specially trained units who are not firearms officers in similarly violent circumstances requiring conflict management. The trial, commencing on 1 September 2007, will be undertaken in the following 10 forces: Avon and Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, Gwent, Lincolnshire, Merseyside, Metropolitan Police Service, Northamptonshire, Northumbria, North Wales and West Yorkshire.

ACPO has produced new policy and operational guidance documents for both the extension and the trial. The Defence Scientific Advisory Council (DSAC) sub-committee on the medical implications of less lethal weapons (DOMILL) was invited to provide a fourth statement on the medical implications of the use of Taser taking into account the new ACPO policy and guidance. The DOMILL statement confirms that the risk of death or serious injury from Taser remains low.

Officials said: 76 'Taliban' killed

Nearly 80 Taliban rebels were killed in a series of air raids by international military forces near eastern Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, a provincial government spokesman said Sunday.

About 65 were killed in a single air assault late Saturday in eastern Paktia province on a "large group of Taliban," said Din Mohammad Darvish, a spokesman for the local administration.

Four others were killed in a second assault targeting a vehicle carrying rebels in the same region of the province, Patan district, and four in a nearby area, he said.

Another three were killed in an air strike near Gardez, capital of the restive province, he said.

"Altogether 76 Taliban were killed in separate air strikes by coalition forces," Darvish told AFP.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and separate US-led coalition could only immediately confirm the last incident which they said was targeted at three militants spotted planting a bomb.

Casualty tolls in battles between insurgents and Afghan security forces backed by their international allies are often difficult to establish with officials regularly issuing different numbers that can not be verified. Link

'Black Rock' costs tax payers extra billion every week

The Northern Rock crisis is costing the taxpayer the equivalent of twice the country's primary school budget, it was claimed yesterday.

Acting Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable said the Government's initial £25billion bail-out was growing by £1billion a week.

He accused the Treasury of leaving itself open to "blackmail" by hedge fund shareholders who were threatening to block any sale of Northern Rock unless yet more public money was poured into it. Link

Australia: Bush's other poodle defeated

Australia's conservative Prime Minister John Howard has conceded defeat in elections, clearing the way for center-left Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd to take power. Link

UK data free-for-all. Have some

'Roll-up!' 'Roll-up!'

Unencrypted discs with 25 million Child Benefit records on them were handed to an accountancy firm by government auditors, it has emerged.

The National Audit Office (NAO) gave the CDs - similar to the ones lost by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) officials - to accountants KPMG for auditing.

It said the discs - with bank account details on them - were delivered "by hand" to KPMG and returned safely. Link

db: What does 'returned safely' mean exactly when you're talking about CD's? The return of the original physical disk is not like getting back a locked filing cabinet. A thousand images of those CD's may exist already. But I trust KPMG ...

What is the significance of the fact that the two sides seem to be so far apart?

The wide rift between the parties, and the apparent refusal of the U.S. to push Israel to engage in substantive negotiations, may lead to the failure of the conference.

More FAQ on the Annapolis conference

41% of Iraq's foreign fighters were Saudi

Around 60% of all foreign militants who entered Iraq to fight over the past year came from Saudi Arabia and Libya, according to files seized by American forces at a desert camp.

The files listed the nationalities and biographical details of more than 700 fighters who crossed into Iraq from August last year, around half of whom came to the country to be suicide bombers, the New York Times reported today.

In all, 305, or 41%, of the fighters listed were from Saudi Arabia. Another 137, or 18%, came from Libya. Both countries are officially US allies in anti-terrorism efforts.

In contrast, 56 Syrians were listed and no Lebanese. Previously, US officials estimated that around a fifth of all foreign fighters in Iraq came from these two countries.

US officials have also long complained about Iranian interference in the affairs of its neighbour, accusing Tehran of shipping weapons for militants over the border. However, any assistance does not appear to extend to people, the paper said, reporting that, of around 25,000 suspected militants in US custody in Iraq, 11 were Iranian. No Iranians were listed among the fighters whose details were found. Link

Note: The term 'foreign fighters' in this case excludes 'coalition' forces.

Afghanistan 'falling into Taliban hands'

The Taliban has a permanent presence in 54% of Afghanistan and the country is in serious danger of falling into the group's hands, according to a report by an independent thinktank with long experience in the area.

Despite the presence of tens of thousands of Nato-led troops and billions of dollars in aid, the insurgents, driven out by the US invasion in 2001, now control "vast swaths of unchallenged territory, including rural areas, some district centres, and important road arteries," the Senlis Council says in a report released today.

On the basis of what it calls exclusive research, it warns that the insurgency is also exercising a "significant amount of psychological control, gaining more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people, who have a long history of shifting alliances and regime change".

It says that the frontline is getting ever closer to Kabul - a warning echoed by the UN, which says more and more of the country is becoming a "no go" area for western aid and development workers.

The council goes as far as to state: "It is a sad indictment of the current state of Afghanistan that the question now appears to be not if the Taliban will return to Kabul, but when this will happen and in what form. The oft-stated aim of reaching the city in 2008 appears more viable than ever and it is incumbent upon the international community to implement a new strategic paradigm for Afghanistan before time runs out". Link

We must not tolerate this putsch against our freedoms

A few journalists and MPs are prepared to fight the government's sinister anti-libertarianism. More people should join them

Henry Porter
Sunday November 18, 2007

Welcome to Fortress Britain, a fortress that will keep people in as well as out. Welcome to a state that requires you to answer 53 questions before you're allowed to take a day trip to Calais. Welcome to a country where you will be stopped, scanned and searched at any of 250 railways stations, filmed at every turn, barked at by a police force whose behaviour has given rise to a doubling in complaints concerning abuse and assaults.

Three years ago, this would have seemed hysterical and Home Office ministers would have been writing letters of complaint. But it is a measure of how fast and how far things have gone that it does nothing more than describe the facts as announced last week.

We now accept with apparent equanimity that the state has the right to demand to know, among other things, how your ticket has been paid for, the billing address of any card used, your travel itinerary and route, your email address, details of whether your travel arrangements are flexible, the history of changes to your travel plans plus any biographical information the state deems to be of interest or anything the ticket agent considers to be of interest.

There is no end to Whitehall's information binge. The krill of personal data is being scooped up in ever-increasing quantities by a state that harbours a truly bewildering fear of the free, private and self-determined individual, who may want to take himself off to Paris without someone at home knowing his movements or his credit card number.

Combined with the ID card information, which comes on stream in a few years' time, the new travel data means there will be very little the state won't be able to find out about you. The information will be sifted for patterns of travel and expenditure. Conclusions will be drawn from missed planes, visits extended, illness and all the accidents of life, and because this is a government database, there will be huge numbers of mistakes that will lead to suspicion and action being taken against innocent people.

Those failing to provide satisfactory answers will not be allowed to travel and then it will come to us with a leaden regret that we have in practice entered the era of the exit visa, a time when we must ask permission from a security bureaucrat who insists on further and better particulars in the biographical section of the form. Ten, 15 or more years on, we will be resigned to the idea that the state decides whether we travel or not.

Who pays for the £1.2bn cost over the next decade? You will, with additional charges made by your travel agent and in a new travel tax designed to recoup the cost of the data collection. But much of the money will go to Raytheon Systems, the US company that developed the cruise missile and which, no coincidence, has embedded itself in Labour's information project by supporting security research at the party's favourite think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research.

The odour that arises from the Home Office contract with Raytheon is as nothing compared to that created last week when the Home Secretary and Prime Minister used the announcement of the 'E-borders' scheme as well as increased security at shopping centres, airports and railway stations to create an atmosphere that would push MPs to double the time a terrorist suspect can be held without trial. It also helped to divert attention from the mess in another Home Office database concerning upwards of 10,000 security guards who may be illegal immigrants.

On detention without trial, no new arguments have been produced by Gordon Brown. He won't say how many days he wants and he won't answer David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, who points out that all the necessary powers to keep people in jail after a large-scale attack are provided in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.

To this, Brown replies that declaring a state of emergency would give terrorists 'the oxygen of publicity'. How does he square this absurd statement with the high alert being sounded by police, politicians and spies over the past two weeks, which has given the greatest possible publicity to the power of the Muslim extremists to change our lives?

The truth is that while his government limps, heaves and splutters with an incompetence only matched by its unearthly sense of entitlement, the Prime Minister has become fixated with this issue as though it were a virility test. So his chief Security Minister, Lord West of Spithead, who had voiced his doubts about raising detention without trial on Radio 4, was hauled into Number 10 to have his thoughts rearranged. Less than an hour later, he appeared like an off-duty ballroom dancing champion and adjusted his conviction as though it was no more than a troublesome knot in his very plump, very yellow silk tie. He will not resign of course. What is a mere principle placed against his recent elevation to the Lords and the thrilling proximity to power?

How have we allowed this rolling putsch against our freedom? Where are the principled voices from left and right, the outrage of playwrights and novelists, the sit-ins, the marches, the swelling public anger? We have become a nation that tolerates a diabetic patient collapsed in a coma being tasered by police, the jailing of a silly young woman for writing her jihadist fantasies in verse and an illegal killing by police that was prosecuted under health and safety laws.

Is it simply that the fear of terrorism has stunned us? The threat is genuine and the government is right to step up some security measures, but let us put it into perspective by reminding ourselves that in the period since 7/7, about 6,000 people have been killed on our roads. And let's not forget the bombings, assassinations, sieges, machine-gunning of restaurants and slaughter that occurred on mainland Britain during the IRA campaign. We survived these without giving up our freedoms .

Or is there some greater as yet undefined malaise that allows a sinister American corporation to infiltrate the fabric of government and supply a system that will monitor everyone going abroad? I cannot say, but I do know that an awful lot depends on the 40 or so Labour MPs needed to defeat Brown's proposals on pre-trial detention. They should be given every encouragement to defy the whips on the vote, which is expected within the next fortnight

It is important that the press has moved to the side of liberty. The Daily Mail, which I wrongly excluded from the roll of honour last week, attacked Jacqui Smith for 'her utter contempt for privacy' and warned against the travel delays and inevitable failure of another expensive government database. And Timothy Garton Ash, who has so far stayed above the fray, wrote in the Guardian last week that 'we have probably diminished our own security by overreacting, alienating some who might not otherwise have been alienated'. Labour MPs should listen to these voices.

The Prime Minister is found of quoting Churchill, so I will again: 'If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only precarious chance for survival.' Link

Chavez in Tehran: "Empire of dollar is crashing"

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Monday the "empire of the dollar is crashing," a day after his country and "anti-U.S." ally Iran advocated action over the weakening U.S. currency during an OPEC summit in Riyadh.

Chavez, who on Saturday said oil prices could double to $200 per barrel if the United States attacks Iran over its disputed atomic ambitions, spoke to reporters after talks with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"Soon we will not talk about dollars because the dollar is falling in value and the empire of the dollar is crashing," Chavez said in comments translated into Farsi from Spanish.

"Naturally, by the crash of the dollar, America's empire will crash," Chavez said at a joint news conference with Ahmadinejad. The two presidents share the same viewpoint in denouncing U.S. influence in the world.

The final statement of the oil cartel's November 17-18 summit in Riyadh did not include any reference to the falling dollar, in an apparent victory for U.S.-allied moderates led by Saudi Arabia.

But Iran and Venezuela made clear before and after the summit that they would press for action, which could include pricing oil in a basket of currencies, with Ahmadinejad on Sunday calling the dollar a "worthless piece of paper."

A fall in the value of the U.S. dollar on global markets helped fuel oil's rally to a record $98.62 on November 7 -- causing the West to call for more OPEC supplies to cool prices -- but it has also eroded the purchasing power of OPEC members.

Fears the United States or its ally Israel could attack Iran -- over a nuclear energy program Washington says is a cover for seeking atomic weapons -- have also contributed to higher crude prices. Tehran denies the charge. Link

Dubious Media City

Dubai Media City (DMC) part of Dubai Holding is a tax free zone within Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It has been built by the Dubai government to boost UAE's media foothold, and has become a regional hub for media organizations ranging from: news agencies, publishing, online media, advertising, production, and broadcast facilities. The ground work for infrastructure (Such as fiber optic cables) was already laid for firms to setup easily and its visa and operational procedures are relaxed for firms operating within DMC.

On 16th of November 2007 Dubai Government shut down the Pakistani independent and private channels Geo News TV and ARY One World on understanding with the military regime of Pakistan lead by Pervez Musharraf. Later the policy makers in Dubai permissioned these channels to air their entertainment programs, but news, current affairs and political analysis were forbidden to be aired. This has had a devastating impact on all organizations in the media city and they have started considerations about relocating. Link (Wikipedia)

Playing Hamas against Fatah

Excerpt:

... intra-Palestinian tensions are being exploited by the US and Israel to try and destroy Hamas, by supporting Abbas and Fatah and pushing a bizarre new peace process that is supposed to kick off with a meeting at Annapolis, Maryland in the coming weeks. This US-driven peace process is unlikely to achieve either credibility or success if one of its main purposes is to exploit and deepen the Fatah-Hamas split, and structurally link the intra-Palestinian clashes with the resumption of peace talks. Trying to defeat Hamas in this way runs the additional risk of turning Abbas and Fatah into discredited collaborators whose addiction to power caused them to give more importance to US-Israeli wishes than to the expressed electoral preferences of the Palestinian people.

... Hamas is not going anywhere, because it is the organic response of many Palestinians to three cumulative burdens: the failure of their own Fatah-led elite, the continuing aggressive policies of Israel and the US, and the discord, dysfunction and degradation of Palestinian society. Trying to destroy Hamas by force after it was democratically elected would only strengthen the very forces of defiance, resistance and self-assertion that brought it to power in the first place.

It is astounding that leaders of Fatah, Israel, Europe and the US refuse to see this very simple reality, and the corresponding conclusion that Fatah and Hamas must re-negotiate the formation of a national unity government, rather than fight it out on the streets of their shattered society. Link

Annapolis - Dead on Arrival [video]

Link TV

US 'Gitmo' captives off limits to Red Cross - document

The U.S. military’s operating manual for the Guantanamo prison camp has been posted on the Internet [pdf], providing a glimpse of the broad rules and tiniest minutia for detaining suspected terrorists.The 238-page manual, “Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta,” is dated March 27, 2003, and signed by Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who was then the commander of the prison that still holds about 300 al Qaeda and Taliban suspects.

It appears to be an authentic copy of the rules as they existed at the time at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, a spokesman for the Guantanamo detention operation, Lt. Col. Ed Bush, said on Wednesday.

It says incoming prisoners are to be held in near-isolation for the first two weeks to foster dependence on interrogators and “enhance and exploit the disorientation and disorganization felt by a newly arrived detainee in the interrogation process.”

Styrofoam cups must be confiscated if prisoners have written on them, apparently because prisoners have used cups to pass notes to other captives. “If the cup is damaged or destroyed, the detainee will be disciplined for destruction of government property,” the rules say.

The manual was posted last week on the Wikileaks.org Web site, which invites whistle-blowers around the world to anonymously publish state documents containing evidence of government corruption and injustice.

The Guantanamo manual is stamped “unclassified,” and “for official use only,” meaning it was not secret but was never intended for mass distribution either.

The manual also indicates some prisoners were designated as off limits to visitors from the International Committee of the Red Cross, something the military has repeatedly denied. Link

Chris Hedges: In the Hands of the Military

The last, best hope for averting a war with Iran lies with the United States military. The Democratic Congress, cowed by the Israel lobby and terrified of appearing weak on defense before the presidential elections, will do nothing to halt an attack. The media, especially the electronic press, is working overtime to whip up fear of a nuclear Iran and tar Tehran with abetting attacks against American troops in Iraq. The American public is complacent, unsure of what to believe, knocked off balance by fear and passive. We will be saved or doomed by our generals.

The last wall of defense that prevents the Bush administration from targeting Iran, an attack that could ignite a regional conflagration and usher in apocalyptic scenarios in the Middle East, runs through the offices of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; Adm. William Fallon , the head of the Central Command (CENTCOM); and Gen. George Casey, the Army’s new chief of staff. These three figures in the defense establishment have told George W. Bush and the Congress how depleted the U.S. military has become, that it cannot manage another conflict, and that a war with Iran would make the war with Iraq look like an act of prudence and common sense.

The reliance on the military command, however, to be the voice of reason in the debate about a new war is not a healthy sign for our deteriorating democracy. Compliant generals can always be found to carry out the Dr. Strangelove designs of a mad White House. Those who resist implementing decisions can easily be removed. The protective cover provided by these figures in the defense establishment could vanish.

The United States is able to launch a massive and devastating air attack on Iran’s military installations. It can obliterate the Iranian air force. It can cripple if not dismantle effective communications and military command and control. It can destroy some of Iran’s underground nuclear facilities. But our intelligence inside Iran, as was true in Iraq, is uneven. We do not know where all of Iran’s nuclear facilities are. And it is probable that an Iranian response against American targets, such as the Green Zone in Iraq, as well as Iranian-sponsored terrorist attacks on American soil, would follow. Shiites in the region would interpret an attack as a war on the Shiite community and would unleash unrest, terrorism and violence against us and our allies from Lebanon to Pakistan.

The battle is between the Cheney camp, which would like to carry out strikes on Iran before Bush leaves office, and Gates and his senior generals. Cheney, who has always been able to push aside the feckless Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, is having a tougher time with the military. Fallon, for example, was successful in his attempt to block efforts by Cheney to move a third aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf earlier this year and bluntly said that “there would be no war against Iran” as long as he was chief of CENTCOM.

Gen. Casey informed Congress this fall that the Army was “out of balance” and added: “The demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply. We are consumed with meeting the demands of the current fight, and are unable to provide ready forces as rapidly as necessary for other potential contingencies.”

This White House has a habit of dismissing recalcitrant generals. Gen. Eric Shinseki, when he was chief of staff of the Army, ended his career when he told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on the eve of the war in Iraq that “something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers” would probably be required for postwar Iraq. Gen. Peter Pace also ran afoul of the White House and was not nominated for a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he publicly defied Donald Rumsfeld. At a press conference in November 2005 he stood next to Rumsfeld as the secretary of defense asserted that “the United States does not have a responsibility” to prevent torture by Iraqi officials. Pace pointedly disagreed with Rumsfeld, saying, “It is the absolute responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene, to stop it.” Pace also openly dismissed White House claims that Iran was supplying weapons and explosively formed penetrators to Iraqi insurgents. He too was shown the door.

The White House, isolated and reviled at home and abroad, believes it is on a higher mission to save the world from itself. The instability in the Middle East could undermine Gates and his generals. A limited Israeli strike on suspected Iranian nuclear production facilities, currently under discussion in Jerusalem, could trigger retaliatory strikes by Iran on Israel and U.S. targets in Iraq and the Persian Gulf. The clamor for revenge, fueled by a rapacious right-wing media, coupled with our feelings of collective humiliation, could sweep aside all reasoned objections to war with Iran. It happened after the attacks of 2001. It can happen again.

There is a petition circulating that was put together by Marcy Winograd from the Progressive Democrats. The petition is addressed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and all U.S. military personnel. It urges them to defy orders to attack Iran. It points out that a pre-emptive war with Iran is a war crime under international law. It reminds military personnel of the statute in the Army Field Manual 27-10, Section 609, and Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 92, that states: “A general order or regulation is lawful unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the law of the United States. ...”

The petition notes that any provision of an international treaty ratified by the United States becomes the law of the United States. The United States is a party and signatory to the United Nations Charter, of which Article II, Section 4, states, “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. ...”

Iran has not attacked the United States. The U.S., as a party and signatory to the U.N. charter, would be in clear violation of international law and the laws enshrined in the Constitution if it went to war with Iran. If the citizens and their representatives in Congress refuse to resist and uphold the rule of law, perhaps the military can be prodded to halt our slide into despotism. It is not the best option, but it may be the only one left.

We live now at the mercy of events. A provocation by Iran, aided by a bellicose White House, could plunge us into another war. It could unleash the primitive chant for violence and revenge that rises up from a population that feels vulnerable, uncertain and afraid. There are forces in our society ready and willing to fan the blood lust for a wider circle of war and mayhem. The Iranians, like us, are cursed by their leadership. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is as primitive, inept and paranoid as George Bush. They are the perfect dance partners for a waltz into Armageddon. Link

Mrs. Clinton's forgotten fling with the Killer of Karachi

Hillary's Musharraf

He was the other man in Hillary's life. But it's over now. Or is it?

You've seen all those creepy photos of George Bush rubbing up against Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, the two of them grinning and giggling like they're going to the senior prom. So it's hard to remember that it was Hillary and Bill who brought Pervez to the dance in the first place.

How that happened, I'll tell you in a moment.

But first, let's get our facts straight about the man in the moustache. Musharraf, according to George Bush, The New York Times, NPR and the rest of press puppies is, "our ally in the War on Terror." That's like calling Carmine Gambino, "Our ally in the War on Crime."

Musharraf's the guy who helped the Taliban take power in Afghanistan in 1996. And, through his ISI, Pakistan's own KGB, he is still giving the Taliban secret protection.

And this is the same Musharraf who let Khalid Sheik Muhammed, Osama's operations chief for the September 11 attack, hang out in Quetta, Pakistan, in the open, until Khalid embarrassed his host by giving a boastful interview to Al Jazeera television from his Pakistan hang-out.

And this is the same Musharraf who permitted his nation's own Dr. Strangelove, A.Q. Khan, to sell nuclear do-it-yourself bomb kits to Libya and North Korea. When the story off the flea-market in fissionable materials was exposed, Musharraf (and Bush) both proclaimed their shock - shock! - over the bomb sales. Musharraf didn't know? Sure. Those tons of lethal hardware must have been shipped by flying pig.

But, unlike Saddam and Osama, creations of Ronald Reagan's and George Bush Sr.'s Frankenstein factories, Musharraf was a Clinton special. More