Monday, January 31, 2011

Iran wins, Israel/USA lose in turmoil....


The world as we know it is going through a huge transformation....


Chinese pieces to Iran's nuclear puzzle
Military analysts claim East Asia is becoming Iran's main source of nuclear-related material and devices and often the origin of these goods is China. Asia Times Online investigates the substance to allegations that, with Dubai no longer an option, Iran is increasingly turning to middlemen to obtain from China what it needs to keep its contested nuclear industry running. - Bertil Lintner (Mar 29, '11)



"The right to decide who can or can't make violence is essentially a colonial idea..."


Blessed Children of the Sweet Mother

No surprise from the blind mice running the show in D.C. and Tel Aviv now is it...?


Another comparison only occasionally made is that with the Soviet Bloc in 1989, yet there is no other clearer precedent but that one....


As the cliché goes, every revolution begins with noble intentions and ends up by devouring its own children....and that's exactly what happened to the March 14th Saatchi&Saatchi doctored by the US/Color Revolution in Lebanon....in a blatant attempt to use the "fruits" of political assassinations by the Infamous White House Murder INC, in the Levant....

One thing we Lebanese can and should do, is to refrain from supporting elements which stand discredited and which have become the anathema of the people of Lebanon and the World....

The United States is utterly weak with "AIPAC strangulation"...., utterly corrupt to the Core and beyond redemption... It is totally bankrupt... It is teetering on the edge of utter ruin both financially and politically.... All it has left is it's military, and if the armed forces of Egypt, USSR and Tunisia are any example, even that mighty army will find itself overwhelmed by the irresistible course of events....and Tiananmen in Today's World is an impossibility....


Iran wins, Israel/USA lose in turmoil and people's Revolution....
By M K Bhadrakumar

The two regional powers most affected by the turmoil in the Middle East are going to be Iran and Israel. Life sometimes offers strange parallels. There is much in common between the two intractable adversaries.

These two non-Arab countries appear curiously "stable" in a region caught in a maelstrom. No one points an accusing finger at either as the "hidden hand" behind the turmoil in their neighborhood - not even their worst detractors. In fact, both seem taken by surprise by the torrential flow of events and are figuring out how to assimilate the as-yet unfathomable meaning of what is unfolding.

Both are astute enough to know that small things ignite volcanic eruptions - a sealed train running from Germany to Russia, a sermon given by an old imam in exile under an apple tree on the outskirts of Paris or a conscientious police officer refusing an order to fire on agitators on a Tirana street. And neither can quite divine what secrets the heaving streets of Cairo are still to yield.

But there is also a fundamental difference. For Iran, it all boils down to how big a winner it is going to be. For Israel, though, it is about cutting losses. But then, it is also a see-saw where the winner cannot take it all.

Iran rides the wave...

Tehran has been quick to speak out in support of the popular uprising in Egypt. It has also been the lone voice in the region to do so. Religious, political and military circles in Tehran and the Foreign Ministry have spoken.

The most significant statement so far came from Majlis (parliament) speaker Ali Larijani, who announced Iran's support for the popular uprisings in Tunis and Egypt, describing them as having a "spark" for other movements in the Middle East. Larijani said, "The evolutionary trend of that regional revolution has surprised the dictatorial governments" and the revolution of the "free-hearted" has transcended the boundaries of nationalism.

A top military commander, deputy head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps General Hossein Salami, echoed the sentiments, "Egypt is the heart of the Arab world ... therefore, any political changes or socio-political revolutions in Egypt could repeat in many other Islamic countries." He said Egypt had become a backyard for Israel and "geostrategic back-up for the United States' policies toward Africa". Salami claimed Iran's ideological affinity with the Egyptian uprising, calling it a "manifestation of the Islamic Revolution [of 1979] in the Middle East and the world of Islam".

The religious establishment is obviously elated. Tehran's provisional Friday prayers leader Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said the uprisings signified the birth of an "Islamic Middle East" based on principles of religion and democracy.

A statement by the Iranian Foreign Ministry said, "The demonstrations by the Muslim Egyptian nation are a movement seeking the realization of justice and the Egyptian people's national and ideological demands." It advised the Hosni Mubarak regime to listen to "this Muslim nation's voice", accept the "Islamic awakening" and submit to people's demands.

Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi added, "Today, Egypt and its people are drawing on the invaluable experience of the Middle East's contemporary history and getting ready to determine their own fate and reclaim their influential status in the region." He told the Majlis, "Vigilant regional nations inspired by religious teachings and Islamic awakening are seeking to free themselves of the domination of hegemonic powers and gain real independence."

Tehran estimates that the Middle Eastern region has reached a historic crossroads and the pent-up popular anger against the autocratic regimes has finally erupted. It reaches out to establish an overarching Islamic affinity with the popular movements but would be cautious not to be seen exhorting the Arab people to revolt. Tehran will use the emergent opportunity to make bridges with its Arab neighbors and to break out of the regional isolation imposed by the US.

The overall regional situation is moving in a direction favorable to Iran. A Tehran-sponsored government has begun working in Baghdad and a Hezbollah-dominated government is assuming power in Beirut. The al-Jazeera leaks regarding secret deals between the head of Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas and US and Israel boosts Hamas' status as the voice of resistance. Iran's ties with Syria remain strong and the harmony with Turkey is unprecedented.

On the other hand, the disarray within the Palestinian camp and the fluidity in Cairo become major obstacles for Washington to resume any peace process in the conceivable future, which means the Barack Obama administration's dismal record in the Middle East remains in full display, adding to its discomfiture on the Arab street.

It also works in Tehran's favor that the Obama administration has its hands full coping with the cataclysmic changes sweeping the region. The Iran nuclear issue gets relegated to the backburner by Washington's new priorities. Washington is going to be bogged down with the making of the "New Middle East".

Meanwhile, the entire US strategy to isolate Iran in its region by erecting a phalanx of "pro-West" Arab regimes plus Israel is withering away and Iran's influence as a regional power may touch a qualitatively new level.

Israel's Middle Eastern blues

The extreme nervousness in Tel Aviv stands out in contrast with the jubilation in Tehran. Israelis are generally garrulous and disdainful about their Arab neighborhood, but no longer so. They put up a brave face that the Mubarak regime will somehow weather the storm. "Mubarak is not Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, [Tunisia's deposed president]. There is a huge difference. The Egyptian regime is well-rooted, including the defense establishment. Their regime is strong enough to overcome the situation."

An Israeli official told Agence France-Presse, "It is in the fundamental interests of Egypt to maintain its privileged ties with the West, and maintaining peace with Israel." An Israeli researcher took a fallback position. "Even if the Muslim Brotherhood, who have criticized 'illegal ties with Israel' come to power, the army and Egyptian security services would oppose it with all their might."

Israel's best bet is that the newly appointed Egyptian Vice President, General Omar Suleiman, (who used to be the intelligence chief and worked closely with the Israeli security establishment) somehow establishes himself on the debris of the Mubarak regime.

But Tel Aviv is not taking chances. Israeli diplomats based in Cairo were quietly evacuated by helicopter and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered government spokesmen not to make comments. As a leading politician put it, "Israel cannot do anything about what is happening there. All we can do is to express our support for Mubarak and hope the riots pass quietly."

Israel didn't anticipate the uprising. On Tuesday, although protests had erupted in Cairo, Israel's new chief of military intelligence, Aviv Kochavi, told the Knesset (parliament) committee on foreign affairs and defense that Mubarak's government was not under threat and the Muslim Brotherhood wasn't organized well enough to threaten the regime.

What is the worst-case scenario for Israel? Israeli fears appear on several templates. Without doubt, the strategic challenge is that Israel may face acute regional isolation. A commentator in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz newspaper noted, "The fading power of ... Mubarak's government leaves Israel in a state of strategic distress. Without Mubarak, Israel is left with almost no friends in the Middle East; last year Israel saw its alliance with Turkey collapse. From now on it will be hard for Israel to trust an Egyptian government torn apart by internal strife."

The 1979 peace treaty with Egypt not only brought peace dividends to Israel by allowing it to slash its disproportionately high defense expenditure but also gave the armed forces the latitude to concentrate on the so-called "northern front" - Syria, Lebanon and Iran - and the Palestinian settlements. The uncertainties in Egypt necessitate a major redeployment of forces in the south, especially on the Philadelphi Corridor between Sinai and Gaza, which Palestinian guerillas use to source supplies.

There are choppy waters ahead. Will a successor regime in Cairo be cooperative with Israel as much as Mubarak used to be - notwithstanding the "cold peace"? If the Muslim Brotherhood comes into power in Cairo, will the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt become a relic of history?

Again, what if the unrest spreads to the West Bank and consumes Abbas? Suleiman provided Israel a "back channel" to Hamas. The Islamic fervor enveloping the region greatly strengthens the two "non-state actors" that pose a grave threat to Israeli security - Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas. The political changes in Beirut strengthen the hands of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.

Beyond that lies the existential challenge of Iran's surge. The US will be preoccupied with salvaging its own regional influence. Washington may take its eyes off Iran for a while to single-mindedly deal with the West's bread-and-butter issues - the Suez Canal, political transition in Saudi Arabia, oil, Iraq, a troop drawdown in Afghanistan and the historic imperative to try to steer the massive popular upsurge toward democratic revolution rather than down a radical Islamist path.

Israel endeavored to divert the US's attention from the Middle East peace process and take it toward Iran's nuclear program. This ploy has worked well so far, but the Middle Eastern crisis brings the Palestinian issue back into the vortex of regional politics. It is the camel in the tent that cannot be ignored.

Western pressure, especially European, will incrementally mount that unless the fundamental crisis of the Israeli-Palestinian problem is addressed, there can be no durable stability in the Middle East and Western interests will be in serious jeopardy. Israel may not easily get away with its rejectionist policies.

The heart of the matter is that US and Israeli interests significantly diverge. There is no "anti-US" slant yet in the uprising. However, the successor regimes will seriously oppose the US's seamless support of Israel and it can't be business as usual. Israel's biggest worry will be that the new Middle Eastern realities may finally compel the US to reset its regional sights.

The people who reportedly briefed Obama on the Middle Eastern fires over the weekend didn't include a single specialist - National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, chief of staff Bill Daley, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, National Security Advisor to the Vice President Tony Blinken, National Security Council chief of staff Denis McDonough, assistant to the president John Brennan and Deputy Director of National Intelligence Robert Cardillo. Indeed, as Helena Cobban blogged, it is a first-rate policy breakdown of the "blind leading the blind and the blind advising the blind" in the Oval Office.

The time may have come for the "State Department Arabists" who were kept in the wilderness on ideological grounds to replace the long-time pro-Israel activists who surround Obama as CIA/MOSSAD, handlers, controllers, and so called advisers....to the Obomba clown....


http://www.thedailybell.com/1719/Anthony-Wile-Elite-Desperation-Over-Failing-Middle-East-Psyops.html

.....
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[Since Libya is the jackpot in N. Africa and Col. Qaddafi is the "joker," NATO calls emergency meeting. Ideas being leaked to the press so far involve making Libya into a "no fly zone," or launching selective air strikes, to tip the balance in the people's favor. The US military has been wanting to remove "Col. Brother" for so long that they must have practiced both solutions many times in the past....]

[Either Robert Gates is up to his usual spy doublespeak here, or CIA/military "mindfuck" agents are close to losing control of all their boiling cauldrons of treachery in the Middle East and Africa. (There really is no better way to describe the jobs of professional mind-twisters, or "mind-rapers" than this new word.) In their wildest dreams they could not have imagined the ease with which the revolution has spread across Northern Africa. In their worst nightmares, they should have foreseen what is about to happen in American-controlled countries like Iraq (and believe it or not, possibly even in Israel itself).

America's puppets may be about to have their strings cut. Gates knows.... He has been a CIA insider since American foreign policy first went off track and began to employ mercenaries and "Islamist" militants to do our dirty work for us. At some point, it becomes necessary for the American side to disengage from this dirty war, especially if Islamist allies are exposed. If the Iraq provisional govt. of Iraq falls, then the files in govt. offices that stretch all the way back to Iraq's early days, will be laid bare. If that really happens, then everyone will forget all about CIA's "Wikileaks....."

America's intelligence war is about to blow-up in our faces.]

[“Citizen-Saboteur” equals “terrorist-lite,” one step above the “Gladio” type of terrorist being implanted all over Europe and Asia after WWII. The frank discussions within this field manual on the science of anarchy are chilling in their implications, especially after being honed in secret for sixty years or more.]

http://www.williamjohncox.com/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=63


....

The first rule for those observing political developments in the modern Middle East is that nothing is as it seems at first sight. Political calculations that make sense in Washington, DC, London, or Paris do not always translate so well on the ground. From the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to the Suez crisis of 1956 to the Hizbullah victory in 2000 and 2006 in Lebanon, defeating the cowardly Israelis wall to wall....Westerners often fail to grasp the complicated, counterintuitive reality of life in the Arab world....

And so it is today with predictions that the fall of Assad in Damascus would weaken Iran—after all, Iran is a Shia country and Syria’s ruling elite come from the Shia Alawite sect. A Sunni-led government in Damascus, goes the argument, would not be amenable to ongoing friendship with Iran.

This argument, partly responsible for driving current U.S. policy towards Syria, is flawed for the following reasons:

First, most Shia Muslims, including all Iranian clerics, consider the Syrian Alawite sect to be heretical for the latter’s beliefs in reincarnation, the divinity of Ali (the Prophet Mohamed’s son-in-law), and Alawite rejection of Muslim rituals. As such, it is factually incorrect to argue that Iranian and Syrian political leaders are bonded by a common religious faith—they are not.

Second, a future Sunni government in Damascus can also continue to maintain positive ties with Iran. Their perceived common enemy in the existence of the state of Israel overrides any Sunni-Shia religious disagreements. Evidence of this political calculation is the fact that Shia Iran provides financial and other support for Sunni Hamas.

Third, the United States sacrificed vast amounts of blood and treasure to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein’s dictatorial grip, only to be leaving Iraq with a government that is politically, economically, and socially closer to Tehran than Saddam had ever been. Therefore, American support for Syrian opposition today will not necessarily result in distance from Iran tomorrow. The Iraq experience tells us otherwise.

Fourth, Sunni Egypt and Sunni Turkey are also on cordial terms with Iran. In the case of Egypt, post-revolutionary public sentiment views Iran as a regional power and potential trading partner, not an enemy in any way. This, despite alleged Iranian spies causing national controversy in the immediate aftermath of the recent Egyptian revolution.

I could go on, but the point is that many looking at the Middle East from the outside will be mistaken to assume that the Sunni-Shia divide helps predict future political balances. It does sometimes—say, in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988—but not always.

Therefore, the assumption that a Syrian regime without Assad and the Alawites at the helm would mean an isolated Iran is wishful thinking at best, and uncertain at worse. Amid such unpredictability, how wise is it to unleash civil war between Alawites, Druze, Catholics, Shia, Orthodox Christian, varied Sunnis, Kurds, and others in Syria?



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Saturday, January 29, 2011

America Has Long Supported, protected and nurtured Egypt's and ALL Dictatorial Leadership


Egypt’s president Mubarak is a yes-man to the U.S., and the fall of the Tunisian and now Egyptian leaders are really the ouster of U.S. puppet regimes in the Middle East.

Indeed, Egypt was for many years the second-biggest recipient of American aid in the Middle East, behind Israel). As leading military publication Janes notes:
Egypt is reliant on US military aid to finance major equipment and this is worth just over 25 per cent of the total defence spend in 2008, US Foreign Military Financing (FMF) is fixed at USD1.3 billion annually.
America has also long provided training to Egypt's army. See this and this.

And as Free Press notes, American companies have helped to maintain Egyptian leaders' dictatorial powers:
An American company — Boeing-owned Narus of Sunnyvale, CA — has sold Egypt "Deep Packet Inspection" (DPI) equipment that can be used to help the regime track, target and crush political dissent over the Internet and mobile phones.

The power to control the Internet and the resulting harm to democracy are so disturbing that the threshold for using DPI must be very high. That’s why, before DPI becomes more widely used around the world and at home, the U.S. government must establish clear and legitimate criteria for preventing the use of such surveillance and control technology.

In addition, Egypt has long tortured prisoners, and the U.S. used extraordinary rendition to fly prisoners to Egypt to be tortured. As Wikipedia notes:

In a New Yorker interview with CIA veteran Michael Scheuer, an author of the rendition program under the Clinton administration, writer Jane Mayer noted, "In 1995, American agents proposed the rendition program to Egypt, making clear that it had the resources to track, capture, and transport terrorist suspects globally — including access to a small fleet of aircraft. Egypt embraced the idea... 'What was clever was that some of the senior people in Al Qaeda were Egyptian,' Scheuer said. 'It served American purposes to get these people arrested, and Egyptian purposes to get these people back, where they could be interrogated.' Technically, U.S. law requires the CIA to seek 'assurances' from foreign governments that rendered suspects won’t be tortured. Scheuer told me that this was done, but he was 'not sure' if any documents confirming the arrangement were signed."[30] However, Scheuer testified before Congress that no such assurances were received.[31] He further acknowledged that treatment of prisoners may not have been "up to U.S. standards." However, he stated,

This is a matter of no concern as the Rendition Program’s goal was to protect America, and the rendered fighters delivered to Middle Eastern governments are now either dead or in places from which they cannot harm America. Mission accomplished, as the saying goes.[32]

Thereafter, with the approval of President Clinton and a presidential directive (PDD 39), the CIA instead elected to send suspects to Egypt, where they were turned over to the Egyptian Mukhabarat [Egypt's intelligence service].

Vice President Biden's attempt to defend President Mubarak by saying he's "not a dictator" is like Nixon saying "I am not a crook."

And the statement of CNBC's Erin Burnett to the effect that the U.S. must support Middle Eastern dictators to keep cheap oil flowing doesn't really help.

Make no mistake ... a revolution in Egypt is a refutation of American policy.

And see this.

Mubarak: I am appointing New US/Israeli Lackeys....I am your Dictator....

If Mussolini or Stalin or Mao had faced public protests for being a tyrant, and had said he was firing his cabinet and unilaterally naming new lackeys, would that have reassured anyone?

Of course not.

That's exactly what Egyptian president Mubarak/CIA is trying to do. See this, this, this, this and this.



Wednesday, January 26, 2011

America's Middle Eastern Puppet Regimes Are Falling Like Dominoes

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MA27Ak04.html


The images from the protests in Cairo, Egypt today are stunning. See this, this and this.

President Mubarak's family has already fled the country to London where Billions are stashed....

As Raw Story notes:

Demonstrators calling for economic and political reforms broke through police barriers and began marching in Cairo's streets.

Protesters gathered outside the Supreme Court in downtown Cairo and held large signs that read "Tunisia is the solution" amid massive police deployment, an AFP correspondent said.

Chanting "Down with Mubarak" -- in reference to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who has been in power for three decades -- they broke through several police cordons and began marching towards Tahrir Square, in scenes seldom witnessed in Egypt.

Others shouted "Tunisia is not better than Egypt" as the crowds began to swell.

A security official told AFP that at least 20,000 to 30,000 police had been mobilized in the center of the capital alone, and that the area housing the interior ministry had been sealed off.

***

The protest, called by the pro-democracy youth group the April 6 Movement, coincided with a national holiday to mark Police Day.

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

The fact that the protests took place across the nation, and were not led by a particular political movement or opposition party, set them apart from demonstrations in the last decade, he says.

“This time it is really a national movement,” he says. “It’s quite remarkable that the slogans raised by the demonstrators were not typical of any political party. They were general slogans about democracy, ending the state of emergency, and lowering prices. This is the beginning of a process.… The government will not respond favorably so I think the continuation of the protests is almost certain.”

While some Americans assume this is a "Arab affair", the fact is that Egypt's president Mubarak is a yes-man to the U.S., and the fall of the Tunisian and now Egyptian leaders are really the ouster of U.S. puppet regimes in the Middle East.

As Eric Margolis wrote last week:

Oops! Something has gone terribly wrong with Washington’s plans for regime change in the Mideast. Wasn’t there supposed to be a US and British engineered revolution against Iran’s mullahs, followed by installation of a cooperative pro-western government and a bonanza for western oil companies?

The revolution came, all right, but in the wrong place. The explosion of popular fury in Tunisia that ousted its dictator of 23-years is sending shock waves across the Arab world and has alarm bells ringing in Washington.

Pay no attention to President Barack Obama’s pious bromides welcoming the revolution in Tunisia. The US, France and their Arab satraps are deeply worried that Tunisia’s popular revolution could spark similar uprising against the dictatorships or monarchies in other members of America’s Mideast Raj, notably Egypt.

It has come to light that Tunisia’s ruling elite had dinners and wine flown in from Paris at government expense for lavish parties in their beach-side villas. Shades of the Iranian revolution, when women of the ruling elite in Tehran used to send their dirty laundry to Paris for hand washing, or fly to Paris to have their hair done for a soiree.

***

The US and France have always hailed Tunisia as a poster-boy for "moderation, stability, and democracy. "

Translation: 1. moderation: following orders from Washington and making nice to Israel; 2. stability: crushing all opposition, particularly Islamist-oriented parties, muzzling the media, and paving the way for US business; 3. democracy: holding fake elections every few years. The US media soft-soaped Ben Ali and gushed over Tunisia’s "moderate" virtues. They did the same for Egypt’s Anwar Sadat.

America’s other "moderate" Arab clients, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman and some of the Gulf states, followed precisely the same model of ersatz elections, ferocious internal oppression, and absolute obedience to Washington.

Tunisia closely resembled other Arab non-oil states in having very high unemployment, social and intellectual stagnation, lack of free speech or expression, and no hope for the future unless one had links to the rapacious, self-serving, western-backed ruling oligarchy. On top of this, in most Arab states, over 60% of the population is under 25.

***

Mainstream Islamist parties in the Mideast have nothing to do with al-Qaida (which barely exists any more) or anti-Western programs. Their primary concern is getting rid of the western-backed oligarchies that keep the Muslim world backwards and in thrall. Their platform is sharing resource wealth, social welfare, education, uprooting thieving oligarchies and fighting endemic corruption.

The big question now is will Tunisia’s dramatic events be a harbinger of other explosions across the volatile Arab world? All eyes are on Egypt, the home of a third of all Arabs. Egypt’s 83-year-old military ruler, Hosni Mubarak, is a giant version of Tunisia’s Gen. Ben Ali.

Mubarak was engineered into power by the US after the killing of longtime CIA "asset" Anwar Sadat. Gen. Mubarak has ruled Egypt with the full protection of CIA/MOSSAD..., help without which he would not last one day in office..., he ruled like a modern-day pharaoh ever since, crushing both violent extremist and legitimate political opposition. Mubarak’s rigged elections, winked at by Washington, Israel, EU, and all the Western creeps, are every bit as egregious as Tunisia’s.

So could the flames of Tunisia’s revolution spread to Egypt, Syria, Jordan, KSA, GCC?

Today, we got the answer.

Hopefully, moderate Arab governments will replace the deposed regimes, and thus bring real stability to the region. Moderate regimes are those that are not fundamentalists of one type or another, not puppets of any superpower (the U.S. or China), and which focus on implementing sustainable economic and human rights policies which benefit the most of their people possible, instead of just the ruling and utterly corrupt elites...


This is another brilliant CIA innovation--create a competition among colleges within the CIA's neighborhood, to find the most efficient way for the CIA to take over the colleges during specific national emergency scenarios.

The comment that “The mentor did not lead,” shows that the spies were trying to look at the solutions from the other side of the mirror, to anticipate future problems that agents would encounter from the "grass roots" side, as they tried to facilitate the agency takeover. The CIA hand has been revealed in the recent global agitations, working through "change agents" and agitators, some of whom are implanted long beforehand, in universities, media sites, professional organizations, political action groups, unions, etc. This alleged American university simulation is preparation for the same thing here in America that has happened in Egypt and N. Africa. This is an attempt to prepare a political espionage network in the universities, so that agitators and dangerous free thinking types can be identified beforehand, preparing "hit lists" for the political thought police who are preparing to emerge.

The Young Republicans' Club and the Democrats for Change know who you are; it doesn't matter which brand is stamped on the counter-revolution, your name will not be remembered for long.

The point is--this is an exercise in preparing a voluntary army of eager political informers, to help the agency take control when the Global Revolution washes over our shores.

I guarantee that there was no shortage of volunteers on Feb. 7 who wanted to feel like their brains were "going to explode with all the facts he had to juggle in his head.”


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Monday, January 24, 2011

USA skating on thin ice in Afghanistan and Worldwide, wants to clip Karzai's wings


USA skating on thin ice in Afghanistan and Worldwide, wants to clip Karzai's wings...
By M K Bhadrakumar

http://theriseofrussia.blogspot.com/2009_02_09_archive.html

The United States' proxy war against Afghan President Hamid Karzai has taken a vicious turn, undermining the tenuous political equations in the country. Washington is displeased with Karzai's moves to accelerate reconciliation with the Taliban, while his pitch for a regional initiative and his agenda of a multi-vector foreign policy challenge US regional strategies....

http://k4kashmir.com/?p=2786

The US is caricaturing Karzai as a tin-pot dictator, arguing that he is "anti-democratic" since he decided to postpone by a month the convening of a new parliament. The election commission cleared the election results and Karzai's reluctance to accept the results casts him in poor light.

However, Karzai has no choice but to order a special tribunal to review election results. Close to half of the population consists of ethnic Pashtuns and yet 75% of parliamentary seats have been "won" by non-Pashtuns. The Hazaras constitute 10% of the population, but they "won" 20% of the seats, including in Pashtun-dominated regions.

Something has gone very seriously wrong. Conceivably, the election commission did come under extraneous influence, as alleged by the attorney general. A parliament on the basis of the available results lacks political legitimacy, as Pashtuns will feel disenfranchized. Karzai rightly apprehends that Pashtun alienation, which is at the root of the insurgency, would further deepen and that can only augment Taliban's support base.

Enter the Americans. Washington waded into these ethnic politics by encouraging non-Pashtun leaders to challenge Karzai's decision to have the election results reviewed by a special tribunal. The American ambassador in Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, and his Western colleagues threatened to attend a gathering of the elected parliamentarians and recognize it as the "real" parliament.
This extraordinary "trade unionism" by Western diplomats can only be seen as an orchestrated move predicated on the calculation that Karzai is damned either way. If he convenes a parliament at this juncture, the US proxies who command a majority will incrementally weaken him and can even impeach him at some suitable moment.

But if Karzai insists on greater Pashtun representation, it becomes a point of friction with the non-Pashtun groups, and the delicate web of pan-Afghan alliances that he tenaciously wove while consolidating political power over the past two to three years will unravel.

Plainly put, the US is using the ethnic card to "entrap" Karzai and bring the Afghan leader to his knees. The US is counting on the opposition candidate in the 2009 presidential election, Abdullah Abdullah, and the speaker of the outgoing parliament, Younus Qanooni, to spearhead the opposition to Karzai. The Washington establishment has also co-opted former Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, who was sacked by Karzai last year.

Abdullah, Qanooni and Saleh belong to the Panjshiri clan and the line-up has dangerous overtones of a (Tajik) revolt against (Pashtun) Karzai. The US is also instigating sections of Hazaras whose political influence is at its historical zenith today.

Why such venom?
Besides weakening Karzai, the US hopes to deal a body blow to the Afghan leader's initiative to kick start an intra-Afghan dialogue. Karzai is banking on a pan-Afghan alliance to support his audacious plan to reconcile the Taliban, and the US is using the ethnic card to unravel Karzai's alliance system.

Why such venom toward America's own one-time prot้g้? Washington finds Karzai increasingly acting as an Afghan nationalist rather than as a US surrogate. What is at issue is how to secure a long-term US military presence in Afghanistan. Washington is negotiating a new Status of Forces Agreement with Kabul but Karzai is resisting the US plan to keep permanent military bases. US Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Kabul last month failed to clear the deadlock.

Meanwhile, Karzai is making sustained efforts to develop ties with Iran and Russia, including military cooperation, so as to reduce his dependence on the US by the 2014 timeline. Moscow has proposed a key role for Kabul in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Last week, Karzai visited Moscow and openly said that the Russians made better friends for the Afghan people than the Americans. This was the first official visit by an Afghan head of a state to Moscow since the departure of Soviet troops in 1989. The US reportedly tried to dissuade Karzai from undertaking the visit.

Karzai also recently deputed former Northern Alliance stalwarts Burhanuddin Rabbani (who heads the Afghan High Council for Peace in charge of reconciling with the Taliban) and Mohammad Fahim (the first vice president) to Tehran to seek Iranian support for his policies.

Most importantly, the climate of Afghan-Pakistan relations has dramatically improved and the US feels "excluded" even as Kabul and Islamabad show signs of kick-starting an intra-Afghan dialogue. The recent visit to Islamabad by Rabbani underscored a new flexibility on the part of Pakistan.

Army chief General Ashfaq Kiani received Rabbani. Biden visited Islamabad within days of Rabbani's talks with the Pakistani leadership but he drew a blank. Evidently, Islamabad and Kabul increasingly find themselves sharing a lot of common ground. Neither one favors US General David Petraeus' military strategy and both are keen to begin talks with the Taliban.

Within a week of Biden's talks in Islamabad, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir flew to Kabul and held more consultations, which included calls on Karzai and Rabbani. Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rassoul is now scheduled to visit Islamabad on Tuesday for a follow-up.

Kabul and Islamabad are getting along better than at any time in the past decade and they don't seem to need the crutch of US mediation. By the time the US-Pakistan-Afghan trilateral forum of foreign ministers convenes in Washington on February 21, there could be a strange reversal of roles with Pakistan and Afghanistan coordinating their stance vis-a-vis the US.

Clearly, the specter of a peace initiative on the Afghan problem at a regional level has begun haunting Washington for the first time. Biden openly flirted with the idea of a long-term American military presence in Afghanistan. Middle-level US officials have shifted gear to reinforce Biden's thought process. A recent speech entitled "The Obama Administration's Priorities in South and Central Asia" by Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake at the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy falls into this category.

Red rag, intransigent bull
Blake underscored that Washington intends to expand its engagement with Central Asia, "this critical region", which is situated at a "critical crossroads, bordering Afghanistan, China, Russia and Iran".

What emerges from Blake's speech is that Washington and Delhi may have drawn closer on Afghanistan. Arguably, this was bound to happen. India is perhaps the only regional power that still seeks a military solution in Afghanistan. India quietly favors a long-term US military presence in Afghanistan. The US is edging toward the one-dimensional Indian view of Pakistan as the "epicenter" of global terrorism.

The US views India as a red rag to taunt the intransigent Pakistani bull and India may not mind it. Blake made a stunning claim that India is the key US partner in Afghanistan and Central Asia:
These projects with India in Afghanistan mark a small but important part of a significant new global development - the emergence of a global strategic partnership between India and the US ... India's democracy, diversity and knowledge-based society make it special, a model of a tolerant pluralistic society in the region, and one that now actively seeks to work with the US and others to help solve problems on a global level ... The strength of India's economy makes it the powerhouse of South and Central Asia's growth.
He said one of the three "primary objectives" for the US in the "dynamic regional context" of South and Central Asia would be to "build a strategic partnership with India". This may seem like hyperbole, but it makes for geo-strategy.

The Americans are feeling rather lonely in the Hindu Kush and India too faces isolation, as it stands excluded, on Pakistan's insistence, from the regional forums working on the Afghan problem. Neither Washington nor Delhi feels comfortable with the Kabul-Islamabad bonhomie. Both the US and India view the Afghan endgame through the prism of their rivalry with China.

Then, there are the opaque operational factors. India wields influence with the "Panjshiri boys" who happen to be the current US proxies. Saleh figures as a key advisor to the security establishment in Washington, while Abdullah and Qanooni act as front men in Kabul. All three share a near-pathological aversion to Karzai and are viscerally opposed to any form of accommodation with Taliban. Pakistan brands Saleh as an "Indian agent". If the American ploy is to annoy the Pakistani military (and Karzai), there couldn't be a better choice than Saleh.

Any US-India axis in Afghanistan can only be tactical, but it will nonetheless be seen as high provocation by Pakistan and Iran (possibly, also by Russia and China). Pakistan will feel more justified than ever to have placed such irrevocable faith in the Taliban as its "strategic asset".

The US will eventually realize that it is skating on thin ice. There are half-a-dozen very good reasons why Pakistan remains and will continue to remain central to any durable Afghan settlement. Karzai will prove to be as tough as a nail. Thus, in many ways, the US proxy war in Kabul promises to be a defining moment....for the utterly corrupt and crumbling US Empire of killers/assassins...


The Balkanization of Pakistan....
Bilawal Zardari, the son of Pakistan's president. The leadership in Pakistan are dealing with the Siamese Twins, CIA/MOSSAD/RAW who reportedly want to break up Pakistan, using agents such as Raymond Davis.

One of the Pakistanis shot dead by CIA agent Raymond
RAYMOND DAVIS was Muhammad Faheem.

Faheem's widow, Shumaila, 'committed suicide'.

On 17 March 2011, The Nation quotes Muhammad Afzal, the uncle of Shumaila, as having said (
Shumaila kin threaten suicide):‎

"We never demanded blood money...

"We did not accept any money nor did we pardon the American killer..."

He said the Pakistan government bowed down to US pressure.

On 16 March 2011, the police arrested Shumaila's uncles, mother, sister, and other relatives.

The CIA plan is for Balochistan to become 'independent' and to be used as a route for heroin?

Earlier, on 23 February 2011, three men forcibly gave poison to one of Shumaila's uncles, called Sarwar. (
Shumaila's uncle forcibly given poisonous pills‎)

"According to sources, two motorcyclists had warned Sarwar on 11 February not to pursue the case registered against Raymond Davis...

"Afzal, another uncle of Shumaila, told Dawn that three men entered the house through a ventilator, grasped Sarwar and subjected him to severe torture.

"Afzal claimed that they administered him poisonous pills, citing the recovery of one tablet from the spot.

"He said the men remained in the house for about half an hour and fled when other family members woke up. Sarwar was taken to hospital..."

In February 2011, Pakistan Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and American military top brass met at a secluded luxury beach resort in Oman to work out a deal on Davis. (
Raymond Davis's release based on ISI-CIA secret deal: Report)

General Kayani (right) with his boss.

ROBERT ANDERSON, on 8 March 2011, at just-international, wrote an article entitled "I Had Ray Davis's Job, in Laos 30 Years Ago. Same Cover, Same Lies‎"

According to Anderson:

"In Laos the program I was attached to carried out a systematic assassination of people...

"It was called the Phoenix program and eliminated an estimated 60,000 people across Indochina...

"I saw one team of mercenaries I was training show us a bag of ears of dead civilians they had killed..."

The CIA ran an illegal drug operation "to pay for their operations."

The CIA's Raymond Davis, who was allegedly organising acts of terrorism in Pakistan

On 16 March 2011, it was reported that the USA had suspended aid to Pakistan.

(US 'blocks' aid over Raymond Davis issue. /
Raymond Davis row leads to suspension of US aid)

On the same day, the CIA assassin Raymond Davis was released from custody in Pakistan.

According to Muhammad Afzal, a relative of one of the slain men:

"Family members were told they were being taken to the police station to make statements.

"Instead, they were taken to a secret location and held in isolation and told that unless they signed a letter pardoning Davis, 'you will never see daylight.'"

(
Veterans Today Exclusive: Raymond Davis Release, the Inside Story ...)

"Initial media reports surrounding the release of Raymond Davis suggest that
the families of the victims killed in the Lahore shooting have left the country on a second plane.

"Their neighbours say they haven’t seen the families in two days and that their homes are empty and locked.

"Sources say an aircraft carrying more than 10 people left Lahore airport and is headed to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

"They also say the families have been given Green Cards and homes in New York state and Washington DC." (
Raymond Davis saga: Victims' families leave country say sources )

The US government did not pay any compensation to the families of two Pakistanis killed by Raymond Davis, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on 16 March 2011. (U.S. did not pay compensation in Raymond Davis case)

•On 27 January 2011, three young Pakistanis were killed by US spooks in Lahore.
•The Police arrested US citizen Raymond Davis at the crime scene.
•On 6 February, the widow of Faheem, one of the victims, committed suicide.
•On 22February, US officials confirmed that Raymond Davis worked for the CIA.


Jonathan Azaziah explains more about Raymond Davis And A Travesty Of Justice

The Pakistanis were shot dead "because they witnessed Davis and another group of mercenaries loading their cars with machine guns and explosives, and overheard them discussing their trip into an area of Lahore known for 'terror bombings.'

"While Davis was detained, the other car, full of mercenaries, jetted away and ran over another innocent Pakistani in the process.

"The phone found in Davis’ car, revealed that the CIA-Xe murderer made several calls to an organization known as the ‘Tehrik-I-Taliban,’ a group linked to hundreds of bombings across Pakistan in the last 10 years.

"Pakistani police also discovered photographs of sensitive military defense installations on Davis’ camera, including the Balahisar Fort, the headquarters of the paramilitary Frontier Corps in the strategically important city of Peshawar and several Pakistan Army bunkers on the border with India...

"Mossad and RAW, the two principal executors of 'the Dragon Policy', set up four agencies in 2001 which would target Pakistan’s societal top tier, from finance to politics, religion to military.

"
These agencies would seduce, blackmail, train and employ young Pakistani men from different sects and serve as their handlers in carrying out terrorism across Pakistan.

"Once the recruits are in the field, they are met by their handlers under the guise of ‘Al-Qaeda’ or the ‘Tehrik-I-Taliban’ and issued money, weapons and other supplies.

"These meetings are then reported by the Zionist media as coordination between terror groups.

"When these stooge agents are unable to secure a ‘checkout,’ or completion of their mission, the ordnance units of Mossad and RAW take to the field in collaboration with sleeper cells of Xe contractors to spread the chaos.

"The blood-drenched end result is still reported by the cabalistic Zionist media as “Islamic extremism,” to the detriment of Pakistan..."

(
http://www.maskofzion.com/)

~~Pakistan will be divided as well...

[Gen. Kayani was quick to denounce the US drone massacre of 40 tribal leaders meeting in N. Waziristan, after thinking that he had reached some sort of accommodation with the US. Obviously, it has once again become US policy to concentrate on killing the tribal leaders who have reached some sort of agreement with the Pak Army. In a murderous pattern that has repeated over and over in S. Waziristan, since the first drone assassination of Nek Mohammad, Ahmadzai Wazirs have been marked for death, always after signing peace treaties with the govt. In other words, the US military demands that Pakistan's Taliban fight the Pak Army, under penalty of death. Fight the Army or we will kill you.

In the most recent example of the American war upon Pakistan's Wazirs, the following two reports (notice the dates) tell of an Army/Wazir agreement, followed by the deadly Predator strike upon a grand Jirga meeting to demand an end to the war....

Failure to fight the Pak Army is grounds for an American death penalty.]

http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=34037&Cat=7&dt=3/3/2011

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\03\18\story_18-3-2011_pg1_2

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\03\18\story_18-3-2011_pg1_1






Friday, January 14, 2011

Statesmanship is too important to be left to lawyers




Statesmanship is too important to be left to lawyers....


"U.S. President Barack Obomba expressed "solidarity" with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad CIA Hariri in talks on Wednesday amid the collapse of the coalition government in Beirut." - Obomba and Billary had no experience in statesmanship when they assumed office, but they are lawyers... The sorry results are well known. Legal thinking is not always the best guide to action, especially in politics which is the "art of the possible". Pushing the Hariri case and its utterly fake and fabricated and politicized "evidence" to the bitter legal end...in order to avenge the blood of the 241 US Marines killed in 1983 and the 58 French Paratroopers.... may result in a civil war in Lebanon...


STL is a politicized CIA/MOSSAD/DGSE/MI6 affair, being manipulated by the US, France and Israel to target the arms and reputation of Hezbollah, the valiant National Lebanese Resistance.

What Israel failed to achieve during the wars of 82, 93, 96, 2000, and 2006 - basically to break or weaken Hezbollah's influence in Lebanon - it would try to achieve indirectly through the covert manipulations and fabrications of STL. The fact that it has not questioned USA or Israel in the Hariri affair and refused to arrest those confirmed as false witnesses, creates serious doubt about the United Nations-backed STL's credibility, with Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah calling it "an Israeli/American project" of deceit, deception and tyranny.....


http://maggiesnotebook.blogspot.com/2009/10/beirut-lebanon-marine-barracks-beirut.html

The result of civil war may be that Hezbollah will take over. This may even be divine justice, since by all real counts, the Shiites are the largest minority in the country, and might even have become a majority. To prevent Hizballah from taking over might require foreign intervention, after which the UN will come and devise a new constitution, including "one man one vote" elections, and lo and behold the Shiites will take over...., and why not? Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah has shown tremendous Leadership qualities and should be commended... Happened in Iraq, so one doesn't need great imagination to see it coming. The Obama people should start looking around for some talent... There must be some in Antarctica...!

There are, perhaps, ten people in all of Lebanon that will miss Hariri.... He is an astoundingly unpopular man... No one is rioting in the streets because of his ousting, let's put it that way....


America gave Israel the green light to bomb Lebanon for 34 days and thirty four nights, and gave them the bombs to do it, millions of it, and Israel used 7000 Tons of explosives on Lebanon's civilian infrastructure in 34 days....and lost the war on Lebanon.... This makes America and Israel the worst enemies of Lebanon in all the world. If there are politicians in Lebanon that would still "bow to the west", they need an adjustment in their thinking. Nasrallah has had good success against both America and Israel.... He didn't achieve this success by bowing....

Ultimately, there is no permanent fix to the Lebanese Sectarian state of affairs, which produce crisis after crisis for decades.... It’s a cyclical issue which will crop up every now and then because Lebanon ultimately is a chessboard for regional and international players to use in terms of pursuing their utterly criminal and Barbaric political objectives through the infamous White House Murder INC, and proxy CIA/MOSSAD wars, using the war criminal Samir Geagea or Fateh Al-Islam or other groupings/creations of CIA/MOSSAD at will, and the ultimate objective is the settlement of half a million Palestinian refugees in Lebanon for good, for the sake of Israhell...."

Meanwhile, the MSM Dogs everywhere will be unleashed soon to corroborate STL's Garbage findings....

Our "Ministry of Truth", aka (also known as) the main stream media, MSM, which is directly related to the utterly corrupt and criminal ZOG in the Western/Thuggish world everywhere..., continues it's rapid and vapid descent into unspeakably galactic stupidity....

It would be funny if it were not so diabolically criminal.....


" أن هدف المحكمة سياسي أميركي صهيوني لضرب المقاومة "

فأول ضحايا تسييس الإجراءات القضائية هي العدالة وهذه المحكمة صنعت لتقوم بأمر غير الذي تدعيه
" كل ما قامت به المحكمة الدولية مشبوه وهو حلقة من مسلسل خنق الممانعة ضد الهيمنة من لبنان الى المنطقة برمتها"
الفساد الذي ينخر في أنظمتنا وهو وسيلة الدول الكبرى للسيطرة على الشعوب "جوّع الناس تسوسهم". والنظام يتواطأ إما برضاه أو بخوفه والنتيجة واحدة
ومشروع سياسي يعني من غير المعقول أن تلجأ دولة كبرى كالولايات المتحدة الى إنشاء محكمة دولية لمعاقبة قتلة شخص في حين أنها لم تهتم لا قبل المحكمة ولا بعدها بإجراء أي تحقيق ومن هنا إن الهدف من المحكمة الدولية هو أن تطال المقاومة


http://ehrlum.com/wildbigsur/brief-history-war-peace.htm


US ambassadors all over the world interfere in domestic politics and lead major espionage bivouacs disguised as embassies....
  • Swiss lawmakers demand expulsion of US diplomats from Switzerland over spying operations. US embassy in Bern and mission in Geneva used for espionage against Swiss nationals. All US "diplomats" should be expelled, they are mostly spies and they cost American taxpayers too much money for their extravagant life styles abroad.
  • Suriname to recognize Palestine as independent state. Parade of nations line up for Palestine and against Israel and its "western colony" -- the United States, aka, Tel Aviv West....
  • Venezuela arrests three drug smugglers wanted by INTERPOL. One is Gloria Rojas, a Colombian member of Mexico's Los Zetas. The Zetas are supported by the Russian-Israeli mob, which is responsible for the destabilization of Mexico and Guatemala -- a warning against Mexican or Guatemalan recognition of Palestine....
  • 50 years ago, President Eisenhower warned of military-industrial complex. We ignored him and now have one of the complex's MK-ULTRA/COINTELPRO biological "products" as President of the United States....

  • Tunisian Wikileaks/CIA Putsch: CIA Touts Mediterranean Tsunami of Coups; Libya, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Jordan, KSA, UAE, Kuwait, All Targeted; US-UK Want New Puppets to Play Against Iran, China, Russia; Obama Retainers Cass Sunstein, Samantha Power, Robert Malley, International Crisis Group Implicated in Destabilizations.....

    http://tarpley.net/2011/01/16/tunisian-wikileaks-putsch/


  • .....

    The Zionist psychological manipulators have perfected their system to the point where the American people/Some Lebanese and others.... are eager to accept the next lie coming from Washington, no matter how idiotic or inane it might be. They have discovered ways to make lies extremely addictive to the well-trained TV masses. The people don't have to be tricked into believing the lies dispensed by the "news," because they are eager to receive it... "News" and other "info-tainment", like MTV, Future, Lbc, NTV, Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya, CNN, NowLebanon, Beirutobserver..., and others in Lebanon, is a slow poison which we can't get enough of.... We have been fed the deceptive, addictive poison (Bible-based lies) about the Zionist state and its interaction with its neighbors in an i.v. drip for our entire lifetimes, teaching us to see everything from the Israeli point of view, and today, "some" cannot accept anything which contradicts this view....

    Nearly all of us are heavily addicted to that "old time religion" a twisted ideology infused with religion, which comes through the TV as "entertainment," causing an adoration of the shitty little colony in the Middle East, compelling a majority of the American people to equate Israel with the "Kingdom of God." The level of insanity that can be tied directly to our distorted beliefs about the "Jewish state" is most apparent in our willingness, after nine years of waging war for the corporate Zionist interests to allow the Obama Administration to continue destabilizing Middle Eastern, EurAsian, and African countries....

    The only thing new in today's latest coup d'état reports is the names of the latest victim countries... The CIA/MOSSAD's bloody hand is becoming apparent in every destabilization plot and in every "unity government" to suddenly appear after each new colored revolution... We will continue to follow the immoral, illegal path set by Bush and Cheney, launching wars of aggression in any direction we want, no longer disguised as "homeland defense," exposed for all to see as looting and pillaging operations in the finest barbarian tradition....

    USA government is a monstrous, devouring beast, intent on raping every other government in existence, until ultimately, they all succumb to the wills of the sick Zionist bastards who have been having their way with the World...

    The American people and the Free Peoples of this world will either learn to recognize the lies that USA's leaders spoon-feed them and take unified actions to shut them down at the source, or we will ultimately succumb to the venom that courses through our veins....


    COUNTRY FOCUS: Israel home of the assassins associated with the infamous White House Murder INC,..... Top Israeli banks fund newspaper that calls for the establishment of extermination camps for Palestinians. Abe Foxman, where are you? [sound of crickets chirping]. Morris Dees? Elie Wiesel? Simon Wiesenthal Center? [more crickets chirping]. Well, the "salad bar" Zionists are very discerning, they pick and choose their "holocausts" to boost their organizations' bottom lines....

    STL, a Tool of the crumbling/fumbling Empire of treachery, USA.


    We might not like or understand fully their consequences at the time.... Nevertheless, we still have a choice... That is the fountain of freedom.... Even in the darkest of times we still have a choice and it takes real bravery to make the hard ones....and we will.

    The sequence of illegal and extra-judicial political assassinations and attempted murders carried out by the odious machinations of the evil Nexus CIA/MOSSAD and their barbaric White House Murder INC, together with Asef SHAWKAT's military intelligence goons and their cut-outs..., involved 13 incidents, targeting politicians, journalists and security officials, with a total casualty toll of 58 dead and at least 338 wounded. These attacks represented the largest, most dramatic assassination campaign in the post Cold War world....and it's no coincidence....it is a direct product of the Arc of Crisis, Clean Break, PNAC, and the "Constructive Chaos"...started in earnest since 1995....

    Our collective peril lies in the new ‘reality’ where evil can wrap itself in the words and images of light and a devious tool, "STL".... a charade tribunal...infested with western intelligence officers of a broken and crumbling Empire of utter corruption, the US of A.... That was how we lost dearly, since the advent of the Siamese twins CIA/MOSSAD and their infamous White House Murder INC, since 2002... In a world run by liars ‘doing the right thing’ is often the opposite.... If everyone else is doing it, it’s time to choose a different track....

    All this and other issues with STL, demonstrate unwise open meddling in Lebanon, and exposes the investigations of UNIIIC and STL as flawed and incompetent political tools....after so many years...and nothing to show for it, except arrogant press leakage, but no truth or justice will ever come about...

    This political madness is not in the form but rather the matter: the US (with, and on behalf of its allies) has been fixated on a reckless "clean break" stratagem formulated by the plotters of the Iraq and Lebanon's invasions and the loudest cheerleaders of Israel's repeated belligerent actions.... It means weakening the Resistance, in all its ramifications, without offering a single benefit for Lebanon, in order to secure Israel at all costs...
    This madness may be curable, but the treatment just became more costly, because Washington is unprepared for the morning after....


    Increasingly, international legal critics of the STL are also highlighting flaws in the Special Tribunals Statute and Rules of Procedure. One Court Statue provision is particularly seen to be fundamentally inconsistent with international law, and which binds Lebanon, is Article 22 of the Tribunal’s Statute.

    Article 22 allows for trials in absentia. One problem is that trying suspects in absentia is virtually unheard of among international ad hoc and ‘hybrid’ UN courts. In absentia trials have been consistently forbidden in international tribunals ever since the 1945 Charter of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. Absentia trials were then, and ever since the end of WW II, have been condemned for the simple reason that in absentia trials allow for deep and broad politicization of the judicial process.

    A careful reading of the STL Statute leads to the conclusion that not only does Article 22 authorize in absentia trials, but it requires them. As such, Article 22 violates Lebanon’s rights and obligations under international legal standards and practice. In absentia trials will almost certainly lead to the political corruption of fair trial standards and thus gives rise to legitimate grounds for Lebanon and other countries to withhold cooperation from the work of the Tribunal. In absentia trials also will delegitimize the work product of the Lebanon Tribunal leaving any resulting verdicts deeply flawed and likely rejected by international public and legal opinion.

    How so?

    The right to Habeas Corpus, being the fundamental right of a person to be present at trial is enshrined in Article 14(3)(d) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which is binding upon Lebanon. It states that any person charged with a criminal offence has the right to be present at trial. This right is a minimum due process guarantee and it is required at all stages of the STL proceedings. The UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) ruled in Mbenge v. Zaire that everyone is entitled to be tried in his presence and to defend himself in person or through legal assistance. This provision in Article 14 cannot reasonably be said to always prohibit proceedings in absentia and sometimes international humanitarian law would allow them.

    One case would be when the accused person, after being given actual notice of the charges, sufficiently in advance of trial, knowingly declines the habeas corpus right. The critical question, then, is precisely when departure from the norm in the fulfillment of this objective is justified and does the STL Statue violate international law? It is submitted that the Court’s reasoning in Mbenge v. Zaire is sound and once it is appreciated where the burden of proving the accused’s knowledge lies — that is, on the prosecution — it becomes plain that any argument based on the accused have received informal knowledge or constructive knowledge is bound to fail. Thus, as indicated by the Court in Mbenge v. Zaire, the accused must at a minimum be served with a summons if the STL Office of the Prosecution is to discharge its burden.

    The case law of both the Human Rights Council and of the European Court affirms that, absent a right of retrial, actual notice of the proceedings on the part of the accused is a necessary condition in order for those proceedings to be compliant with Article 14(3)(d) of the ICCPR or Article 6 ECHR. Therefore, under the relevant rules of international law binding upon Lebanon, absent an unfettered right of retrial, which the STL Statute does not provide, it is impermissible to commence a trial in the absence of the accused unless it can be demonstrated that, at the very least, the defendant had actual and direct knowledge of the proceedings. Meaning he/she must be personally served a summons.

    In additions, Article 14(3)(d) of the ICCPR, read in light of the subsequent practice concerning trials in absentia in many jurisdictions, indicates that (subject to retrial at the accused’s option) a court may not commence or proceed with a trial unless the prosecutor is able to establish that the accused possessed actual knowledge of the proceedings and intended to waive his right to be present.

    Article 22 STL Statute, entitled ‘trials in absentia’, provides as follows:

    1. The Special Tribunal shall conduct trial proceedings in the absence of the accused, if he or she:
      1. Has expressly and in writing waived his or her right to be present;
      2. Has not been handed over to the Tribunal by the State authorities concerned;
      3. Has absconded or otherwise cannot be found and all reasonable steps have been taken to secure his or her appearance before the Tribunal and to inform him or her of the charges confirmed by the Pre-Trial Judge.

    Another of the problems with Article 22 is the real likelihood that ‘the State authorities concerned’ may have ‘failed’ to hand over the accused for various legitimate reasons. For example, how can it be known which State authorities are “ concerned” given that the whereabouts of the accused person would likely be unknown. Moreover, as a simple matter of public international law, Countries are under no obligation whatsoever to extradite suspects for trial in another Country. To do so is arguably unlawful in the absence of an extradition treaty providing a basis in law for such an extradition. International law does not permits canceling an individual’s right to appear at his own trial on the basis that some third state (possibly hostile to the accused or relevant Country) has not done a positive act that it is under no obligation to do. Also, the fact that a Country may have refused to extradite an accused person is immaterial when it comes to the critical question of whether the accused himself knew of the proceedings against him and voluntarily elected not to attend.

    It is possible that the international community will tire of the STL, given all the tribunals perceived defects, long before any verdicts are achieved or appeals exhausted. It remains to be seen what becomes of the original objectives contemplated by UN Security Council Resolution­­­­ 1757 as serious questions are increasingly raised about the wisdom of the UN stamping its imprimatur to a widely known US-Israel project in the first place....created solely to defame, and deligitimize the Lebanese Nationalist Resistance of Hizbullah.


    http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9009


    ...

    Netanyahu criticizes Germany over UN vote on settlements. Merkel rips into Netanyahu in phone call. Finally, Germany is getting over its collective guilt syndrome vis a vis "New Jersey on the Med."
    Ever hear of the Judeo-Christian Bible Bloc Party in Israel? Well, they are saying Obama is going to secretly turn America into a Muslim nation. Bibi, is that you?