Posts from — November 2011

Iran Assassination Plot Has Earmarks of FBI Care and Feeding
By Ian Williams – October 19, 2011 – FPIP

ObamaMLKLast weekend the Martin Luther King memorial was unveiled in Washington, evoking his speech “I have a dream.” I was having a dream too, but mine wandered between nightmare and “déjà vu all over again.” Unlike many on the left in the USA, when I see President Obama I see a fundamentally decent person reading a script written by others — which in this dream is like Colin Powell reciting his fundamentally flawed brief at the UN about Iraqi weapons.

The taurine faecal evidence of an Iranian plot to kill a Saudi envoy in the US has all the conviction of Hitler describing Polish infiltration into German territory in 1939 — and all the humiliation of seeing a decent person’s integrity being abused.

The “plot” recalls how much of American governmental behavior evokes the unreformed eighteenth century British polity on which it is based. Apart from the overtly corrupt electoral system gerrymandered into an American version of rotten boroughs and the Gradgrindish attitudes to public welfare, that is no more apparent than in the legal system.

Maybe they no longer hang people for pickpocketing any item worth more than a shilling, but they do execute quite a few on dubiously assembled evidence that relies on paid informants and, especially in the case of the FBI, on paid instigators.

So one does not have to join the Iranian Ayatollah Fan Club to be skeptical of the latest allegations. It is a sad fact that almost every terrorist plot the FBI has unearthed for many years — even before 9-11 — has also been planted and nurtured by the FBI. Even in the long-forgotten first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 it was an Egyptian officer who was also a paid FBI informant who seems to have instigated the completely inept plot, for which arch-enemy of the Mubarak regime Sheik Omar Abdul-Rahman is still serving a life sentence — or not, since the actual charges of conspiracy and sedition are reminiscent of days of repression in Britain around the time of the Peterloo massacre that moved Shelley to stirring verses, rarely taught in English Lit classes.
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UN passes Iran’s bid for N disarmament
1 November, 2011 – Shia Post

The UN General Assembly’s First Committee has endorsed an Iran-sponsored resolution on nuclear disarmament despite attempts by the US and the Israeli regime to kill the bid.

The committee, which focuses on disarmament and international security issues, approved the resolution with 107 votes on October 31, despite strong opposition and negative campaigning by the US, the Tel Aviv regime as well as some European governments, IRNA reported.

The resolution calls for the implementation of pledges made at the three most recent Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conferences.

It also reiterates the urgency for a nuclear-free Middle East and demands that the Israeli regime must sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Israel, widely believed to be the sole possessor of a nuclear arsenal in the Middle East with over 200 undeclared nuclear warheads, pursues the policy of “deliberate ambiguity” for its nuclear program.

Tel Aviv has so far rejected all global demands to join the NPT and does not allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to inspect and monitor its controversial nuclear program.

The Israeli regime has never denied or confirmed the existence of its nuclear arsenal as part of its long-held ‘nuclear ambiguity’ policy. Despite international objections to such dubious policy, the UN and its nuclear regulatory agencies have never taken serious steps to censure or impose sanctions on the defiant regime.

Tehran has also proposed a draft resolution on missiles, which is to be discussed in the committee’s next session. …source

Canadian fears death in Bahrain prison
CBC News – Nov 1, 2011 – CBC

A Canadian who says he was tortured while detained in a Bahrain prison fears he will die in custody when he returns there this week to begin serving a five-year sentence.

“To be honest it means death,” Naser al-Raas said in an interview with CBC Radio’s The Current from Bahrain. “I cannot survive this conditions. No. No way.”

Al-Raas said he expects to be tortured again and will also be deprived of medication he needs for a heart and lung condition.
Canadian Naser al-Raas is set to begin serving a five-year sentence this week in a Bahrain prison. Canadian Naser al-Raas is set to begin serving a five-year sentence this week in a Bahrain prison. (Family photo)

“I’m just afraid of going the same [route] again. The same torturing process that I was in. And nothing is sure in the future.”

Al-Raas has already spent 31 days in a Bahrain prison. Upon his release, he was tried and found guilty for participating in anti-government demonstrations and sentenced to five years in prison.

He has been ordered to turn himself in to Bahrain authorities by the end of the week to begin the sentence.

Al-Raas has denied he was involved in the protests, and says he was just observing the situation.

Al-Raas, 28, lived in Ottawa from 1996 to 2000, where his mother and brother still live, according to the Toronto Star. He had been living and working in Kuwait but went to Bahrain in April to visit his sisters and fiancée.

He said he was arrested when he was about to board a plane to return to Kuwait at the Bahrain International Airport. His passport was confiscated and he was taken to Al Qala prison.

He said he was taken underground for a month and that no one, including his family or the Canadian government, knew about his whereabouts.

“First 11 days were the worst days of my life actually. [They] hit me a with rubber hose and wooden sticks. They tied me to a chair, they started to beat me and sometimes they electrified me,” he said.

He said he was taken to the hospital four times while in prison.

“They were torturing. me and everyone else for satisfaction. Not for getting information.”

A few hours before his release, he said he was forced to sign a confession. He was later convicted in a civil court of gathering and spreading false news.

He said Canadian government officials observed his trial but have not done enough to help him. …more