Posts from — March 2012

Massacre in Afghanistan: US soldier kills 16 villagers, including 9 children
By Patrick Martin – 12 March 2012 – WSWS

In a massacre that expresses the brutality and horror of the entire American war in Afghanistan, an Army staff sergeant walked into a village in rural Kandahar province early Sunday morning and murdered 16 people, nine of them children.

Eleven members of a single family were gunned down in their home, their bodies then piled in a heap and set on fire. The victims included four girls six years old or younger. Only the father, Samid Khan, and one child survived, because they were away from the village at the time.

The gunman then went on to shoot the inhabitants of two more dwellings before he returned to his base and turned himself in. At least five villagers were wounded, some of them critically, and the death toll could rise.

Samid Khan, a poor farmer, returned to the village to find his entire family shot to death and their bodies burned inside his home. “This is an anti-human and anti-Islamic act,” he told the press. “Nobody is allowed in any religion in the world to kill children and women.” He and his neighbors demanded that the killer be handed over to the Afghan government for punishment.

According to one local Afghan official, villagers loaded the bodies of the victims into cars and drove to the entrance of the nearby American base to demand justice. “They were very angry,” he said. “They wanted to do something to take revenge.”

The identity of the mass murderer was being kept secret by US and Afghan authorities and by the American media late Sunday night, but the British Broadcasting Corporation reported that he was a staff sergeant and a member of the US special operations forces engaged in training the Afghan police.

There are conflicting reports about many details of the massacre. Some survivors contend that more than one American soldier was involved, and Taliban spokesmen claimed that the attack was one of the notorious night raids conducted by US special forces that have become a focal point for popular hostility to the US occupation. …more

Is Barack Obama the First Jewish President?
Paul Waldman – 12 March, 2012 – The American Prostect

It’s not as crazy an idea as you might think.

If Bill Clinton was the first black president, as Toni Morrison famously observed, then could Barack Obama be the first Jewish president? That’s the interesting case Jeffrey Goldberg makes at The Atlantic. Goldberg tells how he gave Obama a copy of a new Haggadah he contributed to:

When I handed him the Haggadah, President Obama, who famously stages his own seders at the White House, (which is a very nice philo-Semitic thing to do, IMHO) spent a moment leafing through it and making approving noises. Then he said (as I told the Times): “Does this mean we can’t use the Maxwell House Haggadah anymore?”

George W. Bush was, in his own way, a philo-Semite, but he never would have made such an M.O.T. kind of joke (see the end of this post if you’re not sure what M.O.T. means). Once again, Barack Obama was riffing off the cosmic joke that he is somehow anti-Semitic, when in fact, as many people understand, he is the most Jewish president we’ve ever had (except for Rutherford B. Hayes). No president, not even Bill Clinton, has traveled so widely in Jewish circles, been taught by so many Jewish law professors, and had so many Jewish mentors, colleagues, and friends, and advisers as Barack Obama (though it is true that every so often he appoints a gentile to serve as White House chief of staff). And so no President, I’m guessing, would know that the Maxwell House Haggadah — the flimsy, wine-stained, rote, anti-intellectual Haggadah you get when you buy a can of coffee at Shoprite) — is the target, alternatively, of great derision and veneration among American Jews (at least, I’m told there are people who venerate it).

Most conservatives wouldn’t go as far as to accuse Obama of being an anti-Semite, but they certainly believe he’s anti-Israel. Which is insane, of course, but what I’ve always found so striking about this question is how sidelined Jews themselves have become in today’s discussions of Israel. That isn’t to say there aren’t particular Jews who are plenty involved, but the American Jewish community as it actually exists in America—mostly politically liberal, living its Judaism more as a culture than as a religion, troubled by the policies of the Israeli government in multiple areas—is increasingly estranged from the discussion, as more and more of that discussion is dominated by people like Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum. It’s the world of post-Jewish Zionism, where Israel’s most vehement advocates are people who see it mostly as a tool to use in a holy war between Christianity and Islam. As someone who grew up in a household where liberal Zionism was the primary expression of Jewish identity, I can’t begin to describe how alienating it is to watch people like Palin waving Israeli flags around. And I’m pretty sure there are lots of other Jews who feel the same way. …more

US sent 600,000 tear gas canisters to Israel
David Elkins – The Electronic Intifada – 9 March, 2012

WASHINGTON (IPS) – A new policy paper published earlier this week by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation documents a number of cases occurring over the past decade in which weapons and ammunition produced and financed by the US have been used to kill unarmed Palestinians and US citizens.

“US military aid to Israel is a policy that is running on autopilot and must be reconsidered,” Josh Ruebner, the national advocacy director for the organization and author of the new policy paper, said on Monday.

“US weapons provided to Israel at taxpayer expense make the US complicit in Israel’s human rights abuses of Palestinians living under Israel’s 44-year military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip and defeat US foreign policy objectives of halting Israeli settlement expansion, ending Israeli military occupation and establishing a just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace,” Ruebner added.

Between the years 2000 and 2009, the US transferred “more than 670 million weapons, rounds of ammunition and related equipment,” according to the report.
Violating US law

During the same period, “Israel killed at least 2,969 unarmed Palestinians, including 1,128 children, often with US weapons in violation of the Foreign Assistance Act and Arms Export Control Act.”

The Foreign Assistance Act, signed into law in 1961, stipulates that “no security assistance may be provided to any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”

Several US administrations have sanctioned or withheld funding from countries, including Israel, that violated laws such as the Foreign Assistance Act. But according to the report, official inquires and investigations into US military aid to Israel over recent decades have been met with growing resistance from groups both within and outside of the US government.

Although more expensive weapons systems such as tanks and aircraft make up the bulk of purchasing contracts made between the Israeli government and US manufacturers, small arms and ammunition purchases account for the largest number of deaths. …more

How to fight Obama’s police-state policies
by Jerry White – 6 March, 2012 – TruthOut

The drive towards an American police state that began under George W. Bush is accelerating under his Democratic successor. The Obama administration is now asserting the right to kill or jail indefinitely anyone designated by the president as a threat to US national security. Obama and his legal aides declare this to be an absolute power of the executive, unreviewable by any court or by Congress.

Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder defended the assassination doctrine in a speech March 5 at Northwestern University Law School, where he outlined the purported legal basis for the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the US citizen who was incinerated last September in Yemen by a missile fired by a CIA-controlled drone.

According to Holder, the congressional resolution passed in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 gives the president as commander-in-chief continuing power to order such extra-judicial state murders based solely on his own discretion, without even the pretext of judicial review.

This speech made the extraordinary claim that the right to “due process of law,” guaranteed to all Americans under the Fifth Amendment, does not mean a “judicial process.” That is, the president’s determination that a US citizen can be killed—anywhere, including in the United States itself—is sufficient to satisfy the Constitution.

The attorney general’s speech was largely ignored by the mass media, and not a single reporter at Obama’s press conference the next day asked him about this new doctrine of a presidential right to murder. This only demonstrates the extreme erosion of democratic consciousness in the American ruling class over the past dozen years, since the stolen presidential election of 2000. There is no significant constituency for democratic rights in any section of the US ruling elite, Democratic or Republican.

Holder’s speech follows on Obama’s executive order February 28, officially putting into effect the provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011. This law gives the president the power to arrest any person in the United States, citizen or non-citizen, and jail them forever without a trial.

While the executive order ostensibly waives the power of indefinite detention for American citizens, this is simply a cynical fraud on the part of the administration. The law remains and can be implemented at any time.

Holder has been designated as the president’s agent to make day-to-day decisions on the fate of those non-citizens who are seized as suspects in the “war on terror.” He can order those arrested to be transferred to military custody, where their detention would be unreviewable by any judge, or have them sent into the civilian justice system, where they would be tried by a federal court.

Finally, on Thursday, Obama signed into law HR 347, a bill that significantly expands on existing anti-democratic laws prohibiting demonstrations and civil disobedience at the White House or at any location being visited by the president, vice president or other officials under Secret Service protection. This includes three of the four remaining Republican presidential candidates, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. …more

US military unveils ray beam as latest non-lethal weapon
by Staff Writers – 10 March, 2012 -Space War

A sensation of unbearable, sudden heat seems to come out of nowhere — this wave, a strong electromagnetic beam, is the latest non-lethal weapon unveiled by the US military this week.

“You’re not gonna see it, you’re not gonna hear it, you’re not gonna smell it: you’re gonna feel it,” explained US Marine Colonel Tracy Taffola, director the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, Marine Corps Base Quantico, at a demonstration for members of the media.

The effect is so repellant, the immediate instinct is to flee — and quickly, as experienced by AFP at the presentation.

Taffola is quick also to point out the “Active Denial System” beam, while powerful and long-range, some 1000 meters (0.6 miles), is the military’s “safest non-lethal capability” that has been developed over 15 years but never used in the field.

It was deployed briefly in Afghanistan in 2010, but never employed in an operation.

The technology has attracted safety concerns possibly because the beam is often confused with the microwaves commonly used by consumers to rapidly heat food.

“There are a lot of misperceptions out there,” lamented Taffola, saying the Pentagon was keen to make clear what the weapon is, and what it is not.

The frequency of the blast makes all the difference for actual injury as opposed to extreme discomfort, stressed Stephanie Miller, who measured the system’s radio frequency bioeffects at the Air Force Research Laboratory.

The system ray is 95 gigahertz, a frequency “absorbed very superficially,” said Miller.

The beam only goes 1/64th of an inch (0.4 millimeter), which “gives a lot more safety.”

“We have done over 11,000 exposures on people. In that time we’ve only had two injuries that required medical attention and in both cases injuries were fully recovered without complications,” she said.

In contrast, microwave frequency is around one gigahertz, which moves faster and penetrates deeper — which is how it can cook meat in an oven, said top researcher Diana Loree. …more

From this inside look into the destabilization process of Syria, Professor James Petras, adduces that ’there is clear and overwhelming evidence that the uprising to overthrow President Assad is a violent power grab led by foreign-supported fighters who have killed and wounded thousands of Syrian soldiers, police and civilians, partisans of the government and its peaceful opposition.’

The Bloody Road to Damascus: The Triple Alliance’s War on a Sovereign State
by James Petras – Voltaire Network – 11 March, 2012

The outrage expressed by politicians in the West and Gulf State and in the mass media, about the ‘killing of peaceful Syrian citizens protesting injustice’ is cynically designed to cover up the documented reports of violent seizure of neighborhoods, villages and towns by armed bands, brandishing machine guns and planting road-side bombs.

The assault on Syria is backed by foreign funds, arms and training.Due to a lack of domestic support, however, to be successful, direct foreign military intervention will be necessary. For this reason a huge propaganda and diplomatic campaign has been mounted to demonize the legitimate Syrian government. The goal is to impose a puppet regime and strengthen Western imperial control in the Middle East. In the short run, this will further isolate Iran in preparation for a military attack by Israel and the US and, in the long run, it eliminates another independent secular regime friendly to China and Russia.

In order to mobilize world support behind this Western, Israeli and Gulf State-funded power grab, several propaganda ploys have been used to justify another blatant violation of a country’s sovereignty after their successful destruction of the secular governments of Iraq and Libya.

The Larger Context: Serial Aggression

The current Western campaign against the independent Assad regime in Syria is part of a series of attacks against pro-democracy movements and independent regimes from North Africa to the Persian Gulf. The imperial-militarist response to the Egyptian democracy movement that overthrew the Mubarak dictatorship was to back the military junta’s seizure of power and murderous campaign to jail, torture and assassinate over 10,000 pro-democracy protestors. …more

ACLU of Massachusetts Makes Statement on Twitter Subpoena Case
1 March, 2012 – ACLU

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

BOSTON — After nine weeks of secret court hearings, the Suffolk Superior Court has ordered Twitter, Inc., to comply with a state administrative subpoena issued by the Suffolk District Attorney’s office on December 14, 2011, seeking personally identifying information for an anonymous Twitter user during the period December 8, 2011 to December 13, 2011, for “account or accounts associated with” the name “Guido Fawkes”, “@p0ison0N”, “@OccupyBoston”, as well as information on anyone “associated with” two Twitter hashtags: #d0xcak3 and #BostonPD. Twitter hashtags are essentially key words used to indicate a topic of conversation.

Both the subpoena and the secrecy of various court proceedings have been challenged by the ACLU of Massachusetts, most recently at a hearing this morning.

The following statement may be attributed to Peter Krupp, cooperating attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts and partner at the law firm of Lurie & Krupp:

“The ACLU challenged the lawfulness of this administrative subpoena and was told by the Superior Court that we did not have standing. As a result of these various proceedings, the Superior Court ordered the documents produced.

“We continue to believe that our client has a constitutional right to speak, and to speak anonymously; and that this administrative subpoena both exceeded the scope of the administrative subpoena statute and infringed our client’s rights under the First Amendment. With the turnover of these documents any subsequent review of these issues will be moot. …more

Who Are the ‘Terrorists’?
by Justin Raimondo, 12 March, 2012 – AntiWar.com

In the early morning hours of March 11, a US soldier assigned to “special ops” in Afghanistan, stationed near Kandahar, went into a local village and gunned down 16 people – including nine women and three children. At least three others were wounded. He went from house to house, in the predawn darkness, systematically murdering people while they slept in their beds: he then doused them with a flammable liquid and set them ablaze.

What is it about American troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan? From Abu Ghraib [.pdf] to the Mahmudiyah killings to the Hamdania murder of a crippled old man to the horrors of the Haditha massacre, it’s been one atrocity after another (see here, here, and here). More recently it was the “rogue” team of killers that murdered Afghan civilians in the Maywand district for sport. Then it was US troops urinating on corpses, followed shortly afterward by the Koran-burning incident, the second such example of American contempt for the people they are supposed to be “liberating.” Now we have this, which – we’re told – is the result of a US soldier having a “breakdown.”

Was it a breakdown, or merely the logical extension of the soldier’s training and inclination, that caused him to go on a murderous rampage? That hardly a month goes by without some kind of atrocity being committed should tell us something.

What it tells me is that America is a depraved nation, a country where the very worst-of-the-worst flock to join the military, free to kill and maim and rape to their heart’s content.

And Rachel Maddow wants to give these guys a “welcome home” “victory” parade?

Of course she does: even the “liberals” in our country are corrupted by the ugliness that pervades the national consciousness and poisons everything we do. “Honor the troops” is a given on the left as well as the right, because the above-mentioned atrocities are just “isolated incidents,” examples of soldiers who had “breakdowns” and went “rogue.” Their actions have nothing to do with our mission [.pdf], our mentality, or our decadent culture, which glorifies violence and disdains foreigners – especially if they’re Muslims. Oh no: these are all anomalies, there’s nothing to see here so please move along …

I’m not buying it. There is something wrong – very wrong – here: a trend, a significant uptick in the savagery that is part and parcel of every war. During World War II, American atrocities were relatively few and far between, although no less reprehensible. As the American presence abroad grew more substantial, however, and the cold war heated up, such incidents increased in number, and took on a more horrific – and systematic – character. …more

Female protesters hold pictures of men said to be held prisoner without trial during a protest rally in Qatif to demand their release, and the withdrawal of Saudi troops from neighboring Bahrain, April 14, 2011.

Saudi security forces attack, beat female protesters in Abha
7 March, 2012 – PressTV

Saudi security forces have reportedly attacked and beaten female students in the southwestern city of Abha, protesting against injustice and inequality.

Activists say female students of King Khalid University in Abha staged a protest gathering on Wednesday to express their anger about discrimination and mistreatment by security officials at the university.

They also denounced lack of facilities some of them very basic like chairs.

Meanwhile, Saudi human rights campaigner Mohammed Albajady is still on hunger strike to protest his detention of nearly one-year without trial. Activists say he refused to eat 16 days ago.

Saudi Arabia is facing growing unrest and people have been demanding justice and release of political prisoners since last year. Anti-government protest rallies are mostly held in the Kingdom’s Eastern Province but despite a violent crackdown on demonstrations, it appears that the protests are now spreading across the country.

Saudis have held peaceful demonstrations in Eastern Province, mostly in Awamiyah and Qatif, since February last year on an almost regular basis, demanding reform, freedom of expression and the release of political prisoners.

Protesters also want an end to economic and religious discrimination against the oil-rich region. Several demonstrators have been killed and dozens of activists have been arrested since the beginning of protests in the region.

On February 23, protest rallies were held across the province to demand the prosecution of those who opened fire on demonstrators one week earlier. Saudi security forces broke up the rallies using force and arrested several demonstrators.

Riyadh has intensified its crackdown on protesters since the beginning of 2012. …source

Bahraini youth ‘Fadhel Mirza’ shot martyred with gas canister at close range
10 March, 2012 – Shia Post

Martyr Fadhel Mirza is the 4th one martyrs who was shot dead with tear gas in the head from close rang on Saturday 10, 2012.

22 years youth Fadhel Saeed Mirza al-Obeidi of Diraz District has been martyred who was shot in head with a gas canister last week by US-Saudi backed Bahraini regime forces when he was protesting peacefully for democracy.

Fadheel Mirza is the 76th Martyr of Bahrain revolution, who is also 4th one of martyrs was shot dead with tear gas in the head from close rang.

Martyr Fadel Mirza fell wounded after being shot with gas canister three times and he was also beaten by police while bleeding and screaming.

Islamic National Accord Association Al-Wefaq has condemned the killing of Bahraini youth and announced Young Fadhel Saeed Mirza al-Obeidi of Diraz district a martyr of Bahrain revolution.

Bahrain has been witnessing a wave of anti-regime protests since February 2011.

Dozens of people have been killed and hundreds more arrested or fired from their jobs since the beginning of the popular uprising in Bahrain in February 2011.

On January 26, Amnesty International called on Bahraini authorities to “investigate and account for the reports of more than a dozen deaths following tear gas use.”

Amnesty also called on the US government to “suspend transfers of tear gas and other riot control equipment to the Bahraini authorities.”

Fadhel al-Obeidi and other Young People defend against Security Force Assault on Village

The HRW also called on Bahrain’s Saudi-backed Al Khalifa regime to release detained protesters.

During the crackdown against peaceful protesters 76 people have been killed and thousands have been injured by US-Saudi backed regime forces. …more

Bahrain: Two more deaths caused by tear gas
09 March, 2012 – Bahrain Center for Human Rights

As reported to BCHR, a one month and a half infant (Yahya Yousif Ahmed) died on 05 March 2012 after suffering from side effects of toxic gas during pregnancy.

The father told BCHR that his wife was subjected to suffocation several times due to excessive tear gas during her pregnancy. Their house was attacked with tear gas at least 8 times. The doctors reported the cause of death to be abdominal inflammation and increased blood acids.

An elderly woman Sakeena Marhoon (in her 70s) died 06 March 2012, as reported to BCHR, after suffering from side effects of repeated inhalation of toxic gases thrown by security forces inside her house several times in Feb and March 2012. She was hospitalized a few weeks earlier due to suffocation after tear gas was shot inside her house.

A protestor from Al Dair got severely injured 06 March 2012 due to tear gas shot at his head.

Ahmed Oun (15 years old) was arrested weeks ago while marching to Lulu. On 05 March 2012, police raided his house in search for him claiming that he ran away. There are concerns on his life and safety.

The house of Deputy General Secretary of the National Fraternity Association (Yousif Qudrat) got attacked on night of 06 March 2012 by Molotov cocktails, leaving with this vicious attack obvious effects on the walls and courtyard of the house.

BCHR’s President Nabeel Rajab was summoned to appear in front of the public prosecution Thrusday 08 March, 03:00 pm, for the charge of calling for “unauthorized rallies”.

A primary school for girls suspends 20 students under the pretext of «chanting political slogans», a number of parents said that they were surprised by notification from the school to suspend their daughters out of school for one week, without prior notice.

A number of workers who are laid off because of the events of last year renewed their sit-in protest on Tuesday morning (6 March / March 2012) in front of the Ministry of Labour to speed in moving the files sent back to their work places.

Doctors Without Borders organization declared closing its mission in Bahrain, after the Bahraini authorities prevented the entry of two of the organization’s delegation to Bahrain last week, and warned that the organization does not currently have any staff in Bahrain.

The organization said it will continue contacting the Bahraini authorities, and hopes to return to work in Bahrain soon, according to WHO, one of its members will follow the situation in Bahrain from the WHO office in Dubai.

The organization has indicated that it examined and treated since February until August 2011 about 200 patients and the patients were afraid to get medical care from health facilities for fear of arrest, either for their involvement in the protests or their solidarity with the demonstrators.

The trial of the medical staff was postponed to 15 March to display a CD by the prosecution and the defense and to hear defense witnesses and inquire about the complaints of torture. ...more

Hezbollah praises protesters in Bahrain
11 March, 2012 – The Daily Star

BEIRUT: Hezbollah praised over the weekend Bahraini protesters seeking reforms in the Arab island kingdom and urged the government to respond positively with the rightful demands of the people.

“What demands great respect with regard to the Bahraini people’s uprising is the [people’s] steadfastness and insistence on the peaceful nature of the movement, including today’s [Saturday], despite the brutality of the regime in its crackdown on isolated protesters that led to the deaths of 10s of martyrs and wounded,” Hezbollah said in a statement Saturday.

Tensions have remained high in Bahrain since a deadly crackdown last year after a month of Manama street protests. According to an independent probe, 35 people were killed in last year’s unrest, including five security personnel and five detainees tortured to death while in custody.

Over the weekend Bahrain police fired tear gas at protesters following the funeral for a 22-year-old man whose family claims he was fatally wounded in clashes earlier this month.

The resistance group called on Manama to meet the demands of the protesters.

“Hezbollah pays tribute to this popular wave [of protests] that has continued over several months and sees that the Bahraini authorities need to respond to the rightful demands of the people in order to prevent bloodshed of the innocent as well as to save the country from the state of oppression that it suffers from.”

Hezbollah came under heavy criticism last year from Lebanon and Manama for statements it made against the Bahraini government that prompted the country’s two airline carriers – Gulf Air and Bahraini Air – to suspend flights between Manama and Beirut for at least four months.

The decision to suspend flights came after Hezbollah Chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah criticized Bahrain’s monarchy for brining in troops from neighboring Gulf countries to help put down the Shiite-led protests there.

Hezbollah has asked the Bahrain government to grant Shiites their rights and end violence against protesters.
…source

Noam Chomsky on the Arab Spring
12 March, 2012 – Mario Martinez – The Tech

Famed professor and linguist Noam Chomsky gave a lecture on the Arab Spring and some of its consequences Thursday night in 26-100. This event was sponsored and carried out by both Amnesty International and i-House, and its main purpose was to bring awareness of issues from the Arab Spring and provide a perspective from a distinguished speaker.

The Arab Spring describes the revolutions and protests that have recently swept through the Middle East. It began with local demonstrations and quickly grew into a large series of national power reversals in the Middle East, starting in Tunisia, continuing with Egypt, and later, Tripoli, all the while igniting public action and governmental response from many of the countries in the region.

At 6 p.m., the event started with an opening speech by MIT Amnesty International president, Ngee Yong Teo. In his speech, he gave a quick retelling of the events of the Arab Spring, and then called for a moment of silence for all of those hurt by effects of the Arab Spring.

Teo then went on to introduce Chomsky, the father of modern linguistics. Chomsky has been at MIT since 1955 and is a political theorist and activist. His political activity began in the time of the Vietnam War and continues to today.

Chomsky’s focus centered around how U.S. foreign policy shaped the events of the Arab Spring. Throughout his talk, he highlighted the idea that the U.S. only acts in ways that will be favorable for its own interests, and that since the areas with power changes did not really affect U.S interests, the U.S. would do nothing to stop revolutions. In nations in which the U.S. held high stakes, however, governmental change would be struck down.

He began speaking by bringing up two points about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that would become the basis for his lecture:

The “U.S. wants to control energy resources in the region”
What the U.S. “[doesn’t] want is very clearly Democracy”, since it blocks control on energy and its plans to organize the world

He then went on to bring out a few polls on the Arab world, some of which included:

73% see Israel and the U.S. as the biggest threat.

5% are afraid of Iran

80% believe the cause of Palestine should be the cause of every Arab

55% see Israel having nuclear weapons as dangerous

From here, he continued to weave the argument that the U.S. is not hated by groups in the Middle East because of the way we live or the freedoms we have, but because of the policies the U.S. has enacted and supported across that region. According to Chomsky, the perception in the Arab world is that the U.S. supports harsh and brutal regimes to control the energy supply.

Chomsky repeated the theme of the U.S. in search of its own interests, following the “state model” of behavior — one which compels the state to favor itself. The kind of democracy Chomsky said the U.S. would support is one that serves its own interests — a top down procedural democracy in which the U.S. could control as much a possible. ….more

The head of an official inquiry into Bahrain’s unrest last year called for the investigation of any senior officials involved in the deaths or torture of protesters, as thousands of demonstrators returned to the streets in one of the nation’s largest marches in months.

Human Rights Abuses in Bahrain must be investigated
12 March, 2012 – ABNA.co

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – The head of an official inquiry into Bahrain’s unrest last year called for the investigation of any senior officials involved in the deaths or torture of protesters, as thousands of demonstrators returned to the streets in one of the nation’s largest marches in months.

Cherif Bassiouni, whose report in November found authorities used excessive force and widespread torture to shut down a popular uprising, told The Wall Street Journal that Bahrain’s Sunni regime hadn’t acted on his recommendation that any members of the government guilty of abuses should face justice.

“If you follow the system of accountability and justice, you follow the evidence wherever it goes and whoever is responsible has to be held accountable,” said Mr. Bassiouni, an Egyptian former United Nations human-rights lawyer.

Bahrain’s King Hamad ordered the independent report into the crackdown in June. Headed by Mr. Bassiouni, the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry concluded that detainees had been subjected to systematic mistreatment included being beaten with rubber hoses, metal rods, electrocuted and threatened with rape. The report outlined proposed reforms to the police and security services.

A Bahrain government spokesman said a special prosecution unit dedicated to determining accountability had been established, but he declined to comment on whether senior government officials would be investigated.

Mr. Bassiouni is scheduled to submit a follow-up report at the end of March assessing the government’s implementation of his proposals, after meeting King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa and other senior officials in the coming week.

Tensions in Bahrain have simmered since the Sunni-led government forcefully put down a mainly Shiite protest movement early last year, with the help of Saudi troops, leaving 35 people dead and nearly 3,000 arrested, according to the report.

Friday’s march was called by protest leaders as a show of opposition resolve after Bahrain’s leaders portrayed the uprising as losing steam ahead of a Formula One Grand Prix car race in April, the Associated Press reported. Protests forced the cancellation of last year’s race.

Friday’s main procession was mostly peaceful, but breakaway groups were driven back by tear gas as they headed toward Pearl Square, which was the center of the uprising for weeks last year, AP said. …more

Graeme Lamb: British general’s company paid to support Bahrain dictatorship
By Andrew Gilligan – 11 March, 2012 – Telegraph

BRITAIN’S former military commander in Iraq has extravagantly praised a dictatorial Arab regime after it paid his company £1.5million to “support [its] stance before the international community”.

Lt Gen Sir Graeme Lamb, a former director of Special Forces and commander of the Field Army, last month described the Gulf state of Bahrain as a “little gem… the leading point of change, reforms and progress since the 1920s” and attacked the Western media for “unfairly” lumping it in with Tunisia, Libya and Syria.

“There it is just systematic, state-sponsored abuse of its own people,” he told Bahrain’s Gulf Daily News. “And nothing can be further from the truth here.”

At least 50 civilians have been killed, according to Amnesty International, after Bahraini and Saudi forces put down non-violent demonstrations last spring calling for political reform, democracy and an end to Sunni domination over the country’s Shia majority.

In proportion to Bahrain’s tiny population, the death toll is higher than in Tunisia or Egypt. Five members of the security forces have also died.

At least 30 places of worship have been destroyed by the regime and medical staff at the main hospital were jailed for up to 15 years in military courts for treating protesters, though retrials in civilian courts have been ordered following an international outcry.

Gen Lamb has recently complained in the British media that Bahrain has been “hounded”. He called for a more “balanced viewpoint” and said “majority rule was tried in the early years of independence and failed”.

He partly blamed the uprising on “Iranian malevolent influence” and said the West should listen to the country’s “silent majority”.

Tender documents on the Bahraini government website show that last July, the regime’s media council paid £1.5million to a British company described as “3G (UK)” for “a media campaign to support the Kingdom of Bahrain’s stance before the international community”.

The only British lobbying company called 3G said it worked exclusively for UK clients and had received no payment from Bahrain.

Gen Lamb confirmed that the company referred to was in fact the Good Governance Group, also known as G3, for which he is a “special adviser”.

“I now know that is the case [that G3 was paid by Bahrain],” he said.

“A number of people are trying to add two and two together to make four, or six. You’ll say whatever you are going to say, but [my support for Bahrain] is not part of that contract. It is something that I have believed for a long time and it is nothing to do with any business interests I have.”

Last year G3, which employs former service chiefs, officials and diplomats, was drawn into Liam Fox’s resignation as defence secretary after it emerged that it had paid international travel costs for Dr Fox’s close friend, Adam Werrity.

A spokesman for G3 refused to comment.

Gen Lamb is also a director of Aegis Defence, which has one of its four overseas offices in Bahrain.

Since the killings, the tender documents show, the Bahraini government appears to have mounted an intense but subterranean public relations offensive to rehabilitate its image. …more

Guantanamo: Survivors Reminisce Ghost Lives
12 March, 2012 – aseerun

“My words are not enough to describe what happened to me. They have taken us completely naked across the tarmac, dogs have attacked us, incredible, such inhumanity. As a teacher, I taught English to the Afghans and told them about the American dream. The U.S. should have been grateful to me. ” Sami al-Laith, 3 years and 10 months of captivity

He must have been an impressive lecturer; tall, sharp-witted, and an air of natural authority. A sharp intellect is the only thing that remains of Sami al-Laithy. He sits slumped in a wheelchair, his back and neck acutely in pain with every movement.

For six years he has lived in this dark room in what remains of his grandfather’s former mansion in al-Gharbia, Egypt. The columns at the entrance are witnesses to a past fortune. Now rain falls through the ceiling and black mold spots spread on the old walls.

In addition to Sami, 56, his mother and younger brother with his wife and four children live in the house. The brother lost his job as a translator in the Ministry of Defence because Sami was trapped in Guantanamo. The family has hardly enough money to buy food.

In his rickety wheelchair, Sami al-Laithy cannot maneuver without help on the muddy path outside the house. Trapped in the room, he stares at the walls. “The Americans,” he says, “have destroyed me, my health, my soul, my future.”

When al-Laithi speaks, one hears his love of language, of Arabic poetry and English sonnets. He is one of 38 Guantanamo detainees which the U.S. formally declared to be “no longer” enemy combatants. Flatly, his files state that he “represents a low risk due to his medical situation.”

As they stormed into the cell with batons and pepper spray, beating him again and again, American soldiers broke al-Laithi’s back. Pressure applied liberally with military-issued boots, they kicked Prisoner Number 287 until he could no longer walk, ‘disciplining’ him for refusing to go into what he called the “humiliation yard.”

He refused treatment at the hospital; Torturers, he insisted, could not simultaneously be doctors. They pressed his head between his legs and pulled it back, hard. A vertebra at the neck broke. “I asked why they do these things. Why? No answer,” he says. “Only the walls have listened to me for years.“

Sami al-Laithi says what he thinks. “Wearing the heart on his sleeve,” he calls it.

Over 20 years ago, al-Laithi had to flee the authoritiarain regime of Egypt because of his constant complaints about corrupt officials. He went first to Pakistan where his sister lived and then, from there, to Afghanistan. …more

Mr. Walid Jumblatt; the head of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and the leader of Durze sect affirmed that Bahrain presented the best example of the peaceful revolution.

Bahrain presented the best example of the peaceful revolution
12 March, 2012 – ABNA.co

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – Mr. Walid Jumblatt; the head of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and the leader of Durze sect affirmed that Bahrain presented the best example of the peaceful revolution.

He asked the government to execute peoples’ claims before the gap in between its people and the state institutions increased, warning that if further dissensions were to take place it would set the country alight with no room for dialogue left anymore.

Mr. Jumblatt said that the democratic constitutional kingdom was the best solution in Bahrain provided that it ensured the rights of both religious sects, the Shia and the Sunni and allows people to live in harmony side by side without prejudice or segregation.

In his timeline in twitter, Mr. Jumblatt said:” Bahrain settlement holds the key of a peaceful transition in the entire Gulf region, hence, an effective action must be done by which all the parties which will satisfy the securement of peace.”

He also condemned the mass media for neglecting the Bahraini revolution as if nothing had happened while exaggerating the situation in other countries, which could be considered unjust and biased. He also accused Al Jazeera TV channel and Al Arabiya of serving the interesting of Zionists by promoting a vision of the world according to their standards. …source

Bahrain declared enemy of Internet freedom
12 March, 2012 – Al-Akhbar

Bahrain has been declared an enemy of the Internet by a prominent campaign group in a report on Monday to mark World Day Against Cyber Censorship.

Reporters Without Borders condemned the Gulf state’s continued arbitrary arrests of online activists, while criticizing Saudi Arabia and Syria for continued online censorship.

Bahrain was one of only two countries to be called an “enemy” for the first time this year, the other being Belarus.

“Two countries, Bahrain and Belarus, have been moved from the “under surveillance” category to the “Enemies of the Internet” list,” the report said.

“They combine often drastic content filtering with access restrictions, tracking of cyber-dissidents and online propaganda.”

The report said the ongoing arrests of activists and the lack of international news coverage had succeeded in suppressing the protests in Bahrain.

It added that the upcoming Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix was an attempt by the ruling regime to pretend the protests are not happening.

“Bahrain is an example of a news blackout succeeding thanks to an impressive combination of technical, judicial and physical censorship methods,” the report said.

“Bahrain is spending millions to polish its image abroad and give the impression that the country has returned to normal. This has been capped by the announcement that the 2012 Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix, canceled last year, will go ahead in April,” it said.

A video emerged online over the weekend parodying attempts to organize the Grand Prix despite growing opposition due to human rights concerns in Bahrain.

The video, entitled “Bernie No F1 in Bloody Bahrain” after Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone, shows a computer simulation of the race, but as the drivers reach the finishing line they are greeted by Bahraini activists.

Bahrain is a key American ally in the Gulf and is home to the US Fifth Fleet, but has been rocked by pro-democracy protests since last year.

Saudi troops entered Bahrain in March 2011 to disperse the protests violently, with at least 40 people killed.

Opposition activists claim the death toll has risen to over 60 since mass protests resurfaced late last year.

A government-commissioned report last year found evidence of torture of activists, including bloggers and writers, in Bahraini custody.

The Reporters Without Borders report also condemned Saudi Arabia and Syria for continued harassment of online users.

“Saudi Arabia has continued its relentless censorship and suppressed coverage of a provincial uprising,” the report said, adding that “many Syrian and Bahraini netizens have been tortured in custody.“ …source

U.S. Plans Terrorist Plots In Syria According to WikiLeaks Info
US News — 07 March 2012

On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered “global intelligence” company Stratfor. The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher.

INSIGHT – military intervention in Syria, post withdrawal status of forces
Email-ID 1671459 Date 2011-12-07 00:49:18
From bhalla@stratfor.com
To secure@stratfor.com

A few points I wanted to highlight from meetings today –

I spent most of the afternoon at the Pentagon with the USAF strategic studies group – guys who spend their time trying to understand and explain to the USAF chief the big picture in areas where they’re operating in. It was just myself and four other guys at the Lieutenant Colonel level, including one French and one British representative who are liaising with the US currently out of DC.

They wanted to grill me on the strategic picture on Syria, so after that I got to grill them on the military picture. There is still a very low level of understanding of what is actually at stake in Syria, what’s the strategic interest there, the Turkish role, the Iranian role, etc. After a couple hours of talking, they said without saying that SOF teams (presumably from US, UK, France, Jordan, Turkey) are already on the ground focused on recce missions and training opposition forces. One Air Force intel guy (US) said very carefully that there isn’t much of a Free Syrian Army to train right now anyway, but all the operations being done now are being done out of ‘prudence.’ The way it was put to me was, ‘look at this way – the level of information known on Syrian OrBat this month is the best it’s been since 2001.’ They have been told to prepare contingencies and be ready to act within 2-3 months, but they still stress that this is all being done as contingency planning, not as a move toward escalation.

I kept pressing on the question of what these SOF teams would be working toward, and whether this would lead to an eventual air campaign to give a Syrian rebel group cover. They pretty quickly distanced themselves from that idea, saying that the idea ‘hypothetically’ is to commit guerrilla attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite forces, elicit collapse from within. There wouldn’t be a need for air cover, and they wouldn’t expect these Syrian rebels to be marching in
columns anyway.

They emphasized how the air campaign in Syria makes Libya look like a piece of cake. Syrian air defenses are a lot more robust and are much denser, esp around Damascus and on the borders with Israel, Turkey. They are most worried about mobile air defenses, particularly the SA-17s that they’ve been getting recently. It’s still a doable mission, it’s just not an easy one.

The main base they would use is Cyprus, hands down. Brits and French would fly out of there. They kept stressing how much is stored at Cyprus and how much recce comes out of there. The group was split on whether Turkey would be involved, but said Turkey would be pretty critical to the mission to base stuff out of there. EVen if Turkey had a political problem with Cyprus, they said there is no way the Brits and the French wouldn’t use Cyprus as their main air force base. Air Force Intel guy seems pretty convinced that the Turks won’t participate (he seemed pretty pissed at them.)
[Read more →]

Bahrain’s Shias demand reform at mass rally
09 March 2012 – AlJazeera

Tens of thousands of Bahrainis demonstrated in Budaiya to demand democratic reforms [Reuters]

The protesters began marching along a main road near the city on Friday in response to a call from leading Shia cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim who urged people to renew their calls for greater democracy.

Tens of thousands of Bahrainis have demonstrated outside the capital Manama to demand political reforms, a year after the Gulf Arab state crushed an uprising, witnesses said.

A live blog showed images of the protesters carrying banners denouncing “dictatorship” and demanding the release of detainees.

“We are here for the sake of our just demands that we cannot make concessions over and we stick with them because we have sacrificed for them,” Qassim said before the march, during his weekly sermon in the Shia village of Diraz.

He had promised to personally lead the march, his most high-profile action in more than a year of unrest.

‘Biggest demonstration’

A photographer with the Reuters news agency said the main Budaiya road in the area of Diraz, and Saar, west of Manama was packed, just one hour before the protest was set to begin.

“It is the biggest demonstration in the past year. I would say it could be over 100,000,” he said.

Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, told Al Jazeera by phone from Manama that “thousands of security forces” had been deployed to close down roads leading to the protest site.

“The message is that people are not happy with the government. We have clear demands: an elected government, a parliament with power, an end to sectarian discrimination, a clear redistribution of wealth and power and all demands guaranteed by the international convention on human rights,” he said.

Rajab added that Friday’s protests were “the biggest in our history”.

Independent inquiry

The country’s majority Shia population were in the forefront of last year’s protest movement in Bahrain, which erupted in February after uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.

The Sunni Muslim ruling Al Khalifa family crushed the protests one month later, imposing a period of martial law and bringing in Saudi and United Arab Emirates troops to restore order.

An independent commission of inquiry, formed and funded by Bahrain’s government, investigated the protests in February and March 2011.

The commission found that “Thirty-five deaths occurred between February 14 and April 15, 2011 that have been linked to the events of February and March 2011. The deaths of 19 of these civilians have been attributed to security forces.”

Among other findings, the commission reported that “Many detainees were subjected to torture and other forms of physical and psychological abuse while in custody”.

Bahrain, where the US Fifth Fleet is based, has remained mired in crisis and Shia youths clash daily with riot police.

The unrest has slowed the economy in what was a major tourism and banking hub in the Gulf region. …more

Bahrain Protesters Boost Pressure With Huge Rally
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS – 9 March, 2012

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters flooded a major highway in Bahrain on Friday in one of the largest opposition rallies in months against the Gulf nation’s rulers. Security forces fired tear gas at smaller groups attempting to reach a heavily guarded square that was once the hub of the uprising.

The march was called as a show of resolve by a Shiite-led rebellion against Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy more than a year after the Arab Spring-inspired protests began. The main procession was mostly peaceful, but breakaway groups were driven back by tear gas as they headed toward Pearl Square, which was the center of the uprising for weeks last year until it was stormed by security forces.

The demonstration is also a reply to Bahrain’s Sunni leadership, which has portrayed the uprising as losing steam ahead of next month’s lucrative Formula One Grand Prix car race. It was canceled last year because of violence on the tiny island.

At least 45 people have been killed in the unrest, and hundreds have been arrested.

The march stretched for miles. Some opposition leaders estimated the crowd at nearly 100,000, which would make it one of the largest protest gatherings since the street rallies erupted in February 2011.

Bahrain’s majority Shiites seek to end the Sunni dynasty’s control of all main posts and policies in the strategic Gulf nation, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. Shiites make up about 70 percent of Bahrain’s 525,000 citizens, but they complain of widespread discrimination and say they are blocked from high-level political and security positions.

Bahrain’s rulers have offered some concessions, including granting more decision-making powers to parliament, but reject demands that include giving up the right to appoint holders of top positions, such as prime minister. …more