Posts from — December 2012

Iranian Bomb Graph Appears Adapted from One on Internet
By Gareth Porter – 13 December, 2012 – IPS

WASHINGTON, Dec 13 2012 (IPS) – The suspect graph of a nuclear explosion reportedly provided to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as evidence of Iranian computer modeling of nuclear weapons yields appears to have been adapted from a very similar graph in a scholarly journal article published in January 2009 and available on the internet.

Graph published by the scholarly journal Nuclear Engineering and Design, Volume 239, Issue 1, January 2009, Pages 80–86.

The graph, published in a Nov. 27 Associated Press story but immediately found to have a mathematical error of four orders of magnitude, closely resembles a graph accompanying a scholarly article modeling a nuclear explosion. It provides a plausible explanation for the origins of the graph leaked to AP, according to two nuclear physicists following the issue closely.

The graph in the scholarly journal article was well known to the IAEA at the time of its publication, according to a knowledgeable source.

That means that the IAEA should have been able to make the connection between the set of graphs alleged to have been used by Iran to calculate yields from nuclear explosions that the agency obtained in 2011 and the very similar graph available on the internet.

The IAEA did not identify the member countries that provided the intelligence about the alleged Iran studies. However, Israel provided most of the intelligence cited by the IAEA in its 2011 report, and Israeli intelligence has been the source of a number of leaks to the AP reporter in Vienna, George Jahn.

Graph published by the Associated Press on Nov. 27, 2012, reportedly as evidence of Iranian computer modeling of nuclear weapons yields.

The graph accompanying an article in the January 2009 issue of the journal Nuclear Engineering and Design by retired Swiss nuclear engineer Walter Seifritz displayed a curve representing power in a nuclear explosion over fractions of a second that is very close to the one shown in the graph published by AP and attributed by the officials leaking it to an Iranian scientist.

Both graphs depict a nuclear explosion as an asymmetrical bell curve in which the right side of the curve is more elongated than the left side. Although both graphs are too crudely drawn to allow precise measurement, it appears that the difference between the two sides of the curve on the two graphs is very close to the same in both graphs.

The AP graph appears to show a total energy production of 50 kilotonnes taking place over about 0.3 microseconds, whereas the Seifritz graph shows a total of roughly 18 kilotonnes produced over about 0.1 microseconds.

The resemblance is so dramatic that two nuclear specialists who compared the graphs at the request of IPS consider it very plausible that the graph leaked to AP as part of an Iranian secret nuclear weapons research programme may well have been derived from the one in the journal article.

Scott Kemp, an assistant professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told IPS he suspects the graph leaked to AP was “adapted from the open literature”. He said he believes the authors of that graph “were told they ought to look into the literature and found that paper, copied (the graph) and made their own plot from it.” …more

The United States can no longer afford to launch major wars like Korea, Vietnam or Iraq. Obama prefers to intensify secret military action. Manlio Dinucci lays out the plan.

Obama prefers to keep it hidden
Voltaire Network – 13 December, 2012 – by Manlio Dinucci

President Obama does not like war. Not because he is a Nobel Peace prize-winner, but because open aggressive action would reveal US strategy and the interests upon which it is based. So he has launched a grand plan which, as the Washington Post notes, “reflects the Obama administration’s affinity for espionage and covert action over conventional force.”

This plan is intended to restructure and reinforce the Defense Intelligence Agency, which until now has been concentrated on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, so that it can operate on a global scale as a “spy service focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units.”

The first step will be to expand the organigram of the DIA, whose personnel has been doubled over the last decade, and now numbers some 16,500 members. A “new generation of clandestine operatives” will be formed, ready to be sent overseas. They will be trained by the CIA in its centre in Virginia, known as “The Farm”, where secret agents are groomed – a number of new posts will be created for the DIA pupils, totaling about 20% of the Farm’s turnover.

The ever closer collaboration between these two agencies is born out by the fact that the DIA has adopted a few of the CIA’s internal structures, amongst others, a unit dubbed “Persia House”, which co-ordinates secret operations inside Iran.

The new DIA agents will also take a specialisation course directed by the Commander of Special Operations. Apart from training recruits to eliminate the enemy, he also teaches “non-conventional warfare” to be conducted by exterior forces who are specially trained for this purpose; “counter-insurrection”, to help allied governments to repress rebellion; and “psychological operations” intended to influence public opinion so that the population comes to support US military action.

Once their training is complete, these new DIA agents, about 1,600 at first, will be assigned by the Pentagon to missions all over the world. The State Department will provide them with false identities, introducing some of them into embassies – but since the embassies are already full of CIA agents, the DIA agents will be given other false identities, for example, as university staff or business executives.

Thanks to their military experience, the DIA agents are reputed to be more appropriate for the recruitment of informers capable of providing data of a military nature, for example, information concerning the new Chinese fighter plane. And the development of their organigram will enable the DIA to expand the range of targets for drone strikes and actions by special forces.

This is the new way of making war, preparing and accompanying open attacks by secret action intended to weaken the target country from inside, as was done in Libya, or undermine it internally, as is being attempted in Syria. This is the direction taken by the restructured DIA, launched by President Obama.

We don’t know if the candidate for Prime Minister Pier Luigi Bersani [1], who holds Obama in great esteem, has already congratulated him for this action. However, he has recently visited Libya in order to “pick up the thread of a strong Italian presence in the Mediterranean”. Meaning the thread of war against Libya, in which Italy participated under US orders, while Bersani rejoiced, exclaiming “it’s about time”.
…source

Bahrain’s crown prince demands Shiite clerics quell uprising violence
By Associated Press – 7 December, 2012 – Washington Post

MANAMA, Bahrain — Bahrain’s Shiite religious leaders must more forcefully denounce violence as a key step to ease the kingdom’s 22-month uprising, the country’s crown prince said Friday at the opening of an international security conference.

The appeal by Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa underscores the view of Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy that Shiite clerics should be held partly responsible for rising violence in the strategic Gulf nation. It also suggests authorities could increase pressure on top Shiite clergymen, whom he referred to as ‘ayatollahs’ — a term more often associated with senior religious figures in rival Iran.

“I call on all those who disagree with the government, including the ayatollahs, to condemn violence on the street unequivocally . And more, to prohibit violence,” the crown prince told policymakers and political figures gathered for the annual two-day conference known as the Manama Dialogue. “Responsible leadership is called for and I believe dialogue is the only way forward,” he added.

More than 55 people have died in the unrest since February 2011, when Bahrain’s majority Shiites escalated a long-simmering drive for a greater political voice in the Sunni-ruled country.

The monarchy has offered some concessions, including giving the elected parliament expanded powers. But it falls far short of Shiite demands to loosen the Sunni rulers’ controls over key government appointments and policies.

Shiite religious leaders, including the most senior cleric Sheik Isa Qassim, have never publicly endorsed violence, but have encouraged peaceful anti-government protests to challenge authorities. Breakaway groups during demonstrations often clash with riot police.

The conference includes high-level envoys from Bahrain’s Western allies, which have so far stood behind the kingdom’s leadership but are increasingly troubled by rising violence and continued crackdowns on the opposition. The U.S. delegation is led by Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and includes Arizona Sen. John McCain.

The crown prince thanked a host of nations for assistance during the crisis, but noticeably did not refer to the U.S. in his remarks — an omission that underlined the two countries’ increasingly strained ties. He criticized nations that “selectively” criticize Bahrain’s leadership, without citing specific countries.

Washington has called for dialogue in Bahrain, but sharply condemned its leaders’ decision late last month to ban political rallies. The country hosts the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, the Pentagon’s main hub against Iran’s rising military profile in the Gulf.

Earlier, the leaders of Bahrain’s main opposition group urged participants at the summit to press Bahraini officials to open wide-ranging talks.

Sheik Ali Salman told thousands of supporters that the international envoys should push Bahrain’s rulers to recognize the “demands of the people” and open negotiations. …source

Bahrain tensions a trigger for Gulf turmoil
By Jeremy Bowen – 12 December, 2012 – BBC

The contest for power between Shia and Sunni Muslims is manifesting itself across the region

The chant that has been part of the soundtrack of the uprisings in the Middle East since the beginning of 2011 is a rhythmic rendition of the words in Arabic that mean: “The people want the fall of the regime.”

On a dark, drizzly night in Bahrain they echoed back off the scruffy, peeling walls of Muhazza, a village just outside the capital, Manama.

A few hundred Muhazza residents had gathered, defying the ban on public demonstrations that was imposed in October.

They waited for the police to arrive, alternating the chant about the fall of the regime with: “Down with Hamad” – in reference to Bahrain’s King Hamad al-Khalifah.

The protesters were Shia Muslims, the majority sect in Bahrain. The Khalifahs, like most of Bahrain’s establishment, are Sunni.
‘Second-class citizens’

The trouble in Muhazza – and other Shia villages in Bahrain – is more than a little local difficulty.

Bahrain is caught up in the big forces that are reshaping the Middle East. They include the pressure for change and the desires and ambitions of major powers.

Bahrain is much poorer than its rich neighbours in the UAE and Qatar, and there are long-established economic grievances, particularly to do with unemployment and poor housing.

It is also the home port for the US Fifth Fleet, whose jobs include keeping the oil export routes open and reminding Iran of what the Americans could do to them if they so wished.

But the most significant single cause of unrest and outright violence in the new Middle East is religious sectarianism.

Bahrain lies between Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia and the Shias of Iran, and has a long history of sectarian tension, between the Shia majority and the Sunni minority.

The Sunnis control most of the money and power. Some Shia families have done well out of the system, and have senior positions. But most have been treated like second-class citizens.

Shias and Sunnis are the equivalent of the Protestants and Catholics in the Christian world, often happy to intermarry and live peacefully alongside each other. But at times of tension, and sometimes because they have been inflamed by radical preachers, they can turn on each other.
Whiff of tear gas

It did not take long for the police to break up the demonstration in Muhazza.

The children seemed to sense them before they could see them, running for cover a few seconds before the police announced themselves with a stun grenade and a whiff of tear gas.

The adults scattered, running into shops and houses. The police made no attempt to pursue them, though locals said that in the previous few weeks there had been repeated violent raids in the early hours of the morning.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Bahrain’s justice minister, Khaled al Khalifa

We want to bring back unity in a way that heals the earlier error”

Khaled al-Khalifah Bahraini Justice Minister

Ten minutes later, the police had moved on to another emergency call, and the street filled with defiant residents who began chanting again.

Women produced trays of food. The people of Muhazza started to enjoy themselves.

When protesters in Bahrain tried to emulate the revolution in Egypt by starting mass demonstrations in February 2011, the first slogans called for reform, not for the overthrow of the ruling family.

The security forces responded to what became an uprising with great brutality.

The first protesters also included a fair proportion of Sunnis, who were fed up with the way the country has been run.

But since the crackdown, the confrontation has increasingly been on sectarian lines.

In a moment of unusual openness for a Middle Eastern ruling family, the king commissioned and accepted the findings of an independent report into what happened, which confirmed that the security forces had killed and tortured protesters.

A year after the report, known as the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), the ruling family is being accused of not doing enough to implement its findings, by its friends in the West as well as human rights groups and its critics inside Bahrain. …more

Julian Assange: Nabeel Rajab is a prisoner of conscience and he must be released
12 December, 2012 – Bahrain Center for Human Rights

Julian Assange released a statement today calling for the immediate release of BCHR President Nabeel Rajab.
Statement from Julian Assange on Nabeel Rajab:

“I last saw Nabeel Rajab, the President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, in March 2012. Nabeel flew to the United Kingdom, where I interviewed him for my television programme The World Tomorrow. While he had been on the plane, his house had been surrounded by armed police.

I asked him what he was going to do now. Wasn’t he fearful about returning home? He was adamant. He would return to Bahrain.

“[T]his is the struggle, this is the freedom, this is democracy that we are fighting for. It has a cost and we have to pay the cost, and the cost might be very expensive as we have paid a high cost in Bahrain, and we are willing to pay that for the changes that we are fighting for.”

Once he was back in Bahrain, a campaign of judicial harassment began. He was charged with illegal assembly and insulting the Prime Minister on Twitter. He was sentenced to three years in jail, for daring to claim his right to freedom of expression and association.

On December 11, after a long campaign of resistance, his sentence was reduced to two years.

This is not enough.

Nabeel Rajab is a prisoner of conscience. He should not be in jail at all. He should never have been put in jail. He must be released.

Immediately before his imprisonment, Nabeel Rajab was the leading voice of the Bahrain Spring. He has carried the banner, raised around the Islamic world in 2011, which cried out for ‘Huriyyah, Adalah Ijtima’iyah, Karamah’ – for Freedom, Social Justice, Dignity. What we know as the Arab Spring is, in Arabic, the ‘Thawraat l-Karamah’ – the ‘Revolutions of Dignity.’

Nabeel’s commitment to the moral importance of this movement cannot be doubted. Along with many other Bahrainis, he has given over his life and freedom for the reform of his country. Together, they have given everything. It is the regime that must now give ground.

The Bahraini regime has repeatedly promised reform, even commissioning a report on its own human rights abuses which found it guilty of practicing torture and the excessive use of force. It has failed to implement all but the most superficial of this report’s recommendations.

In particular, Recommendation 1722 (h) of this report called on the government, “To review convictions and commute sentences of all persons charged with offences involving political expression, not consisting of advocacy of violence, or, as the case may be, to drop outstanding charges against them.”

The regime has instead continued to imprison activists like Nabeel, for crimes solely related to their freedom of expression and assembly. Thirteen leading activists and opposition leaders remain in jail, despite international recognition of their status as political prisoners.

Originally slow to comment, even the President of the United States has asserted that “The only real way forward is for the government and opposition to engage in a dialogue, and you can’t have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail.”

Words do not match actions, however. Neither the US, which has a large military base in Bahrain, or the UK have applied any real pressure for the release of political prisoners, despite acknowledging this to be central to the reform process.

This is not a sophisticated issue. Our obligations are clear. The political prisoners of Bahrain must be freed as a necessary step towards peaceful reform. There will be no dignity in Bahrain until Nabeel Rajab is released.” …source

The U.S. is maneuvering to stem the revolutionary tide around the Middle East.

Washington’s plan to derail the Arab Spring
13 December, 2012 – SocialistWorker.org

BEHIND BARACK Obama’s rhetoric about democracy and freedom, the U.S. government is maneuvering to install a new generation of strongmen to roll back the Arab revolutions and reassert U.S. dominance in the Middle East.

In the latest two examples, the U.S. backed the power grab of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, and it has tried to install ex-regime officials at the head of Syria’s newly reorganized opposition. Thus, Washington hopes to divert two massive social uprisings into supportive governments that will remain allied to Western interests rather than reflect the popular will.

The stakes for the U.S. government are high. The invasion and occupation of Iraq–once considered by the arrogant hawks around George W. Bush to be the stepping stone to “regime change” from one end of the Arab world to the other–ultimately succeeded in turning the country into an ally of Iran, the main U.S. nemesis in the Middle East.

Last year’s Arab Spring–by overturning long-time dictators in a few countries and forcing governments in others to be more responsive to their populations–threatened to take even more nations out of their close U.S. orbit.

That, in turn, exposed the contradictions of U.S. reliance on Israel to dominate the region. Israel’s latest war on the Palestinian territory of Gaza not only failed to crush the Hamas government there, but also propelled the cause of Palestinian liberation to a level of prominence in Arab and Muslim countries unseen in decades.

THAT’S THE common thread in Washington’s seemingly contradictory policies since the revolutionary wave began in Tunisia two years ago. First, the U.S. supported Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali until a mass uprising and general strike forced him out, all in a matter of a month’s time. Washington followed the same script in Egypt, sticking with Hosni Mubarak–one of the linchpins of U.S. policy in the Arab world–until the last minute.

In Bahrain–the base of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet–Washington green-lighted savage counterrevolutionary repression against a peaceful pro-democracy movement. In Yemen, the U.S. eased out a despised authoritarian, in the hopes of shoring up a military-dominated government.

Only in Libya–where the U.S. and European powers armed rebels opposed to Muammar el-Qaddafi and carried out a punishing aerial assault under the guise of humanitarian aims–did the U.S. seem to unreservedly back the ouster of the old regime. But as Independent journalist Patrick Cockburn anticipated, the fall of Qaddafi’s regime was “primarily won by NATO, and not popular revolution.”

Over the two decades before his downfall, Qaddafi had been welcomed back into the good graces of the West on the basis of oil deals, but he was still considered too unreliable and isolated–and therefore expendable. So the Western powers channeled the revolution into a pliable government in which CIA assets and ex-Qaddafi officials played a key role.

The same method is at play in the U.S. policy toward Syria.

Barack Obama has voiced U.S. recognition of Syria’s opposition himself, signaling a more interventionist approach. But what’s remarkable about the U.S. attitude to the Bashar al-Assad regime is just how long the U.S. has held back from funding and arming the Syrian rebels. …source

David Petraeus May Have Committed Much Worse Crimes In Afghanistan
Michael Kelley – 14 November, 2012 – Business Insider

While ousted CIA Director David Petraeus eats dirt for his extra-marital affair, some people would like him to answer for much more serious crimes.

There is evidence that Petraeus, when he commanded US forces in Afghanistan, oversaw the intentional bombing of funerals and civilian rescuers with drones, which constitutes a war crime according to The International Criminal Court.

For years the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) has reported on the use of the double tap—a strategy used by terrorists that involves bombing a strike site multiple times in relatively quick succession to maximize devastation—and there are documented instances that Petraeus employed this tactic as CIA director.

In September the NYU and Standford law schools released a report detailing how double taps affect the Pakistani population, noting that several international law professors have said that “intentional strikes on first responders may constitute war crimes.”

The CIA used the tactic in Pakistan and Afghanistan In May and June of this year, and the killing of a Red Cross worker in Yemen—the first overt example of “explicit intelligence posthumously proving” that an innocent civilian has been killed—is a prime example of an extrajudicial execution.

But will Petraeus really go on trial for drone tactics? Like allegations of torture overseen by the Bush administration, it’s not likely.

Nevertheless the retired four-star general could face a court-martial if he began the affair with Paula Broadwell while on active duty in the army, since adultery is formally barred under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

Petraeus, 60, says the affair began a couple of months after he became CIA director in September 2011 after relinquishing command of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan in July 2011 and retiring from the U.S. Army the following month. But his story is challenged by the timeline of their interactions: Petraeus met Broadwell in the spring of 2006, began being studied by her in 2008, was visited by her six times over the course of the year after he took over allied troops in Afghanistan on June 30, 2010, and according to Michael Hastings, took Broadwell along with him on a government-funded trip to Paris in July 2011.

But we don’t expect the court martial to happen either, since the U.S. Army would have to reinstate Petraeus to active duty before the trial and consequently add to the shame being heaped on the highest tier of the U.S. military.
…source

The NYU Student Tweeting Every Reported US Drone Strike Has Revealed A Disturbing Trend
Michael Kelley – 12 December, 2012 – Business Insider

NYU student Josh Begley is tweeting every reported U.S. drone strike since 2002, and the feed highlights a disturbing tactic employed by the U.S. that is widely considered a war crime. FOLLOW Begley HERE

Known as the “double tap,” the tactic involves bombing a target multiple times in relatively quick succession, meaning that the second strike often hits first responders.

A 2007 report by the Homeland Security Institute called double taps a “favorite tactic of Hamas” and the FBI considers it a tactic employed by terrorists.

UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Christof Heyns said that if there are “secondary drone strikes on rescuers who are helping (the injured) after an initial drone attack, those further attacks are a war crime.”

The U.S. refuses to discuss the merits of its overtly covert drone program, but the reports featured on @dronestream clearly document that U.S. …source

First Lady Assists Marines at Toys for Tots Event
By Paul Bello – 12 Decemebr, 2012 – Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling Public Affairs

JOINT BASE ANACOSTIA-BOLLING, Washington, D.C., Dec. 12, 2012 – First Lady Michelle Obama arrived here yesterday carrying a big red bag filled with presents — courtesy of White House staff members.

Click photo for screen-resolution image
Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Joel Vazquez escorts First Lady Michelle Obama as she arrives with a sack full of toys at the Toys for Tots Distribution Center at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, D.C., Dec. 11, 2012. White House photo by Lawrence Jackson
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.
The gesture comes as the Marine Corps ramps up efforts nationwide in support of its Toys for Tots campaign.

As she has for the past four years, Obama joined several Marines inside JBAB’s Naval Marine Corps Reserve Center where they listened to Christmas music, shared some laughs and volunteered to sort toys and clothes into boxes for those less fortunate. The gifts will be handed out to underprivileged children living in the Washington, D.C., area.

“Toys for Tots started with a military family. A Marine reservist and his wife decided to make the holiday a little better for children in need,” Obama told those gathered for the occasion. “Since then, Americans and military families like all of you have spent countless hours bringing gifts and holiday cheer to children all across this country. This is just one example of how military families go that extra mile to serve our communities. I’m proud to be here with all of you today.”

Obama and Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, launched the “Joining Forces” program when they arrived in Washington as a way to honor, recognize and support veterans and military families everywhere. Obama said the program’s goal from the start has been to serve the military as well as they’ve served the nation.

Recently, Obama invited military families to be the first to view the official White House Christmas tree, which is trimmed with ornaments decorated by children living on U.S. military bases around the world. Additionally, guests to the White House are participating in Operation Honor Cards where people send notes of thanks to service members representing all branches of the military.

Pete Osman, president and CEO of the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation and a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general, thanked everyone in the community for their generosity, particularly in a difficult economy and those who are still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Sandy.

He also thanked Obama, who he said has been the campaign’s biggest supporter over the years. According to Osman, she has always kept her word on coming back to volunteer.

“The first lady literally rolls up her sleeves and helps us sort toys. I’m convinced the success of the Toys for Tots program is a result of the help we’ve gotten from her,” Osman said. “When Michelle Obama leads, the American people follow. And they’ve certainly followed her on this one.”

Osman said there are more than 700 local Toys for Tots campaigns nationwide this year. Toys will continue to be collected right up to the holidays and anyone can volunteer to help out, he said. …source

American Military Starts Assassinating Children
By Washington’s Blog – Global Research – 12 December, 2012

Obama and the American military label all young men – between the ages of say 15 and 35 – who happen to be in battle zones as suspected insurgents who they can target and kill.

Under the Bush administration, children were tortured.

Now, the U.S. military is starting to target children for assassination in battle zones. As the Nationreports:

In a despicable article in Military Times, the US military says that children are legitimate targets in the war in Afghanistan because sometimes the Taliban and other insurgents use kids.

In the original incident, which I cited in October, The New York Times reported it this way:

The case of three children allegedly killed in a coalition strike was reported by local officials in Helmand Province’s Nawa district. The officials said that the children were killed in a NATO strike on Sunday afternoon as they were gathering dung to burn as fuel, a common practice in the desert reaches of southern Afghanistan where there are few trees.

The Marja governor said that NATO forces watched as improvised explosive devices were being planted, and targeted the insurgents planting them. “As a result two I.E.D. planters were killed and the shrapnel killed the three children who were wandering nearby,” he said. Other reports said that three insurgents had been killed.

A spokesman for the international forces, Maj. Adam Wojack, said that the coalition forces were aware of the allegations and that the episode was being investigated. “I.S.A.F. did conduct a precision airstrike on three insurgents in Nawa district, and the strike killed all three insurgents,” he said.

“None of our reporting shows any civilian casualties or any children.”

But on December 3 Gannett, which owns Military Times, ran an article headlined: “Some Afghan Kids Aren’t Bystanders.” It said:

When Marines in Helmand province sized up shadowy figures that appeared to be emplacing an improvised explosive device, it looked like a straightforward mission. They got clearance for an airstrike, a Marine official said, and took out the targets.

It wasn’t that simple, however. Three individuals hit were 12, 10 and 8 years old, leading the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul to say it may have “accidentally killed three innocent Afghan civilians.”

But a Marine official here raised questions about whether the children were “innocent.” Before calling for the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System mission in mid-October, Marines observed the children digging a hole in a dirt road in Nawa district, the official said, and the Taliban may have recruited the children to carry out the mission.

Shockingly, the article quotes a senior officer saying that the military isn’t just out to bomb “military age males,” anymore, but kids, too:

“It kind of opens our aperture,” said Army Lt. Col. Marion “Ced” Carrington, whose unit, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, was assisting the Afghan police. “In addition to looking for military-age males, it’s looking for children with potential hostile intent.”

Western smoke-and-mirrors terrorism
12 December, 2012 – Finian Cunningham – PressTV

This is the kind of replete, systematic terrorism that Western, Arab and Turk-backed militants have been engaging in to destroy Syria and to impose a regime that will have nothing to offer the Syrian people except more internecine killing.”

Barack Obama, America’s Conjurer-in-Chief, is trying to entertain the world with a new smoke-and-mirrors trick, with the announcement that his government is recognizing the Syrian National Coalition as “the sole representative of the Syrian people”.

The chemical weapons trick seems to have fizzled like a damp squib. So, now it’s time for another illusion – the “worthy Syrian opposition”.

This motley crew of treasonous exiles – who mysteriously some how have bags of money to trot all over the globe from Doha to Cairo, Tokyo to Marrakech – are all of sudden anointed by the American President as the next government of Syria.

Anyone who has read the Doha Protocol that the SNC willingly signed up to while seduced in a luxury hotel last month by their Qatari sponsors should be under no misapprehension. This group of self-serving opportunists has been cobbled together with the sole purpose of selling Syria’s sovereignty to the highest, or even lowest, bidder. The people of Syria have been spared no treachery low enough in the imperialists’ manifesto of regime change, including surrender of wealth, natural resources and all of Syria’s independent foreign policy principles.

Under the regime of the SNC, if it ever gets into power, Syria will become a shell of a once-proud nation, in hock to Western and Persian Gulf investors and schemers, betraying its people and its regional neighbours.

Yet, hey presto, with the panache of a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat, Obama declares: “We’ve made a decision that the Syrian Opposition Coalition is now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the Syrian population, that we consider them the legitimate representative of the Syrian people in opposition to the Assad regime.”

Cue the arms sales and military logistics floodgates – as already worked out by British General Sir David Richards in secret talks last month in London with his American, French, Turk and Qatari counterparts.

The latest Obama stunt follows the dress rehearsals in previous weeks by Britain, France, Turkey and the Persian Gulf Arab dictators who had already appointed the SNC as the de facto government-in-waiting on behalf of the 25 million Syrians.

The White House joker tried to give his “recognition” wheeze some credibility by demarcating an illusory line between “legitimate” and “renegade” Syrian opposition, by proscribing certain militant groups within Syria as “terrorists”. The Jabhat Al Nusra front, which is said to be linked to Al Qaeda, is henceforth ostracized, at least officially, by Washington.

Of course, Washington had to crank out some rhetorical fog to cover up the glaring contradiction between its decade-long “war on terror” mantra and the fact that Islamic extremists are central to the Western-backed campaign of subversion in Syria.

But this chicanery is fooling no-one who has been accurately following the state terrorist war of aggression in Syria over the past 22 months. No-one, that is, except those perhaps who have been brainwashed by the Western mainstream media echo chambers, which call this campaign of terror afflicting Syria a “pro-democracy uprising”.

Obama’s cynical charade of isolating extremists from supposed worthy opposition belies the fact that Syrian society is being assailed by a gargantuan criminal conspiracy authored, fomented and fuelled by Western governments and their regional proxies. The so-called Syrian rebels are terrorist foot-soldiers of foreign masters.

Think about it. What group claiming to liberate Syria would murder their own compatriots – men, women and children – with such fiendish, unrelenting barbarity?

For Obama to try to make out that the opposition has now been cleansed from extremists – on the basis of his say-so – is transparent nonsense.

Are we expected to believe that the litany of atrocities perpetrated against the Syrian people are all down to “rogue Jihadists”?

Let’s review just some of the low-lights of the putative Syrian liberators:

1. Massacres of whole villages. Just as Obama was sanitizing the opposition, news was coming in of yet another massacre this week in the village of Aqrab. Reports put the number of killed at over 125. Typically, the Western media lie machine was vague in ascribing blame, but past record shows that such atrocities are stock-in-trade of the anti-government foreign militants. On 25 May, the village of Houla, also in Hama Province, was massacred, including 49 children. After initial media misinformation, it turned out that the mass murders were carried out by the Western and Arab-backed mercenaries.

2. No-warning car bombs across Syria in urban areas of Damascus, Aleppo, Idlib, Daraa, Homs. The newly American-sanctioned Al Nusra front is said to be based in Aleppo. Are we to believe its operatives can whisk around the entire country of Syria carrying out suicide bombings? Again, as Obama was pronouncing the validity of Syrian opposition, the suburb of Jaramana outside Damascus was attacked with no-warning bombs, killing two and injuring several. Last month, the mainly Christian and Druze community of Jaramana was targeted for the fourth time in as many months with multiple explosions that claimed over 34 lives.

3. Video evidence emerges this week showing Saudi mercenaries recruiting a child to behead what appears to be a captured Syrian soldier as he lay on the street, his neck propped on a concrete block and his hands tied behind his back.

4. Other footage shows foreign militants taking unarmed men out on to a street and executing them one-by-one. In other horrific scenes, Syrian soldiers lying on the ground are seen begging for mercy as gun-toting captors spray them with bullets.

5. Victims of cold-blooded executions are thrown off multi-storey buildings on to the pavement below, their mangled corpses lined up in the gutter for gruesome public display.

6. Mosques and churches are desecrated by being turned into sniper posts by Western-backed mercenaries, from where they shoot randomly at civilians in the streets.

7. Family members are kidnapped for ransom only to find that their loved ones have been slain in the most heinous way.

8. Mortar shells are fired deliberately at civilian apartment blocks by mercenaries who then film the aftermath fabricating that the crimes were committed by the Syrian Army, fabrications which the Western mainstream media peddle in line with their governments’ propaganda.

9. Journalists who are trying to give an accurate account of all of the above and more are targeted and assassinated, including Press TV’s Maya Naser and at least 15 other Syrian media workers.

10. In yet another crime against humanity, it is revealed this week that Saudi Arabia has forced inmates from its seething jails to go and wage “holy war” on the Syrian people.

This is the kind of replete, systematic terrorism that Western, Arab and Turk-backed militants have been engaging in to destroy Syria and to impose a regime that will have nothing to offer the Syrian people except more internecine killing.

This is the kind of mayhem that America’s Conjurer-in-Chief and his band of Western terrorist allies are now trying to dissimulate as being the work of rogue extremists, whom they allegedly do not support.

The deception being engineered here is to create an illusion under the cover of which the Western governments can now proceed “legitimately” with direct military supply to Syrian terrorist “freedom fighters” – as opposed to their erstwhile covert supply of weapons which has so far not succeeded in their criminal plan for regime change.

In the Season of Goodwill, that’s like expecting us to believe that Obama is Santa Claus and Cameron and Hollande are his angelic little helpers. …source

Obama: US Recognizes Syria’s Main Rebel Group
12 December, 2012 – Associated Press – by Matthew Lee

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama declared Syria’s main opposition group the sole “legitimate representative” of its country’s people Tuesday, deeming the move “a big step” in the international diplomatic efforts to end Syrian President Bashar Assad’s embattled regime.

Obama said the newly formed Syrian Opposition Council “is now inclusive enough” to be granted the elevated status, which paves the way for the greater U.S. support for the organization.

“Obviously, with that recognition comes responsibilities,” Obama said in an interview Tuesday with ABC News. “To make sure that they organize themselves effectively, that they are representative of all the parties, that they commit themselves to a political transition that respects women’s rights and minority rights.”

Recognition of the council as the sole representative of Syria’s diverse population brings the U.S. in line with Britain, France and several of America’s Arab allies, which took the same step shortly after the body was created at a meeting of opposition representatives in Qatar last month.

Obama’s announcement follows his administration’s blacklisting of a militant Syrian rebel group with links to al-Qaida. That step is aimed at blunting the influence of extremists amid fears that the regime may use or lose control of its stockpile of chemical weapons.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday that the Syrian government seems to have slowed preparations for the possible use of chemical weapons against rebel forces. Last week, U.S. officials said there was evidence that Syrian forces had begun preparing sarin, a nerve agent, for possible use in bombs.

“At this point the intelligence has really kind of leveled off,” Panetta told reporters traveling with him to Kuwait, where he will visit U.S. troops at the start of a four-day trip. “We haven’t seen anything new indicating any aggressive steps to move forward in that way.”

U.S. recognition of the opposition council is expected to be a centerpiece of an international conference on the Syria crisis in Morocco this week. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had been due to attend Wednesday’s meeting in Marrakech but canceled her trip because she was ill with a stomach virus, her spokesman, Philippe Reines, said. Instead, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns will lead the U.S. delegation.

On Monday, Clinton designated Jabhat al-Nusra, or “the Support Front” in Arabic, a foreign terrorist organization. The move freezes any assets its members may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bars Americans from providing the group with material support. The designation is largely symbolic because the group is not thought to have holdings or support in the United States, but officials hope the penalties will encourage others to take similar action and discourage Syrians from joining.

That step was part of a package intended to help the leadership of the Syrian Opposition Council improve its standing and credibility as it pushes ahead with planning for a post-Assad future.

The administration took further action Tuesday against extremists on both sides, with the Treasury Department setting separate sanctions against two senior al-Nusra leaders and two militant groups operating under the control of the Syrian government. Two commanders of the pro-Assad shabiha force also were targeted.

“We will target the pro-Assad militias just as we will the terrorists who falsely cloak themselves in the flag of the legitimate opposition,” said David S. Cohen, the department’s sanctions chief.

More significant, though, is the upgraded status for the council. It’s expected to be accompanied by pledges of additional humanitarian and nonlethal logistical support for the opposition. It’s unlikely that the U.S. would add military assistance to that, at least in the short-term. Providing arms remains a matter of intense internal debate inside the administration, officials said.

The U.S. had been leading international efforts to prod the fractured Syrian opposition into coalescing around a leadership that would truly represent all of the country’s factions and religions. Yet it had held back from granting recognition to the group until it demonstrated that it could organize itself in credible fashion.

In particular, Washington had wanted to see the group set up smaller committees that could deal with specific immediate and short-term issues, such as governing currently liberated parts of Syria and putting in place institutions to address the needs of people once Assad is ousted. Some of those committees could form the basis of a transitional government.

Officials said the U.S. evolution in recognizing Syria’s opposition would closely mirror the process the administration took last year in Libya with its opposition.

“I would remind you of how this went in the Libya context where we were able to take progressive steps as the Libyan opposition themselves took steps to work with them, and to advance the way we dealt with them politically,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Monday.

In that case, Libya’s National Transitional Council moved from being “a” legitimate representative to “the” legitimate representative of the Libyan people. While the revolution was still going on, the council then opened an office in Washington, and the administration sent the late Ambassador Chris Stevens to Benghazi, Libya, as an envoy in return. The move also opened the door for Libya’s new leaders to access billions of dollars in assets frozen in U.S. banks that had belonged to the Gadhafi regime.

The move could allow the Syrian opposition to set up a liaison office in Washington with a de facto ambassador.

It is unclear, however, given the level of violence in Syria and the potential threat of chemical weapons, if the U.S. would soon send a representative to rebel-controlled areas of the country.

The conflict started 20 months ago as an uprising against Assad, whose family has ruled the country for four decades. It quickly morphed into a civil war, with rebels taking up arms to fight back against a bloody crackdown by the government. According to activists, at least 40,000 people have been killed since March 2011. …source

NATO aims for a Nobel war prize
By Pepe Escobar – THE ROVING EYE – 13 December, 2012 – Asia Times

The European Union (EU), this Monday in Oslo, received the Nobel Peace Prize for advancing peace, reconciliation, democracy and human rights.

How exciting. Look at the cast selected to receive the award; the spectacularly useless Herman van Rompuy (president of the European Council); the spectacularly mediocre Jose Manuel Barroso (president of the European Commission); and non-entity Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament. The Rolling Stones may be geriatric, but at least they still know how to work a crowd.

Barroso must have been loaded on Douro wine; he said the EU is “a powerful inspiration for many around the world”. Well, the love affair of the Chinese masses with Audi and Prada is not exactly inspired by the EU. He also said the EU is about “the free consent of states to share sovereignty”; well, the Brits are so thrilled with it that an overwhelming percentage of the population wants to leave.

But Barroso may have been on to something when he defended the euro: “We will stand by it.”

So what the Norwegians – which, wisely, are not part of the EU – did was to award a Nobel Prize to the (battered, devalued) euro. Take it as a PR boost; after all no two EU members are able to agree on taxation, on regulating financial turbo-capitalism, on what to do about a bankrupt Greece and soon the whole Club Med, or on what those somber suits at the European Central Bank (ECB) are really up to.

As a matter of fact, few apart from that legion of Brussels bureaucrats on fat expense accounts know what the hell the EU is for, other than lunch in Paris and dinner in Parma without carrying a passport (oh yes; fabulous gastronomy is the EU’s saving grace, at least for those who can afford it).

The EU exists basically to uphold article 3 of the Lisbon Treaty; it’s supposed to be a “highly-competitive market social economy”, transacting in euros. Yes, you have the right to remain puzzled – because any examination of recent headlines reveals this scheme is not working. The scheme is run by a technocratic caste addicted to “structural adjustments” that condemn dozens of millions to the pit of austerity. It’s as if those Brussels bureaucrats were saying” You’re either with us – with the euro – or against us (and then it’s war). Yet the fact is, economic war – on European citizens – is already on.

It’s only rock’n war…

The EU’s foreign policy may also be a joke, as in 27 headless chickens shooting at random – and at each other – on everything from Palestine to the admission of Turkey. But one thing the EU really well does is to produce, market and sell weapons to everyone involved in the business of war.

Asia Times Online has independently confirmed with two EU-based diplomats that the EU – via its US-dominated military arm, NATO – is getting ready to yet another war, in Syria. This confirms a recent report along the same lines by German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung (Moon of Alabama offers a very good translation here).

The diplomats confirmed to ATol that the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – the spectacularly mediocre Anders Fogh Rasmussen – is itching for a war in Syria, enveloped in “NATO must not bury its head in the sand” rhetoric.

Reciting his lines directly from Washington, Rasmussen is strongly supported by Turkey, Britain and France, with Germany caught in an extremely ambivalent position; German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has discarded war in favor of a political solution.

Yet itching for war is one thing, clinching the deal is another. Even a directive for NATO to start getting its act together in Syria needs to be approved by all 28 NATO member countries. Still, here is the skeleton of the deal; Washington will keep ordering its Danish puppet Rasmussen to prepare the ground for war, by all means necessary. Welcome to Syria as Libya 2.0 – even though there’s no way Washington can justify yet another Responsibility to Protect (R2P) scam at the UN Security Council. …more

Fareed, always the liberal’s, liberal. Fareed, you forget the other half of the equation: the US citizens underwrite the war and the profiteers take the spoils with their war driven economic engines. They profit from a world of insecurity from the violence of war and human desperation. Its called Military industrial complex for a reason Fareed! Their products are weapons and they require war and insecurity in order to keep the conveyors rolling… As long as these bastards are allowed to terrorize the world and sell their wares there “ain’t no end in sight”. And sadly Obama has done his damdest to shame those who awarded his bogus Nobel “peace prize”. It all leaves me wondering if Orwell rolls in his grave or just smiles when they say “war is peace”. Phlipn.

End the War on Terror
by: Fareed Zakaria – 11 December, 2012

End the war on terror and save billions, by Fareed Zakaria: As we debate whether the two parties can ever come together and get things done, here’s something President Obama could probably do by himself that would be a signal accomplishment of his presidency: End the war on terror. …

For 11 years, the United States has been operating under emergency wartime powers granted under the 2001 “Authorization for Use of Military Force.” That is a longer period than the country spent fighting the Civil War, World War I and World War II combined. It grants the president and the federal government extraordinary authorities at home and abroad, effectively suspends civil liberties for anyone the government deems an enemy and keeps us on a permanent war footing in all kinds of ways. … Phasing out or modifying these emergency powers should be something that would appeal to both left and right. …

If you want to know why we’re in such a deep budgetary hole, one large piece of it is that we have spent around $2 trillion on foreign wars in the past decade. … The … U.S. government has built 33 new complexes for the intelligence bureaucracies alone. The Department of Homeland Security employs 230,000 people. …

Of course there are real threats out there… But we have done this before, and we can do so in the future under more normal circumstances. …

In any event, it is a good idea that the United States find a way to conduct its anti-terrorism campaigns within a more normal legal framework, rather than rely on blanket wartime authority granted in a panic after Sept. 11.

No president wants to give up power. But this one is uniquely positioned to begin a serious conversation about a path out of permanent war.

…source

CIA Takes Over Pentagon
10 December, 2012 – The Daily Bell

No longer a turf war, the Pentagon and CIA work closely … With the increase use of drone strikes as a powerful fighting force, the military is looking to get more involved in intelligence. Greg Miller says that it’s becoming more difficult to tell who’s doing what as the Pentagon and CIA work closely together. David Petraeus, the highly decorated war hero, turned disgraced former head of the CIA made a once unthinkable shift from military to intelligence. But it isn’t at all uncommon anymore. In fact, the line between the Pentagon and CIA has become harder to distinguish. – Public Radio International

Dominant Social Theme: The move toward combining intelligence with military activity is an efficient one.

Free-Market Analysis: Here’s a new dominant social theme. We’re supposed to be comforted apparently that the Pentagon and CIA are merging, with the CIA coming out on top.

Between the two groups, you’ve probably got nearly US$1 trillion being utilized for intel and military purposes per YEAR. No multinational corporation in the world has an operating budget of one trillion dollars. This is the largest, most powerful, most malicious enterprise on the planet.

Its reach is global, its mischief international and its official determination in aggregate to preserve the power and fortunes of the US are indelible, at the top anyway. And now the two organizations are to be one. The article quotes Greg Miller of the Washington Post on the merger as follows:

But, Miller says, there is another big factor for the CIA’s embrace of the DIA.

“This deal that the CIA has cut with the Pentagon was enabled by the fact that the CIA gets to have ultimate control over what the Pentagon was doing,” Miller said. “Whatever the Pentagon ends up doing, it’s not going to undermine CIA operations. Secondly the CIA is so stretched that it welcomes the chance to have this other entity that it can offload work to.”

Now that the military is coming out of two wars, it faces significant retrenchment. Intelligence agencies on the other hand, won’t be facing the same level of budget cuts.

“One of the lessons coming out of 9/11 has only been reinforced over the past decade — that you can’t afford to start cutting back on intelligence, or the consequences could be dire,” he said.

The conclusion – that the Pentagon and CIA ought to work closely together – is questionable, to say the least. First of all, there are too many questions about what happened on 9/11 to draw ANY conclusion, let alone one that reemphasizes US Intel.

Second, even if one does emphasize intelligence, why is it necessary to combine the largest army on Earth with the most widespread, secretive intelligence operation? Doesn’t make much sense to us, but then we’re not military or Intel officers.

Our belief would tend to be that unless the Pentagon and CIA are formally merged, the agencies will eventually have a falling out and continue their competitive ways. On the other hand, if somehow the Pentagon does manage the feat of continuing to prostrate itself before the leaders of the CIA, then one does face the specter of the largest and most powerful Intel agency ever, one with a fully global operating zone.

While some in the US might be willing to rejoice at such a confluence, there is this to consider: Intelligence operations are inevitably turned on the citizens they are supposedly protecting.

The world’s top banking families, in fact, supposedly developed Intel agencies privately several hundred years ago so as to help preserve their wealth from unexpected occurences.

The paradigm these days is simple … The power elite itself runs Intel around the world. The Mossad, MI6, CIA and other multiple agencies are basically reporting to the world’s largest banking families and their enablers and associates, from what we can tell.

In other words, the Intel agencies act as occupying forces, ensuring that politicians, business, media and military elements all work together to fuflil power elite goals.

If we use this paradigm, we come to the conclusion that the reason global governance continues to grow is because the topmost elites have both the money and muscle necessary to impose their will.

Now we face an effective, operational merger to make both the US military and CIA a single, seamless force controlled by those working out of the City of London, Washington DC, the Vatican and eventually, we assume, Jerusalem.

These city-states are powers unto themselves and it is from this axis that dominant social themes are launched and Money Power is exercised.

The world’s top military and Intel agencies ought not to be seen as working for the interests of “the people” or of “nations.” These entities work for those who CONTROL people and nations. Any merger of the kind we are observing will surely increase this power and aim it more directly at captive, domestic populations.

Conclusion: This is not therefore a welcome development in our view, no matter how it is cast as a matter of “national security.” That was always a meaningless term in our view and it is no more credible today. …source

“Nothing Can Justify Torture”
An Interview With Noam Chomsky on Obama’s Human Rights Record
by ERIC BAILEY – 12 December, 2012 – Counter Punch

Professor Noam Chomsky is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was educated at the University of Philadelphia and at Harvard University as a Harvard Junior Fellow. He earned his PhD in Linguistics from the University of Philadelphia in 1955. He has spent the 57 years since then teaching at MIT. In addition to his academic work in linguistics, Professor Chomsky has been a noted political activist and philosopher, gaining national recognition in 1967 over his opposition to the Vietnam War and since then has regularly spoken out against US foreign and domestic policies and mainstream American mass media. Between his academic career and his work as a political activist and dissident, he has published over 100 books. On the eve of the 2012 US presidential election, he discussed with Eric Bailey of Torture Magazine America’s human rights record under the administration of President Obama and the military intervention policies that have seen increased use during the Arab Spring.

EB: The US presidential elections are almost upon us and the last four years have seen significant changes in American Federal policy in regards to human rights. One of the few examples of cooperation between the Democratic and Republican Parties over the last four years has been the passing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012. This bill has given the United States military the power to arrest American citizens, indefinitely, without charge, trial, or any other form of due process of law and the Obama Administration has and continues to fight a legal battle in Federal Court to prevent that law from being declared unconstitutional. Obama authorized the assassination of three American citizens, including Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16 year old son, admittedly all members of Al Qaeda, – all without judicial review. Additionally, the Guantanamo Bay prison remains open, the Patriot Act has been extended, and the TSA has expanded at breakneck speeds. What is your take on America’s human rights record over the past four years and can you contrast Obama’s policies with those of his predecessor, George W. Bush?

NC: Obama’s policies have been approximately the same as Bush’s, though there have been some slight differences, but that’s not a great surprise. The Democrats supported Bush’s policies. There were some objections on mostly partisan grounds, but for the most part, they supported his policies and it’s not surprising that they have continued to do so. In some respects Obama has gone even beyond Bush. The NDAA, which you mentioned, was not initiated by Obama, (when it passed Congress, he said he didn’t approve of it and wouldn’t implement it) but he nevertheless did sign it into law and did not veto it. It was pushed through by hawks, including Joe Lieberman and others. In fact, there hasn’t been that much of a change. The worst part of the NDAA is that it codified – or put into law – what had already been a regular practice. The practices hadn’t been significantly different. The one part that received public attention is what you mentioned, the part that permits the indefinite detention of American citizens, but why permit the indefinite detention of anybody? It’s a gross violation of fundamental human rights and civil law, going all the way back to the Magna Carta in the 13th Century, so it’s a very severe attack on elementary civil rights, both under Bush and under Obama. It’s bipartisan!

As for the killings, Obama has sharply increased the global assassination campaign. While it was initiated by Bush, it has expanded under Obama and it has included American citizens, again with bipartisan support and very little criticism other than some minor criticism because it was an American. But then again, why should you have the right to assassinate anybody? For example, suppose Iran was assassinating members of Congress who were calling for an attack on Iran. Would we think that’s fine? That would be much more justified, but of course we’d see that as an act of war. The real question is, why assassinate anyone? The government has made it very clear that the assassinations are personally approved by Obama and the criteria for assassination are very weak. If a group of men are seen somewhere by a drone who are, say, loading something into a truck, and there is some suspicion that maybe they are militants, then it’s fine to kill them and they are regarded as guilty unless, subsequently, they are shown to be innocent. That’s the wording that the United States used and it is such a gross violation of fundamental human rights that you can hardly talk about it.

The question of due process actually did arise, since the US does have a constitution and it says that no person shall be deprived of their rights without due process of law – again, this goes back to 13th Century England – so the question arose, “What about due process?” The Obama Justice Department’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, explained that there was due process in these cases because they are discussed first at the Executive Branch. That’s not even a bad joke! The British kings from the 13th Century would have applauded. “Sure, if we talk about it, that’s due process.” And that, again, passed without controversy. …more

To the Children of Syria – A Poem
By Nasser Barghouty – 12 December, 2012 – PalestineChronicle.com – Global Research

In whose name they allow themselves to hurt you?
To what end? To what beginning?
Have they said as much to you?
Have they counted your tears?
Have they wiped your fears?

From my safe distance I see a tear
in frozen moments and muted fear
among the smoke
in the rubbles
Tiny hands clinching
tiny legs racing
from them
to them

In whose name they allow themselves to hurt you?
Slogans your tender minds discard
Gestures your tiny big hearts deride
Silent prosecution
and a noisy salutation
Have they counted those tears?

From my safe distance I see a tear
a horizon away
from a warm embrace
a touch
a smile
a hug
Did they count those tears?
Did they wipe those fears?

From my safe distance I hear the silence
yours and theirs
canceling each other
forever
Now in Syria

From my safe distance I hear the chant
for a peace
that will come
paid
with your tears
your fears
little ones
Now in Syria

From my safe distance I drop one
or two
for you
little ones
As I did before
in Basra
and Gaza
Now in Syria

From my safe distance I wonder
now and forever
what have you done to deserve this?
in whose name can anyone answer?
in whose name can anyone muster?
the might to wipe
tiny smiles
hearts
and tears
In whose eyes can they look counting those tears?

From my safe distance I decree
Now in Syria
innocence is being exchanged
for a past
for a future
only the little ones can see
despite the smoke
and rubbles
where tears are counted in pairs
and fears
like my safe distance
in light years.

…source

Bahrain Posters: ‘Terrorism is an US Industry’
John Glaser – 11 December, 2012 – AntiWar

In the Shiite neighborhoods of Sitra in Bahrain, these posters are reportedly all over the place:

The picture on the bottom right-hand corner is John Timoney, the ex-US police chief whose expertise was tapped by the US-backed Bahraini dictatorship to crack down more efficiently on peaceful protesters.

The Obama administration, contrary to its own propaganda about being on the side of the people in the Arab Spring, has continued to lend economic, military, and diplomatic support to the tiny Persian Gulf monarch throughout its brutal repression of peaceful demonstrators since early 2011, when forty-seven unarmed protesters were shot and killed with live rounds by security forces.

The Bahraini regime hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which allows the United States to “project power” in the Persian Gulf and patrol the Straits of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world’s seaborne oil passes. That ruthless geo-political advantage is not something the Obama administration is willing to give up for the sake of democracy and human rights.

Bahrain recently banned all protests and demonstration in a dramatic violation of basic rights. But it is only one aspect of the repressive, martial-law type responses from the US-supported dictatorship. Others have included systematic torture, beatings, weaponizing tear gas, imposing curfews, harassing well-known activists, show trials and detentions, and cracking down on press freedoms, among many others. …source

Human Rights Investigations: Use of Child Soldiers by Rebels in Syria Widespread
Salem-News.com – 12 December, 2012

(ROME) – Since the start of our campaign to stop the use of child soldiers by the Syrian rebels – prompted by the images of the child at the massacre of Saraqeb – we have unearthed further disturbing evidence suggesting the use of child soldiers is widespread amongst rebel groups.

It also appears that communications equipment provided by the US and UK governments to help Syrian “activists” is being used by jihadi groups to publicise their abuses and show off how they have brainwashed children.

Here is video from a rebel media channel in Deir ez-Zor which illustrates the point succinctly.

The video has been translated by MEMRI (an Israeli body) – we have confirmed the accuracy of the translation. The boy is shown as digging his own grave as he has been persuaded to engage in a martyrdom operation:

Here is another video from a rebel media outlet of a boy in al-Bukamal, Deir ez-Zor pledging to fight to the death:

From watching footage from rebel media it is clear some rebels are making a special effort to bring very young, impressionable children to their sectarian, jihadi ideology. It is highly regrettable that governments such as those of the US, UK, France, Germany, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have chosen to support the Sunni extremist insurgency with training, money, equipment and arms. That millions of dollars can be found to provide war criminals with ‘communications equipment,’ but no money is apparently available to prevent the use of child soldiers, is a scandal.

New York-based Human Rights Watch have now published some of the information they have gathered on the use of child soldiers by US-backed forces in Syria.

They state:

Countries financing or supplying arms to opposition groups should urge the FSA to prohibit the use of those under 18 for military purposes, whether as active combatants or in support roles.

(It is worth comparing this response from Human Rights Watch, which is a member of the so-called ‘R2P’ coalition, to their stance on Joseph Kony where they called for “The arrest of LRA leaders,” the deployment of “well-trained, capable troops,” and the use of “military special forces or specially trained police units.”)

The truth is the FSA have been ‘urged’ on numerous occasions to end this practice and they have made commitments – and just as quickly broken them. As the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in a report (quoted by HRW) it.

“note[d] with concern reports that children under 18 are fighting and performing auxiliary roles for anti-Government armed groups.” It added that, “The commission received assurances from Colonel Riad al-Asaad that an FSA policy not to use children in combat is in place. There is evidence to suggest, however, that this policy is not uniformly being adhered to by the FSA and other anti-Government armed groups.”

Indeed, the video evidence suggests that the battalion bringing the child onto the battlefield at Saraqeb is the Liwa’ Dir3 al-Jabal (Mountain Shield Battalion) which was formed as part of the “Free Syrian Army” in May 2012, explicitly under the leadership of Riad al-Asaad:

We note that UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake has issued a statement to the effect that:

“Following reports by Human Rights Watch and others this week that Syrian children are being killed and maimed by cluster bombs and used as fighters and guards” UNICEF “renews its plea to all parties in this conflict that children be protected at all times.“

“It is more than disturbing – it is outrageous and unacceptable to see the rights of children being violated in these ways… The longer this goes on, the more lasting the damage to children, to their future and thus the future of Syria itself.”

Here, here to that. But why do we hear so little condemnation of the western countries who have organised an opposition council which has as its unifying principle that there will be no more cease fires and no negotiations?

We are pleased that the UN Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict is now intending to monitor the use of child solders by the rebels, which should lead to this matter being considered by the UN Security Council – a consideration which can not come soon enough in our opinion.

But the question many people will want answered is – what on earth is any country doing ‘financing or supplying arms to opposition groups’ that use child soldiers (not to mention executing prisoners, using terrorist tactics, urging sectarianism and genocide, kidnapping and murdering civilians)?

Although many countries have laws against the use of child soldiers and this matter is subject to UN Security Council resolutions western political leaders, who appear to occupy a different moral universe to ‘normal’ people, are at odds with public opinion on this issue.

President Obama has (for the third year in a row) issued a memo under which all sanctions imposed under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008 will be waived – in this case for Libya, South Sudan, and Yemen, and portions of the law’s requirements will be lifted for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Memo of Justification for this waiver does not appear to have been released to the public but Obama has a right to issue a waiver in the ‘national interest’. What ‘national interest’ can justify the US providing weapons to countries which use child soldiers?

It is important that people demand of their representatives, their governments and the UN Security Council that absolutely no support should be given to either States or non-State parties who use child soldiers and that an end be put to the pervasive practice of allowing the so-called ‘national interest’ to trump human rights. …more

US designates radical Syrian rebel group as terror organization
11 December, 2012 – NBC News

Islamic radicals captured a key Syrian army base outside Aleppo as the city is left battered and divided amid a growing humanitarian crisis. NBC’s Richard Engel reports.
By Reuters

The United States on Tuesday designated a radical Islamist Syrian rebel group, Jabhat al-Nusra, which is suspected of ties to al-Qaida, as a foreign terrorist organization.

By classifying al-Nusra as a terrorist organization, the U.S. State Department order essentially classifies the group, which has advocated for an Islamic state in Syria, as an affiliate of al-Qaida in Iraq. U.S. Treasury officials also imposed sanctions on two senior leaders of al-Nusrah.

With al-Nusra blacklisted, authorities now can freeze any assets the group or its members have in U.S. jurisdictions. The designation also prohibits Americans from giving it any material support.
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Hillary Clinton cancels Mideast trip due to illness

The group has claimed nearly 600 deadly attacks — from suicide attacks to small arms and improvised explosive device operations — in major city centers across Syria, the State Department said in a statement. Al-Nusrah has been accused by other rebel factions of indiscriminate tactics in the civil war aimed at ousting Syrian President Bashar Assad.

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The Treasury Department also moved to block the property of the Syrian government by sanctioning two militia groups that work under the Assad government, Jaysh al-Sha’bi and Shabiha, as well as two commanders of the Shabiha group. It said in a statement that the militias are part of the Assad regime’s campaign against Syrian citizens. Jaysh al-Sha’bi has ties to Iran and Hezbollah, it said.

Tuesday’s actions come as U.S. officials attend the Friends of Syria meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, to discuss the 20-month-old crisis in Syria as rebels push forward on the battlefield and move to unify the political opposition.

View from northern Syria: Rebels control countryside, open roads

“The secretary of state concludes that there is a sufficient factual basis to find that al-Qaida in Iraq … uses or has used additional aliases,” including Jabhat al-Nusra, the State Department statement said.

U.S. officials have stressed their concern about the rising influence of extremist elements in the Syrian war.

Chemical weapons concern
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had been expected to attend the Friends of Syria gathering before falling ill with a stomach virus. Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns is attending in her place.

European Union moves closer to recognizing Syria opposition

Also on Tuesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that intelligence agencies have detected no new moves by the Syrian government that would indicate it was preparing to use chemical weapons against rebel forces.

Several Western countries issued coordinated warnings last week to Assad not to deploy chemical weapons, many citing secret intelligence that U.S. officials have said his government might be preparing to use poison gas.

Syria has rejected the warnings as “a pretext for intervention” by outsiders. …more

U.S. blacklists al-Qaeda-linked rebel group in Syria
By Agence France-Presse – 11 December, 2012 – Raw Story

Washington blacklisted an Al-Qaeda-linked rebel group in Syria Tuesday, warning extremists could play no role in building the nation’s future as the US readies to recognize the new Syrian alliance.

The move against the Al-Nusra Front came ahead of talks in Morocco on Wednesday, when the United States is expected to give full recognition to the Syrian National Coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

Though a minority, Al-Nusra has been one of the most effective rebel groups fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, raising concerns that hardline extremists are hijacking the 21-month-old revolt.

“What is important is to understand that extremists fighting the Assad regime are still extremists and they have no place in the political transition that will come,” a senior State Department official said.

“Extremists should not dictate that political transition,” he insisted on a conference call with journalists, asking to remain anonymous.

The State Department designated the group linked to Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) a foreign terrorist organization, while the Treasury also slapped sanctions on two of its leaders, Maysar Ali Musa Abdallah al-Juburi and Anas Hasan Khattab.

“Exposing the operation and the identities of Al-Nusra’s leaders is a key objective here,” another top US official said.

Topping the agenda at the Friends of Syria meeting in Marrakech will be two key issues — the political transition after Assad’s fall and mobilizing humanitarian aid as winter sets in amid a growing refugee crisis.

Declaring Al-Nusra a terrorist group freezes its assets and bans Americans from any transactions with it, but US officials said it would also help ensure that vital aid is falling into the right hands.

Countries wanting to support the opposition need to ensure they are helping “those opposition groups who truly have the best interest of Syria and Syrians in mind,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

They should not back “groups coming from the outside who want to hijack what the Syrian people have started for their own means, and have a very different future in mind, a future that is based in Al-Qaeda-based values and principles, not democratic-based principles and values.”

The group has claimed responsibility for recent suicide bombings that killed scores of people, and has said it hopes to replace the Assad family’s four-decade hold on power with a strict Islamic state.

Wednesday’s talks could mark a step forward for the Syrian opposition, which had struggled for months to unite until a new coalition arose from November meetings in Qatar.

“Now that there is a new opposition formed, we are going to be doing what we can to support that opposition,” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Brussels last week. …source

Lenin on Marxism and Bourgeois Democracy
by Thomas Riggins – 9 December, 2012 – Political Affairs

Marxists must continue to work within bourgeois democratic parameters in order to maintain contact with the masses.

In chapter seven of “‘Left-Wing’ Communism an Infantile Disorder” Lenin addresses himself to the ultra-left claim that socialists should no longer work with or be members of bourgeois parliaments. This may not be a very pressing issue for American (i.e., U.S.) socialists and it seems settled as far as other countries are concerned (as a result of widespread agreement with Lenin’s views) but in Lenin’s day there were many so-called Left socialists who supported boycotting all bourgeois electoral work. Lenin thought this totally incorrect.

The ultra-Left’s position was that bourgeois democracy was historically and politically obsolete; the wave of the future was advancing worker’s democracy in the form of Soviets and so all Marxist socialists must only work to build that future. Lenin’s response to this is philosophically interesting and rooted in his reading of Hegel and his understanding of the latter’s historicism.

Lenin had made a profound study of Hegel’s Logic while in exile (among other of the German’s works) and could not but have been impressed by the following passage in Hegel’s introduction to his “Lectures on the Philosophy of History” (even though he thought Hegel had been completely antiquated with respect to most of his views on history by the work of Marx and Engels.) But the following Hegelian passage, I believe, still had meaning for him, and for us today as well.

Hegel wrote that he wished to call his students “attention to the important difference between a conception, a principle, a truth limited to an ABSTRACT form and its determinate application and concrete development.” An example would be that “all men are created equal” was an abstract truth, the civil war was a determinate application– as was the later civil rights movement. That application is still working itself out.

Grasping that Hegelian principle we can understand Lenin when he agrees with the ultra-left that indeed bourgeois democracy IS historically obsolete. Lenin says this is true in a “propaganda sense.” Capitalism has also been obsolete for over a hundred years, he says, it is obsolete today in that we know its contradictions, that it doesn’t work and cannot feed the people and insure their future and we know that socialism is the answer and the only future available if humanity is not to perish but this ABSTRACT truth, from the point of view of world history, does not mean that its determinate application, its concrete development will not require “a very long and persistent struggle ON THE BASIS of capitalism”

Lenin says world history is measured in decades, indeed he could have said centuries (Napoleon saw the Sphinx looking down on him from 40 centuries): whether the concrete development reaches fruition now or a century from now is something indifferent to world history. Lenin was mistaken in seeing the revolutionary era of his day as the fruition of the social ideal just as we are wrong to see the globalization of the capitalist world market as the refutation of the social ideal which from the point of view of world history may be ushered in by a new revolutionary era which may even now be at the heart of the current world capitalist breakdown and may take place in a decade or in 20 decades. For this “very reason,” Lenin says, “it is a glaring theoretical error to apply the yardstick of world history to practical politics.”

So, while in a technical sense the ultra-left is correct about the historical “obsolescence” of bourgeois democracy, the real question is, is bourgeois democracy politically obsolete? The answer to that is a resounding “NO!” The masses of working people participate in bourgeois elections and think in terms of bourgeois constitutionality and for Marxists to ignore that fact and refuse to engage in political work where the masses are is the height of irresponsibility. This mistake that is raising its head again in 1920 was already refuted and abandoned in 1918 by the German socialists. Both Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, “outstanding political leaders” opposed it in Germany and subsequent events have proven them to be correct. …more