Real liars go to Tehran
By Pepe Escobar – The Roving Eye – 21 March, 2013

Uncle Marx never thought about this one: history repeating itself as double tragedy after already being a farce in the first place. Let’s examine the case in hand. First of all, take a close look at this Wall Street Journal op-ed from September 2002, in the hysterical run-up towards the invasion of Iraq.

Title: The Case for Toppling Saddam. Author: Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu – then out of the Israeli government.

It’s all here: a “dictator who is rapidly expanding his arsenal of biological and chemical weapons” and “who is feverishly trying to
acquire nuclear weapons”; the Saddam equals Hitler parallel; the portrayal of (de facto nuclear power) Israel as helpless victims of Palestinian “terror”; the claim that Saddam could produce nuclear fuel “in centrifuges the size of washing machines that can be hidden throughout the country – and Iraq is a very big country”; the cheerleading of a unilateral pre-emptive strike; and the inevitable conclusion that “nothing less than dismantling his regime will do”.

Fast-forward over 10 years to this week in Israel. The scene: press conference of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and visiting US President Barack Obama. Anyone watching it live on al-Jazeera, from the Middle East to East Asia, must have thought they were watching a geopolitical Back to the Future – and frankly, Michael J Fox at least oozed charm.

No charm here; this was more like an eerie, suit-and-tie Return of the Living Dead. Bibi and Obama were at pains to stress the US-Israel bond was “eternal”. Actually Bibi preferred to stress that Iran’s (non-existent) nuclear weapons posed an existential threat to Israel. He repeated, over and over again, that Obama was adamant; Israel was entitled to do anything to defend itself, and its security would not be anyone’s responsibility, even Washington’s.

Obama, for his part, once again stressed that Washington’s official policy towards Iran was not containment – but to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. He stressed the “window of opportunity” was getting narrower; and, of course, that all options were on the table.

The thought that the president of the United States (POTUS) willfully ignores the verdict of his own alphabet soup of intel agencies on Iran might raise eyebrows in a rational world. But this is not reality; more like a trashy reality show.

Dream, dream, wet settler dream
The powers that be in Israel – neocon-infested US corporate media avalanche of denials notwithstanding – were absolutely essential in the whole Iraq War cheerleading operation; Ariel Sharon, at the time, boasted that the strategic coordination between Israel and the US had reached “unprecedented dimensions”.

Bibi was just a cog in the wheel then – as Jim Lobe details here – quoting Bibi’s pearls of wisdom dispensed to a misinformed-to-oblivion US Congress in 2002.

Every usual “Israeli official” suspect at the time was breathlessly spinning that Saddam was only months away from a nuclear weapon. The bulk of WMD “intelligence” presented to Congress and faithfully parroted by corporate media was filtered if not entirely fabricated by Israeli intelligence – something duly detailed, among others, by Shlomo Brom in his study An Intelligence Failure, published by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies of Tel Aviv University in November 2003.

Of course it didn’t matter that UN inspectors found no nuclear weapon program evidence on site. Of course it didn’t matter that Saddam son-in-law Hussein Kamel, who had defected to Jordan in 1995, had told UN inspectors in detail there had been no WMDs whatsoever since 1991. …more

Obama in Israel
21 March, 2013 – Mostly Water – by Stephen Lendman

His visit bodes ill, not good. He left late Tuesday night. On March 20, he arrived around noon Israeli time.

Secretary of State John Kerry came earlier. Scores of officials, aides and security personnel accompanied him and Obama.

Around 15,000 Israeli police provide security. So do US secret service and its Israeli counterpart.

Trips like this reflect more show than substance. They cost of millions of dollars. Taxpayers cover the expense. They gain nothing from doing so.

Obama’s entire visit is scripted. His entourage is extensive. His motorcade includes 60 vehicles. Ambulances, fire-fighting trucks and various security vehicles are involved. Contingency plans are readied just in case.

When Obama travels by car, all streets along his route are closed and sealed. Normal life is disrupted.

During his brief Ramallah visit, PA security will protect him. Ahead of his arrival, Palestinians rallied against him. He’s no friend of Palestine.

He’s persona non grata. Signs said so. Others called him an “AIPAC Poodle.” One in Arabic and English said “Obama: Return your Nobel Peace Prize.”

His first address began saying “it’s good to be in Israel again. We stand together because we share a common story, patriots determined to be free people in our lives.”

“We stand together because peace must come to the Holy Land. Even as we are clear eyed about the difficulties, we will never lose sight of the vision of an Israel at peace with its neighbors.”

No two nations spurn peace more than America and Israel. They prioritize war. They’re partners in crime. They menace humanity. Obama’s words ring hollow.

They entirely ignored Palestine. He said nothing about land for peace, Palestinian self-determination, East Jerusalem as their legitimate capital, the right of return, militarized occupation, stolen land, dispossessions, bulldozed homes, illegal settlements, or thousands of Palestinian political prisoners unjustly in gulag hell.

Netanyahu thanked him for coming and “for standing by Israel at this time of historic change.” What exactly, he didn’t explain.

Shimon Peres greeted Obama. We “welcome you with open arms,” he said.

“Thank you Mr. Mr. President. Thank you America. Thank you for what you are. Thank you for what you do.”

“Israeli spirit is inspired by American exceptionalism. A world without America would be a darker world. Obama is a historic friend of Israel.”

“The greatest danger is a nuclear Iran. We trust your policy. You have made it clear that your intention is not to contain but to prevent.”

A previous article said Obama and Netanyahu will discuss three issues: Iran, Syria and Palestine. Expectations are low. Expect more show than substance. Most trips turn out that way. …more

Detention Situation Deteriorates for Prominent Human Rights Defender Zainab Al-Khawaja
21 March, 2013 – Human Rights First – By Diana Sayed

As Bahrain and the international community watch to see whether a consensus on reforms will come out of the Bahrain National Dialogue, prominent human rights defender Zainab Al-Khawaja declared she was going on hunger strike to protest against her treatment in prison.

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) reported on Monday that Al-Khawaja began a hunger strike on March 17 at 4pm after members of her family, including her three-year old daughter, were prevented from visiting her. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation stated officials were only following protocol after she refused to wear the uniform allocated for inmates. Al-Khawaja refuses to go to a hospital until she is allowed to see her daughter.

Al-Khawaja is the daughter of Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, a co-founder of BCHR and one of the country’s most prominent activists. In April 2011, about two months into the democratic uprising, he was arrested and sentenced to life in prison. Last year, he launched a 100-day hunger strike, which ended when authorities force-fed him. Now, in response to his daughter’s treatment and to being prevented from seeing her during a scheduled visit, he has launched another hunger strike.

Zainab Al-Khawaja has been arrested several times for peaceful protests. A few weeks ago she staged a one-person protest in front of the King’s palace in Qudaibiya, Manama, against the culture of impunity in the security forces, and to demand the release of the body of Mahmood Al-Jazeeri, a 20-year-old boy who died during a protest. She stood with a banner saying “You’ve arrested our fathers & children, even our bodies. Let your palaces hear, we don’t fear your prisons.”

She was arrested and taken to Hoora police station and charged with obstructing traffic, damaging property, and inciting hatred of the regime. Al-Khawaja also stated that she would not attend the public prosecution or court in protest over the lack of an independent judiciary. She has repeatedly asked prison guards to be given an official document stating prisoners’ rights, but has been refused.

On February 28 2013, she was sentenced to 3 months on a separate charge and has been in prison since. “Continuing to press for prison sentences against leading human rights figures shows what the Bahrain government really means when it says reform,” said Brian Dooley of Human Rights First who was also recently denied access to the kingdom this week.

The Al-Khawaja family have a significant following on Twitter. Al-Khawaja’s mother, Khadija Almousawi ‏(@tublani2010) and sister, Maryam Al-Khawaja (@MARYAMALKHAWAJA) have Tweeted regularly about her treatment in prison. Almousawi has reported that prison cells which ordinarily hold 10 inmates are now being crammed with 16. …source

Why should Bahrain be serious about reform? President Obama continues a policy of ‘support for friends’, selling weapons to the despicable King Hamad and allowing US Companies to profit on the back of those who suffer Hamad’s cruel tyranny. The US Fifth Fleet is given safe harbor and a cadre of Public Relations firms help roll out a steady stream of bullshit regarding reform and progress on human rights that seems to effectively keep the State Department and US congress at bay. At the behest of the State Department, US ‘Top Cop’ John Timoney, put major changes in Policing to work in Bahrain. His accomplishments include, murder of infants and the elderly with cruel asphyxiation by CS gas assualts ont heir homes as they sleep. The maiming and murder of young people with bird-shot, who rally against the nightly gas raids, have become the hallmark of Timoney’s accomplishments in Bahrain.

The ruling regime seems to be pursuing a course that puts Bahrain on the track to Revolution by offering only a pretense of reform in yet another charade of injustice. The regime’s course is suspect and seems a strategy to leave Bahrain as an Saudi Occupied “firewall” in support of the West’s warring ambitions with Iran. In the meantime growing instability in Saudi Arabia echoes Revolution in the streets and villages there. One can only speculate about the motives and design the Western oppressors and their Zionist partners have in the works for Bahrain. After Obama’s bumbling Middle East tour this week, it is increasingly difficult to see anything but a dark prognosis for freedom loving people everywhere. Phlipn out.

Is Bahrain serious about reform?
By Sarah Leah Whitson – CNN – 15 March, 2013

Editor’s note: Sarah Leah Whitson is the director of the Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch. The views expressed are the writer’s own.

Bahrain’s Sunni ruling family and their allies in Washington and London say they are pinning their hopes on a new “national dialogue” to break the bitter stalemate with the country’s political opposition among the majority Shia population. But a just settlement will remain elusive unless the government delivers on two outstanding reforms: accountability at the highest levels of the country’s security forces for their abusive response to the 2011 uprisings, and freedom for the country’s unjustly imprisoned opposition and human rights leaders.

This tiny island country of 500,000 citizens, 600,000 expats and 15,000 personnel of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, convulsed by five weeks of mass demonstrations in 2011, has received its fair share of international attention over the past two years. Per capita, the participation of hundreds of thousands of the country’s citizenry may have set some sort of world record for mass protests – what other country can claim to have had most of its population out on the streets protesting at one time?

The uprising ended when the rulers declared a state of emergency and army and security forces, assisted by Saudi troops, attacked demonstrators congregated in the Pearl Roundabout and rounded up activists in midnight raids on their homes. Scores were killed, hundreds injured, and thousands arrested among those who demanded reform and, in some cases, regime change. The government lifted a state of emergency in June 2011, but still bans demonstrations in the capital. Protests in surrounding Shia villages, in some cases violent, continue nightly, as police play cat and mouse with defiant young men throwing stones and Molotovs and bombard neighborhoods with tear gas canisters.

More from GPS: Don’t forget about Bahrain

Despite the ongoing repression, the government seems to think it can persuade Western allies that a real reform process is under way. In late February, my colleagues and I visited Bahrain. At an Interior Ministry meeting attended by – among others – the former Miami police chief John Timoney, who is advising the government, the new police commander, Brig. Tariq Hassan, gave a power point presentation. He highlighted the establishment of an ombudsman office, and enhanced police training (while also touting Bahrain’s support for women’s right to vote and women in Parliament). The interior minister, Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, stressed the kingdom’s general support for peace and security.

But on the results of internal investigations into the policing failures in 2011 – the topic we insisted on pursuing, no doubt to the frustration and annoyance of the ministry representatives – there was little to report. After exhaustive questions and discussion, the minister finally confirmed that out of all the internal investigations they had conducted, not a single official above the rank of platoon commander in the police, and battalion commander in the criminal investigations division, had been found responsible for any breach of conduct or reassigned, demoted, suspended, or terminated under internal guidelines and procedures.

Questions to Attorney General Ali Fadhul Al Buainain and the Special Investigations Unit director, Nawaf Hamza, had no more promising results on high-level prosecutions. Their investigations would conclude by the summer, they said, but they could provide no information on the extent to which they had questioned or would prosecute any high level officials for failures in “command and control.”

The international experts appointed by the king to the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry concluded more than a year ago that it would have been impossible for the abuses in 2011 to have happened without the knowledge of senior officials, yet the government maintains that no senior official did anything wrong. And it seems unwilling or unable to recognize that an essential component in restoring trust in the police force is to demonstrate that senior level security officials who failed in their duties are at least removed from their jobs, if not prosecuted.

What’s more, the government seems unwilling to recognize that its national dialogue will hardly lead to a just result so long as the leaders of the country’s opposition and human rights organizations are not at the negotiating table. Instead, they are languishing in prison following coerced confessions and patently unfair trials. “You can’t have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail,” President Barack Obama said in 2011, addressing the situation.

By allowing us to visit the prison and meet and photograph these detainees, the government amply demonstrated that it appears to be detaining these men in humane conditions. It was both a relief and heartbreaking to see Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, Abduljalil Al-Singace, and Nabeel Rajab, three human rights activists who have worked with Human Rights Watch for many years – it was they who urged us to stay steadfast in our commitment to peace and reform in Bahrain. But the fact is that they are in prison solely for calling for political change and demonstrating peacefully.

Several of these detainees, including religious clerics, leftist and religious party leaders, and scholars, had a much worse story to tell. They said they had endured gruesome torture, including electric shocks, beatings so brutal their clothes were soaked with blood, and sexual assault. “They made me repeat the chants I said at the demonstration, ‘Down with [King] Hamad,’ and each time I did they struck me so hard I would fall to the floor,” one said. “Then they would lift me up and do it again.”

It was very difficult to tell the detainees that, in fact, there is virtually no international body that can compel the government to release them. It now depends on the king to realize that their ongoing imprisonment will keep the country imprisoned in conflict as well. …source

Obama urges world to blacklist Hezbollah
22 March, 2013 – The Daily Star

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: U.S. President Barack Obama demanded Thursday that foreign governments brand Hezbollah a “terrorist organization,” slamming the group for attacks on Israelis.

On the second day of his regional visit, his first to Israel as president, Obama also appealed directly to the Israeli people to put themselves in the shoes of stateless Palestinians and recognize that Jewish settlement activity in occupied territory hurts prospects for peace.

“Every country that values justice should call Hezbollah what it truly is – a terrorist organization,” Obama said in a major speech in Israel, in remarks apparently aimed at the European Union, which has declined to put the group on a list of terrorist movements.

The U.S., which, along with Canada blacklists the Lebanese party as a terrorist organization, has blamed Hezbollah for a bus bombing last July in Bulgaria, in which five Israeli tourists and the local driver were killed.

Bulgarian authorities back this claim, but have produced no evidence to support it. Hezbollah denies involvement in the attack.

Speaking to an audience of Israeli students, Obama added, “the world cannot tolerate an organization that murders innocent civilians, stockpiles rockets to shoot at cities, and supports the massacre of men, women and children in Syria.”

He went on to say that Hezbollah’s ally, “the Assad regime – has stockpiles of chemical weapons,” and that this heightened the urgency to blacklist the Lebanese party.

On the future of Israel and Palestine, Obama acknowledged Israel’s security concerns in a region destabilized by the West’s nuclear standoff with Iran and the civil war in Syria.

But he urged Israel’s younger generation to demand that their politicians take risks for peace in an address interrupted frequently by applause, including a standing ovation for the president during a brief outburst by a heckler.

“You must create the change that you want to see,” he told his young audience.

Obama said only peace could bring true security, but he did not offer any new ideas on how to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, stalled since 2010.
…more

Hizbullah Condemns Assassination of Sheikh Al-Bouti: Terrorists’ Crimes Crossed All Limits
22 March, 2013 – moqawama.org

Slamming the criminal bombing that targeted al-Iman mosque near the Syrian capital Damascus, and led to the martyrdom of Great Scholar, Dr Mohammed Saeed al-Bouti and dozens of worshipers; Hizbullah issued the following statement:
The perpetrators’ crimes grew and far exceeded all limits. It even reached the level of attacking God’s men, His loved ones, and worshipers in His mosques.

They are targeting the finest scholars, and the best of learners, in barbaric terrorism that neither respects sanctity nor edema.
The horrible terrorist crime that targeted al-Iman Mosque near the Syrian capital, Damascus, led to the desecration of God’s house, His Holy Book, and scholars working for a Divine cause.

On top of those targeted was the Great Scholar, Sheikh Dr Mohammed Saeed al-Bouti, along with dozens of worshipers, in a crime that crossed all limits and atrocities. It is included among crimes against humanity, against any religion and morality, and against Islam and Muslims.

The terrorist groups that planned to this brute operation, and which worked on its implementation, are factions that don’t belong to any religion. They are empty of all morality, though they pretended to be Muslims, or claimed affiliation with the Noble Religion.

As Hizbullah condemns this act of aggression, targeting the tripartite of mosques, scholars, and innocent worshipers, it calls on the Syrian people to be more aware of the nature, reality and background of the conflict in their country and to stand united to confront schemes to spark strife and destroy their country.

Hizbullah further condoles the family of the great martyr, and the families of martyrs who passed away with him. It also expresses condolences and sympathy with the wounded of Syria, its leadership, scientists and people.

Moreover, the party prays The Almighty God bestow peace upon the souls of the martyrs and wishes the injured a speedy recovery.

…source

Bombing kills top pro-Assad Sunni imam
22 March, 2013 – Daily Star

BEIRUT: A suicide bombing tore through a mosque in the Syrian capital Thursday, killing a top Sunni Muslim imam and longtime supporter of President Bashar Assad along with at least 41 other people. The assassination of Sheikh Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti removes one of the few remaining pillars of support for the Alawite leader among the majority sect that has risen up against him.

The powerful explosion struck as Buti, an 84-year-old imam and religious scholar who appeared often on TV, was giving a religious lesson in the Iman Mosque in the central Mazraa district of Damascus, according to state TV.

Suicide bombings blamed on extremists fighting with the rebels have become common in Syria’s civil war. But Thursday’s explosion marked the first time a suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside a mosque.

Syrian TV footage showed wounded people and bodies with severed limbs on the blood-stained floor and later, bodies covered in white body bags lined up in rows. Sirens wailed through the capital as ambulances rushed to the scene of the explosion, which was sealed off by the military.

Among those killed were Buti’s grandson, the TV said, adding that at least 84 were wounded.

The government warned that those fighting to topple the regime would face retribution for the attack, saying that the “cowardly act that targeted the scholar Buti will not go unpunished,” according to the state news agency SANA.

Buti’s death was a big blow to Syria’s embattled leader, who is fighting mainly Sunni rebels seeking his ouster.

The imam has been a vocal supporter of his regime since the early days of Assad’s father and predecessor, the late President Hafez Assad. He was the regular imam of the eighth century Umayyad Mosque, but Syrian TV said he was giving a religious sermon to students at Iman Mosque when the explosion occurred.

In recent months, Syrian TV has carried his sermon from mosques in Damascus live every week.

Syrian TV began its evening newscast with a phone announcement from Religious Endowments Minister Mohammad Abdel-Sattar al-Sayyed declaring Buti’s “martyrdom” as his voice choked up. It then showed parts of his sermon last Friday in which he praised the military for battling the “mercenaries” and said Syria was being subjected to a “universal conspiracy.”

Rebel spokesman Loay Mekdad said units associated with the opposition’s Free Syrian Army were not behind the attack.
…more