…from beneath the crooked bough, witness 230 years of brutal tyranny by the al Khalifas come to an end

Why won’t the President rein in the intelligence community?

State of Deception
by Ryan Lizza – 16 December, 2013 – The New Yorker

On March 12, 2013, James R. Clapper appeared before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to discuss the threats facing America. Clapper, who is seventy-two, is a retired Air Force general and Barack Obama’s director of National Intelligence, in charge of overseeing the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and fourteen other U.S. spy agencies. Clapper is bald, with a gray goatee and rimless spectacles, and his affect is intimidatingly bureaucratic. The fifteen-member Intelligence Committee was created in the nineteen-seventies, after a series of investigations revealed that the N.S.A. and the C.I.A. had, for years, been illegally spying on Americans. The panel’s mission is to conduct “vigilant legislative oversight” of the intelligence community, but more often it treats senior intelligence officials like matinée idols. As the senators took turns at the microphone, greeting Clapper with anodyne statements and inquiries, he obligingly led them on a tour of the dangers posed by homegrown extremists, far-flung terrorist groups, and emerging nuclear powers.

“This hearing is really a unique opportunity to inform the American public to the extent we can about the threats we face as a nation, and worldwide,” Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat and the committee’s chairman, said at one point. She asked committee members to “refrain from asking questions here that have classified answers.” Saxby Chambliss, a Georgia Republican, asked about the lessons of the terrorist attack in Benghazi. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, asked about the dangers of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

Toward the end of the hearing, Feinstein turned to Senator Ron Wyden, of Oregon, also a Democrat, who had a final question. The two senators have been friends. Feinstein held a baby shower for Wyden and his wife, Nancy Bass, before the birth of twins, in 2007. But, since then, their increasingly divergent views on intelligence policy have strained the relationship. “This is an issue where we just have a difference of opinion,” Wyden told me. Feinstein often uses the committee to bolster the tools that spy agencies say they need to protect the country, and Wyden has been increasingly concerned about privacy rights. For almost a decade, he has been trying to force intelligence officials like Clapper to be more forthcoming about spy programs that gather information about Americans who have no connection to terrorism.

Wyden had an uneasy kind of vindication in June, three months after Clapper’s appearance, when Edward Snowden, a former contractor at the N.S.A., leaked pages and pages of classified N.S.A. documents. They showed that, for the past twelve years, the agency has been running programs that secretly collect detailed information about the phone and Internet usage of Americans. The programs have been plagued by compliance issues, and the legal arguments justifying the surveillance regime have been kept from view. Wyden has long been aware of the programs and of the agency’s appalling compliance record, and has tried everything short of disclosing classified information to warn the public. At the March panel, he looked down at Clapper as if he were about to eat a long-delayed meal.

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Wyden estimates that he gets about fifteen minutes a year to ask questions of top intelligence officials at open hearings. With the help of his intelligence staffer, John Dickas, a thirty-five-year-old from Beaverton, Oregon, whom Wyden calls “the hero of the intelligence-reform movement,” Wyden often spends weeks preparing his questions. He and Dickas look for opportunities to interrogate officials on the gaps between what they say in public and what they say in classified briefings. At a technology conference in Nevada the previous summer, General Keith Alexander, the director of the N.S.A., had said that “the story that we have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people is absolutely false.” Wyden told me recently, “It sure didn’t sound like the world I heard about in private.” For months, he tried to get a clarification from the N.S.A. about exactly what Alexander had meant. Now he had the opportunity to ask Clapper in public. As a courtesy, he had sent him the question the day before.

Wyden leaned forward and read Alexander’s comment. Then he asked, “What I wanted to see is if you could give me a yes or no answer to the question ‘Does the N.S.A. collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?’ ”

Clapper slouched in his chair. He touched the fingertips of his right hand to his forehead and made a fist with his left hand.

“No, sir,” he said. He gave a quick shake of his head and looked down at the table.

“It does not?” Wyden asked, with exaggerated surprise.

“Not wittingly,” Clapper replied. He started scratching his forehead and looked away from Wyden. “There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly.” …more

Noam Chomsky: Modern universities designed to ‘deprive you of your freedom’
By Scott Kaufman – 29 November, 2013 – The Raw Story

The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) released an interview with Noam Chomsky recently in which the noted linguist discussed, among other things, how high student tuition indoctrinates students into corporate culture.

“There’s no economic basis for high tuitions,” Chomsky said. “One of the very negative aspects of this sharp tuition rise is that it entraps students. It deprives them of their freedom.”

Chomsky explained that “if you’re going to come out of college with $50,000 of debt, you’re stuck. You couldn’t do the things you wanted to do, like maybe you wanted to become a public interest lawyer, helping poor people. You can’t do it — you have to go to a corporate law firm, pay off your debt. Then you get trapped in that.”

“In fact,” he continued, “one of the main effects of the sharp increase in tuition is just indoctrination and control.”

When WISE asked him about the role of technology in the classroom, he said “watching something online is nothing like being a classroom. The Internet is like other technology: it can be used to liberate, to learn, to study [or] it can be used to divert people to meaningless activities, to indoctrinate them, to overwhelm them with propaganda, commercial or political.”

…source

Police Overkill Has Entered the DNA of Social Policy

The Over-Policing of America
By Chase Madar – 8 December, 2013 – Tomgram

If all you’ve got is a hammer, then everything starts to look like a nail. And if police and prosecutors are your only tool, sooner or later everything and everyone will be treated as criminal. This is increasingly the American way of life, a path that involves “solving” social problems (and even some non-problems) by throwing cops at them, with generally disastrous results. Wall-to-wall criminal law encroaches ever more on everyday life as police power is applied in ways that would have been unthinkable just a generation ago.

By now, the militarization of the police has advanced to the point where “the War on Crime” and “the War on Drugs” are no longer metaphors but bland understatements. There is the proliferation of heavily armed SWAT teams, even in small towns; the use of shock-and-awe tactics to bust small-time bookies; the no-knock raids to recover trace amounts of drugs that often result in the killing of family dogs, if not family members; and in communities where drug treatment programs once were key, the waging of a drug version of counterinsurgency war. (All of this is ably reported on journalist Radley Balko’s blog and in his book, The Rise of the Warrior Cop.) But American over-policing involves far more than the widely reported up-armoring of your local precinct. It’s also the way police power has entered the DNA of social policy, turning just about every sphere of American life into a police matter.

The School-to-Prison Pipeline

It starts in our schools, where discipline is increasingly outsourced to police personnel. What not long ago would have been seen as normal childhood misbehavior — doodling on a desk, farting in class, a kindergartener’s tantrum — can leave a kid in handcuffs, removed from school, or even booked at the local precinct. Such “criminals” can be as young as seven-year-old Wilson Reyes, a New Yorker who was handcuffed and interrogated under suspicion of stealing five dollars from a classmate. (Turned out he didn’t do it.)

Though it’s a national phenomenon, Mississippi currently leads the way in turning school behavior into a police issue. The Hospitality State has imposed felony charges on schoolchildren for “crimes” like throwing peanuts on a bus. Wearing the wrong color belt to school got one child handcuffed to a railing for several hours. All of this goes under the rubric of “zero-tolerance” discipline, which turns out to be just another form of violence legally imported into schools.

Despite a long-term drop in youth crime, the carceral style of education remains in style. Metal detectors — a horrible way for any child to start the day — are installed in ever more schools, even those with sterling disciplinary records, despite the demonstrable fact that such scanners provide no guarantee against shootings and stabbings.

Every school shooting, whether in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, or Littleton, Colorado, only leads to more police in schools and more arms as well. It’s the one thing the National Rifle Association and Democratic senators can agree on. There are plenty of successful ways to run an orderly school without criminalizing the classroom, but politicians and much of the media don’t seem to want to know about them. The “school-to-prison pipeline,” a jargon term coined by activists, is entering the vernacular.

Go to Jail, Do Not Pass Go

Even as simple a matter as getting yourself from point A to point B can quickly become a law enforcement matter as travel and public space are ever more aggressively policed. Waiting for a bus? Such loitering just got three Rochester youths arrested. Driving without a seat belt can easily escalate into an arrest, even if the driver is a state judge. (Notably, all four of these men were black.) If the police think you might be carrying drugs, warrantless body cavity searches at the nearest hospital may be in the offing — you will be sent the bill later. …more

United States Is Now the Most Unequal of All Advanced Economies
By Eric Zuesse – Huffington Post – 12 December, 2013

The United States has such an unequal distribution of wealth so that it’s in the league of corrupt underdeveloped countries, no longer in the league of the developed nations, according to the latest edition of the world’s most thorough study of wealth-distribution.

The most authoritative source comparing wealth-concentration in the various countries is the successor to the reports that used to be done for the United Nations, now performed as the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook. The latest (2013) edition of it finds (p. 146) that in the U.S., 75.4% of all wealth is owned by the richest 10% of the people. The comparable figures for the other developed countries are: Australia 50.3%, Canada 57.4%, Denmark 72.2%, Finland 44.9%, France 51.8%, Germany 61.7%, Ireland 58.4%, Israel 68.9%, Italy 49.8%, Japan 49.1%, Netherlands 54.6%, New Zealand 57.6%, Norway 65.9%, Singapore 61.1%, Spain 54.0%, Sweden 71.1%, Switzerland 71.5%, and U.K. 53.3%. Those are the top 20 developed nations, and the U.S. has the most extreme wealth-concentration of them all. However, there are some other countries that have wealth-concentrations that are about as extreme as the U.S. For examples: Chile 72.5%, India 73.8%, Indonesia 75.0%, and South Africa 74.8%. The U.S. is in their league; not in the league of developed economies. In the U.S., the bottom 90% of the population own only 24.6% of all the privately held wealth, whereas in most of the developed world, the bottom 90% own around 40%; so, the degree of wealth-concentration in the U.S. is extraordinary (except for underdeveloped countries).

The broadest mathematical measure of wealth-inequality is called “Gini,” and the higher it is, the more extreme the nation’s wealth-inequality is. The Gini for the U.S. is 85.1. Other extremely unequal countries are (pages 98-101 of this report) Chile 81.4, India 81.3, Indonesia 82.8, and South Africa 83.6. However, some nations are even more-extreme than the U.S.: Kazakhstan 86.7, Russia 93.1, and Ukraine 90.0. But Honduras and Guatemala are such rabid kleptocracies that their governments don’t even provide sufficiently reliable data for an estimate to be able to be made; and, so, some countries might be even higher than nations like Russia.

Under Barack Obama, the U.S. has, for the first time in this nation’s history, increased the concentration of its privately held wealth during an “economic recovery” from a financial crash. (Consequently: the bottom 90% have experienced no benefit from this “recovery.”) Usually, there is more instead of less economic equality in the wake of a crash; but Obama’s policies of holding harmless the Wall Street insiders who profited enormously from creating the bubble, and of restoring their wealth by taxpayers buying up their toxic assets via the bailouts, etc., have made the U.S. more like nations such as Chile, India, Indonesia, and less like nations such as Australia, Canada, and Finland. Although Mr. Obama’s rhetoric has been opposed to extreme wealth-concentration, his policies have actually intensified that tendency. Republicans are not satisfied with the extent to which he has done this, and they call for even more extreme wealth-concentration policies, but Obama has actually benefited America’s billionaires a great deal. Romney received most of their campaign money, but Obama has performed extraordinarily well for them.

According to the latest study by the highly regarded economic-concentration specialist Emmanuel Saez, the richest 1% of Americans have been receiving 95% of the income-gains during the Obama “economic recovery.” This “recovery” has raised incomes for the top 1% by 31.4%. Everyone else has seen income-gains of 0.4%. Other studies have shown that the bottom 95% of Americans have actually experienced overall reductions in their incomes under President Obama. So: for most Americans, the “recession” has merely continued. …source

Bahrainis Hold Anti-Regime Protests
13 December, 2013 – PressTV

Bahraini protesters have once again staged demonstrations against intensified regime crackdown on activists across the country.

On Wednesday, demonstrators took to the streets in the village of Nuwaidrat, south of the capital, Manama, and in the northern villages of Samaheej and Daih.

The protesters chanted slogans against the Al Khalifa regime, saying King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa must step down.

On the same day, a court in Bahrain sentenced 12 anti-regime protesters to 15 years in jail each, accusing them of setting a car warehouse ablaze near Manama in February 2012.

The court also accused the defendants of participating in “an unauthorized demonstration” and “possessing Molotov cocktails.”

According to Bahrain’s main opposition party, al-Wefaq, the harsh clampdown on activists has intensified over the past months.

In October, Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa, said, “The [Bahraini] authorities simply slap the label ‘terrorist’ on defendants and then subject them to all manner of violations to end up with a ‘confession’.”

Bahrainis have been staging demonstrations since mid-February 2011, calling for political reforms and a constitutional monarchy, a demand that later changed to an outright call for the ouster of the ruling Al Khalifa family following its brutal crackdown on popular protests.

Scores have been killed, many of them under torture while in custody, and thousands more detained since the popular uprising started in the kingdom.

Hagel Lifts Veil on Major Military Center in Qatar
By THOM SHANKER – 11 December, 2013 – NYT

The highly classified American facility, officially called the Combined Air and Space Operations Center, coordinated all of the attack and surveillance missions for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and would be equally critical if an American president decided that only bombs and missiles could halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It hosts liaison officers from 30 allies in Europe and the Persian Gulf.

Until this week, however, its location was carefully guarded by the Pentagon and the Qatari government, out of concerns from both about sensitivities to its presence.

In the past, journalists had to sign nondisclosure agreements if they wanted to report from inside the base in the desert outside the capital, Doha. And, when asked, the Pentagon said the operations center was somewhere in Southwest Asia.

But on his latest trip to the region, which ended Tuesday, Mr. Hagel lifted the gag rule.

Touring the headquarters, usually referred to by its acronym, CAOC (pronounced KAY-ock), Mr. Hagel described the air operations hub as “one of the most impressive facilities we have.” Inside the warehouse-size command center, three giant digital maps carried tracking details of every aircraft — civilian and military — in the skies over three vital regions: Syria and its neighbors, the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan.

Pressed to explain the rationale for finally acknowledging the air operations center and its location. Pentagon officials said the point of the defense secretary’s week of travels was to prove to Persian Gulf partners that the United States would remain engaged in the region — despite budget pressures at home, a rebalance of interests to Asia and the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In essence, the American military cannot reassure its allies and deter potential adversaries if it hides what it does, and it helps to show that it can do it from right in the neighborhood.

There was no official comment on the disclosure from the Qatari government. But a senior Pentagon official described Mr. Hagel’s conversation with his Qatari counterpart, Maj. Gen. Hamad bin Ali al-Attiyah, on the standard diplomatic rules of anonymity.

The general noted that Bahrain openly embraces the American Fifth Fleet, and so that tiny nation is known as the focus of efforts to defend waters of the Persian Gulf. According to the Pentagon official, General Attiyah then said that Qatar was proud of its role hosting the command center defending the region’s airspace.

Defense secretaries always stop at American military installations on their global travels, both to speak with commanders about the mission and to extend the nation’s thanks to forward-deployed troops.

But the sensitivities of host nations sometimes make it difficult on reporters. For example, on Mr. Hagel’s previous trip to the region, in the spring, when he unveiled arms-sales deals worth almost $11 billion, the traveling press boycotted one troop visit because the gulf state said the location could not be identified — even though it routinely appears even in official Pentagon announcements.

Officials at the center said the United States and its allies still fly more than four dozen fighter or bomber missions over Afghanistan every day, all coordinated here — although the number of times they drop ordnance in support of troops on the ground is rare as the war winds down.

But interest in what is happening on the ground in Afghanistan is undiminished, and the center gathers more than 800 hours of surveillance video over the war zone every day. …more

82 arrested in November: Bahrain’s al-Wefaq
12 December, 2013 – PressTV

Bahrain’s main opposition group, al-Wefaq, says Bahraini forces have arrested at least 82 people over the past month as the Al Khalifa regime steps up its crackdown on dissent.

In a report released on Wednesday, the Liberties and Civil Rights Unit of al-Wefaq National Islamic Society also said that women and children were among those arrested in November.

The regime forces also raided 125 houses during the mentioned period, it said, adding that several people were tortured by the forces.

“There has been a continued deterioration in the general human rights situation, focusing on arbitrary arrests, house raids and other violations that the country has experienced regularly for 3 years,” the report noted.

The Al Kahlifa regime is under fire for its brutal crackdown on rights activists and pro-democracy protesters.

In October, Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa, said, “The [Bahraini] authorities simply slap the label ‘terrorist’ on defendants and then subject them to all manner of violations to end up with a ‘confession’.”

Bahrainis have been staging demonstrations since mid-February 2011, calling for political reforms and a constitutional monarchy, a demand that later changed to an outright call for the ouster of the ruling Al Khalifa family following its brutal crackdown on popular protests.

Scores have been killed, many of them under torture while in custody, and thousands more detained since the popular uprising started in the kingdom.

Physicians for Human Rights says doctors and nurses have been detained, tortured, or disappeared because they have “evidence of atrocities committed by the authorities, security forces, and riot police” in the crackdown on anti-government protesters.

Protesters say they will continue to hold anti-regime demonstrations until their demands for the establishment of a democratically-elected government and an end to rights violations are met. …source

Bahrain Watch Files Complaint against S. Korea for Tear Gas Sales
11 December, 2013 – Tasnim News Agency

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Bahrain Watch, a rights advocacy group, filed a complaint with the United Nations against South Korea for providing Bahrain’s Al Khalifa regime with huge numbers of tear gas canisters.

In the complaint field on Tuesday, the UN officials are requested to act immediately to block the path for shipment of the gas canisters to Bahrain, arguing that they can be used in suppressing anti-government demonstrations in the country.

Also, a large number of Korean activists gathered in front the South Korean foreign ministry to show their opposition to sending tear gas to countries such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey , and announced their support for the complaint against the sales of tear gas to Al Khalifa regime.

Bahrain Watch is leading a campaign called “Stop the Shipment” amid fears a South Korean company, DaeKwang Chemical, is considering supplying some 1.5 million rounds of tear gas to Bahrain.

In late November, a legal team of British and American human rights lawyers, solicitors and barristers, assembled by advocacy organization Bahrain Watch, announced that it was taking legal action to prevent a Korean company from supplying the Bahraini government with more than 1.6 million rounds of tear gas.

The team filed a formal complaint with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) National Contact Point (NCP) in Korea against Dae Kwang Chemical Corporation, the company believed to be originating the shipment.

Dae Kwang has admitted to supplying approximately 1 million tear gas canisters to Bahrain in 2011-2012, and the Korean National Police Agency told Amnesty Korea that over 1.5 million tear gas units have been exported to Bahrain since 2011.

Last year, the New York-based rights group Physicians for Human Rights documented reports of women miscarrying after frequently being exposed to tear gas, as well as cases of deaths from respiratory illnesses.

Human Rights Watch said in October that Bahraini security forces had “repeatedly used tear gas disproportionately and sometimes unlawfully in suppressing antigovernment demonstrations” since 2011, when protests against Bahrain’s monarchy erupted as part of the wave of uprisings sweeping the Middle East.

Tear gas misuse “has been implicated in more than a dozen deaths and serious injuries,” the group said.

The warning came after Bahrain Watch released documents showing what the group said was a public tender for 1.6 million tear gas shells, 90,000 tear gas grenades and 145,000 sound and flash grenades. The tender, dated June 16, was issued by Bahrain’s ministry of interior, which oversees the riot police. …source

From Bahrain to Ukraine: Hail the Western Salesmen of Subversion and Deception
By Finian Cunningham – Libya 360 – 6 December, 2013

The Manama Dialogue held in Bahrain at the weekend – attended by US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague, among other senior Western officials – is presented with gravitas and self-importance as a forum to «earnestly» discuss «security issues» in the Middle East and beyond.

In reality, the event – held in the Bahraini capital, Manama – is nothing but a talking shop of fake concepts, hollow posturing and boilerplate verbosity. A talking shop, complete with garish window dressing and manikins, to hide the gruesome nature of the real Western political business that goes on in the basement of the oil-rich region.

Like the general position of Washington and London towards the Persian Gulf Arab regimes, the Manama Dialogue is all about selling propaganda and deception to cover the most brutal facts of life, sold with the guise of genial, virtuous vendors.

One of these brutal facts is that the Western governments are fully complicit in the repression of their Persian Arab clients against their own people. Another brutal fact is that it is Western governments and their Persian Arab clients who are fuelling insecurity and violence across the Middle East, as in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, by covertly supporting extremist regime-change mercenaries, such as Al Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, both of which are linked to Al Qaeda.

Yet another brutal fact is that the Persian Gulf is one of the most militarized and insecure locations in the world, partly because of Western support for illicitly nuclear-armed Israel, and partly because of reckless weapons sales by America and Britain to the tinderbox region.

Nevertheless, senior representatives of the war-dealing Western states have the audacity to address a conference in the region on «peace and security».

Like a parallel universe, speakers and delegates were ensconced in a plush hotel by their Bahraini hosts to hold forth on democracy, rule of law and terrorism. Meanwhile, a few kilometres away from the venue, the Western-backed Bahraini regime was deploying its riot police to club and gas peaceful pro-democracy supporters. The protesters were trying to exercise their universal right to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression – the same human rights that Washington and London repeatedly declare they are champion retailers of.

These rights have been systematically denied to Bahraini civilians for the past three years (and before) by the US and British-backed absolute monarchy in Bahrain. Since February 2011, when the pro-democracy movement rekindled in the Persian Gulf kingdom, regime forces have killed nearly 100 civilians, some of whom died under torture during detention; hundreds have been maimed with grotesque injuries, such as the loss of eyes and limbs from shot gun pellets; infants and elderly have been poisoned in their homes from the deliberate, excessive use of tear gas; and thousands of families have been plunged into misery because fathers and sons have been locked up in jails without a semblance of due legal process. All this barbarity is done with the tacit support of Washington and London, and with the shameful indifference of the Western news media.

For a tiny population of only 600,000 native Bahrainis (an expatriate foreign worker population is of the same size) the toll of brutality and suffering inflicted by the Khalifa regime has been immense. And in this fierce assault on the mainly Shia population, the Bahraini rulers have been fully assisted by Saudi Arabia, which sent troops into the neighbouring island back in March 2011 to crush the pro-democracy demonstrations. Saudi troops have remained in Bahrain ever since – albeit covertly, by donning Bahraini uniforms. Washington and London are fully apprised of the situation. In fact, it was the US and Britain that gave the green light to the House of Saud to embark on the crushing of protests in Bahrain, just as the Saudi rulers have been doing in their own Eastern Province and other parts of that oil-rich kingdom.

It is instructive to compare and contrast what is happening in the Ukraine and the official Western response. The protests in Kiev have evidently been driven by a determined minority, using violent and organized subversion, and calling for the overthrow of the elected authorities. This is not the exercise of international human rights, as in Bahrain; in the case of the Ukraine, it is a call to sedition.

Furthermore, the agitating groups in the Ukraine, such as the Fatherland Party and the neo-fascist Freedom Party, are known to have well-established logistical links to foreign agencies that are committed to fomenting regime change in targeted nations. These agencies include the American CIA and the benign-sounding National Endowment for Democracy. Certainly, the methodical tactics of disruption deployed recently against government buildings in Kiev strongly imply a covert military input…

To upbraid the Ukrainian state for responding with a heavy-hand in the face of this wanton subversion against its sovereign authority, as Western governments have charged, is at best naive and at worst blatant propaganda to distort the real situation.

Apparently, innocent civilian bystanders were caught up in the melee and incurred injuries. There were, however, no deaths, and Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov later issued a public apology for police conduct. Since the height of the commotion a week ago, the demonstrations in the Ukrainian capital have subsided. This pattern again implies that the protests and public were manipulated for an ulterior agenda – an agenda that was not merely about expressing dissent against the government’s EU rejection, but rather was more sinister in scope, namely to destabilize the state.

The contrast with Bahrain could hardly be more lucid. Here the «authorities» are an unelected regime comprised largely of one family – the al Khalifas, headed by a self-appointed king, Hamad bin Issa al Khalifa. His hereditary successor will be his eldest son, Crown Prince Salman. The Bahraini regime rules by absolute decree with the guise of a consultative «parliament» that is «elected» through a heavily gerrymandered process.

The Bahraini regime and its foreign supporters – Washington, London and Saudi Arabia – have claimed that the largely peaceful pro-democracy protests are manipulated by foreign agents. It is claimed that these agents include Shia Iran and the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah. The US and British governments do not reiterate this too often or loudly because they know full well that the accusation is an utter figment of imagination. There is not an iota of evidence for the involvement of Iran, Hezbollah or any other foreign agency in the Bahraini demonstrations. These protests have been sustained for nearly three years simply by the civilian population’s own desire to have the right to democratically elect a government, rather than being lorded over by a corrupt and venal crony family racket.

Unlike the Ukraine, Bahrain is a simple and straightforward case of democracy being brutally denied to a civilian population that has remained peaceful despite relentless provocation from an unelected regime.

The double standards and hypocrisy of the Western governments and the mainstream news media as shown by the differing response to events in the Ukraine and Bahrain is glaring. A short-lived bid to sow chaos in the Ukraine by a provable foreign-backed subversion against an elected government is given the highest profile by Western governments and media as «a noble bid for democracy against an autocratic regime». Whereas in Bahrain, a sustained pro-democracy movement by unarmed, peaceful civilians against a brutal, unelected autocrat is, well, simply ignored by the West.

Indeed, Bahrain is not merely ignored by the West. It is indulged and tacitly backed to the hilt by Washington and London. The attendance of such prominent figures as Chuck Hagel and William Hague at the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain at the weekend – during which they spouted platitudes about security, democracy and rule of law – is the US and British government’s way of reassuring the Bahraini and Saudi regimes of their ongoing support to crush democracy.

Meanwhile, Chuck Hagel announced during the weekend forum that the US has no intention of scaling back its military presence (read: arms sales) in the Persian Gulf despite the recent diplomatic detente with Iran. «Diplomacy, must be backed up with military power,» Hagel told delegates. The Pentagon chief also disclosed that the US was going ahead with the sale of 15,000 anti-tank missiles to Saudi Arabia worth $1 billion. These missiles will probably end up in the hands of Al Qaeda militants waging a war of terror against Syria for the Western-backed objective of regime change in that country. Ironically, and ludicrously, the British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned delegates that «extremists» operating in Syria (with the covert support of the US, Britain and Saudi Arabia among others) present a grave security threat to the Middle East region and Europe.

Outside the Manama conference, where peaceful protesters were having their heads cracked open by Bahraini riot police, one banner held up by the crowd read: «Why do Western governments not support calls for democracy in Bahrain?»

What a cruel joke. Western governments do not support democracy in Bahrain – or anywhere else for that matter – because they make money from oil and arms sales by supporting dictatorships, and from crushing and subverting democracy. Bahrain and the Ukraine are just two examples of the general concept. Despite their polished and preening rhetoric, Washington and London are nothing but the salesmen for subversion and deception. …source

Mandela an Enterprise is Born
Phlipn Pagee – 11 December, 2013

Mandela’s funeral had all the hallmarks of a Red Carpet Event. The only thing missing was Joan and Melissa Rivers commenting on the dignitaries dress. Every disingenuous asshole that needed Human Rights points made their showing like a Hollywood mogul looking for funding for their latest film project. Crocodile tears did weep as dignitaries spoke of Mandela’s greatness and showed off their ten thousand dollar suits, while their multimillion dollar jets littered SA runways. The offering plates for SAs poor were left empty, but souvenir pictures could be
bought on the street corners of the ghettos, abandon long ago in Apartheid’s triumphant surrender to Capitalist liberation. World Leaders pissed themselves to get their picture taken with the corpse of what is now the most exploited black-man in world history. Postmortem slave marketeers lurked in the darkness like undertakers with a pocket full of gold teeth. What greater tribute to Capitalism than Mandela the corpse finally made submissive in the enterprise of his death. Mandela’s greatness reduced to a token of gratuitousness and profit margin. The
ultimate degradation of humanity is the exploitation of a corpse.

Under threat of execution Sheikh al Nemeer has now been in detention for 600 days +/-. Your help is needed to inform Leaders around the world that a great Defender of Human Rights needs their immediate help to protect him and secure his freedom. Phlipn.

SEE REPORT HERE

The last sad picture of top Saudi Shia cleric ‘Sheikh Nemer al Nemer’
Shai Post – 31 July, 2012

ABNA: The last sad picture of top Saudi Shia Cleric ‘Sheikh Nemer al Nemer’ in a Saudi hospital. This is not confirmed yet.

According to opposition activist Dr. Hamza al-Hassan said that the “health situation of Sheikh Nimr is not good,” adding that the Sheikh had facial bruise and his teeth were broken.

On his account on Twitter, Dr. al-Hassan said that some members of Sheikh Nimr’s family had visited him in his detention.

He added that the visit was after a call by the Saudi authorities. However it was brief in which the visitors could talk to him nothing but some general statements, al-Hassan said.

He noted that the authorities demanded that family of the Sheikh calm the angry protesters, adding: “this is the aim of the visit.”

Meanwhile, the Saudi Rasid news network reported that Sheikh Nimr’s family had visited him in the military hospital of Zahran, where he is being treated after being injured by gunshots during detention last week.

The network quoted some visitors as saying that the Sheikh went under surgery in order to take out the bullet which was in his thigh, and adding that he was getting well.

According to Rasid, some observers said the Saudi authorities had permitted the visit, which they described as exceptional, in order to put an end to the rumors over the fate of Sheikh Nimr, especially after some photos were leaked, showing the Sheikh unconscious bloodstained. …more

It’s time for the United States to examine how its own foreign policy promotes genocide, and take the actions necessary to curb it.

America, Genocide, and the “National Interest”
By Jeff Bachman, 9 December, 2013.

Today marks the 65th anniversary of the Genocide Convention, the groundbreaking United Nations document that declared genocide to be an international crime.

The anniversary provides an ideal opportunity to look at the United States’ record in preventing genocide around the world. That record is dismal.

Why?

The most frequent explanations for America’s failure to prevent genocide concern a lack of national interest or political will. Both have indeed been influential. But a more honest account would acknowledge the United States’ own complicity in backing genocidal regimes.

It’s time for the United States to examine how its own foreign policy promotes genocide, and take the actions necessary to curb it. These include making clear assessments of when genocide is occurring or about to occur — regardless of whether it is perpetrated by its friends or foes — and granting jurisdiction to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the body designated by the resolution to hear “disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application, or fulfillment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide.”

A Convention against Genocide

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the resolution — formally called the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide — in 1948, and the law entered into force in 1951.

The convention defines genocide as actions taken with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” In contrast to the designation of “crimes against humanity,” which were at that time understood to happen only during war, the convention broke new ground in noting that genocide can also occur in peacetime — thus opening a broader set of acts of violence to international condemnation. The convention identified genocide as a crime under international law, outlined the specific criminal acts that constituted it, and called for cooperation among ratifying nations to stop it.

Eventually, cases for the Genocide Convention came to be tried before the ICJ in The Hague, Netherlands.

The United States became a signatory to this convention in 1948, but resisted passing the legislation to implement it until 1988. Moreover, the United States is one of only five parties to the Genocide Convention that refuse to recognize the jurisdiction of the ICJ. Although it had signed on 40 years earlier, the United States withdrew its agreement to compulsory jurisdiction by the ICJ in 1986, when Nicaragua brought a case against the United States for sponsoring an insurrection against the Nicaraguan government. The United States’ lack of participation in the full authority of the ICJ directly diminishes the court’s ability to hold states accountable for violations of international laws and norms, and diminishes the world’s ability to prevent genocide.

National Interest and Political Will

Two main reasons have been given for the United States’ failure to prevent genocide: national interest and political will.

Although awash in lofty rhetoric about human rights and democracy, the United States often pursues what it sees as its own best interest. Frequently this amounts to a calculation based on its relations with individual members of the international community: When enemy states commit massacres, the United States responds with condemnation, sanctions, and possibly military intervention. In contrast, when the perpetrator of serious human rights violations is a U.S. client state, the United States remains silent — or, at most, issues an occasional rhetorical condemnation.

The “political will” narrative suggests that the country’s heart is in the right place but that policymakers are prevented by domestic political considerations from taking the necessary action to stop genocide. In their 2008 report on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Genocide Convention, “Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers,” Madeleine Albright and William Cohen made this argument forcefully, repeatedly calling for improved leadership and political will. …more

EXCLUSIVE: Human Rights Lawyer Pete Weatherby Deported from Bahrain
By Gianluca Mezzofiore – 9 December, 2013 – IBTimes

Pete Weatherby QC, who has visited Bahrain in the past, was supposed to attend the trial of Khalil Almarzooq, the assistant secretary general of the main Shia opposition party al-Wefaq, as an international observer.

He also arranged meetings with government officials to discuss the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) follow-up report.

But Weatherby’s visa application was rejected at Bahrain International Airport and he was told to board the return flight immediately.

Weatherby travelled to Bahrain in 2010 and 2011 to observe trials on behalf of the Bar Human Rights Committee. He is a member of the group’s executive committee.

Almarzooq was arrested in September after he made a speech critical of the government at a political rally attended by nearly 6,000 people near the village of Saar. He was charged with inciting youth violence and trying to overthrow the government.

Amnesty International called for him to be “immediately and unconditionally released”.

“His arrest is yet another blow to the National Dialogue which the Bahraini authorities have been flaunting as a reason to cancel the visit of the UN expert on torture to the country. However harsh his speech towards the authorities, he should not have been arrested for expressing his views,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa deputy director at Amnesty International.

Wefaq said the refusal to allow Weatherby into the tiny Gulf island was “unjustified and unacceptable”.

“We view this incident as a clear indicator that the authorities have something to hide from the international community,” it said.

“Given that he was allowed entry to Bahrain in the past, it is also shows the lack of progress over reform and in fact the deterioration in the human rights situation.” …more

West defending dictatorships from democracy in Persian Gulf
9 December, 2013 – By Finian Cunningham

In a breathtaking display of absurdity, US secretary of defense Chuck Hagel and Britain’s Foreign Minister William Hague were among senior Western delegates to address the annual conference on “regional security” held in Bahrain at the weekend.

These officials pontificated about regional threats, conflict, international law, human rights and so on; meanwhile out on the streets of Bahrain, not far from the venue, peaceful protesters calling for democratic freedom were being bludgeoned by regime police thugs.

How absurd can it get? Like a comedy double act, Hagel and Hague were enthusing about high-minded democratic principles to their unelected, dictatorial hosts, the Al Khalifa rulers, surrounded by representatives of the other Persian Gulf Arab dictatorships, prime among them the absolute, tyrannical monarchy of the House of Saud.

And yet outside, ordinary Bahraini civilians yearning to see these same principles put into practice were getting their heads cracked open by uniformed thugs acting under the orders of the very same despots applauding Hagel and Hague. Talk about inside-out, upside-down doublethink.

When Bahrain’s mainly Shia majority rekindled their decades-old protests against the unelected Khalifa crime family in February 2011, it was the Saudi-led [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council that marched into the tiny island to crush the pro-democracy movement.

The GCC military force is perversely, but aptly, named “a defense operation”. For its purpose is not the defense against some alleged, non-existent threat from without, but the imminent threat from within.

That threat is the spread of democracy in the region, which would sweep away the unelected super-wealthy families that rule over Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain – the six member states of the [Persian]GCC.

The Saudi-led invasion of Bahrain in March 2011 to wipe out “the contagion” of democracy in the oil-rich region was given the green light by Washington and London, with whom the Saudi rulers consulted days before sending in the troops and tanks.

Saudi forces still remain in Bahrain – albeit covertly, wearing Bahraini uniforms – where they continue to brutally attack pro-democracy demonstrators every week, as they have done for the past nearly three years.

And it’s not just protesters on the streets that are killed and injured. Saudi-backed Bahraini forces attack whole villages and family homes with night raids and poisonous gas, many of the occupants, including infants and elderly, having died from suffocating fumes.

Thousands of Bahraini families have been ripped apart, as fathers, mothers, sons and daughters are hauled off to jails and torture centers. The prisoners are denied any legal rights, convicted on the basis of tortured confessions, and many of them imprisoned for life.

Prisoners who have incurred disabilities and diseases from their trauma are also denied basic medical attention, putting their lives at risk. Such detainees include the photographer Hussain Hubail, suffering cardiac problems, elderly political opposition leader Hassan Mushaima, who is battling cancer, and human rights defenders Abdulhadi al-Singace and Naji Fateel, both of whom have become paralyzed from their physical beatings. …more

Despite the Authories’ claim of respecting freedom of expression, Hubail and Al-Noaimi before court on the charge of ‘inciting hatred against the regime through social media’

Bahrain: Detained Photographer Hussein Hubail Brought To Court Amid Deliberate Neglect To His Health Condition
7 December, 2013 – Bahrain Center for Human Rights

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights expresses its concern for the Bahrain Authorities continuous incrimination of freedom of expression on the Internet, and neglecting the deteriorating health condition of the detained photographer Hussein Hubail, and continuing to detain him amid his family’s fear and worry. The BCHR received definite information regarding the Dry Dock prison administration’s neglect of Hubail’s health requirements which puts his life at risk.

Information indicates that Hubail experienced a high rise in blood pressure on Wednesday 13 November 2013; his blood pressure reached 200. However, the prison administration merely gave him an IV injection in the clinic without taking him to a specialized doctor. Information states that the detainee was not taken to his cardiology clinic appointments since he was cut off from visiting his doctor on 19 October 2013, and neither did they bring his heart medication, although the Special Investigation Unit confirmed that they were missing when they visited him on 6 November 2013.

The photographer Hubail and internet user Jassim Radhi Al-Noaimi (detained since 31 July 2013), are currently being tried on charges of “inciting hatred against the regime through social media, and calling for illegal protests” which refutes the authorities’ claim of respecting freedom of opinion and expression. At the first hearing of their trial, which was held on 28 November 2013, both individuals denied the charges against them. Hussain Hubail told the court that he is not receiving adequate medical care for his heart illness, not being taken to the hospital until his condition worsens to the point of his collapse, and he is not provided with the medication until after his symptoms begin to include sever pain and suffering. He also added in his testimony to the court that he has been subjected to torture and he called for the authorities to provide him with the necessary medical care.

During the hearing, detained internet user Jassim AlNoaimi also stated that he was tortured at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and for four days, he was not allowed to sleep. He added that he is suffering from severe pain in his back and he was not allowed to appoint himself a lawyer.

The lawyers for Hubail and Al-Noaimi requested that the defendants be release on bail during the trial. However, the court didn’t respond to their request. Both detainees are being held at the Dry Dock detention center[1]. Their next hearing will be on 22 December 2013. …more

Bahrain, Algeria, Iraq get new exports of Canadian guns, ammunition
Mike Blanchfield – The Canadian Press 8 December, 2013

OTTAWA – Bahrain, Algeria and Iraq, countries with dubious human rights records or a history of violent internal conflict, have recently become new buyers of Canadian-made guns and ammunition, an analysis of federal government data shows.

The analysis by The Canadian Press found that Canadian exports to those countries swelled by 100 per cent from 2011 to 2012, the most recent figures publicly available.

During the same time period, exports of Canadian weapons also increased to Pakistan (98 per cent), Mexico (93 per cent) and Egypt (83 per cent), where, respectively, al-Qaida terrorists, a deadly government war on drug cartels and seismic political upheaval have sparked violence.

Though Canada’s arms trade is legal and regulated, analysts say the increases raise questions about the government’s foreign policy commitment to human rights, and its regulatory regime for arms exports.

“Diversification is a principle of business in this globalized economy. As we see western militaries decrease their defence budgets, military industries will be looking for new markets,” said Walter Dorn, the chair of international affairs studies at the Canadian Forces College.

“The danger is that the almighty dollar may become the predominant motivator in trade deals and therefore weapons are more easily shipped.”

The Canadian Press provided a list of questions to the offices of International Trade Minister Ed Fast and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, but an emailed reply from Foreign Affairs left many of them unanswered.

Foreign Affairs carefully reviews all export of weapons to ensure they “do not contribute to national or regional conflicts or instability” or “are not used to commit human rights violations,” the statement said.

The analysis examined 10 years of Industry Canada data on a class of exports that is made up of military weapons, guns and ammunition, along with howitzers, mortars, flame throwers, grenades and torpedoes. It does not include other big military equipment such as vehicles, aircraft and other advanced technology, which balloons Canada’s overall arms trade into the billions of dollars.

Last month, Fast announced that Canada would be putting economic interests at the centre of foreign policy. The shift to “economic diplomacy” is designed to increase trade and investment in emerging markets.

In 2012, Canadian weapons manufacturers found some new customers, which offset a decline in sales to some major democratic allies. …more

People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising
by Gilbert Achcar – Saqi Books, London

8 December, 2013 – Review by Farooq Sulehria – Socialist Resistance

Brushing aside a host of fashionable narratives to explain the Arab spring, Gilbert Achcar’s recent book, ‘The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising’ offers a radically different perspective.

Instead of over-optimistically glorifying the uprising or pessimistically ridiculing the temporary lull as ‘Arab winter’, he views the Arab spring as a protracted or long-term revolutionary process which may continue to unfold for another couple of decades. In fact, the recent coup in Egypt weeks was a timely endorsement of Achcar’s thesis on the Arab spring.

His prophetic analysis, informed by a Marxist outlook, springs from rigorous research and deep knowledge of Arab realities. Instead of offering Facebook explanations, demographic analysis or ascribing the latest Arab upheaval to middle class democratic aspirations, he identifies “the deep roots of the uprising” because “there can be no lasting solution to the crisis unless those roots are transformed”.

The breadth of the Arab spring shows that its causes are neither confined to the political realm nor limited to linguistic factors. In his view, revolution-by-contagion occurs when “there is favourable ground…a predisposition to revolution”. Even importantly: “Despotism by itself…can hardly be sufficient cause for the outbreak and subsequent success of a democratic revolution.”

One should look for the underlying socioeconomic factors to explain why the Arab spring “triumphed when it did: why 2011, after decades of despotism in the Arab region? Why 1789 in France, after a long history of Absolutism and peasant revolts? Why 1989 in Eastern Europe, rather than, say, 1953-56?”

To solve the puzzle, he delves into history. A series of European revolutions also caused ripple effects. These socio-political earthquakes were, in the words of Achcar, “triggered by the collision of the two tectonic plates” ie “developing productive forces and existing relations of production”. The latter, Marx thought, constitute “legal and political superstructures” with the state at its core.

While this contradiction between the rising bourgeoisie and feudal ‘superstructures’ – translating into revolutions – paved the way for Europe’s capitalist industrialisation, a precisely “comparable instance of the existing relations of production blocking the development of the forces of production was at the origin of the shock wave” that, according to Achcar, culminated in collapse of the USSR.

However, unlike juvenile Marxists, Achcar does not issue any sweeping judgements based on “Marx’s paradigmatic thesis on revolution” he himself invokes to explain European revolutions. This is because every crisis does not constitute a revolutionary situation. Similarly, every revolutionary situation does not lead to a revolution. Therefore, Achcar suggests to cautiously “derive variants” from Marxist thesis that are “less sweeping in historical scope” to describe the Arab spring.

Chalking out both revolutionary possibilities and limitation impregnating a system, he points out: “the development of productive forces can be stalled, not by the relations of production constitutive of a generic mode of production (such as the relation between capital and wage-labour in the capitalist mode of production), but, rather, by a specific modality of that generic mode of production. In such cases, it is not always necessary to replace the basic mode of production in order to overcome the blockage. A change in modality or ‘mode of regulation’ does, however, have to occur”. …more

World Renowned Peace Activist Collaborated with Stratfor and CIA
Global Research – 4 December, 2013 – Steve Horn and Carl Gibson

Serbia’s Srdja Popovic is known by many as a leading architect of regime changes in Eastern Europe and elsewhere since the late-1990s, and as one of the co-founders of Otpor!, the U.S.-funded Serbian activist group which overthrew Slobodan Milošević in 2000.

Lesser known, an exclusive Occupy.com investigation reveals that Popovic and the Otpor! offshoot CANVAS (Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies) have also maintained close ties with a Goldman Sachs executive and the private intelligence firm Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting, Inc.), as well as the U.S. government. Popovic’s wife also worked at Stratfor for a year.

These revelations come in the aftermath of thousands of new emails released by Wikileaks’ “Global Intelligence Files.” The emails reveal Popovic worked closely with Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based private firm that gathers intelligence on geopolitical events and activists for clients ranging from the American Petroleum Institute and Archer Daniels Midland to Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, Northrop Grumman, Intel and Coca-Cola.

Referred to in emails under the moniker “SR501,” Popovic was first approached by Stratfor in 2007 to give a lecture in the firm’s office about events transpiring in Eastern Europe, according to a Stratfor source who asked to remain confidential for this story.

In one of the emails, Popovic forwarded information about activists harmed or killed by the U.S.-armed Bahraini government, obtained from the Bahrain Center for Human Rights during the regime’s crackdown on pro-democracy activists in fall 2011. Popovic also penned a blueprint for Stratfor on how to unseat the now-deceased Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in September 2010.

Stratfor’s Global Activist Connector

Using his celebrated activist status, Popovic opened many doors for Stratfor to meet with activists globally. In turn, the information Stratfor intended to gain from Popovic’s contacts would serve as “actionable intelligence”—the firm billed itself as a “Shadow CIA”—for its corporate clients.

Popovic passed information to Stratfor about on-the-ground activist events in countries around the world, ranging from the Philippines, Libya, Tunisia, Vietnam, Iran, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Tibet, Zimbabwe, Poland and Belarus, Georgia, Bahrain, Venezuela and Malaysia. Often, the emails reveal, Popovic passed on the information to Stratfor without the consent of the activists and likely without the activists ever knowing that their emails were being shuttled to the private security firm.

In the U.S., this investigation’s co-author, Carl Gibson (representing US Uncut), and the Yes Men’s Andy Bichlbaum had a meeting with Popovic shortly after their two respective groups used a media hoax to play a prank on General Electric, ridiculing the company over itsnon-payment of U.S. taxes.

The pair gave Popovic information about both groups’ plans for the coming year and news later came out that Stratfor closely monitored the Yes Men’s activities. …more

9/11 Link To Saudi Arabia Is Topic Of 28 Redacted Pages In Government Report; Congressmen Push For Release
By Jamie Reno – 9 December, 2013 – IBTimes

Since terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, victims’ loved ones, injured survivors, and members of the media have all tried without much success to discover the true nature of the relationship between the 19 hijackers – 15 of them Saudi nationals – and the Saudi Arabian government. Many news organizations reported that some of the terrorists were linked to the Saudi royals and that they even may have received financial support from them as well as from several mysterious, moneyed Saudi men living in San Diego.

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied any connection, and neither President George W. Bush nor President Obama has been forthcoming on this issue.

But earlier this year, Reps. Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., and Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., were given access to the 28 redacted pages of the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry (JICI) of 9/11 issued in late 2002, which have been thought to hold some answers about the Saudi connection to the attack.

“I was absolutely shocked by what I read,” Jones told International Business Times. “What was so surprising was that those whom we thought we could trust really disappointed me. I cannot go into it any more than that. I had to sign an oath that what I read had to remain confidential. But the information I read disappointed me greatly.”

The public may soon also get to see these secret documents. Last week, Jones and Lynch introduced a resolution that urges President Obama to declassify the 28 pages, which were originally classified by President George W. Bush. It has never been fully explained why the pages were blacked out, but President Bush stated in 2003 that releasing the pages would violate national security.

While neither Jones nor Lynch would say just what is in the document, some of the information has leaked out over the years. A multitude of sources tell IBTimes, and numerous press reports over the years in Newsweek, the New York Times, CBS News and other media confirm, that the 28 pages in fact clearly portray that the Saudi government had at the very least an indirect role in supporting the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attack. In addition, these classified pages clarify somewhat the links between the hijackers and at least one Saudi government worker living in San Diego.

Former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., who chaired the Joint Inquiry in 2002 and has been beating the drum for more disclosure about 9/11 since then, has never understood why the 28 pages were redacted. Graham told IBTimes that based on his involvement in the investigation and on the now-classified information in the document that his committee produced, he is convinced that “the Saudi government without question was supporting the hijackers who lived in San Diego…. You can’t have 19 people living in the United States for, in some cases, almost two years, taking flight lessons and other preparations, without someone paying for it. But I think it goes much broader than that. The agencies from CIA and FBI have suppressed that information so American people don’t have the facts.”

Jones insists that releasing the 28 secret pages would not violate national security.

“It does not deal with national security per se; it is more about relationships,” he said. “The information is critical to our foreign policy moving forward and should thus be available to the American people. If the 9/11 hijackers had outside help – particularly from one or more foreign governments – the press and the public have a right to know what our government has or has not done to bring justice to the perpetrators.”

It took Jones six weeks and several letters to the House Intelligence Committee before the classified pages from the 9/11 report were made available to him. Jones was so stunned by what he saw that he approached Rep. Lynch, asking him to look at the 28 pages as well. He knew that Lynch would be astonished by the contents of the documents and perhaps would join in a bipartisan effort to declassify the papers.

“He came back to me about a week ago and told me that he, too, was very shocked by what he read,” Jones said. “I told him we need to join together and put in a resolution and get more members on both sides of the aisle involved and demand that the White House release this information to the public. The American people have a right to know this information.”

A decade ago, 46 senators, led by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., demanded in a letter to President Bush that he declassify the 28 pages. …more

Hezbollah disavows Al-Manar ‘apology’
10 December, 2013 – By Rayane Abou Jaoude – The Daily Star

BEIRUT: Hezbollah will decide the fate of an Al-Manar delegation, which recently issued a public apology to Bahrain without consulting its parent organization, when the group returns from Tunisia, a Hezbollah spokesperson said Monday.

At a meeting in Tunis of the Arab States Broadcasting Union, Hezbollah’s media arm, Al-Manar, publicly apologized for its coverage of the Bahraini anti-government protests. Hezbollah responded Sunday night by saying it was not responsible for the apology and reaffirmed its support for the people of Bahrain.

The Hezbollah spokesperson told The Daily Star that no further decision would be taken until the Al-Manar delegation returned to Lebanon. A representative from the TV station said he could neither confirm nor deny that more information would be released concerning the apology.

“The stance that was taken by the delegation representing the Lebanese Communication Group was its own and the Hezbollah leadership was not consulted over the issue,” Hezbollah said in a statement. The Lebanese Communication Group is the parent company of Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar television and Al-Nour radio stations.

“Our support of the oppressed people of Bahrain did not change at all, and we consider that the oppression practiced by the Bahraini authorities against its people is great, and it still persists in depriving the Bahraini people of their right in participating in political life,” Hezbollah said Sunday.

The Bahrain News Agency published what it said was the original copy of the apology. In it, the Lebanese Communication Group said it would re-evaluate its editorial policies to ensure compliance with international agreements and vowed to work on maintaining good relations with Arab countries, particularly Bahrain.

The statement was read by union Director Salaheddine Maaoui during its 90th General Assembly meeting that took place Saturday in the Tunisian capital.

Maaoui tasked the ASBU’s general manager to follow up on the implementation of the Lebanese group’s decision, and take any necessary measures if the group reneged on its commitment.

Contradicting the apology issued by its media arm, Hezbollah said in a statement that the apology should have been addressed to the Bahraini people, “who have shown rare patience for over two and a half years as they suffer repression and all patterns of abuse by the ruling authorities.”

Hezbollah also accused the Bahrain authorities of intimidating anyone who supports the Bahraini people.
…more

Mandela must have died a bitter man. To honor his legacy, we should focus on the unfulfilled promises his leadership gave rise to.

If Nelson Mandela Really Had Won, He Wouldn’t Be Seen as a Universal Hero
by Slavoj Žižek – 9 December, 2013 – Common Dreams

In the last two decades of his life, Nelson Mandela was celebrated as a model of how to liberate a country from the colonial yoke without succumbing to the temptation of dictatorial power and anti-capitalist posturing. In short, Mandela was not Robert Mugabe, and South Africa remained a multiparty democracy with a free press and a vibrant economy well-integrated into the global market and immune to hasty socialist experiments. Now, with his death, his stature as a saintly wise man seems confirmed for eternity: there are Hollywood movies about him – he was impersonated by Morgan Freeman, who also, by the way, played the role of God in another film; rock stars and religious leaders, sportsmen and politicians from Bill Clinton to Fidel Castro are all united in his beatification.

Is this, however, the whole story? Two key facts remain obliterated by this celebratory vision. In South Africa, the miserable life of the poor majority broadly remains the same as under apartheid, and the rise of political and civil rights is counterbalanced by the growing insecurity, violence and crime. The main change is that the old white ruling class is joined by the new black elite. Second, people remember the old African National Congress that promised not only the end of apartheid, but also more social justice, even a kind of socialism. This much more radical ANC past is gradually obliterated from our memory. No wonder that anger is growing among poor, black South Africans.

South Africa in this respect is just one version of the recurrent story of the contemporary left. A leader or party is elected with universal enthusiasm, promising a “new world” – but, then, sooner or later, they stumble upon the key dilemma: does one dare to touch the capitalist mechanisms, or does one decide to “play the game”? If one disturbs these mechanisms, one is very swiftly “punished” by market perturbations, economic chaos and the rest. This is why it is all too simple to criticize Mandela for abandoning the socialist perspective after the end of apartheid: did he really have a choice? Was the move towards socialism a real option?

It is easy to ridicule Ayn Rand, but there is a grain of truth in the famous “hymn to money” from her novel Atlas Shrugged: “Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns or dollars. Take your choice – there is no other.” Did Marx not say something similar in his well-known formula of how, in the universe of commodities, “relations between people assume the guise of relations among things”?

In the market economy, relations between people can appear as relations of mutually recognized freedom and equality: domination is no longer directly enacted and visible as such. What is problematic is Rand’s underlying premise: that the only choice is between direct and indirect relations of domination and exploitation, with any alternative dismissed as utopian. However, one should nonetheless bear in mind the moment of truth in Rand’s otherwise ridiculously ideological claim: the great lesson of state socialism was effectively that a direct abolition of private property and market-regulated exchange, lacking concrete forms of social regulation of the process of production, necessarily resuscitates direct relations of servitude and domination. If we merely abolish the market (inclusive of market exploitation) without replacing it with a proper form of the communist organization of production and exchange, domination returns with a vengeance, and with it direct exploitation.

The general rule is that when a revolt begins against an oppressive half-democratic regime, as was the case in the Middle East in 2011, it is easy to mobilize large crowds with slogans that one cannot but characterize as crowd pleasers – for democracy, against corruption, for instance. But then we gradually approach more difficult choices, when our revolt succeeds in its direct goal, we come to realize that what really bothered us (our un-freedom, humiliation, social corruption, lack of prospect of a decent life) goes on in a new guise. The ruling ideology mobilizes here its entire arsenal to prevent us from reaching this radical conclusion. They start to tell us that democratic freedom brings its own responsibility, that it comes at a price, that we are not yet mature if we expect too much from democracy. In this way, they blame us for our failure: in a free society, so we are told, we are all capitalist investing in our lives, deciding to put more into our education than into having fun if we want to succeed.

At a more directly political level, United States foreign policy elaborated a detailed strategy of how to exert damage control by way of rechanneling a popular uprising into acceptable parliamentary-capitalist constraints – as was done successfully in South Africa after the fall of apartheid regime, in Philippines after the fall of Marcos, in Indonesia after the fall of Suharto and elsewhere. At this precise conjuncture, radical emancipatory politics faces its greatest challenge: how to push things further after the first enthusiastic stage is over, how to make the next step without succumbing to the catastrophe of the “totalitarian” temptation – in short, how to move further from Mandela without becoming Mugabe.

If we want to remain faithful to Mandela’s legacy, we should thus forget about celebratory crocodile tears and focus on the unfulfilled promises his leadership gave rise to. We can safely surmise that, on account of his doubtless moral and political greatness, he was at the end of his life also a bitter old man, well aware how his very political triumph and his elevation into a universal hero was the mask of a bitter defeat. His universal glory is also a sign that he really didn’t disturb the global order of power. …source

Iran’s Defense Minister Warns Arab Neighbors of US ‘Psychological Warfare’
8 December, 2013 – Nasim

Nasim—Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan warned Persian Gulf countries to be aware of “US psychological warfare.”

Speaking on Sunday, Iranian defense minister stressed that “diplomacy will result if it is based on rationality and logic not on using force, belligerent approaches and violating others’ right”, replying to the US Defense Minister Chuck Hagel’s statements a day earlier.

“Diplomacy with Iran must be backed up by U.S. military might”, Pentagon chief said Dec. 7 in a speech addressed to Gulf allies referring to the nuclear deal with Tehran. He also promised to maintain a 35,000-strong force in the Gulf region, as well as an armada of ships and warplanes, despite the recent deal with Tehran.

Brigadier General Dehghan also underlined that language of war and threat is not accepted in the public minds, adding that employing “belligerent rhetoric will increase nations’ hatred and distrust in the speaker.”

He described Hagel’s promise to sell more weapons to Persian Gulf countries as “an evidence of US Iranophobia project,” underlining that the region’s security lies in “constructive interaction and cooperation with good will among the countries. …source