Silver Spooned Ass-Kissing Sycophants Have Ruined This Country

Recently, a hometown friend and fellow prepper sent me the following letter and I saw that within the forwarding sequence someone wrote “VERY PROFOUND READING”. I couldn’t help myself and had to respond, so I dissected Mr Hall’s foolish gibberish for the obvious partisan nonsense it contains. What happened shortly after I sent my response (cc’ing everyone else, as well) is worthy of scrutiny, for it shows how ignorant some people are (the person who originally sent it is a good person and has yet to reply: all names are removed except for the original letter’s author, Robert A. Hall, who apparently was a Massachusetts state senator).  After searching I found the original here. I tried to comment directly on his blog, but it would not allow me.

Read and enjoy, then offer your critique.

“I’m 63 and I’m Tired”

by Robert A. Hall

I’m 63.  Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I’ve worked hard since I was 18.   Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven’t called in sick in seven or eight years.   I make a good salary, but I didn’t inherit my  job or my income, and I worked to get where I am.  Given the  economy, there’s no retirement in sight, and I’m tired.  Very tired.

I’m tired of being told that I have to “spread the wealth” to people who don’t have my work ethic.  I’m tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I’m tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to “keep people in their homes.”   Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I’m willing to help.   But if they bought Mc Mansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the left-wing Congress-critters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble help them with their own money.

I’m tired of being told how  bad America is by left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood Entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers.  In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have the economy of     Zimbabwe , the freedom of the press of China  the crime and violence of Mexico , the tolerance for Christian people of Iran , and the freedom of speech of Venezuela .

I’m tired of being told that Islam is a “Religion of Peace,” when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family “honor”; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because  they aren’t “believers”; of Muslims burning schools for girls;  of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for “adultery”;  of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur’an and Shari’a law tells them to.

I’m tired of being told  that “race doesn’t matter” in the post-racial world of Obama,  when it’s all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities  (harming them the most), government contract set-asides,  tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless  children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of U.S. Senators from Illinois.

I think it’s very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation.  I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less arrogantly of an all-knowing government.

I’m tired of being told  that out of “tolerance for other cultures” we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and mandrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America , while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.

I’m tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.  My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs. We also own a three-bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughter live.  Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore’s, and if you’re greener than Gore, you’re green enough.

I’m tired of being told  that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do.  Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off?  I don’t think Gay people choose to be Gay, but I #@*# sure think druggies chose to  take drugs. And I’m tired of harassment from cool people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana.

I’m tired of illegal aliens being called “undocumented workers,” especially the ones who aren’t working, but are living on welfare or crime.  What’s next?   Calling drug dealers, “Undocumented Pharmacists”?   And, no, I’m not against Hispanics.  Most of them are Catholic, and it’s been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion.  I’m willing to fast track for citizenship any Hispanic person, who can speak English, doesn’t have a criminal record  and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military…. Those are the citizens we need.

I’m tired of latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station, trashing our military.  They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second  decisions under life and death circumstances, and bad mouth better people than themselves.  Do bad things happen in war?  You bet.  Do our troops sometimes misbehave?  Sure.  Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years and still are?  Not even close.  So here’s the deal.  I’ll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, and the critics can let themselves be subject to captivity by the Muslims, who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia, because the  girls were Christian.  Then we’ll compare notes.  British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear.

I’m tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption.  Read the papers; bums are bipartisan.   And I’m tired of people telling me we need  bipartisanship.  I live in Illinois , where the ” Illinois  Combine” of Democrats has worked to loot the public for years.   Not to mention the tax cheats in Obama’s cabinet.

I’m tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught.  I’m tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

Speaking of poor, I’m tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor.  The majority of Americans didn’t have that in  1970, but we didn’t know we were “poor.”  The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing.

I’m real tired of people who  don’t take responsibility for their lives and actions.  I’m tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.

Yes, I’m tired.  But I’m also glad to be 63.  Because, mostly, I’m not going to have to see the world these people are making.  I’m just sorry for my granddaughter.

Robert  A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate.

There is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on!

—— End of Forwarded Message

My response to the original:

Hometown Friend,

I find very little “profound” in this diatribe. Just more of the same old tired, left versus right, Conservative is better than Liberal, Republican over Democrat crapola.

He acts as if Islam is evil and Christianity is saintly, yet this “Christian Nation” never stops its continued assault on Muslim people (or anyone, for that matter) for their resources and domination.

The man seems to think that anyone (with the exception of very few who are sick or lost their job, UNLESS they live in a Mcmansion – and I don’t know a single one of that type) without a job is doing so on purpose, without acknowledging that it was BOTH parties complicit in the NAFTA’s and every other SHAFTA sending our jobs away to other countries so Corporations can get even richer… all the while forcing Americans to degrade their standard of living, instead of raising the rest of the world’s.

I wonder why he doesn’t address the vast chasm between the rich and poor and how it grows even more?

He is a racist, obviously, but wouldn’t have a problem with Condi Rice being the POTUS, except for the fact that she was complicit in most of the hegemony occurring in the Middle East.

He has no clue, whatsoever, about what addictions are and cannot seem to make the connection that drug usage is, in fact, a mental issue that once a person has that drug change his brain chemistry, they find it virtually impossible to stop. And he doesn’t really address the fact that MOST addicts take prescription drugs… not illicit drugs. The fact that he seemingly never even tried marijuana doesn’t make him uncool, but  simply shows he has NO knowledge about the subject. The fact that it is a medicine and can kill cancer should at least be presented, but no.

He is afraid of tolerance towards other cultures, while spouting about Christianity, but I wonder what the Christ would say (no, I don’t wonder, I KNOW what He said and it is in contradiction to this man’s thoughts).

He is tired of “liberals and journalists” that don’t allow their children to serve in the Empire’s murderous, illegal and immoral campaigns of terror, without mentioning that most of those that were in the Admin with Condi got deferrals and never served either. Cheney, Friedman, Limbaugh, BUSH and on and on and on. What a hypocrite.

When he writes: “Do our troops sometimes misbehave?  Sure.  Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years and still are?”, is he suggesting that it is now OK for Americans to be like they are? That we should render ourselves as torturers and defend the atrocious actions that were implemented (based over lies about who and what did 9/11)?

Is the man ignorant that most of the examples he lists were in response to our murderous rampage in the Middle East, again based over lies from a neocon agenda set out long before 9/11? Can he truly be this clueless or is there an ulterior motive?

Probably just clueless and brainwashed like most “right” wing ideologues willing to believe anything as long as a demoRat isn’t elected. But look at what the reTHUGlicans have wrought upon us.

Look, they both suck. They are no different from each other except in very insignificant ways. The very basis of it all is Empire and hegemony: something our Founding fathers were adamantly against and extremely vocal about that (just read Washington’s farewell address).

Sorry. He is just another ideological brain-washed numbskull that doesn’t even mention that most of our issues are caused by the very hegemony and money spent to control the rest of the world and steal their resources. He’d rather complain about poor people and what Rush is telling him than actually address the real issue. That is pitiful, but totally expected.

It is this very thing (the bogus two party divide) that I want to transcend. I’m sick of it and a 63 year old marine that doesn’t address the real issues is only making it worse.

And, please, I am not defending demoRats. They are complicit in the evil and are no better. Perhaps slightly worse in certain areas, but overall, they, too, continue the Empire. No real difference in matters of most importance.

I want to get beyond the general water-carrying for the Empire and the two “sides” that are only really one entity.

We must get past this sickening continuation of the false divide if we are to make it as a nation.

BuelahMan

Within 9 minutes I received this reply from someone on the cc list:

I got so bored with your comments, that I couldn’t finish reading it… “Focus “

I ignored it. Then in 2 more minutes the same person sent this (she is the only one of the 18 people copied who responded at all):

Spoken like a true “give me, give me, I can’t do it, crying, blame it on others, type person.  I could also add “ Blind ”and walking in the Dark…  Oh, and since you e-mailed me, and I dont’ know you, you deserve this.. just sayin

I responded:

Thank you, just sayin, for confirming my view about America’s gullible, clueless sycophants. You know nothing about me: how rich I might be or how self-sufficient I am. Yet, you show how “blind” ideologues can’t see past what Rush wants them to think.

Have a nice day (I simply replied to my friend’s email). Sorry you can’t handle the truth, but I really don’t expect any difference.

B’Man

Thank you, BuelahMan, for your confirmation of the ignorance on your part and those like you.  The evidence that you care more, do more, and noone can handle the Truth but you…is laughable. You have a nice day as well.

Ms sayin,

Your silver spoon is about to fall from your lips. Catch it and then go beat a poor person to death with it. OK?

I’m sorry I don’t have time to speak to you, I am working & Paying  my Taxes! Since you apparently do have time, spend time helping the needy, instead of talking about it. Once again, have a good day.

Funny, Ms sayin, that a very busy person, such as yourself, takes so much time “getting the last word”, but doesn’t have the brains to actually digest and explain what she finds incorrect about the detail I offer.

I call people like you “ass-kissing sycophants” (you’ll likely need a dictionary for that one).

Now, write back after you get this and I won’t reply. You can have the last word, even tho you haven’t made any real effort to tell me where I am incorrect in anything that I wrote. You know, like an intelligent person would.

Rush would be proud of you.

Me? I think you are a dumbass.

To be so intelligent, you use profanity, you also reference violence with the “Beat a poor person to death comment” Call me names all you want to, I will not stoop to your level… Good day again.

>>> YAWN <<<

At this point I did stop the worthless “debate”. But notice what happens with debating an ass-kissing sycophant. She refused to read the information in whole and immediately offended me, even tho by her own admission she didn’t know what it said. Duh? I just don’t listen to bullshit any more without my snarky retort, especially when it comes from a person obviously hell bent on defending an ideology shown to be tearing this country apart. I was very open about this and even copied the original friend on all the discussion, so she would know exactly what was said between the two “friends” of hers.

How do you deal with someone like this? I obviously just take them to task, but is that the best process? I don’t know any other. At least she wanted me to have a nice day.

I ended it all by writing to my hometown friend:

I’ll leave it there, Hometown friend. I wonder if she even read what I wrote or just has so few thinking brain cells that she is incapable of honest evaluation of my words.

She certainly doesn’t understand snarks. But she does get her “last word”.

Take care and you can have her. She will be zero help to you or anyone else when the SHTF.

All posts are opinions meant to foster comment, reporting, teaching & study under the “fair use doctrine” in Sec. 107 of U.S. Code Title 17. No statement of fact is made or should be implied. Ads appearing on this blog are solely the product of the advertiser and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BuehlahMan’s Revolt or WordPress.com

New Video for Redstate Revolt TV: 911 False Flag

German produced documentary

Purchse DVD: http://www.nuoviso.com

The world has changed after September 11th. Its changed because were no longer safe.

These words were used by the George W. Bush, elected President of the United States in 2000, to dictate the political direction for the 21st Century.

Whereas Americans launch attacks relatively quickly, first on Afghanistan and later on Iraq, using falsified evidence, doubts about the official version of the events of September 11th grows. The speculations that surfaced on the internet directly after the attacks were considered to be just wild conspiracy theories until this now. Yet the circumstantial evidence and even the substantial evidence itself paints a clear picture. The responsibility for the terrible attacks seems to lie not with Islamic Terrorists but with several high-ranking members of the military and administration of the U.S. Government. This documentary focuses on the inconsistencies in the official version of the events as well as on the evidence which has been suppressed regarding September 11th. In addition, it answers the questions of why we still know nothing about it to this day and why we are being deceived also in european countries.

911 False Flag (Part 1)

View the rest at the 911 False Flag Page

All posts are opinions meant to foster comment, reporting, teaching & study under the “fair use doctrine” in Sec. 107 of U.S. Code Title 17. No statement of fact is made or should be implied. Ads appearing on this blog are solely the product of the advertiser and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BuehlahMan’s Redstate Revolt or WordPress.com

If The Shoe Were On The Other Foot…

Last March I wrote about how I felt in response to Muntazer al-Zaidi’s shoe chunking, going so far as to call him a “patriot”.

I wrote:

Of course you don’t normally treat a foreign head of state in such a manner by throwing shoes. But in this case, the man had my permission and should be let go and paraded throughout the streets of Iraq as a hero, even if only a hero to many Americans. It just so happens that my mother threw a thousand shoes at me, so the significance of “offense” eludes me, therefore I recommend a big stinking, hot turd for the next patriot that tries. If close enough, a good hocker to the face will do.

Now THAT would be offensive and deserved.

I can understand, perfectly, why this man would hold George W Bush and America, as a whole, in disdain and hatred. Can you not understand that?

Are you so detached that you still believe we are there for their good and not ours? That we are there for lies and war profiteering? To control the region as we take over control of their resources (namely oil)?

Mr Zaidi is a hero to many Iraqis and truthfully, to me, too. For he stands in defiance of the Imperialism that has murdered and pillaged its way into his country.

The only thing I can do to try to understand their plight is to imagine myself in their shoes… as if their shoes were on my feet. I actually posted a video back in January about how I would set up an insurgency if we had been invaded by Iraq. Essentially turning the tables (sort of rambling the first couple minutes… yawn):

Yes, ugly cuss and hardly able to string a sentence together, but hopefully my point is understood. If anyone invaded this country, especially over lies and deceit and bogus rationale, woudn’t YOU help others stop them?

ISN’T IT THE PATRIOTIC THING TO DO?

I saw a snippet of Mr Zaidi’s article published at the Guardian UK over at AfterDowningStreet and it caused me to rethink my original position. It is even more emboldened in my mind. I do not want another single American killed over these criminal wars of aggression on innocent people (let us bring our forces home where they need to be). And I don’t want another American (or bomb) killing another of these innocent people.

For who knows: It may be me throwing a shoe at some Chinese leader someday (or a turd, should that be more offensive here).

Why I threw the shoe

by Muntazer al-Zaidi

guardian.co.uk

I am free. But my country is still a prisoner of war. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: what compelled me to act is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.

Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many millions are homeless inside and outside the country.

We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a decade.

Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. But the invasion divided brother from brother, neighbour from neighbour. It turned our homes into funeral tents.

I am not a hero. But I have a point of view. I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated; and to see my Baghdad burned, my people killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, pushing me towards the path of confrontation. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Falluja, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. I travelled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and heard with my own ears the screams of the orphans and the bereaved. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.

As soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily tragedies, while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined Iraqi houses, or the blood that stained my clothes, I would clench my teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.

The opportunity came, and I took it.

I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop of an orphan.

I say to those who reproach me: do you know how many broken homes that shoe which I threw had entered? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.

When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.

If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I apologise. All that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day. The professionalism mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism needs to speak out, then professionalism should be allied with it.

I didn’t do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All I wanted was to defend my country.

Muntazer al-Zaidi is an Iraqi reporter who was freed this week after serving nine months in prison for throwing his shoe at former US president George Bush at a press conference. This edited statement was translated by McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Sahar Issa www.mcclatchydc.com

I personally commend you and agree that the man you threw that shoe at is a criminal. It is my desire that he and the rest of the complicit cabal of liars, thieves, war profiteers, and murderers pay for their crimes (and a shoe is the very least thing I wish upon them).

Seven Is Exploding

It is my opinion that the entire 911 event’s suspicious issues can be solved through the connection of the WTC7 implosion… and who was the guilty party that was able to bring down that building. I believe that it was actually a failed demolition initially, that was supposed to occur at the same time the towers fell (I’ll write more about that theory later).

Irregardless of whether or not you think a chunk of one of the towers hit it, that cannot explain the symmetrical footprint-fall collapse. No internal fires grew large enough to even envelope the building (the fire never broke outside)… all of those explanations are suspicious and I believe erroneous. Nevertheless, there are several instances of people claiming beforehand (CNN and BBC included) that the WTC7 had come down before it had (in the case of the BBC report, you could see the building prominently behind her, even as she said it). 20 minutes later, it came down in a demolition-style event.

You can hear firemen and other officials telling people to get back because it is “exploding” and would come down. You have Larry Silverstien claiming they had to “pull it” (it is laughable the defenders and storyline changers that say he was talking about firemen, unless Larry thinks firemen are “its”).

PullIt

►

You and I know precisley what he was talking about. It is evident. I’m sorry, this is enough for a more in depth investigation by some independent investigator/prosecutor. Perhaps even someone from Spain, Italy or another country (I vote the Japanese). Why someone else? Because it is evident that there is no political will, or worse, they are complicit in some way.

The entire Afghan/Iraq war bullshit is based off of this one event fraught with questionable and dubious investigation (even the 911 commissioners said that their hands were tied in many ways). It was headed by a Bush/Rice Minion. Just the fact that Bush/Cheney were not required to go under oath is rationale enough, in lieu of the lies and deceit we now know about… indeed, even due to the torture they instituted in the face of our laws and any sense of morality or decency.

Also note that the senior legal council came out after the dust settled on the lies and deceit of the 911 Commission:

The senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission – John Farmer – says that the government agreed not to tell the truth about 9/11, echoing the assertions of fellow 9/11 Commission members who concluded that the Pentagon were engaged in deliberate deception about their response to the attack.

Farmer served as Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (officially known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States), and is also a former New Jersey Attorney General. Farmer’s book about his experiences working for the Commission is entitled The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America’s Defense on 9/11, and is set to be released tomorrow.

The book unveils how “the public had been seriously misled about what occurred during the morning of the attacks,” and Farmer himself states that “at some level of the government, at some point in time…there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened.” The publisher of the book, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, states that, “Farmer builds the inescapably convincing case that the official version not only is almost entirely untrue but serves to create a false impression of order and security.” The report revealed how the 10-member commission deeply suspected deception to the point where they considered referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation.

“We to this day don’t know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us,” said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. “It was just so far from the truth. . . . It’s one of those loose ends that never got tied.”

Farmer himself is quoted in the Post article, stating, “I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described …. The [Norad air defense] tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years…. This is not spin. This is not true.”

From Luogocomune

Welcome to all foreign readers. Luogocomune is a news commentary site (all in Italian, thus far) featuring a large, separate section on 9/11. In a way, the whole website revolves around the idea that unless that paramount, unacceptable lie called “the 9/11 terrorist attacks” is removed and put into right perspective, the downward spiral towards this new “dark age” of humanity will never stop.

To us “9/11 victims” are not only the 3,000 people that perished on that day, but also some 650,000 civilians killed in Iraq since the invasion began, 100,000 plus Afghans who’ve met the same fate in their country, more than 3,000 US soldiers sent by “Dick & Rummy” to die under false pretense, and –sadly but truly — the ever increasing number of first responders who were knowingly sent to their death by an administration that could be defined “criminal” for this one action alone.

It’s for them all that we fight.

Yes, we all saw that last clip more than once, but each time we must have stopped at the powerful evidence the blast itself  represents, while disregarding the ensuing exchange, which in our opinion represents the final nail in the coffin of the official version on WTC7. Without even the need to discuss Larry’s intentionally ambiguous “pull it” statement.

Our presentation was broadcast as a rebuttal to a bunch of accusations leveled on the same channel …

… by a group of Italian debunkers against the movie “Inganno Globale” (produced by this writer/website), which is possibly the “flagship” for 9/11 Italian truth seekers, being somehow the equivalent to any other major 9/11 movie in English available on the web.

Debating Torture: There Is NO Debate

Keith Olbermann is assuredly becoming a Democratic mouthpiece with every new show. But let us give credit where credit is due:

There simply is NO debate that waterboarding is torture. Anyone who thinks it is or feels like they have a debatable argument for its usage is ignorant to history and the rule of law.

Maybe this little video may show you how WRONG you are (Am I the only one who thinks Peggy Noonan is a smarmy asshole without clue?)

h/t AfterDowningStreet

more about “Debating Torture: There Is NO Debate“, posted with vodpod

The withdrawl of adjectives only—

Well folks– it’s all about the ‘verbage’ isn’t it. Now we are up to 2011– and wanting immunity for our troops from Iraqi law. So– let’s read again and absorb what the deal is–

“… U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have now also agreed to a conditions-based withdrawal of U.S. combat troops by the end of 2011, a date further in the future than the Iraqis initially wanted. The deal would leave tens of thousands of troops in supporting roles, such as military trainers, for an unspecified time. According to the U.S. military, there are 144,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, most of whom are playing a combat role. …”

so when these guys say ‘immediate withdrawl..” be sure to read literally!

“..The Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), has said he will continue current policy. His Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), has said he will begin an immediate withdrawal of U.S. combat forces, to be completed within 16 months. …”

U.S., Iraqi Negotiators Agree on 2011 Withdrawal Rice’s Baghdad Visit Ends With Accord on Departure Date; Legal Immunity Is Still a Sticking Point

 

and– needing immunity for the remaining ‘tens of thousands’ because they will be doing what??? that they would need this for???

Karen DeYoung and Sudarsan Raghavan

Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 22, 2008; Page A01

 

BAGHDAD, Aug. 21 — U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have agreed to the withdrawal of all U.S. combat forces from the country by the end of 2011, and Iraqi officials said they are “very close” to resolving the remaining issues blocking a final accord that governs the future American military presence here. Iraqi and U.S. officials said several difficult issues remain, including whether U.S. troops will be subject to Iraqi law if accused of committing crimes. But the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were unauthorized to discuss the agreement publicly, said key elements of a timetable for troop withdrawal once resisted by President Bush had been reached. “We have a text,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said after a day-long visit Thursday by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Rice and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spent nearly three hours here discussing key undecided issues. The accord must be completed and approved by both governments before a United Nations mandate expires at the end of the year. The question of immunity for U.S. troops and Defense Department personnel from Iraqi legal jurisdiction — demanded by Washington and rejected by Baghdad — remained unresolved. Troop immunity, one U.S. official said, “is the red line for us.” Officials said they were still discussing language that would make the distinction between on- and off-duty activities, with provisions allowing for some measure of Iraqi legal jurisdiction over soldiers accused of committing crimes while off-duty. But negotiators made progress on a specific timetable outlining the departure of U.S. forces from Iraq, something Maliki is under considerable domestic political pressure to secure. In the past, Rice and other U.S. officials have spoken of an “aspirational time horizon” that would make withdrawals contingent on the continuation of improved security conditions and the capabilities of Iraqi security forces.

Officials on both sides have said they hope to split the difference, setting next year as the goal for Iraqi forces to take the lead in security operations in all 18 provinces, including Baghdad.  U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have now also agreed to a conditions-based withdrawal of U.S. combat troops by the end of 2011, a date further in the future than the Iraqis initially wanted. The deal would leave tens of thousands of troops in supporting roles, such as military trainers, for an unspecified time. According to the U.S. military, there are 144,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, most of whom are playing a combat role.

Negotiators agreed several weeks ago to reduce the presence of all U.S. forces in Iraqi cities, among the most dangerous places soldiers operate, by the end of next year. That process would entail consolidating U.S. troops now deployed in small neighborhood posts into larger bases outside city centers, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials involved in the talks. “They have both agreed to 2011,” Mohammed al-Haj Hamoud, Iraq’s chief negotiator, said in a telephone interview. “If the Iraqi government at that time decides it is necessary to keep the American forces longer, they can do so.”

The fragile nature of security gains over the past year was evident in the secrecy surrounding Rice’s one-day visit here, which was not announced until her arrival from Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. U.S. negotiators hoped that her participation in direct talks with Maliki and visits with the Shiite and Sunni vice presidents would help conclude the immunity and timeline discussions. “What my presence can do is to identify any final obstacles,” Rice said Thursday as she began the Baghdad leg of a trip that has included a NATO meeting in Brussels on the crisis in Georgia and a stop in Warsaw to sign an agreement to station parts of a missile-defense system in Poland.

“It’s a chance for me to sit with the prime minister and really get a sense of if there is anything else we need to do from Washington to get to closure” on the Iraq security accord. At a joint news conference before her departure, Rice and Zebari said that significant progress had been made. “We are working together as partners to make sure we cover the concerns of both,” she said. The United States, Zebari said, had shown “a great deal of understanding” and flexibility in response to Iraqi concerns. The issues were “sensitive,” he said, and “that’s why it takes a long time.”

“We think this is a very good agreement,” Rice said, adding that “the United States has gone very far” in accommodating Iraqi issues. She then noted that some obstacles remain, saying it would be an “excellent agreement when we finally have agreement.” Shortly after negotiations began in March, Iraq rejected an initial U.S. draft, which Maliki later publicly branded a “dead end.” The draft called for immunity for both troops and U.S. civilian contractors, as well as unilateral U.S. control over its military operations and detention of Iraqi citizens. It did not include a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal. With talks at a stalemate and time growing short, the two sides scaled back hopes of reaching a full status-of-forces agreement of the type that outlines the rights and responsibilities of U.S. forces in more than 80 countries around the world. In early June, after President Bush instructed U.S. negotiators to be more flexible on Iraq’s key concerns, compromises were reached on military operations and detainees, and the United States abandoned its immunity demand for contractors.

Last month, Maliki said that the end of 2010 would be a reasonable goal for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops. Facing challenges from within his own majority Shiite group, as well as from minority Sunnis and Kurds, Maliki pledged that there would be no “secret deals” with the United States. He said the agreement would be put to a vote in Iraq’s fractious parliament.  “Time is of the essence,” Zebari said at the news conference. “We are redoubling our efforts” to conclude the deal in time for it to be signed by Maliki and Bush before the U.N. mandate expires on Dec. 31, he said.

Without a formal, bilateral agreement, there is no international legal basis for U.S. forces to remain here.  The first Iraqi political test will come Friday, Zebari said in a conversation with reporters after the news conference, when Maliki’s executive council will examine the parts of the text that negotiators have agreed to, as well as proposals to deal with immunity and other issues. “Tomorrow is a very important day,” Zebari said.  The next step is consideration by a larger council of representatives from the leading political blocs. Then the document will be submitted to parliament, which is in summer recess until Sept. 9.

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when all business slows amid fasting, also falls in September. U.S. negotiators have told Iraqi officials that a change in U.S. policy in Iraq could come when a new president takes office in January. The Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), has said he will continue current policy. His Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), has said he will begin an immediate withdrawal of U.S. combat forces, to be completed within 16 months.

…she bumped her head… remember…

http://www.paktribune.com/news/print.php?id=204310

Masharraf linked Benazir’s security to her ties with him

NEW YORK: The US intelligence agencies taped Benazir Bhutto`s phone calls, prior to her arrival in Pakistan, in a bid to “play under-the-table, cut-throat games more effectively”, a new book has revealed.

“The Way of the World” authored by a Pulitzer Prize winning US journalist Ron Suskind, is full of disclosures, with its fair portion about Musharraf-Benazir conversation including Musharraf`s quote “You should understand something, your security is based on the state of our relationship”.

Suskind writes that Benazir Bhutto`s case of returning to Pakistan was strongly backed by Condoleezza Rice-led State Department and equally opposed by Vice President Dick Cheney who considered Bhutto “complicated and unpredictable”.

The book said whenever Benazir Bhutto went harsh on Musharraf, the US ambassador in Islamabad advised her to “tone down any criticism of Musharraf”. The author said Bhutto often regretted that Vice President Cheney never called Musharraf asking him to “behave” and instead kept her pressing for coming to terms with him.

As Musharraf, during telephonic conversations, refused entertaining her demand of revoking provision barring her becoming PM for third time, Bhutto said: “What you can give me (then)? May be some real reform in election commission”.

Musharraf said: “She should not be hoping for much there (reforms), either”. The book revealed US intelligence once intercepted Bhutto`s conversation with her son, Bilawal. “They`ve been listening to her calls for months, including an earlier call she made to her son.”

In that call, the book said, she told him (Bilawal) about the secret bank accounts that hold the family`s fortunes that investigators have long suspected are ill-gotten. Therefore when Bhutto once floated the idea of freezing foreign accounts of “key people around Musharraf”, a US official let her understand that the United States could, if need be, “constrain her assets” just as she was now suggesting they do to Musharraf.

According to the author, Bhutto`s representative started approaching the State Department, in spring 2006 to work out a plan for her return, but White House began taking her seriously after the widespread demonstrations in backdrop sacking of Chief Justice. And this plan was aimed to shore up an embattled Musharraf, a single-issue ally.

Bhutto would consider, the book said, the lawyers and especially Iftikhar Chaudhry were a “problem” and that they owned the “high ground of principle. While she was sprouting democratic rhetoric, the book said, she was caught in the deal room — a position in which she came close to mirroring the “say one thing but do another” behavior of the United States.

The book also discloses details of Bhutto`s meeting with US Senator John Kerry requesting for her security and his reply that “United States is generally hesitant to ensure the protection of anyone who is not a designated leader”.

The notable excerpts from the book related to Pakistan have been given below:

Telephone tapes:

Author said the US National Security Agencies (NSAs) were doing this job. Regarding Bhutto`s conversation with Bilawal, he writes: “The NSA was listening. They`ve been listening to her calls for months, including an earlier call she made to her son, Bilawal. The subject of the secret is often aware that evidence has been collected that may be used to drive judgments and may be even destructive actions…The NSA, meanwhile, has harvested a number of portentous conversation of Benazir Bhutto. This should help the United States play its under the table, cut-throat games more effectively. The intercept will be cited inside the US government as evidence of Bhutto`s unfitness, her corruption. It will be used as part of a wider “carrot and stick” programme in which the United States let Bhutto know they were happy to work with her in setting up a marriage with Musharraf, but they could make her life difficult if she started to improvise and freelance. What they`ll overlook is the context and her tone in the many calls they eavesdrop or overlook the fact that she`s scared and preparing for the possibility of imminent death… Bhutto didn`t know about the NSA’s intercepts, but a US official let her understand that the United States could, if need be, “constrain her assets,” just as she was now suggesting they do to Musharraf.”

Telephonic conversation with Musharraf:

Referring to conversation that took place three weeks before her return when she was meeting US lawmakers at Capitol Hill, including John Kerry, and State Department officials, he writes: “Suddenly the couple (Bhutto-Zardari) turns. One of Bhutto`s aides is rushing towards them, saying he`s just gotten a call from one of Musharraf`s aides. The aide says that Musharraf can`t support Bhutto on a key demand — the repeal of the provision prohibiting a third term for the prime ministers — and he wants to talk to her… Bhutto takes the call from Islamabad. “The twice-elected provision is important to me,” she tells Musharraf. “If you`re retreating from that, what can you give me? May be some real reform in the election commission?” He says she shouldn`t be hoping for much there, either. In their many calls, he`s been surprisingly cordial, often quite reasonable. But something has changed. His voice is harsh, almost mocking her. She asks if the US officials have had conversation with him that makes it clear that her safety is his responsibility. “Yes, someone has called”, Musharraf says, and then laughs. “The Americans can call all they want with their suggestions about you and me, let them call,” he tells her… He finishes the call with a dose of fair warning. “You should understand something,” Pervez Musharraf says, finally to Benazir Bhutto. “Your security is based on the state of our relationship.” She hangs up the phone feeling as though she might be sick.

Regarding Musharraf`s call to Bhutto after assassination attempt on her arrival in Karachi, the author writes: “By the next day, Musharraf calls Bhutto at her estate near Karachi. She accepts his sympathies reluctantly. “I`m not the enemy, Bibi.” She says little. She knows the lines are tapped. It`s a new hand and she is not showing her card.”
Conversation with Senator John Kerry:

As Bhutto met John Kerry in Washington, three weeks before going back to Pakistan, author writes: “The priority of this trip is to get Bhutto the security support she lacks. October 18 is only three weeks away. Kerry is swift off the mark: “This is a volatile situation you`re walking into, Benazir.” The United States, he says, is generally hesitant to ensure the protection of anyone who is not a designated leader, a provision to prevent US forces from becoming embroiled in the internal disputes of sovereign nations. “Senator Kerry, I want Pakistan to provide me with the security I am entitled to under the laws of my country. I`d be grateful if you would talk to the Musharraf government and tell him the US expects he will fulfill those obligations.” Kerry sighs. Of course, he, a senator, can`t conduct unilateral foreign policy. “Well, Benazir, I will certainly talk to the State Department about that point being made to Musharraf,” he says as forcefully as credulity will allow… Her current fortune, however, are in hands of a half-a-dozen people beyond her orbit: a tight circle of policy makers in senior posts at the State Department and in the Vice President`s Office. All official contacts with Pakistan on Bhutto`s behalf must be channeled through this small group, overseen, in essence, by Cheney and Rice, a duo with a long history of internecine combat. Most of it dominated by the vice president.”

Condoleezza Rice Vs. Dick Cheney:

“The initiative to reinsert Bhutto into Pakistan, was, in fact, launched and led by Rice and her State Department. Cheney`s position, expressed to the president on several occasions, was `don`t mess with this,` according to one of his senior foreign policy advisers. `Our feeling,` said Cheney`s adviser, summing up the view of the vice president, “was that arranging this marriage can only backfire on us. Bhutto is complicated and unpredictable. It`s best to just support Musharraf, give him whatever he wants or needs to stay in power.` `Our position,` the advisor added, `is that this whole thing with Bhutto is being run out of state. Let them fly or fall on their own.”

Rice-Bhutto telephone talk:

Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, who`s been handling the Bhutto-Musharraf talks, falls ill and needs to be hospitalized. Condi Rice tries to step in. She calls a London hotel where Bhutto is meeting Pakistani supporters. Bhutto does not take the call. “Someone said that Condi Rice was on the phone,” she (Bhutto) said later, I thought they were joking”… She and Bhutto talk several times through a long night and into the next morning, ironing out some sticking points with Musharraf. Bhutto tells her she`s concerned about her security… She`s suspicious that the United States sees her value mostly as a means to shore up Musharraf — rather than as a champion of democratic ideals — and to describe her exchange with the general would show just untenable a couple they would make.

Musharraf`s visa denial to security firm:

Two days before she boards the plane, Bhutto is concerned. Her team has been frantically trying to beef up her security… Mark Siegel and Larry Wallace, Bhutto`s American advisers, have been working the problem with Blackwater. In September, representatives from the firm flew to meet with Bhutto at her home in Dubai and laid out several security plans, each costing about $400,000 per month. They intended to work in conjunction with affiliated firms inside of Pakistan, because Musharraf had blocked visas from being issued to imported Americans security personnel for Bhutto… She turns the firm down. She knows that the United States has accepted Musharraf`s assurance that he had her security under control, but she does not trust him and sends an “in the event of my death” note, identifying various hard-line Islamist officials in his orbit who should be held responsible in the event that she is killed.

• Refused to remove ban on third time prime minister

• Benazir asked for EC reforms but Musharraf said do not hope for much there either

• US talked with Benazir seriously only after protests against sacking of deposed CJ to bail out the president

• US ambassador advised her to tone down criticism of Musharraf

• Dick Cheney declared Benazir a complicated and unpredictable personality and advocated continued support to Musharraf

• US threatened Benazir with constraining her assets when she talked about freezing foreign assets of Musharraf aides

• Benazir did not trust Musharraf and identified her killers in a note

The End.

Lest we forget– Darfur revisited

The How and Why of Darfur

By Eric Reeves / 2005 Sudan

 

 

http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php

[informative CURRENT link]

In one of the most remote places in Africa, an insurgency began unnoticed under the shadow of the war in Iraq in 2003, killing 350,000 to 400,000 people in 29 months by means of violence, malnutrition, and disease in the first genocidal rampage of the 21st century.

The insurgency began virtually unnoticed in February 2003; it has, over the past two years, precipitated the first great episode of genocidal destruction in the 21st century. The victims are the non-Arab or African tribal groups of Darfur, primarily the Fur, the Massaleit, and the Zaghawa, but also the Tunjur, the Birgid, the Dajo, and others. These people have long been politically and economically marginalized, and in recent years the National Islamic Front regime, based in Sudan’s capital of Khartoum, has refused to control increasingly violent Arab militia raids of African villages in Darfur. Competition between Arab and African tribal groups over the scarce primary resources in Darfur-arable land and water-has been exacerbated by advancing desertification throughout the Sahel region.

But it was Khartoum’s failure to respond to the desperate economic needs of this huge region (it is the size of France), the decayed judiciary, the lack of political representation, and in particular the growing impunity on the part of Arab raiders that gave rise to the full-scale armed conflict.

Not directly related to the 21-year civil conflict that recently formally ended in southern Sudan-a historic agreement was signed in Nairobi on January 9, 2005-Darfur’s insurgency found early success against Khartoum’s regular military forces. But this success had a terrible consequence: The regime in Khartoum switched from a military strategy of direct confrontation to a policy of systematically destroying the African tribal groups perceived as the civilian base of support for the insurgents. The primary instrument in this new policy has been the Janjaweed, a loosely organized Arab militia force of perhaps 20,000 men, primarily on horse and camel.

This force is dramatically different in character, military strength, and purpose from previous militia raiders. Khartoum ensured that the Janjaweed were extremely heavily armed, well-supplied, and actively coordinating with the regime’s regular ground and air forces. Indeed, Human Rights Watch obtained in July 2004 confidential Sudanese government documents that directly implicate high-ranking government officials in a policy of support for the Janjaweed. “It’s absurd to distinguish between the Sudanese government forces and the militias-they are one,” says Peter Takirambudde, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Africa Division. “These documents show that militia activity has not just been condoned, it’s been specifically supported by Sudan government officials.”

Evidence of genocide

The nature of the attacks on African villages in Darfur-as reported by numerous human rights groups-makes clear the Khartoum regime’s genocidal intent. Janjaweed assaults, typically conducted in concert with Khartoum’s regular military forces (including helicopter gunships and Antonov bombers), have been comprehensively destructive of both human life and livelihood: men and boys killed en masse, women and girls raped or abducted, and all means of agricultural production destroyed. Thriving villages have had buildings burned, water sources poisoned, irrigation systems torn up, food and seed stocks destroyed, and fruit trees cut down. Cattle have been looted on a massive scale, and most of those not looted have died from lack of water and food, as people flee into the inhospitable wastes of this arid region.

According to Article 2 of the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide-to which the US and all current members of the UN Security Council are party-genocide encompasses not only the deliberate killing of members of a “national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,” but also “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” The latter is what we have seen in Darfur.

As a result, agricultural production has largely come to a halt in Darfur, and the United Nations estimates that in the very near future 3.5 million people will be in urgent need of food assistance (the total population of Darfur is approximately 6.5 million). Moreover, there is no sign that the current planting season will yield a significant fall harvest. Huge civilian populations-well over two million people-will be dependent on food aid for the foreseeable future. Many of these people will die in what has become genocide by attrition.

The humanitarian crisis The current rainy season in Darfur is already creating immense logistical problems for humanitarian aid groups, as it did last summer. Darfur is one of the most remote places in Africa, and quite distant from navigable bodies of water. Both food and critical nonfood items (medical supplies, shelter, equipment for clean water) must be transported over land by truck or (much more expensively) flown into the regional capitals of the three Darfur states.

Though humanitarian organizations are performing heroically under extremely difficult conditions, it’s clear that there is a deadly mismatch between humanitarian capacity and human need. As the rains sever various transport corridors and insecurity closes others, many villages and communities are becoming inaccessible. This occurs against the backdrop of a traditional “hunger gap”-the period between spring planting and fall harvest.

Moreover, the overcrowded camps for displaced persons-now the only place of refuge for more than two million people-face serious shortages of sanitary facilities. The threat of waterborne disease is becoming acute, as many of the camps are little more than open sewers. Outbreaks of cholera or dysentery could quickly claim tens of thousands of lives in addition to those already claimed by violence, disease, and malnutrition. Extant data suggest that between 350,000 and 400,000 have perished during the past 29 months.

A recent UN mortality assessment indicates that more than 6,000 continue to die every month, and Jan Egeland, UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, has warned that the toll may climb to 100,000 per month if insecurity forces humanitarian organizations to withdraw from Darfur. Banditry, hijacking of humanitarian convoys, and attacks on humanitarian workers have grown relentlessly in recent months, even as there has been a decline in major conflict between Khartoum’s regular forces and the insurgency groups.

Peace negotiations in Abuja, Nigeria, have done nothing to rein in the Janjaweed militia, and a small African Union monitoring force on the ground has had only marginal effect in addressing civilian and humanitarian security needs. The death total in Darfur’s genocide may reach that of Rwanda’s by year’s end.

Racism and Islamism in Khartoum

The National Islamic Front (which has attempted to rename itself innocuously as the “National Congress Party”) is essentially unchanged since it seized power from a democratically elected government in a 1989 military coup, deliberately aborting Sudan’s most promising peace process since independence in 1956. With the exception of Islamism ideologue Hassan El-Turabi-the mastermind of the 1989 coup who split with his former allies and is no longer part of the government-the same brutal men still control the NIF 16 years after it seized power. Field Marshal Omer El-Beshir retains the presidency, and Ali Osman Taha-arguably the most powerful man in Sudan-serves as vice president and controls the terrifyingly efficient security services. Nafie Ali Nafie, Gutbi Al-Mahdi, and other longtime members of the NIF serve in various advisory capacities. And Major General Saleh Abdallah Gosh, recently flown to Washington by the CIA, retains control of the Mukhabarat (Sudan’s intelligence and security service) even as he is among those members of the NIF indicted at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity in Darfur.

These are the men who settled on a genocidal response to the insurgency movements that emerged in Darfur in early 2003. But the NIF’S history of genocide goes back much further than the current catastrophe in Darfur. Animated by a radical Islamism and sense of Arab racial superiority, the movement engaged in genocide almost from the time it seized power. A year ago, seasoned Sudan watcher Alex de Waal of the British group Justice Africa wrote for the London Review of Books what remains one of the best overviews of the Darfur crisis. In the piece, he observed that genocide in Darfur is not the genocidal campaign of a government at the height of its ideological hubris, as the 1992 jihad in the Nuba Mountains was, or coldly determined to secure natural resources, as when it sought to clear the oilfields of southern Sudan of their troublesome inhabitants. This is the routine cruelty of a security cabal, its humanity withered by years in power; it is genocide by force of habit. As part of a ghastly jihad, the NIF conducted relentless military assaults on civilians and enforced a humanitarian aid embargo that lasted more than a decade.

The same men ordered the scorched-earth clearances of the oil regions in southern Sudan to provide security for the operations of international oil companies. The actions of oil companies from Canada, Sweden, Austria, China, Malaysia, and India-directly supporting the NIF regime-constitute one of the most shameful episodes in the long and terrible history of resource extraction in Africa.

The result of these policies was that between 1989 and 2002 many hundreds of thousands of Sudanese were either killed or displaced. In the Nuba Mountains and the oil regions of southern Sudan, as in Darfur, the NIF regime settled upon a deliberate policy of human destruction, targeting ethnically African populations that had rebelled against, or were victims of, decades of political and economic marginalization.

The July 9 inauguration of a new Sudanese “government of national unity” (GNU) has appropriately received a good deal of news coverage. (The GNU represents the culmination of an arduous peace process going back almost a decade and the formal end to war in southern Sudan. Perhaps the most destructive civil conflict since World War II and one of the longest wars in Africa’s history, it saw the Christian and animist South pitted against the Muslim, Arab-speaking North. As many as 2.5 million people have died since the second phase of the civil war began in 1983-and likely more than four million if we consider its earlier phase (1955-72). More than five million people were displaced by the war-Sudan has the world’s largest population of internally displaced persons-and southern Sudan was utterly devastated.)

John Garang, the 60-year-old guerilla leader of the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army, was killed in a helicopter crash on July 30, just three weeks after being inaugurated as “First Vice President” in the GNU. One of the few elder southern statesman who believed in a united Sudan, Garang was pivotal in securing the peace agreement that ended the civil war and was a symbol of hope for many in the south. It was assumed in many quarters that Garang-as someone long sympathetic to the cause of Sudan’s marginalized peoples-would use his new position to help end genocide in Darfur. His death has raised fears about the newly established peace, with some southerners claiming the Sudanese government, dominated by their northern opponents, might have played a role in it. A seven-member team is investigating the crash and is scheduled to present its findings by early September.

Who is dying

Darfur’s prewar population of approximately 6.5 million was perhaps 60 to 65 percent non-Arab-some four million “Africans.” In fact, all Darfuris are African, and skin color is a wholly inadequate measure of ethnicity. But ethnic differences do exist-the use of Arabic as a first language, agricultural practices, and a variety of more subtle cultural differences-and identification by ethnicity comes easily to Darfuris, even in matters such as gait and attire. But of this population of roughly four million “Africans,” UN figures for displacement, or even for those defined as “conflict-affected,” cannot account for more than one million people. Some are in urban areas, but hundreds of thousands have died (more on exactly how many below), and hundreds of thousands more are at risk in inaccessible rural areas of Darfur.

Sometime in summer 2004-we’ll probably never know just when-human mortality in the Darfur genocide became more a function of malnutrition and disease than violent destruction. What we must not lose sight of is that deaths from malnutrition and disease are no less the product of genocidal ambitions than violent killings: Having so comprehensively and deliberately destroyed the villages and livelihoods of the African tribal populations of Darfur, Khartoum and its Janjaweed allies bear full responsibility for the ongoing deadly consequences of these assaults on civilian targets.

The consensus among Darfuris in exile, at least those who have access to sources on the ground in Darfur, is that approximately 90 percent of all African villages have now been destroyed. But as villagers have fled to camps for displaced persons and into eastern Chad, they have created extremely vulnerable populations in highly concentrated locations. The United Nations reports approximately two million people in camps for displaced persons to which it has access in Darfur and another 200,000 refugees inside Chad along the Darfur border. Many hundreds of thousands of people remain unaccounted for-dead, hiding, staying with host families in other locations, or simply unregistered by the United Nations.

Those inside the camps must contend not only with relentless insecurity but with overcrowding, inadequate sanitary facilities, shortcomings in shelter, and severe water shortages-in some locations people have been forced to survive on what humanitarian groups consider less than half the daily human requirement of water. Though the rainy season may alleviate this problem, the torrential rains also create severe risks for outbreaks of waterborne diseases such as cholera and dysentery. There were no major outbreaks of either disease in summer 2004; displaced Darfuris are very unlikely to again escape diseases that can claim tens of thousands of lives in a matter of weeks.

Food shortages, however, remain the greatest threat to human life in Darfur. Darfuris normally rely on foraging in times of desperation, but the insecurity that continues to be created by the Janjaweed makes this impossible. Many of the hundreds of thousands in inaccessible rural areas are slowly starving.

Children, as always, are most vulnerable.

Insecurity prevented a significant planting this spring and early summer (normally the major planting season in the agricultural calendar), so there will be no fall harvest-this after last fall’s severely attenuated harvest. Significant domestic food production in Darfur will not be in evidence until fall 2006-at the earliest. People already weakened by malnutrition have become increasingly vulnerable to disease and will only become weaker and more vulnerable in the months ahead. Genocidal mortality will continue for years.

Last December, Jan Egeland, the UN’s Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, estimated that if insecurity forces the withdrawal of humanitarian operations, as many as 100,000 may die every month. And as Kofi Annan recently noted in his report to the Security Council, threats against humanitarian workers are on the rise.

There is compelling data concerning violent mortality. Even with significant biases toward undercounting, the data assembled by the Coalition for International Justice (CIJ), the organization appointed by the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (US AID) to research human destruction, strongly suggests that more than 200,000 people have died violently in Darfur. Though not technically an epidemiological study, the CIJ report cannot be ignored, since there is no alternative source of data. The key finding was that 61 percent of those interviewed had witnessed the killing of a family member during an assault by Janjaweed or regular military forces.

This data, along with previous mortality data from the World Health Organization and other humanitarian organizations, and several key epidemiological studies, suggest that between 350,000 and 400,000 people have died from all causes-violence, malnutrition, and disease-in Darfur’s genocide. The impending spike upward in monthly mortality rates, and the great likelihood that genocide by attrition will continue for months and years, suggest, that total mortality may eventually exceed that of Rwanda in 1994. Unfortunately, news media have almost all failed to take account of the mortality data available, particularly data suggesting a total for violent mortality.

The future of Darfur

There is no sign that normal agricultural production will resume any time in the near future. There is no sign that the insecurity confining people to camps for the displaced or villages under siege will be alleviated, even with the currently planned deployment of additional African Union personnel. There is no sign that the international community intends to fund humanitarian efforts in Darfur at an appropriate level. There is no sign that Khartoum’s National Islamic Front, and the new government it dominates, has changed its genocidal ambitions, now best served by preserving the deadly status quo. There is no sign that peace negotiations in Abuja, Nigeria will yield more than the vaguely worded “declaration of principles” signed last month. And there is no sign of the international humanitarian intervention that might stop the genocide.

There are only signs that the dying will continue indefinitely.

The US response to Darfur must be understood in the context of Bush-administration efforts to end Sudan’s north-south war-as well as the administration’s attempt to secure intelligence from Khartoum on international terrorism. (The National Islamic Front hosted Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda from 1991 to 1996, and retained strong connections even when bin Laden moved to Afghanistan.) These have been policy priorities despite the administration’s explicit conclusion, first announced by former Secretary of State Colin Powell last September, that genocide was taking place in Darfur and that the Khartoum government was playing a role.

The Bush administration invested heavily in negotiating an end to the north-south war, and the signing earlier this year of a formal peace agreement-however limited and flawed-must be recognized as a major foreign policy achievement. But precisely because of the administration’s investment in a north-south agreement, including the appointment of former Senator John Danforth as special envoy to Sudan, there was widespread reluctance within the State Department to hold Khartoum accountable for the genocide that was clearly unfolding in early 2004, when north-south peace negotiations had entered their final phase.

The thinking by US officials involved in the negotiations, and their British and Norwegian counterparts, was that pressing the National Islamic Front regime too hard on Darfur would undermine the chances of consummating the north-south agreement. But this diplomatic strategy was of course transparent to Khartoum and thus perversely provided an incentive for the regime to extend negotiations as long as possible-always promising a light at the end of the diplomatic tunnel.

The last issue of substance between Khartoum and the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement was resolved in a protocol signed by all parties in late May 2004. Two weeks later, following months of terrifying reports from human rights groups, the State Department announced that it would begin an investigation to determine whether Khartoum was guilty of genocide in Darfur. The close sequence of dates was not a coincidence.

But a tremendous amount of the violent destruction in Darfur had already been accomplished by June 2004; indeed, this marks the approximate point in the conflict at which deaths from malnutrition and disease began to exceed those from violence. Moreover, Khartoum continued to use the north-south peace agreement as a threat, declaring with brazen confidence that if it were pushed too hard on Darfur, the negotiated agreement might be endangered. The agreement’s final signing ceremony occurred in Nairobi on January 9, 2005; the inauguration of a new government took place six months later, on July 9, 2005; the killing in Darfur, of course, continues.

US belatedness in responding with appropriate determination to genocide was mirrored in the flaccid responses of European countries, individually and through the European Union. Canada, Japan, the Arab League, and the African Union were no better. America has been the most generous nation in providing humanitarian assistance to Darfur, reflecting chiefly the determination of officials at US AID. Meanwhile, the commitments of other countries to relief efforts have been less than stellar. The financial responses of Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and the oil-rich Arab countries have been scandalously laggard.

The African Union in Darfur

The AU began to deploy a small number of monitors to Darfur following a ceasefire signed in April 2004 in N’Djamena, Chad. A commitment in late summer 2004 to increase the monitoring force to approximately 3,500 went unfulfilled for over half a year, and during this time the AU was unable to secure from Khartoum a mandate for civilian protection-only a mandate to monitor the largely nonexistent ceasefire. Recently, the AU has said it will increase its force to 7,700 by September, and possibly 12,000 by spring 2006.

As many have recognized, the AU is quite unable to deploy to this force-level with its own resources and NATO, as a consequence, has very recently agreed to provide logistics and transport capacity. The bigger problem, however, is that even with NATO’s help, the nascent AU Peace and Security Commission is simply not up to this mission if the goal for Darfur is adequate protection for civilians and humanitarian operations. The AU does not have the troops, equipment, or essential interoperability of forces that are necessary given the scale of the crisis. Those paying the price for disingenuous suggestions to the contrary are vulnerable civilian populations and humanitarian aid workers.

Recently, Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio of Senegal refused to accept any longer what has become the mantra of “African solutions for African problems.” Gadio declared, on the occasion of a visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, that his government was “totally dissatisfied” with the hollowness of AU claims to be able to stop genocide in Darfur. Calling the situation “totally unacceptable,” he continued: “We don’t like the fact that the African Union has asked the international community to allow us to bring an African solution to an African problem and unfortunately the logistics from our own governments do not follow.”

This honesty is remarkable, the more so since Nigeria-current chair of the African Union-has declared at various points that the situation is fully in hand and actually improving. Comments to this effect have come from both President Obasanjo and General Festus Okonkwo, the Nigerian commander of AU forces in Darfur. Nigeria has strong-armed into silence many African nations. The country, which wants to maintain good relations with the Muslim world even as it confronts militant Islam in northern Nigerian states, has yielded to pressure from the Arab League-especially Libya and Egypt-to define the Darfur genocide as an African problem rather than an international one.

Genocidal destruction in Darfur will continue for the foreseeable future. The resources to halt massive, ethnically targeted destruction-of lives and livelihoods-are nowhere in sight. The consequences of this destruction, now extending over almost two and a half years, will be evident for years-in villages that have been burned to the ground, in poisoned water sources, in the cruel impoverishment of people who have lost everything, in deaths that will continue to mount relentlessly.

There is currently no evidence that the international community is prepared to deploy adequate protection for either Darfur’s vulnerable civilian populations or endangered humanitarian operations. August, traditionally the month of heaviest rains, saw a further attenuation of relief efforts, as transport of food and other critical supplies became mired in flooded riverbeds and blocked by severed road arteries. At the same time, waterborne diseases, along with malaria and a wide range of communicable diseases, will take huge numbers of lives. These diseases will be particularly potent killers because so much of the civilian population of Darfur has been seriously weakened by malnutrition. Famine conditions have already been identified in parts of Darfur, and the UN’s World Food Program estimates that 3.5 million people will need food assistance in the near future.

Our moral choice .

It is important that the stark moral choice confronting the international community be absolutely clear. History must not record this moment as one in which our decision was uninformed by either the scale of the human catastrophe or an understanding of what is required to stop genocidal destruction. And so, despite the long odds against an intervention actually taking place, it is our obligation to say with conviction and understanding the most urgent truth: In the absence of humanitarian intervention, Darfur’s civilian population, as well as humanitarian workers, will be consigned to pervasive, deadly insecurity; displaced persons will remain trapped in camps that are hotbeds of disease; agricultural production will remain at a standstill, leaving millions of people dependent on international food assistance for the foreseeable future; aid workers will continue to fall prey to targeted and opportunistic violence .In other words, the genocide in Darfur will continue. We can stop it. We are simply choosing not to.

Everybody trying to kill everybody!Just another day on earth.

I am confident that at any given time, in any given country– someone is attempting to assassinate someone. This whole thing brings to mine the Spy vs. Spy in the old Mad Magazines.

 

http://www.680news.com/news/local/article.jsp?content=20080718_064837_3876

Police thwart plot to assassinate

President Bush in Israel

 

Friday, July 18, 2008 – 06:48 AM
By: 680News staff

Jerusalem – Security officials have foiled an alleged plot to assassinate U.S. president George W. Bush.

Six young men were taken into custody and held as suspects by police for the time being.

Four Palestinians and two Arab Israelis have allegedly contacted Al-Qaeda through the Internet to discuss the best way to kill the U.S. president during one of his two visits to Israel earlier this year.

One of the men had taken cell phone pictures of the helipad where Bush was to land, but their plot never got off the ground.

 

 Les dessous de l’information

mondiale-Downside World News

 

 

Russian Agents Foiled plot by CIA/MI6 to

Assassinate Putin..The payback is in pipes!

March 16th, 2008

Breaking: Russian Agents Foiled plot by CIA/MI6 to Assassinate Putin..The payback is in pipes!

 

 

Moscow AP
March 16, 2008

 

RUSSIA’S secret service foiled an assassination attempt on President Vladimir Putin in Red Square on March 2, the day of the presidential election, the Tvoi Den daily reported yesterday. The newspaper did not cite any sources, but gave a detailed account about the arrest of a Tajik national with a sniper rifle in a raid on a rented apartment near Red Square just hours before Mr Putin was due to give a speech there. The Federal Security Service could not immediately comment on the report. Tvoi Den, a popular daily, often prints exclusive reports on Russian politics, citing unnamed officials. An informant told FSB officials a few days before the election that Mr Putin’s assassination was being planned and that an apartment had been rented on the other side of the river from the Kremlin for the purpose, Tvoi Den said. Security officers raided the apartment at 8pm Moscow time on March 2 and detained a 24-year-old Tajik national with a “whole arsenal of firearms” including a sniper rifle and a Kalashnikov assault rifle, the paper continued. About three hours later, Mr Putin and his ally Dmitry Medvedev, who won the March 2 election by a landslide, walked out of the Kremlin onto Red Square and gave victory speeches at a concert there to thousands of screaming fans. FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev gave a briefing last week where he said that Russian security services had foiled “terrorist attacks” during the election campaign and on election day but did not provide further details. TNK-BP raid proved connection between CIA/MI6 and two brit-educated Russian traitors with American citizenship. The payback is in pipes!

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/russian-agents-foiled-plot-to-assassinate-putin-report/2008/03/15/1205472170874.html

 http://www.newsweek.com/id/57577/page/2

Olmert escapes terror attack in Jericho

Gunmen attempted to hit prime

minister’s convoy as it made its way

from Jerusalem to West Bank city for

meeting with Palestinian President

Abbas in August, Shin Bet chief tells

cabinet ministers. PA arrests three

suspects following incident, but later

releases them. Olmert: Assassination

attempt shall not be ignored. Fayyad:

We’ll draw all the possible lessons

from the incident

 

Ronny Sofer Jerusalem News 7-16-2008

A group of gunmen affiliated with Fatah attempted to hit Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s convoy as it made its way from Jerusalem to Jericho for a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on August 6, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin told the cabinet ministers Sunday morning.  Israel learned of the plan from intelligence information received several days before the visit. The attack was eventually thwarted by the Shin Bet and the Palestinian Intelligence Service headed by Tawfik Tirawi. Following the incident, the Palestinians arrested three suspects, who were later released, according to Israeli officials. Two other cell members are being held in Israel.  On Sunday, Israel filed an official complaint with the Palestinian Authority following the suspects’ release.  Israeli security sources expressed their anger over the release, which took place “after these terrorists’ involvement in the foiled attack was made clear.”  Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad confirmed Sunday afternoon that the PA arrested a number of suspects after receiving intelligence information from Israel, but that they were released due to lack of evidence. “We are studying the incident and plan to do our best to restore the order in the region,” Fayyad said at the start of a meeting with Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel. “We will draw all the possible lessons so that a similar incident does not repeat itself in the future.” The meeting between Fayyad and Itzik was originally scheduled to take place in Jericho. Itzik explained why she decided to go ahead with the meeting after consulting the Shin Bet.  There are elements who are trying to sabotage the diplomatic process. This is not something new. We believe that the Palestinian prime minister and Abu-Mazen (Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas) and the group of moderates in the PA wish to advance a process with the State of Israel. Therefore, despite the severe incident we were informed about this morning, we shall go ahead with our meeting.” The Knesset speaker added that “the prime minister himself decided to continue with the talks. We must not halt the talks due to the incident, although I view it as extremely severe, and I imagine that the State of Israel will demand an explanation.”  Olmert’s visit to Jericho on August 6 marked the first official visit in seven years by an Israeli prime minister to the Palestinian Authority. “I feel great discomfort over the Palestinian pattern of behavior in this case,” Prime Minister Olmert said Sunday before leaving on an official visit to Europe. “We shall not ignore this. The inappropriate way in which the suspects were handled is part of a pattern which must change.”  The prime minister made it clear, however, that he was determined to continue the negotiations with the Palestinians and had no intention of cancelling his participation in the Annapolis peace conference.  Shortly after the initial report on the foiled attack, Ynet learned that the plot to assassinate Olmert was originally planned for June 6, when the prime minister was first scheduled to meet with the Palestinian president in the PA territories.  The cell included five members who were involved in terror attacks and previous failed attacks in the West Bank. The information was disclosed to the PA, which arrested three of the cell members. The other two were detained by the IDF and the Shin Bet. Israeli officials claimed Sunday that the PA released the three suspects, whom Israel claims are members of the Palestinian security organizations, on September 26. The three, Ynet was told, admitted to the plot before they were released.

Livni: Assassination attempt extremely severe

 ”We view the assassination attempt as extremely severe,” Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said during Sunday’s cabinet meeting. “We have made this clear both to (US Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice and to the Palestinians.” Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter was not surprised by the incident.  “The plot to assassinate the prime minister is a classic example of the Palestinian Authority’s ‘so-called’ policy of fighting terror. The Palestinians arrested Fatah members who were questioned and admitted that they had planned to target the Israeli prime minister, but released them anyway,” he said.  Shas officials praised the Shin Bet for thwarting the attack. “We have received more proof that the Annapolis conference should be turned into an economic meeting. With such a temporary feeling of security we cannot advance on the diplomatic channel,” they said. “A thousand workplaces are worth more than a thousand guns. Workplaces will create security, compared to guns which will stress the lack of security.” Right-wing politicians said that “the moderate leader” Abbas revealed his true colors. The Yesha Council responded, “The release of Fatah terrorist who attempted to assassinate the prime minister from the Palestinian prison, shortly after their arrest, proves that Abu-Mazen (Abbas) is implementing the ‘revolving door’ policy in the PA, which leads to arrest of murderers and terrorists for several days, followed by their release and return to terrorism. “It has once again been proven that Abu-Mazen is Abu-bluff. Letting him control the Judea and Samaria hills is like handing over the territory to Hamas. This will blow up in our faces.”

Palestinian official rejects claims

“We view with severity the fact that the Palestinian Authority released the cell members it had arrested,” a source in the Prime Minister’s Office said Sunday morning. A Palestinian security source told Ynet that as far as he knew, the plot did not develop into a real assassination attempt. “These were at the most talks by an activist or a group of activists,” he said. The same source noted that the territory was under full Israeli security control, and therefore the Israelis did not need the Palestinians in order to arrest the cell members. The Israelis detain people in Jericho almost every week, the source added. The incident did not disrupt the Olmert-Abbas summit in Jericho, as well as the meeting which followed.  Although the incident was kept a secret until now, it appears to have prevented additional visits to Jericho by Israeli officials. Israel’s claims that the PA released the terrorists involved in the assassination attempt may now harm the relationship between the two sides ahead of the US-sponsored Mideast peace conference. Members of Shas and right-wing parties called on Olmert to reconsider taking part in the Annapolis conference following the incident. Ali Waked, Amnon Meranda, Attila Somfalvi, Efrat Weiss and Neta Sela contributed to this report

So Condi Lied About Something? Say It Isn’t So…

Carter says Rice ‘untruthful’ over Hamas meeting

WASHINGTON (AFP)

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of being untruthful over remarks made about his controversial meeting with the Islamist Hamas group.

Rice had chided Carter for meeting with Hamas, saying U.S. State Department officials had told him such talks would not help the Middle East peace process.

But a statement from the Atlanta-based Carter Center, which speaks on the ex-president’s behalf, said no one from the U.S. government told him not to meet with exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal or other leaders of the group.

“President Carter has the greatest respect for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and believes her to be a truthful person,” the statement said.

“However, perhaps inadvertently, she is continuing to make a statement that is not true,” it said.

According to the statement, “No one in the State Department or any other department of the U.S. government ever asked him to refrain from his recent visit to the Middle East or even suggested that he not meet with Syrian President Assad or leaders of Hamas.”

Rice had said Tuesday that the United States would not deal with Hamas and “we certainly told President Carter that we didn’t think meeting with Hamas was going to help the Palestinians who (are) actually devoted to peace.”

Following his talks with Meshaal on Monday, Carter said Hamas told him it would recognize Israel’s right to live in peace if a deal is reached and approved by a Palestinian vote.

But Meshaal said later that Hamas would not recognize the Jewish state and would insist on the right of some 4.5 million Palestinian refugees to return to Israel.

Before leaving on his Middle East trip, President Carter placed a telephone call to Rice to describe his itinerary and to inform her of his intended conversations, the statement from the Carter Center said. Rice was in Europe and her deputy returned his call, it added.

“They had a very pleasant discussion for about fifteen minutes, during which he never made any of the negative or cautionary comments… He never talked to anyone else,” the statement said.