Breaking With Obama?
By Ralph Nader
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24303.htm


January 01, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- Those long-hoping,
long-enduring members of the liberal intelligentsia are starting to break away
from the least-worst mindset that muted their criticisms of Barack Obama in the
2008 presidential campaign.

They still believe that the President is far better than his Republican
counterpart would have been. Some still believe that sometime, somewhere, Obama
will show his liberal stripes. But they no longer believe they should stay
loyally silent in the face of the escalating war in Afghanistan, the near
collapse of key provisions in the health insurance legislation, the likely
anemic financial regulation bill, or the obeisance to the bailed out Wall Street
gamblers. Remember this Administration more easily embraces bonuses for fat cats
than adequate investment in public jobs.
Of all the loyalists, among the first to stray was Bob Herbert, columnist for
The New York Times. He wondered about his friends telling him that Obama treats
their causes and them "as if they have nowhere to go." Then there was the
stalwart Obamaist, the brainy Gary Wills, who broke with Obama over Afghanistan
in a stern essay of admonition.

If you read the biweekly compilation of progressive and liberal columnists and
pundits in The Progressive Populist, one of my favorite publications, the velvet
verbal gloves are coming off.

Jim Hightower writes that "Obama is sinking us into `Absurdistan.'" He bewails:
"I had hoped Obama might be a more forceful leader who would reject the same old
interventionist mindset of those who profit from permanent war. But his newly
announced Afghan policy shows he is not that leader."

Wonder where good ol' Jim got that impression—certainly not from anything Obama
said or did not say in 2008. But hope dims the memory of the awful truth which
is that Obama signed on to the Wall Street and military-industrial complex from
the getgo. He got their message and is going after their campaign contributions
and advisors big time!

Norman Solomon, expressed his sharp deviation from his long-time admiration of
the politician from Chicago. He writes: "President Obama accepted the 2009 Nobel
Peace Prize while delivering—to the world as it is—a pro-war speech. The context
instantly turned the speech's insights into flackery for more war." Strong words
indeed!

Arianna Huffington has broken in installments. But her disillusionment is
expanding. She writes: "Obama isn't distancing himself from `the Left' with his
decision to escalate this deepening disaster [in Afghanistan]. He's distancing
himself from the national interests of the country."

John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine, was never an Obama fan and
has been upset with what he calls "the liberal adoration of Obama." In a piece
for the Providence Journal, he cites some writers still loyal to Obama, such as
Frank Rich of The New York Times, Hendrick Hertzberg of The New Yorker, and Tom
Hayden, who are showing mild discomfort in the midst of retained hope over
Obama's coming months. They have not yet cut their ties to the masterspeaker of
"Hope and Change."

Gary Wills has crossed his Rubicon, calling Obama's Afghanistan escalation "a
betrayal." Wills is a scholar of both the Presidency and of political oratory
(his small book on Lincoln's Gettysburg address is a classic interpretation). So
he uses words carefully, to wit: "If we had wanted Bush's wars, and contractors,
and corruption, we could have voted for John McCain. At least we would have seen
our foe facing us, not felt him at our back, as now we do."

Rest assured the liberal-progressive commentariat has another two years to
engage in challenge and chagrin. For in 2012, silence will mute their criticisms
as the stark choices of the two-party tyranny come into view and incarcerate
their minds into the least-worst voting syndrome (just as they have done in
recent Presidential election years).

It is hard to accord them any moral breaking point under such self-imposed
censorship. Not much leverage in that approach, is there?

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Ben Stein Drops the A Bomb
Wikitopian
From Occidental Dissent
December 30, 2009
http://www.toqonline.com/2009/12/ben-stein-drops-the-a-bomb/


Larry King hosted a discussion between Ben Stein and Ron Paul on Monday that was
ostensibly about the airline security fiasco. The discussion quickly turned into
a heated debate between Stein and Paul about the root cause of the terrorist
attack. Paul exhorted Stein to "think like a scientist" and try to figure out
the real motivation behind these attacks. Stein tried to parrot the party line
platitudes about them being enemies of America and bad people and stuff until he
could no longer tolerate this sacrilege taking place right out in the open on
his media. . .

Ron Paul insisted that "We're the occupiers" one last time before Ben terminated
the debate: "No, we're not occupiers. That's the same anti-Semitic argument
we've heard over and over again."

The typically unshakable Ron Paul was taken aback, blustering "That's a vicious
attack!"

Actually, no. It's a desperate defensive maneuver. It's a testament to the fact
that the neocons have exhausted America's reserves of jingoism and are running
out of believable arguments to con the American people with. If there were a
better argument, Ben Stein would have known it and used it. He's perhaps more of
a master of the zeitgeist than any other living person, simultaneously up to his
(enormous) ears in legislation, economics, news media, pop culture, and
religious influence.

Stein may have merely slipped up and admitted the obvious: that the entire thing
is about Jewish influence on our foreign policy. Rejecting Middle Eastern
imperialism is anti-Semitic. The truth is anti-Semitic. But I don't think a man
as intelligent and poised as he is would do something that consequential by
accident. I believe this is the beginning of a sea change in political strategy,
one in which a direct campaign tries to bury the Ron Paul Revolution and its Tea
Party Movement under a tidal wave of negative publicity and accusations of
neoheresy.Anti-Imperialism = Anti-Semitism

There's a worn-out Gandhi quote that Ron Paul likes to repeat, "First they
ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." I
believe the establishment has transitioned from the phase of ridiculing the
Alternative Right to fighting them. This was most likely triggered by the recent
polls which showed that the American people have become more favorable toward
the Tea Party movement than either of the major parties. The likelihood of a
Rand Paul victory in Kentucky confirms the seriousness of the threat.

Ben Stein, the mainstream establishment's very own Baghdad Bob, is pulling out
the big guns. If the Tea Party crowd thought they were going to be able to
simply nominate and elect their own candidates to topple the current regime,
they're woefully mistaken. They'll be called anti-Semitic. They'll be called
racist. They'll be called conspiracy theorists. They'll even be accused of
terrorism. They'll find themselves buried in a web of guilt by association.

We'll find out in the coming months whether Middle America has become angry
enough to stand up and remain standing for their sovereignty and their way of
life. My money is on the establishment winning the upcoming electoral round, but
at the cost of driving tens of millions of White Americans out of the mainstream
and into our sphere of influence.

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The 'Omaha Two:' Victimized by COINTELPRO Injustice
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Stephen J. Lendman
http://www.rebelnews.org/opinion/americas/152897-the-omaha-two-victimized-by-coi\
ntelpro-injustice


Injustice After a two week April 1971 trial and four days of deliberation, an 11
white/one black member jury convicted Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice) and
Edward Poindexter for the bombing murder of police officer Larry Minard on
August 17, 1970. Both men denied involvement, and ever since consistently
maintained their innocence, insisting they were framed. Supporters agree,
including Amnesty International that declared them political prisoners, and no
wonder.

They were Omaha chapter National Committee to Combat Fascism (NCCF) leaders, an
off-shoot of the Black Panther Party, targeted (as later revealed) by secret
FBI/police Domino task force/COINTELPRO tactics, following J. Edgar Hoover's
orders to infiltrate, disrupt, sabotage, and destroy their activism for ethnic
justice, racial emancipation, and real economic, social, and political equality
across gender and color lines.

COINTELPRO is the acronym for the FBI's secretive/mostly illegal
counterintelligence program to neutralize political dissidents, including
communists; anti-war, human and civil rights activists; the American Indian
Movement; and Black Panther Party among others.

In their book "Agents of Repression," Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall wrote:

"the term came to signify the whole context of clandestine (typically illegal)
political repression activities (including) a massive surveillance (program via)
wiretaps, surreptitious entries and burglaries, electronic devices, live 'tails'
and....bogus mail" to induce paranoia and "foster 'splits' within or between
organizations."

Other tactics included:

-- "black propaganda" through leaflets or other publications "designed to
discredit organizations and foster internal tensions;"

-- "disinformation or 'gray propaganda' " for the same purpose;

-- "bad-jacketing" to "creat(e) suspicion - through the spread of rumors,
manufacture of evidence, etc. - that bona fide organizational members, (usually
leaders were) FBI/police informants," to turn some against others violently;

-- "assassinations (of) selected political leaders," including Fred Hampton and
Mark Clark on December 4, 1969 by Chicago police while they slept; and

-- "harassment arrests (on bogus) charges."

Individuals and organizations were targeted for their activism, not crimes that
were blamed on innocent victims like the "Omaha Two."

In November 1968, a J. Edgar Hoover memorandum ordered his agents "to exploit
all avenues of creating....dissension within the ranks of the BPP (using)
imaginative hard-hitting counterintelligence measures aimed at crippling the
BPP." From 1968 - 1971, they were vicious, including against Mondo we Langa and
Edward Poindexter, targeted by the Bureau to be neutralized.

Months before they were arrested, FBI agents and Omaha police harassed them with
tactics like frequent traffic stops, verbal abuse, and more. We Langa was called
before a grand jury, and the Greater Omaha Community Action Agency fired him.
Poindexter was victimized by bogus newspaper letters and an anonymous phone
campaign. For the two men, it was just the beginning of a long nightmare,
ongoing after 40 years.

Background on the "Omaha Two"

We Langa joined the BPP in 1969, then later the NCCF. He wrote for the local
underground paper, Buffalo Chip, and in prison created art, wrote plays, short
stories, articles, and five poetry books. He also contributed poems and stories
to literary journals and magazines, including The Black Scholar, ARGO, Black
American Literary Forum, Pacifica Review, Black Books Bulletin, and many others.

He's one of several co-authors of "The Race: Matters Concerning Pan Afrikan
History, Culture, and Genocide" published in 1992, and a contributor to Nebraska
Voices, commissioned by the Nebraska Humanities Council in commemoration of the
sesquicentennial of Nebraska's statehood.

Like Poindexter, he's been incarcerated for nearly 40 years, during which time
he's been non-violent and mentored young inmates as a model prisoner. Yet he's
bogusly called a "cop killer," repeatedly (with Poindexter) denied parole, and
in June 1968, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled them ineligible unless the Board
of Pardons commutes their sentences - unlikely as it's composed of the governor,
attorney general and secretary of state who haven't commuted a first-degree
murder conviction in two decades, and overruled numerous Nebraska Parole Board's
post-1993 unanimous decisions to commute their sentences to time served.

Edward Poindexter is a Vietnam veteran, a graduate of Metro State University,
St. Paul, MN with a straight A average, and earned an MA from Goddard Graduate
Program in Montpelier, VT. He was imprisoned in Minnesota to separate him from
we Langa.

He's held leadership positions in the Art Club, Jaycees as president, and
Harambee African Cultural Organization. He also:

-- received the Insight Program's Antoniak Award for outstanding achievement;

-- created the musical drama, Shakedown Blues;

-- published two Youth Survival Guides booklets for troubled youths;

-- recorded Jammer from the Slammer promoting constructive problem-solving and
self-motivation;

-- participated in Minnesota's Turn Off the Violence Campaign;

-- was involved in the Juvenile Detention Bed Hotline Information Message
Program producing works to support non-violence;

-- teaches and is currently writing a workbook for a Minnesota Correctional
System class on building self-esteem;

-- teaches a health class including AIDS education;

-- is involved in teaching other classes on the history of intolerance in
America, the civil rights movement, black history, and music;

-- developed a program for prisoners to encourage attitudinal and behavioral
changes for men who batter women;

-- produced motivational tapes; and

-- proposed an audio recording studio, currently operating.

He's also been a model prisoner, yet he's denied parole.

Background on the Case

At trial, jurors were told that, using dynamite, blasting caps, and a battery,
Poindexter made a suitcase bomb in we Langa's kitchen. A week later, he
allegedly instructed 15-year old Duane Peak to put it in a vacant house, call
the police, and say a woman was dragged into it screaming. Peak was charged with
the crime, confessed, and claimed we Langa and Poindexter put him up to it, but
changed his story numerous times, only once incriminated the "Omaha Two," was
sentenced as a juvenile, and served about five years.

Initially, he didn't implicate them. In fact, he was in custody three days
before mentioning their names, clearly under pressure, threats, and believed
beatings in return for leniency.

The defense never heard his taped 911 call. It wasn't introduced at trial, and
the original tape was destroyed. Years later, a copy surfaced with an
accompanying FBI memo suggesting it was withheld because the voice wasn't
Peak's, so perhaps authorities were shielding whoever made it, someone complicit
in the crime to incriminate we Langa and Poindexter.

A week after the bombing, police targeted the black community, conducted
warrantless searches, arrested NCCF members, had no evidence to hold them, so
invented it by apparently planting dynamite, other explosives, blasting caps,
and weapons in we Langa's basement, then discovered them when he was in Kansas
City for a speech, prepared a shoddy report, gave perjured trial testimony
contradicting it, yet got the two men convicted for a crime they didn't commit.

Years later, one juror admitted believing they were innocent because only
circumstantial evidence was introduced, and Duane Peak's testimony wasn't
credible. Another juror said the only black one thought they were innocent, yet
relented after the others agreed to no death penalty.

Judicial Hypocrisy

The entire process was controversial and tainted, including circumstantial
evidence that never should have been allowed pertaining to the defendants'
political beliefs, ones held by millions in the country, then and now.

In addition, their fingerprints weren't on the alleged dynamite, skin tests
performed to detect traces were negative, and according to former Omaha police
officer, Marvin McClarty, an improper search procedure found it. Then shortly
after the mens' conviction, we Langa's house mysteriously burned down,
eliminating any chance for a post hoc accuracy check of police testimony.

In addition, in 1974, a federal court ruled the search illegal, cited
inconsistencies in a police lieutenant's testimony authorizing it, admitted the
dynamite might have been planted, and ordered a new trial, upheld by the Eighth
Circuit Court of Appeals in 1975.

However, in 1976, the Supreme Court applied a post hoc jurisdictional
technicality to deny it by ruling that when states provide full and fair Fourth
Amendment litigation opportunities (a dubious conclusion in this case), the
Constitution warrants no habeas relief. Later rulings blocked the appellate
process, and the statutory time limit for filing in Nebraska courts expired
while the men awaited the federal outcome.

A major obstacle is that the Court of Appeals won't address whether the men were
fairly tried, whether tainted evidence was introduced, whether key witnesses
committed perjury, only if under legal system standards the process was fair,
true or not.

Most important, the likelihood that political targets can get due process and
judicial fairness is nil when authorities want to convict and have complicit
judges allowing it. The courts today are corrupted with them, hanging ones of
the worst kind, so what chance have two black men under a system structured
against them and always has been.

On June 19, 2009, the Nebraska Supreme Court showed it by denying Poindexter a
new trial despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence as well as we Langa's -
with added closing statement emphasis saying:

"We affirm the judgment of the district court denying Poindexter's motion for
postconviction relief," meaning that to be Black in America grants you none.

In the 1980s, Nebraska Chief Supreme Court Justice Norman Krivosha commissioned
a study of the state's judicial fairness that concluded it was equitable with
one exception - race. People of color were more likely to be arrested, indicted,
convicted, and given longer sentences than whites, including the death penalty
for capital offenses. It's no surprise that Nebraska's 3% black population
comprises over 40% of its inmates, and the same disparity holds nationally.

Blacks make up around 12.4% of the population, but almost half of those
incarcerated. Around 50% of them are for non-violent offenses, and about half of
those are drug related. In 2000, Human Rights Watch reported that in one-third
of the states, 75% of all drug related offenders were black. In Illinois, it was
89%. Shockingly, with less than 5% of the world's population, America has almost
one-fouth of its prisoners, by far the largest total at around 2.4 million,
growing at about 1,000 per week, mostly affecting blacks and hispanics.

It's no wonder that we Langa and Poindexter couldn't reopen their case despite
later FBI documents (released in 1978) showing police and the Bureau
collaborated to suppress exculpatory evidence to convict two innocent men. Jack
Swanson, the chief detective in charge of the investigation, told the BBC why:

"I think we did the right thing at the time because the Black Panther
Party....completely disappeared from Omaha after we got the two main players."
In other words, neutralize the leadership and the organization dies.

Yet former Nebraska Governor Frank Morrison (1961 - 1967, who with Thomas Kenney
represented Poindexter as a public defender) believed the men:

-- "were convicted for their rhetoric, not for any crime they committed....The
only thing these fellas did was try to combat all the racial discrimination of
the time the wrong way....They weren't convicted of murder."

It was for their activism and prominence to stifle dissent, keep them imprisoned
to assure it, and continue a long tradition of defiling due process and judicial
fairness for people of color, the poor, and disadvantaged in a democracy for the
privileged alone, as virulent under Obama as earlier.

Stephen Lendman is a regular contributor to Rebel News. He lives in Chicago and
can be reached at lendmanstephen@... This e-mail address is being
protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .


The 'Omaha Two:' Victimized by COINTELPRO Injustice
Fix IE Bug. Dont remove this line.
After a two week April 1971 trial and four days of deliberation, an 11 white/one
black member jury convicted Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice) and Edward
Poindexter for the bombing murder of police officer Larry Minard on August 17,
1970. Both men denied involvement, and ever since consistently maintained their
innocence, insisting they were framed. Supporters agree, including Amnesty
International that declared them political prisoners, and no wonder.

They were Omaha chapter National Committee to Combat Fascism (NCCF) leaders, an
off-shoot of the Black Panther Party, targeted (as later revealed) by secret
FBI/police Domino task force/COINTELPRO tactics, following J. Edgar Hoover's
orders to infiltrate, disrupt, sabotage, and destroy their activism for ethnic
justice, racial emancipation, and real economic, social, and political equality
across gender and color lines.

COINTELPRO is the acronym for the FBI's secretive/mostly illegal
counterintelligence program to neutralize political dissidents, including
communists; anti-war, human and civil rights activists; the American Indian
Movement; and Black Panther Party among others.

In their book "Agents of Repression," Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall wrote:

"the term came to signify the whole context of clandestine (typically illegal)
political repression activities (including) a massive surveillance (program via)
wiretaps, surreptitious entries and burglaries, electronic devices, live 'tails'
and....bogus mail" to induce paranoia and "foster 'splits' within or between
organizations."

Other tactics included:

-- "black propaganda" through leaflets or other publications "designed to
discredit organizations and foster internal tensions;"

-- "disinformation or 'gray propaganda' " for the same purpose;

-- "bad-jacketing" to "creat(e) suspicion - through the spread of rumors,
manufacture of evidence, etc. - that bona fide organizational members, (usually
leaders were) FBI/police informants," to turn some against others violently;

-- "assassinations (of) selected political leaders," including Fred Hampton and
Mark Clark on December 4, 1969 by Chicago police while they slept; and

-- "harassment arrests (on bogus) charges."

Individuals and organizations were targeted for their activism, not crimes that
were blamed on innocent victims like the "Omaha Two."

In November 1968, a J. Edgar Hoover memorandum ordered his agents "to exploit
all avenues of creating....dissension within the ranks of the BPP (using)
imaginative hard-hitting counterintelligence measures aimed at crippling the
BPP." From 1968 - 1971, they were vicious, including against Mondo we Langa and
Edward Poindexter, targeted by the Bureau to be neutralized.

Months before they were arrested, FBI agents and Omaha police harassed them with
tactics like frequent traffic stops, verbal abuse, and more. We Langa was called
before a grand jury, and the Greater Omaha Community Action Agency fired him.
Poindexter was victimized by bogus newspaper letters and an anonymous phone
campaign. For the two men, it was just the beginning of a long nightmare,
ongoing after 40 years.

Background on the "Omaha Two"

We Langa joined the BPP in 1969, then later the NCCF. He wrote for the local
underground paper, Buffalo Chip, and in prison created art, wrote plays, short
stories, articles, and five poetry books. He also contributed poems and stories
to literary journals and magazines, including The Black Scholar, ARGO, Black
American Literary Forum, Pacifica Review, Black Books Bulletin, and many others.

He's one of several co-authors of "The Race: Matters Concerning Pan Afrikan
History, Culture, and Genocide" published in 1992, and a contributor to Nebraska
Voices, commissioned by the Nebraska Humanities Council in commemoration of the
sesquicentennial of Nebraska's statehood.

Like Poindexter, he's been incarcerated for nearly 40 years, during which time
he's been non-violent and mentored young inmates as a model prisoner. Yet he's
bogusly called a "cop killer," repeatedly (with Poindexter) denied parole, and
in June 1968, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled them ineligible unless the Board
of Pardons commutes their sentences - unlikely as it's composed of the governor,
attorney general and secretary of state who haven't commuted a first-degree
murder conviction in two decades, and overruled numerous Nebraska Parole Board's
post-1993 unanimous decisions to commute their sentences to time served.

Edward Poindexter is a Vietnam veteran, a graduate of Metro State University,
St. Paul, MN with a straight A average, and earned an MA from Goddard Graduate
Program in Montpelier, VT. He was imprisoned in Minnesota to separate him from
we Langa.

He's held leadership positions in the Art Club, Jaycees as president, and
Harambee African Cultural Organization. He also:

-- received the Insight Program's Antoniak Award for outstanding achievement;

-- created the musical drama, Shakedown Blues;

-- published two Youth Survival Guides booklets for troubled youths;

-- recorded Jammer from the Slammer promoting constructive problem-solving and
self-motivation;

-- participated in Minnesota's Turn Off the Violence Campaign;

-- was involved in the Juvenile Detention Bed Hotline Information Message
Program producing works to support non-violence;

-- teaches and is currently writing a workbook for a Minnesota Correctional
System class on building self-esteem;

-- teaches a health class including AIDS education;

-- is involved in teaching other classes on the history of intolerance in
America, the civil rights movement, black history, and music;

-- developed a program for prisoners to encourage attitudinal and behavioral
changes for men who batter women;

-- produced motivational tapes; and

-- proposed an audio recording studio, currently operating.

He's also been a model prisoner, yet he's denied parole.

Background on the Case

At trial, jurors were told that, using dynamite, blasting caps, and a battery,
Poindexter made a suitcase bomb in we Langa's kitchen. A week later, he
allegedly instructed 15-year old Duane Peak to put it in a vacant house, call
the police, and say a woman was dragged into it screaming. Peak was charged with
the crime, confessed, and claimed we Langa and Poindexter put him up to it, but
changed his story numerous times, only once incriminated the "Omaha Two," was
sentenced as a juvenile, and served about five years.

Initially, he didn't implicate them. In fact, he was in custody three days
before mentioning their names, clearly under pressure, threats, and believed
beatings in return for leniency.

The defense never heard his taped 911 call. It wasn't introduced at trial, and
the original tape was destroyed. Years later, a copy surfaced with an
accompanying FBI memo suggesting it was withheld because the voice wasn't
Peak's, so perhaps authorities were shielding whoever made it, someone complicit
in the crime to incriminate we Langa and Poindexter.

A week after the bombing, police targeted the black community, conducted
warrantless searches, arrested NCCF members, had no evidence to hold them, so
invented it by apparently planting dynamite, other explosives, blasting caps,
and weapons in we Langa's basement, then discovered them when he was in Kansas
City for a speech, prepared a shoddy report, gave perjured trial testimony
contradicting it, yet got the two men convicted for a crime they didn't commit.

Years later, one juror admitted believing they were innocent because only
circumstantial evidence was introduced, and Duane Peak's testimony wasn't
credible. Another juror said the only black one thought they were innocent, yet
relented after the others agreed to no death penalty.

Judicial Hypocrisy

The entire process was controversial and tainted, including circumstantial
evidence that never should have been allowed pertaining to the defendants'
political beliefs, ones held by millions in the country, then and now.

In addition, their fingerprints weren't on the alleged dynamite, skin tests
performed to detect traces were negative, and according to former Omaha police
officer, Marvin McClarty, an improper search procedure found it. Then shortly
after the mens' conviction, we Langa's house mysteriously burned down,
eliminating any chance for a post hoc accuracy check of police testimony.

In addition, in 1974, a federal court ruled the search illegal, cited
inconsistencies in a police lieutenant's testimony authorizing it, admitted the
dynamite might have been planted, and ordered a new trial, upheld by the Eighth
Circuit Court of Appeals in 1975.

However, in 1976, the Supreme Court applied a post hoc jurisdictional
technicality to deny it by ruling that when states provide full and fair Fourth
Amendment litigation opportunities (a dubious conclusion in this case), the
Constitution warrants no habeas relief. Later rulings blocked the appellate
process, and the statutory time limit for filing in Nebraska courts expired
while the men awaited the federal outcome.

A major obstacle is that the Court of Appeals won't address whether the men were
fairly tried, whether tainted evidence was introduced, whether key witnesses
committed perjury, only if under legal system standards the process was fair,
true or not.

Most important, the likelihood that political targets can get due process and
judicial fairness is nil when authorities want to convict and have complicit
judges allowing it. The courts today are corrupted with them, hanging ones of
the worst kind, so what chance have two black men under a system structured
against them and always has been.

On June 19, 2009, the Nebraska Supreme Court showed it by denying Poindexter a
new trial despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence as well as we Langa's -
with added closing statement emphasis saying:

"We affirm the judgment of the district court denying Poindexter's motion for
postconviction relief," meaning that to be Black in America grants you none.

In the 1980s, Nebraska Chief Supreme Court Justice Norman Krivosha commissioned
a study of the state's judicial fairness that concluded it was equitable with
one exception - race. People of color were more likely to be arrested, indicted,
convicted, and given longer sentences than whites, including the death penalty
for capital offenses. It's no surprise that Nebraska's 3% black population
comprises over 40% of its inmates, and the same disparity holds nationally.

Blacks make up around 12.4% of the population, but almost half of those
incarcerated. Around 50% of them are for non-violent offenses, and about half of
those are drug related. In 2000, Human Rights Watch reported that in one-third
of the states, 75% of all drug related offenders were black. In Illinois, it was
89%. Shockingly, with less than 5% of the world's population, America has almost
one-fouth of its prisoners, by far the largest total at around 2.4 million,
growing at about 1,000 per week, mostly affecting blacks and hispanics.

It's no wonder that we Langa and Poindexter couldn't reopen their case despite
later FBI documents (released in 1978) showing police and the Bureau
collaborated to suppress exculpatory evidence to convict two innocent men. Jack
Swanson, the chief detective in charge of the investigation, told the BBC why:

"I think we did the right thing at the time because the Black Panther
Party....completely disappeared from Omaha after we got the two main players."
In other words, neutralize the leadership and the organization dies.

Yet former Nebraska Governor Frank Morrison (1961 - 1967, who with Thomas Kenney
represented Poindexter as a public defender) believed the men:

-- "were convicted for their rhetoric, not for any crime they committed....The
only thing these fellas did was try to combat all the racial discrimination of
the time the wrong way....They weren't convicted of murder."

It was for their activism and prominence to stifle dissent, keep them imprisoned
to assure it, and continue a long tradition of defiling due process and judicial
fairness for people of color, the poor, and disadvantaged in a democracy for the
privileged alone, as virulent under Obama as earlier.

Stephen Lendman is a regular contributor to Rebel News. He lives in Chicago and
can be reached at lendmanstephen@... This e-mail address is being
protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .


*********************************************************************

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Oldest Swiss Bank Tells Clients to Sell U.S. Assets or Leave
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aguVgp1QqgEU


Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Wegelin & Co.,Switzerland's oldest bank, is telling
wealthy clients to sell theirU.S. assets, or switch banks, because of concerns
new rules will saddleinvestors with tax obligations in the world's biggest
economy.

U.S. proposals to extend reporting requirements for banks whoseclients buy
American stocks and bonds coupled with estate taxliabilities that may be
inherited by the heirs of people who have suchholdings prompted the advice from
the St. Gallen, Switzerland-basedbank, said Managing Partner Konrad Hummler.

"We came to the conclusion that it's a threat to our clients," Hummler, who is
also president of the Swiss Private Bankers Association,said in an interview
yesterday during a conference in Zurich. "It'salso a threat to us as a bank
because as a custodian we are an executorto the estate. We find this aspect
discomforting, so we recommendselling all American securities whatsoever."

Hummler said he plans to raise the subject today at a meeting ofthe Private
Bankers Association, which counts Pictet & Cie.,Lombard Odier & Cie. and
Mirabaud & Cie. among its members.Swiss banks, which manage $2 trillion, or 27
percent, of the world'sprivately held offshore wealth, are struggling to protect
bank secrecyafter the government agreed to hand over the names of 4,450 UBS AG
clients to U.S. tax authorities.

Hummler said he wouldn't ask other association members to followWegelin's lead.
Wegelin, founded in 1741, manages more than 20 billionSwiss francs ($18.7
billion) in client assets.

"Every member is free to decide and act on their own," he said.

HSBC Studies   Alexandre Zeller,head of HSBC Holdings Plc's private bank in
Switzerland, said hiscompany is still studying the new rules for qualified
intermediariesand will do everything it can to comply with them.

"Often in these agreements you have to understand how this will beapplied, and
it would be premature, especially for an internationalbank, to take such a
decision," he said today, referring to Wegelin'sposition. "It's not on the
agenda for the moment."

The U.S. has proposed increasing reporting and oversightrequirements for
so-called qualified intermediaries -- foreign banksthat withhold taxes on behalf
of the Internal Revenue Service. Inaddition, new rules may mean that people who
spend limited periods oftime in the U.S. acquire tax obligations, including
estate taxes,creating an unacceptable risk for Wegelin's clients, Hummler said.

If a client decides to keep his U.S. investments, "then finally he has to change
banks," Hummler said.

"We're talking about probabilities," Hummler said. "Myresponsibility toward
clients has to include any kind of probability,and if I see a real threat then
we have to act."

U.S. Alternatives

Wegelin is finding alternative ways of investing in the U.S. that won't impose
reporting requirements on the bank or tax liabilities on clients, Hummler said.

"The good thing is that in today's world you can build up U.S.exposure in
equities and as well in bonds through derivatives and indexfunds and so on, so
we are switching to a European-made Americanexposure."

Germany and France have also sought to weaken Swiss secrecy laws as they crack
down on tax evaders.

The French government, which signed a double-taxation treaty with Switzerland on
Aug. 27, obtained the names of 3,000 people suspected oftax fraud and holding
accounts at three Swiss banks, French BudgetMinister Eric Woerth, said Aug. 30
in an interview with the newspaper Journal du Dimanche.

"It's not credible," Hummler said. "The U.S. had a hard timegetting these 4,450
names, then the French come and say we have 3,000? I cannot believe it, but
they're trying it on."


To contact the reporter on this story: Warren Giles in Zurich at
wgiles@...
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Israeli jets pound targets across Gaza
02/01/2010
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=251386


Bethlehem - Ma'an - Israel's air force bombed at least two sites in the Gaza
Strip shortly after midnight on Saturday, an official said.

The eyewitnesses said Israeli F16 fighter jets targeted an open area east of the
Shujayya neighborhood of Gaza City while military tanks launched several
artillery shells at the Shujayya and Tuffah neighborhoods simultaneously.

Israeli warplanes also fired three missiles at an open area in Jabal Ar-Ra'is
east of Gaza City and targeted another open area east of Khan Younis in the
southern Gaza Strip.

Other airstrikes targeted the town of Izbat Abed Rabbo in the northern Gaza
Strip as well as the village of Al-Qarara east of Khan Younis. No causalities
were reported, though material damages were sustained.

An Israeli military spokesman told Ma'an the strikes targeted "two terrorist
tunnels" near the the Gaza-Israel border, which he said were intended for
attacks on targets inside Israel. He added that the airstrikes came in
retaliation for a mortar shell that was fired on the Israeli city of Netivot on
Thursday, which caused no injuries.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's armed wing claimed to have
launched that attack. In a statement, the leftist group termed the launch "a
confirmation that resistance will continue in the new year and that the
occupier's massacres will not prevent our people from continuing our struggle
until the recovery of our rights."

Friday night explosions in Jabaliya

A day earlier, residents of the Jabaliya Refugee Camp said Friday night
explosions in the camp were caused by at least one Israeli shell that landed in
an area believed to be used by guerillas to fire homemade projectiles into
Israel.

The Israeli spokesman, however, denied army involvement.

Locals believed the explosions were Israeli fire in retaliation for mortar fire
aimed at Israel earlier in the day. Palestinian armed group in Gaza told Ma'an
it fired five mortar shells at Israeli forces east of Rafah in southern Gaza.
The An-Nasser Salah Ad-Din Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance
Committees (PRC), claimed to have conducted the attack in a statement.

Israel's army confirmed that one shell fired by Gaza groups landed in an open
area inside Gaza. No damage was reported.

Hours earlier, the PRC blamed Israel for an attempt to assassinate its
secretary-general, Abu Al-Qasem Dughmush, in Gaza. The group said a man carrying
a package of explosives appeared at Dughmush's home, but the bomb failed to
detonate.

On Thursday, PRC militants engaged in an exchange of gunfire with Israeli
soldiers along the coast in the northern Gaza Strip, according to both the group
and the Israeli military.


===


Abbas to visit Egypt to discuss peace talks
Published today (updated) 02/01/2010 18:37


Bethlehem – Ma'an – President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to visit the Egyptian
resort town of Sharm Ash-Shiekh Sunday, for a meeting with his counterpart Hosni
Mubarak. The two will discuss Egyptian communications with Israel.

On Thursday, Israeli officials announced Egypt as the host of a new round of
peace talks following a meeting between Mubarak and Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu. The first meeting between Abbas, Netanyahu and Mubarak was
set to take place at the end of January.

Following the announcement, however, presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina
said the Palestinian Authority had not received "anything about such a thing. So
far what we heard was from the media."

An Egyptian source said Abbas and Mubarak would discuss the latest suggestions
around solving the Arab-Israeli conflict, as well as progress on the
prisoner-swap deal Hamas is currently negotiating with Israel via Egyptian and
German mediators.

Ambassador of Palestine to Egypt Barakat Al-Farra noted that Abbas' visit to
Egypt follows the official's trip to Saudi Arabia, where he discussed similar
issues with Saudi king Abdullah Ben Abdul-Aziz.

===

Israel to issue gas masks to population
by Tina Redlup
December 28, 2009


Israel will begin distributing its entire population with gas masks in two
months, though no reason has officially been given by the Israeli government.

No indication or threat has been made against Israel from any country that an
attack is planned. No country in the Middle East is believed to be likely to
engage in chemical or biological warfare with Israel, either.

The gas mask distribution has, however, raised questions as to Israel's
potential plans to launch an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Such an attack
could cause an unconventional response from Iran. Iran's chemical and biological
weapons capabilities are currently not known.

Rumors in the Middle East abound that Israel is preparing to rein in Hezbollah
through another war on Lebanon. Hezbollah, however, is also not believed to hold
any chemical or biological weapons.

The only country in Israel's region currently believed to have access to a major
chemical or biological weapons program is Israel itself, though the country
unlikely to utilize them in an attack.

Despite the lack of a viable threat, Israel will begin issuing the gas masks to
each of its residents in February. The Israel Defense Forces will manage the
distribution. The IDF have engaged the Israel Postal Company to aid in the
distribution, a departure from the use of Home Front Command for previous
distributions.

In addition to the gas masks, children eight years and younger will receive, for
the first time, the Mamtek gas mask.

"We are the only country in the world that produces gas masks for children, and
the children's gas mask we produce is the only one in the world that supplies
prime defense for this age group," Col. Yosi Sagiv,head of the Gas Mask
Administration of the Home Front Command, told bacelonanews.net. "All that is
left is to hope that it will not be necessary to experience first hand how well
these gas masks work," he said.

===

Viva Palestina - 72 Hour Critical Period Begins Now
http://irish4palestine.blogspot.com/


BREAKING~VIVA PALESTINA~ 72 HOUR CRITICAL PERIOD BEGINS NOW
Please pass this information on to everyone, we need to be ready to support the
Convoy should the worst happen:NEXT 72 HOURS ARE CRITICAL
Received personal message from our boys on the Convoy, followed by a press
statement they just released.

Tomorrow our 200 vehicles will travel on a 20 hour ferry aided by 60 volunteers
into Al-Arish. The remaining 450 people who can't enter the ferry will fly to
Egypt and arrive before the boats to ensure a secure entry. Next 72hrs are
critical as to the success of our whole mission. We don't know what the Egyptian
response will be as we pull into their shores, but we expect the worse and have
absolute faith that in time we ill enter the gates of Gaza. JJ Crockett Derry to
Gaza Viva Palestina convoy

Here is the press release JUST out from the Viva Palestina Derry to Gaza Five:

PRESS RELEASE

FROM DERRY TO GAZA IN AN AMBULANCE (UPDATE)

HEADLINE: NEXT 72 HOURS ARE CRITICAL

Message received 1st January 2010

Last night we received further info about the next critical 72 hours. Kevin
Ovenden, leader of Viva Palestina and right hand man of [George] Galloway, came
out and reported that:
We have got a cargo ship which, weather pending, will set sail tomorrow
afternoon (1st January) on a 20-hour crossing to Al-Arish. At the moment, the
ferry cargo ship only allows 12 people on board but Viva Palestina is trying to
extend that to 60 people. These people are crucial to minding the vehicles and
ensuring a safe entry into Egypt. The remaining 450 people will fly on chartered
airplanes to Al-Arish and arrive Sunday afternoon before the boats, and
hopefully we will get out to the port without trouble before the boats arrive.

All these arrangements are dependant on the weather but these are the plans.
Overall and inshallah, we expect to be in Al-Arish (25 kms from Gaza) by Sunday
afternoon. The last time the convoy was there, they got stones thrown at their
vehicles, and physical abuse from the Egyptian police. We expect the same and
will draw up strategies to deal with these possiblities. It's hard to beat down
a man that has driven 5000 miles through all lands and seas, fuelled by a tidal
wave of great support. The Egyptians will need more than fists to block our
entry, though we will not provoke them. Let's hope for the best and expect the
worst.

So, once we enter Al-Arish, the shite will hit the fan.....There will be an
inevitable 2-3 day delay and possibly more...Rumours suggest the Rafah crossing
into Gaza is open from the 3rd to the 5th. Hopefully and ideally, we will enter
on the 3rd, spend a couple of days in Gaza building up contacts of support and
be able to fly home from Sharm el Sheik on the 6th January. Though this is
doubtful. As I said we are prepared for the worst, but live in hope. The next 72
hours are the most critical of the whole campaign and we need your support more
than ever, to cover the media side and put pressure on Egyptians to let us
through. We are on their doorstep and they must let us in.

Signed, The Gaza Five


About the Gaza Five:

The Gaza Five are: Jonathon Crockett, Eanna O'Donaghaile, Danny Doyle, Eddie Mc
Bride and Derek Mc Chrystal. On December 5th this year, five Derry men set out
on a long journey from Derry to the Gaza strip in an ambulance full of medical
aid and educational resources in order to provide humanitarian relief to the
people of that region. These are people who are suffering since the latest
conflict, which caused devastation resulting in much of Gaza being destroyed and
1,400 men, women and children being killed. The Israelis have now placed a
blockade on Gaza preventing any aid into Gaza's impoverished people and
preventing them from leaving. These 5 Derry men took on the task of driving this
ambulance all the way to Gaza meeting up with a convoy of 220 other vehicles
from all over Europe to deliver humanitarian aid through the organisation 'Viva
Palestina'.

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Poll Finds U.S. Muslims Thriving, but Not Content
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/us/02muslims.html?_r=1


A Gallup poll of Muslims in the United States has found that they are far more
likely than people in Muslim countries to see themselves as thriving. Skip to
next paragraph MultimediaGraphic Satisfied or Not In fact, the only countries
where Muslims are more likely to see themselves as thriving are Saudi Arabia and
Germany, according to the poll.And yet, within the United States, Muslims are
the least content religious group, when compared with Jews, Mormons, Protestants
and Roman Catholics. Gallup researchers say that is because the largest segment
of American Muslims are African-Americans (35 percent, including
first-generation immigrants), and they generally report lower levels of income,
education, employment and well-being than other Americans. But American Muslims
are not one homogeneous group, the study makes clear. Asian-American Muslims
(from countries like India and Pakistan) have more income and education and are
more likely to be thriving than other American Muslims. In fact, their quality
of life indicators are higher than for most other Americans, except for American
Jews.

"We discovered how diverse Muslim Americans are," said Dalia Mogahed, executive
director and senior analyst of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, which
financed the poll.

"Ethnically, politically and economically, they are in every way a cross-section
of the nation. They are the only religious community without a majority race."

The Gallup study is significant because it is the first to examine a randomly
selected sample of American Muslims. Gallup interviewed more than 300,000 people
by telephone in 2008 while conducting broader polls, and focused on 946 who
identified themselves as Muslims. (The margin of sampling error is plus or minus
four percentage points.) Previous studies of American Muslims located
respondents based on surnames, mosque attendance or geographic clusters, which
polling experts say can skew the results. Gallup asked an extensive battery of
questions, producing a picture of American Muslims through the prisms of race,
gender, class, age and education. The international comparisons were possible
because of earlier Gallup studies of Muslims overseas.

American Muslim women, contrary to stereotype, are more likely than American
Muslim men to have college and post-graduate degrees. They are more highly
educated than women in every other religious group except Jews. American Muslim
women also report incomes more nearly equal to men, compared with women and men
of other faiths.Muslim women in the United States attend mosque as frequently as
Muslim men — a contrast with many Muslim countries where the mosques are
primarily for men.

American Muslims are generally very religious, saying that religion is an
important part of their daily lives (80 percent), more than any other group
except Mormons (85 percent). The figure for Americans in general is 65 percent.
By political ideology, Muslims were spread across the spectrum from liberal to
conservative, with about 4 in 10 saying they were moderates. By party
identification, Muslims resembled Jews more than any other religious group, with
small minorities registered as Republicans, roughly half Democrats and about a
third independents.

There are clear signs of social alienation, however. Lower percentages of
Muslims register to vote or volunteer their time than adherents of other faiths.
They are less likely to be satisfied with the area where they live. These
indicators are "worrying," said Ahmed Younis, a senior analyst at the Muslim
studies center.

"There is still a sense among American Muslims of being excluded from the
mainstream," Mr. Younis said, "and among young people that's more acute." But
the perception is far worse among Muslims in England and France, the study
found.

Mr. Younis said the finding "reinforces the proposition that the integration
process for American Muslims is, on the whole, a much more successful endeavor
than it is for European Muslims."

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Accessory vs. Perpetrator by Gilad Atzmon
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Gilad Atzmon
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/accessory-vs-perpetrator-by-gilad-atzmon.html


German State Prosecutors Hans-Joachim Lutz announced yesterday that Mr John
Demjanjuk, 89, is accused of being an `accessory' of the death of 27,900
Jews.Many of us may not understand what the legal notion of `accessory' stands
for. An `accessory' is a person who assists in the commission of a crime, but
who does not actually participate in the commission of the crime as a joint
principal.Bearing that in mind.

I wonder what Demjanjuk's court case is there to serve? Clearly geriatric
Demjanjuk is not  a danger to society. He is neither blamed for being a murderer
nor accused of being a mass murderer. Being an alleged `accessory' he is not
exactly the story of the Shoa either. If the Holocaust is an account of a
racially driven industrial homicidal crime, a Ukrainian POW serving as a German
guard while being a prisoner is not exactly a story of a principal executioner.

If this court case is aimed at perpetuating the message of the holocaust, all it
really does is spread the opposite message. It only proves once again that the
Holocaust ideology is revengeful and merciless.If the Germans are really after a
last Holocaust spectacular trial can't they pick something slightly more juicy
than an `alleged accessory'?

In 1986 John Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel where he was put on trial.
According to the Israeli prosecutors, Demjanjuk was brought to a German POW camp
in Chelmno in July 1942. He then volunteered to collaborate with the Germans and
was sent to the camp at Trawniki, where he was trained to guard prisoners and
was given a firearm, a uniform, and an ID card with his photograph. The
principal allegation was that Demjanjuk was in fact "Ivan the Terrible" the
notorious cold blooded murderer of Treblinka.

On April 18, 1988, the Israeli court found Demjanjuk guilty of all charges. One
week later it sentenced him to death by hanging.In 1993, five Israeli Supreme
Court judges overturned the guilty verdict on appeal. They realised that the
case against Demjanjuk was based on `mistaken identification'.

"We restrained ourselves" the Israeli judges wrote, "from convicting the
appellant of the horrors of Treblinka. Ivan Demjanjuk has been acquitted by us,
because of doubt, of the terrible charges attributed to Ivan the Terrible of
Treblinka"

By the time the Israeli supreme court decided to release Demjanjuk the Israeli
Attorney General was fully aware of John Demjanjuk being a guard in Sobibor. And
yet he decided not to pursue accessory charges against him. Amongst other
arguments in favour of Demjanjuk's release Israeli Attorney General claimed that
"new charges would be unreasonable given the seriousness of those of which he
had been acquitted" he also argued that "conviction on the new charges (being a
German guard) would be unlikely".

The Israeli Attorney General grasped that charging Demjanjuk for being an
accessory would be counter effective.Seemingly the German legal system lacks
that necessary `Jewish' wisdom performed by Israeli supreme judges and Attorney
general. As it seems, the German court found a very embarrassing method to deal
with the German past. They are now charging a dying Ukrainian/American for
attempting to survive a Nazi POW camp by collaborating. That is, a onetime
German prisoner became an `accessory' of the German killing machine.If the
Germans are insisting to search for Nazi collaborators and brutal `accessories',
survivor Israel Shahak can adivise them where to find them.

"Every Jewish child was taught (in the Ghettos)" says Shahak that "if you enter
a square from which there are three exits, one guarded by a German SS man, one
by a Ukrainian and one by a Jewish policeman, then you should first try to pass
the German, and then maybe the Ukrainian, but never the Jew".( Prof. Israel
Shahak, 19 May 1989. Kol Ha'ir, Jerusalem). Apparently, this story is reflected
in many survivors' personal and academic accounts. The Jewish capos and Judenrat
were the most brutal of them all.

I think that the Germans better move on and let go of their past. Composing
great symphonies and writing philosophy is by far a superior contribution to
humanity than Holocaust trials. Guilt is a futile and destructive mode of being.
However, if the Germans still feel at fault, they better transform their guilt
into responsibility. They better remember that the Palestinians are de facto the
last victims of Hitler. Their ordeal is far from being over. If the Germans feel
culpable about their past they should never send German warships to Israel. If
Germans are concerned with their history they better transform it into meaning.

Rather than charging an 89 year old for being an alleged `accessory' they better
bring to justice some of the perpetrators of genocidal crimes that are taking
place in front of our eyes. Rather than pushing old Demjanjuk into court in a
wheelchair, the German ministry of Justice better pursue Tony Blair, George
Bush, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni,  and Shimon Peres.
They are all free and healthy enough to stand a trial. Unlike alleged accessory
Demjanjuk they are all perpetrators of colossal crimes against humanity.

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Defense seeks foreign-born experts for 9/11 case
By CAROL ROSENBERG - crosenberg@...
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1145206.html


Alleged 9/11 co-conspirator Ramzi bin al Shibh, now approved to face a
death-penalty charges trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba


ASSOCIATED PRESS  GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- In seeking to examine
whether accused 9/11lieutenant Ramzi bin al Shibh is sane, Pentagon defense
attorneys are turning toan Israeli-American and Cuban American exile as mental
health experts.

The Pentagon's supervisor of the war court, Susan J. Crawford, has so farrefused
to fund one of the consultants, Ruben C. Gur. The other, Xavier Amador,has so
far been banned from talking to bin al Shibh in the high-profile casethat seeks
the death penalty for five men accused as co-conspirators in theSept. 11, 2001
attacks.So defense lawyers were seeking a court order for both in motions
beingargued at the military commissions on Thursday. No immediate ruling
wasexpected.

Amador, a Cuban American clinical psychologist, has testified as an expert inthe
Unabomber and Zacarias Moussaoui cases. He immigrated to the United Statesin the
early 1960s.Gur, a psychologist, is a former Israeli soldier and leading expert
inneuroimaging, the study of CT scans for signs of mental illness.

He works at the Brain Behavior Lab at the Department of Psychiatry at
theUniversity of Pennsylvania, served in the Israeli Army from 1965 to 1967
andacquired his advanced degrees at the University of Michigan.

Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, bin al Shibh's Pentagon appointed defenselawyer,
appealed to the case judge to fund the consultants in arguments thatwere
partially censored on Thursday.

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Communal Groups Back Somali in Bid To Block Israel Lawsuits
Liqaye

By Nathan Guttman
Thursday, December 31, 2009
http://www.somaliaonline.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=9;t=0215\
51;p=0


General Mohamed Ali Samatar, Former vice president and Prime minister of Somalia


Washington — American Jewish organizations that fought to establish the
jurisdiction of U.S. courts for suits against terrorist groups are taking an
opposite tack in suits involving human rights abuses.

Jewish groups have filed briefs siding with a former Somali official now living
in Virginia who is alleged to bear responsibility for atrocities committed
during his tenure.

The case's outcome is expected to set a precedent on the vulnerability to human
rights lawsuits of former and present officials of internationally recognized
governments. But supporters of Israel fear the result could enable Palestinians
who claim to be victims of Israel to pursue Israeli officials here.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments March 3 in the case of Yousuf v.
Samantar, in which a group of Somalis is seeking financial damages from Mohamed
Ali Samantar, Somalia's former defense minister. He also served as prime
minister from 1987 to 1990. Samantar was a top official in the regime of
President Siad Barre, a socialist-leaning dictatorship that was denounced by
international groups for its systematic use of torture and arbitrary arrests,
and for the rape and murder of political rivals and dissidents.

Among the five Somalis suing Samantar are a student who was allegedly detained
and raped 15 times by a military man, a former officer who alleges he survived a
mass execution and a businessman who claims he was tortured for months by the
regime Samantar helped lead. Two of the plaintiffs are now American citizens.
The case was filed under the Torture Victim Protection Act.

The Supreme Court will rule on the plaintiffs' right to pursue a civil lawsuit
against Samantar. Pro-Israel activists, fearing a precedent that will allow
others to pursue legal action against Israel for alleged war crimes — as has
happened in Europe — have filed briefs opposing their suit.

"There will be a rash of lawsuits of this kind against Israel" if the court
rules for the plaintiffs, warned Alyza Lewin, an attorney with the firm of Lewin
& Lewin, which has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of Samantar and
against making foreign officials vulnerable to civil lawsuits. The brief was
filed on behalf of four Jewish groups: the Zionist Organization of America, the
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, Agudath Israel of America,
and the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.

It is an unusual setting, one in which pro-Israel activists are siding with the
Saudi government — which has also filed a brief on behalf of Samantar — while
pitting themselves against international human-rights advocates. Furthermore,
this battle also puts the Jewish community on the side of those seeking to limit
international jurisdiction after years of fighting to broaden the ability to sue
foreign entities in order to go after terror groups and their sponsoring states.

Samantar moved to dismiss the 2004 lawsuit on grounds of immunity provided under
the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which protects foreign governments in most
cases from legal action in the United States. But in January 2009, the Fourth
Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the case, ruling that this immunity applies
not to individuals but only to governments and their agencies. A Washington
circuit court had previously reached the opposite conclusion. The Supreme
Court's ruling is expected to resolve the dueling decisions.

For Jewish communal officials, the Samantar case set off alarm bells. The Jewish
groups that filed the brief cite more than 1,000 cases of lawsuits against
Israeli officials around the world as part of an effort that Israeli leaders dub
"lawfare" — a campaign to take Arab human-rights grievances against Israel to
international courtrooms.

One of those recent cases was the December attempt to issue a criminal arrest
warrant in Britain against Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni because of the
role she played as foreign minister during last January's Israeli military
operation in Gaza.

In the United States, the law does not allow citizens to file similar criminal
lawsuits against foreign officials. But in civil suits, it is an unsettled
question whether the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which protects
governments, extends to individual government officials and former government
officials who were acting in their authorized capacities at the time in
question.

Lewin, of the law firm representing the four Jewish groups, says it should. "It
would be tempting for us to say, wouldn't it be nice to sue government officials
in these cases, but the risks and the costs outweigh the benefits," she said.

"You'd have the entire Middle East conflict here in the U.S." if Samantar won,
agreed Marc Stern, co-executive director of the American Jewish Congress. Stern,
who also filed a brief on this issue, claimed that allowing civil suits would
"require Israelis to recount in an American court years after the event why
every rocket was fired and why each attack took place."

A couple of Israeli officials already faced this threat in the United States.

In 2005, former chief of staff and current Cabinet minister Moshe Ya'alon was
served with a civil suit while entering a Washington think tank he was attending
as a visiting scholar, filed by families of victims from a 1996 Israeli shelling
in Lebanon. A week earlier, Avi Dichter, former head of Israel's General
Security Service, had the same experience in New York. This lawsuit was on
behalf of victims of an Israeli bombing in Gaza.

These lawsuits cannot lead to arrests, but they can cause significant financial
liabilities to Israelis and eventually deter Israeli officials from visiting
America, pro-Israel activists say.

Fighting to maintain immunity for foreign officials seems to place Jewish
activists far from positions they have taken in the past. Supporters of Israel
actively backed legislation that paved the way for relatives of terror victims
to sue terror organizations and their sponsors in American courts. Over the
years, these lawsuits have yielded several rulings against Hamas, Fatah and Iran
for compensation reaching hundreds of millions of dollars.

Unlike the laws governing human-rights suits, the law empowering individuals to
file civil suits against terror organizations and their state sponsors is
specifically exempted from the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. But the
terrorism law — also unlike the human-rights laws — clearly disallows suits
against individuals.

The Anti-Defamation League, in a separate friend-of-the-court brief filed in the
Samantar case, differed with the position taken by the AJCongress and the groups
represented by Lewin. The ADL brief spoke of the need to strike a balance
between the allowance of victims of severe human-rights violations overseas to
seek remedy in American courts, and the need to "protect the ability of lower
courts to dismiss meritless claims brought for political or other improper
purposes."

The Samantar case made some strange bedfellows in fighting to limit the scope of
lawsuits against foreigners. Alongside the former Somali politician were not
only the pro-Israel activists, but also the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A brief
filed by the Saudis reflects concerns similar to those of pro-Israel advocates —
that this case could lead to an outpouring of lawsuits against former and
current government officials. Citing numerous suits filed against Saudi Arabia
after the 9/11 terror attacks, the brief states the kingdom's "unique
experience" and "strong interest" in the outcome of the case.

On the other side are human- rights groups, led by the Center for Justice &
Accountability, representing the Somali citizens suing Samantar. "This case
stands for the proposition that the U.S. cannot be a safe haven for human-rights
abusers like Samantar," said Pamela Merchant, the group's executive director,
"and we are confident that the Supreme Court will not allow U.S. law to be
manipulated to undermine this principle."

Both sides are waiting for the American government's brief to be filed. While
previous administrations have opposed expanding the ability to sue foreigners in
the United States, senior Obama administration officials were supportive of this
notion in their previous capacities.

Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@...




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Flight 253 passenger Kurt Haskell: 'I was visited by the FBI'
By Aaron Foley
December 31, 2009
http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2009/12/flight_253_passenger_kurt_ha\
sk.html


Following up on a visit from FBI officials about an eyewitness account first
described to MLive.com, Michigan attorney Kurt Haskell described the visit in
comment sections across MLive on Wednesday.

Haskell and his wife, Lori, were aboard Flight 253 when Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to destroy the plane. They say another man tried
to help Abdulmutallab board the plane in Amsterdam.

Haskell had two detailed posts in two different stories. Here is Part One,
originally posted here (Nothing below in the indent has been changed. Only links
have been added.):


Today is the second worst day of my life after 12-25-09. Today is the day that I
realized that my own country is lying to me and all of my fellow Americans. Let
me explain.

Ever since I got off of Flight 253 I have been repeating what I saw in US
Customs. Specifically, 1 hour after we left the plane, bomb sniffing dogs
arrived. Up to this point, all of the passengers on Flight 253 stood in a small
area in an evacuated luggage claim area of an airport terminal. During this time
period, all of the passengers had their carry on bags with them. When the bomb
sniffing dogs arrived, 1 dog found something in a carry on bag of a 30 ish
Indian man. This is not the so called "Sharp Dressed" man. I will refer to this
man as "The man in orange". The man in orange, who stood some 20ft away from me
the entire time until he was taken away, was immediately taken away to be
searched and interrogated in a nearby room. At this time he was not handcuffed.
When he emerged from the room, he was then handcuffed and taken away.

At this time an FBI agent came up to the rest of the passengers and said the
following (approximate quote) "You all are being moved to another area because
this area is not safe. I am sure many of you saw what just happened (Referring
to the man in orange) and are smart enough to read between the lines and figure
it out."

We were then marched out of the baggage claim area and into a long hallway. This
entire time period and until we left customs, no person that wasn't a law
enforcement personnel or a passenger on our flight was allowed anywhere on our
floor of the terminal (or possibly the entire terminal) The FBI was so concerned
during this time, that we were not allowed to use the bathroom unless we went
alone with an FBI agent, we were not allowed to eat or drink, or text or call
anyone.

I have been repeating this same story over the last 5 days. The FBI has, since
we landed, insisted that only one man was arrested for the airliner attack
(contradicting my account). However, several of my fellow passengers have come
over the past few days, backed up my claim, and put pressure on FBI/Customs to
tell the truth.

Early today, I heard from two different reporters that a federal agency (FBI or
Customs) was now admitting that another man has been held (and will be held
indefinitely) since our flight landed for "immigration reasons." Notice that
this man was "being held" and not "arrested", which was a cute semantic ploy by
the FBI to stretch the truth and not lie.

Just a question, could that mean that the man in orange had no passport?
However, a few hours later, Customs changed its story again. This time, Mr. Ron
Smith of Customs, says the man that was detained "had been taken into custody,
but today tells the news the person was a passenger on a different flight." Mr.
Ron Smith, you are playing the American public for a fool. Lets take a look at
how plausible this story is (After you've already changed it twice). For the
story to be true, you have to believe, that:
1. FBI/Customs let passengers from another flight co-mingle with the passengers
of flight 253 while the most important investigation in 8 years was pending. I
have already stated that not one person who wasn't a passenger or law
enforcement personnal was in our area the entire time we were detained by
Customs.
2. FBI/Customs while detaining the flight 253 passengers in perhaps the most
important investigation since the last terrorist attack, and despite not letting
any flight 253 passenger drink, eat, make a call, or use the bathroom, let those
of other flights trample through the area and possibly contaminate evidence.
3. You have to believe the above (1 and 2) despite the fact that no flights
during this time allowed passengers to exit off of the planes at all and were
detained on the runway during at least the first hour of our detention period.
4. You have to believe that the man that stood 20 feet from me since we entered
customs came from a mysterious plane that never landed, let its passengers off
the plane and let this man sneak into our passenger group despite having
extremely tight security at this time (i.e. no drinking even).
5. FBI/Customs was hauling mysterious passengers from other flights through the
area we were being held to possibly comtaminate evidence and allow discussions
with suspects on Flight 253 or to possibly allow the exchange of bombs, weapons
or other devices between the mysterious passengers from other flights and those
on flight 253.
Seriously Mr. Ron Smith, how stupid do you think the American public is?
Mr. Ron Smith's third version of the story is an absolute inplausible joke. I
encourage you, Mr. Ron Smith, to debate me anytime, anywhere, and anyplace in
public to let the American people see who is credible and who is not.
I ask, isn't this the more plausible story:
1. Customs/FBI realized that they screwed up and don't want to admit that they
left flight 253 passengers on a flight with a live bomb on the runway for 20
minutes.
2. Customs/FBI realized that they screwed up and don't want to admit that they
left flight 253 passengers in customs for 1 hour with a live bomb in a carry on
bag.
3. Customs/FBI realize that the man in orange points to a greater involvement
then the lone wolf theory that they have been promoting.
Mr. Ron Smith I encourage you to come out of your cubicle and come up with a
more plausible version number 4 of your story.

Haskell continued his comment in a different post on MLive.

For the last five days I have been reporting my story of the so called "sharp
dressed man." For those of you who haven't read my account, it involves a sharp
dressed "Indian man" attempting to talk a ticket agent into letting a supposed
"Sudanese refugee" (The terrorist) onto flight 253 without a passport. I have
never had any idea how it played out except to note that the so called "Sudanese
reefugee" later boarded my flight and attempted to blow it up and kill me. At no
time did my story involve, or even find important whether the terrorist actually
had a passport. The importance of my story was and always will be, the attempt
with an accomplice (apparently succesful) of a terrorist with all sorts of prior
terrorist warning signs to skirt the normal passport boarding procedures in
Amsterdam. By the way, Amsterdam security did come out the other day and admit
that the terrorist did not have to "Go through normal passport checking
procedures".
     Amsterdam security, please define to the American public "Normal passport
boarding procedures".
You see the FBI would have the American public believe that what was important
was whether the terrorist in fact had a passport.
Seriously think about this people. You have a suicide bomber who had recently
been to Yemen to but a bomb, whose father had reported him as a terrorist, who
supposedly was on some kind of U.S. terror watchlist, and most likely knew the
U.S. was aware of these red flags. Yet, he didn't go through "Normal passport
checking procedures." What does that mean? Maybe that he flashed a passport to
some sort of sympathetic security manager in a backroom to avoid a closer look
at the terrorist's "red flags"? What is important is that the terrorist avoided
using normal passport checking procedures (apparently successfully) in order to
avoid a closer look into his red flags. Who cares if he had a passport. The
important thing is that he didn't want to show it and somehow avoided a closer
inspection and "normal passport checking procedures." Each passport comes with a
bar code on it that can be scanned to provide a wealth of information about the
individual. I would bet that the passport checking procedures for the terrorist
did not include a bar code scan of his passport (which could have revealed
damning information about the terrorist).
Please note that there is a very easy way to verify the veracity of my prior
"sharp dressed man" account. Dutch police have admitted that they have reviewed
the video of the "sharp dressed man" that I referenced. Note that it has not
been released anywhere, You see, if my eye witness account is false, it could
easily be proven by releasing the video. However, the proof of my eyewitness
account would also be verified if I am telling the truth and I am. There is a
reason we have only heard of the video and not seen it. dutch authorities,
"RELEASE THE VIDEO!" This is the most important video in 8 years and may be all
of two minutes long. Show the entire video and "DO NOT EDIT IT"! The American
public deserves its own chance to attempt to identify the "sharp dressed man". I
have no doubt that if the video indicated that my account was wrong, that the
video would have already swept over the entire world wide web.
Instead of the video, we get a statment that the video has been viewed and that
the terrorist had a passport. Each of these statements made by the FBI is a self
serving play on semantics and each misses the importance of my prior "sharp
dressed man" account. The importance being that the man "Tried to board the
plane with an accomplice and without a passort". The other significance is that
only the airport security video can verify my eyewitness account and that it is
not being released.
Who has the agenda here and who doesn't? Think about that for a minute.

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Fusion Center Encourages Improper Investigations Of Lobbying Groups And Anti-War
Activists (2/25/2009)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (202) 675-2312; media@...

http://www.aclu.org/privacy/gen/38835prs20090225.html



WASHINGTON – A Texas fusion center's "Prevention Awareness Bulletin" made public
last night is the latest example of inappropriate police intelligence operations
targeting political, religious and social activists for investigation. The North
Central Texas Fusion System bulletin states that it is "imperative for law
enforcement officers to report" the activities of lobbying groups, Muslim civil
rights organizations and anti-war protest groups in their areas.
"This memo is not a plea for legitimate intelligence, and seems to endorse
discrimination against Muslims," said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU
Washington Legislative Office. "The idea that the tolerance advocated by the
groups being targeted would be treated as a menace to American security
demonstrates a disregard for civil liberties and a disdain for democracy itself.
The kind of indiscriminate and unlawful investigations this bulletin calls for
always results in a chilling effect on free speech and association."
The federal government has facilitated the growth of a network of fusion centers
since 9/11 to expand information collection and sharing practices among law
enforcement agencies, the private sector and the intelligence community. There
are currently 70 fusion centers in the United States.
"It should be obvious with the constant news of increased violence in Mexico
that Texas needs law enforcement to focus on real criminal threats instead of
targeting religious minorities and groups with unpopular political opinions."
Rebecca Bernhardt, ACLU TX Policy Director said, "The North Central Texas Fusion
Center should be reviewed to determine whether it can contribute to the serious
public safety mission of Texas or not."
Proponents have claimed all fusion center personnel receive civil rights
training, and that this training is sufficient to protect the privacy and civil
liberties of Americans living in the communities where fusion centers operate,
but this is obviously not the case. The ACLU has long warned that ambiguities
regarding who controls these fusion centers and a complete lack of oversight
over their intelligence activities would lead to violations like this.
"The Texas fusion center's bulletin shows an unhealthy disregard for
constitutional rights and democratic processes," said Michael German, ACLU
National Security Policy Counsel and former FBI Agent. "It demonstrates the lack
of professionalism that exists at fusion centers and the severe lack of
oversight at the state, local and federal levels. According to its website,
North Central Texas Fusion System bulletins are disseminated to thousands of
people in over a hundred different agencies, and this report directs law
enforcement officers to `report' on the political activities of advocacy groups.
The web of connections it weaves – drawing parallels between Muslim civil
liberties groups, lobbying organizations, peace activists, hip hop bands, a
former congresswoman and even the U.S. Treasury Department – would be comical if
not for the real consequences that these organizations and individuals might
face."
In 2007, the ACLU released a report entitled, "What's Wrong With Fusion
Centers?" which was updated last year. The report identifies specific concerns
with fusion centers, including their ambiguous lines of authority, the troubling
role of private corporations, the participation of the military, the use of data
mining and the excessive secrecy surrounding the centers As a national trend
continues to close down public information about this domestic intelligence
network, it continues to grow out of control.Recent revelations of the
Department of Homeland Security's role in the Maryland State Police Department's
surveillance of peace groups have deepened the ACLU's concerns, particularly
because a DHS intelligence analyst is reportedly assigned to the North Central
Texas Fusion System.


To read the ACLU's report on fusion centers, go to:
www.aclu.org/fusion


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Yemen Dismisses Al Qaeda Threat as 'Exaggerated'

By Borzou Daragahi

Yemeni officials on Sunday dismissed the threat posed by Al Qaeda in their
country as "exaggerated" and downplayed the possibility of cooperating closely
with the United States in fighting Islamic militants.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24318.htm

===

U.S. Kicks Hornet's Nest in Yemen

By Eric Margolis

Just before the Detroit air incident, U.S. warplanes killed 50-100 Yemeni
tribesmen fighting the American-backed regime. U.S. special forces, warplanes
and killer drones have been active since 2001, assassinating Yemeni militants
and anti-government tribal leaders. It was only a matter of time before Yemeni
jihadists struck back at the U.S.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24322.htm

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US-Arab states arms deals irk Israel
Monday, 04 January 2010
PressTV
http://www.rebelnews.org/politics/middle-east/160102-us-arab-states-arms-deals-i\
rk-israel


A US trooper operating a TOW-2 anti-tank missile launcher in Afghanistan


A new report says major arms deal agreements signed between Washington and
several Arab countries has raised concerns among Israeli officials.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported Monday that Washington has recently signed
several arms deals based on which it will sell advanced arms to Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

According to the report, the shipments are to include anti-ship and anti-tank
missiles as well as the so-called smart and bunker-busting bombs.

Israel, however, expressed concern over the arms sales to the Arab countries.

According to the Pentagon's report to Congress in December, no arms deal with
Israel has taken place since US President Barack Obama took office on January
2008.

The details of the deals were also posted on the Pentagon website in which the
Department of Defense noted that none of the deals would "alter the military
balance in the region."

Israel had formerly expressed concern about the US arms sales to Egypt, Saudi
Arabia and other Arab countries during George W. Bush's presidency.

In its report to Congress the Pentagon argued that providing the Arab countries
with advanced arms "is part of Washington's efforts to boost the moderate axis
in the Middle East and to deter Iran."

"Egypt needs these missiles in order to protect its borders," according to the
report.

A large arms deal with Saudi Arabia includes the sale of 2,742 TOW-2 anti-tank
missiles. These advanced missiles, which Israel also possesses, are capable of
penetrating the armor protection of most tanks. The total value of this deal,
which is to benefit the Saudi National Guard, is estimated at USD 177 million.

The report also explained that the large arms deal with Saudi Arabia, are part
of an effort to "deter Iran and to counter Al-Qaeda in Yemen."

This is while, since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has never invaded any
country.

SB/HGH/MMN

US-Arab states arms deals irk Israel
Fix IE Bug. Dont remove this line.

A US trooper operating a TOW-2 anti-tank missile launcher in Afghanistan
A new report says major arms deal agreements signed between Washington and
several Arab countries has raised concerns among Israeli officials.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported Monday that Washington has recently signed
several arms deals based on which it will sell advanced arms to Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

According to the report, the shipments are to include anti-ship and anti-tank
missiles as well as the so-called smart and bunker-busting bombs.

Israel, however, expressed concern over the arms sales to the Arab countries.

According to the Pentagon's report to Congress in December, no arms deal with
Israel has taken place since US President Barack Obama took office on January
2008.

The details of the deals were also posted on the Pentagon website in which the
Department of Defense noted that none of the deals would "alter the military
balance in the region."

Israel had formerly expressed concern about the US arms sales to Egypt, Saudi
Arabia and other Arab countries during George W. Bush's presidency.

In its report to Congress the Pentagon argued that providing the Arab countries
with advanced arms "is part of Washington's efforts to boost the moderate axis
in the Middle East and to deter Iran."

"Egypt needs these missiles in order to protect its borders," according to the
report.

A large arms deal with Saudi Arabia includes the sale of 2,742 TOW-2 anti-tank
missiles. These advanced missiles, which Israel also possesses, are capable of
penetrating the armor protection of most tanks. The total value of this deal,
which is to benefit the Saudi National Guard, is estimated at USD 177 million.

The report also explained that the large arms deal with Saudi Arabia, are part
of an effort to "deter Iran and to counter Al-Qaeda in Yemen."

This is while, since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has never invaded any
country.

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Yemeni Official: It's Our `Duty' to Ask for Return of Detainees
By Spencer Ackerman
http://freedetainees.org/8029?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaig\
n=Feed%3A+freedetainees%2FZCdR+%28freedetainees.org%29


Figure Responds to Growing Chorus to Keep Yemeni Prisoners at Gitmo
Sens. Joe Liarmann (I-Conn.), John McManchurian (R-Ariz.)
and Lindsey Graham Cracker (R-S. C.) (UPPA/ZUMA Press)
Critics of President Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention
facility are saying that the Yemen connections of would-be plane bomber Umar
Farouk Abdulmutallab ought to prevent the administration from repatriating
dozens of Yemeni detainees currently held at Guantanamo. "It would be
irresponsible to take any of the Yemeni detainees in Guantanamo and send them
back to Yemen," Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn) said on ABC News' "ThisWeek" on
Sunday.
But a Yemeni official points out that his government wouldn't stand for such a
reversal.

"It is my country's duty to ask for the custody of our detainees, like every
country would do," the Yemeni official told TWI. The official spoke on condition
of anonymity, citing the sensitive political nature of the Guantanamo Bay
question. But the official added, "Of course, we have stated that to the Obama
administration."
Since investigators determined that Abdulmutallab received aid from al-Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula, the terrorist syndicate's Yemen affiliate, a chorus has
built on the right to warn Obama against repatriating the Yemenis at Guantanamo.
On December 29, Lieberman joined with Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey
Graham (R-S.C.) in writing to Obama for an "immediate halt" on releasing any
detainees cleared for repatriation. "The current conditions and threat of AQAP
[al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] are clear evidence of the danger in
repatriating these Yemeni detainees at this time," the Senators wrote. There are
about 90 Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay, with about 40 of them cleared for
release back to their home country by the Bush and Obama administrations.

Post-Christmas fears of terrorism have led even some administration allies to
come out against repatriation to Yemen. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the
chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, echoed the
McCain-Graham-Lieberman letter in a statement, saying that conditions in Yemen
were "too unstable" to release the Guantanamo Yemenis "to Yemen at this time."
Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), a longtime member of the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence, added on ABC's "ThisWeek," "I think it is a bad time
to send the 90 or so Yemenis back to Yemen."

But the Yemeni official's comments underscore the difficulties with abandoning
Obama's plans to ultimately close Guantanamo. Shortly before the failed
Christmas attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, the U.S. assisted Yemen with
missile strikes against al-Qaeda targets. John Brennan, the White House's top
counterterrorism adviser, said on the Sunday talk show circuit yesterday that
the Obama administration would be broadening and deepening its support to the
Yemeni government to "provide the Yemeni government with the wherewithal to
carry out this fight against al-Qaeda."

Brennan spoke about providing additional diplomatic, intelligence, financial and
security-sector assistance to the Yemeni government, which is facing an
intensifying challenge from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. To refuse Yemen
its repatriation of detainees the Defense and Justice Departments have already
cleared for transfer risks upsetting the Yemenis at a time when the U.S. is
relying on it to take additional action against al-Qaeda — or to tolerate its
own controversial airstrikes against al-Qaeda targets. On Monday, the Yemeni
government said it had killed two members of the terrorist group, but over the
weekend, Yemen's foreign minister warned the U.S. against "direct intervention"
during an interview with al-Jazeera.

"The Obama administration has a legitimate reason to hesitate in repatriating
Yemeni detainees, given past experience that has included escapes (probably
assisted) from Yemeni jails and the the return of some released detainees to
terrorist activity," said Paul Pillar, a former top CIA Mideast analyst. "The
administration needs to balance this hazard against the hazard of inadvertently
insulting or antagonizing the Yemeni government, on which the United States is
more dependent than ever for counterterrorist cooperation, including potentially
costly military action by the Yemeni armed forces."

The Yemeni official declined to comment on the impact a lack of repatriation
would have on the two nations' relations. Nor would the official comment on the
congressional calls to keep the Yemeni citizens at Guantanamo. But the official
said, "The detainees that have been sent to Yemen were detainees that have been
cleared by U.S. courts, and therefore are presumed innocent, or at least nothing
stands against them." (Few, if any, Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo have received
a hearing before a civilian U.S. court.)

There have been some additional criticism of the McCain-Graham-Lieberman
letter's grasp on the basic facts of the Yemenis' situation at Guantanamo.
Shortly after it was issued, TWI's Daphne Eviatar noticed that its specific
reference to "six Yemeni nationals" actually referred to six individuals whom
the Obama administration returned to Yemen more than a week before the three
senators wrote their letter, and before the Christmas attempt on Flight 253
occurred. A spokesperson for Graham explained to Eviatar, "They're trying to
stop the transfer of a number of detainees back to Yemen until we are certain
these detainees will not make their way back to the battlefield." Additionally,
ABC News had to retract a story about freed Guantanamo detainees aiding
Abdulmutallab.

Still, Pillar predicted, "The likely policy outcome is to slow-roll release of
the remaining Yemeni detainees from Guantanamo, who represent the toughest cases
among all the Yemenis who have been incarcerated there."

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Egyptian police attacks Viva Palestina aid volunteers


LA VOZ DE AZTLAN
Los Angeles, Alta California
January 5, 2010

Egyptian police attacks
Viva Palestina aid volunteers

[PHOTO] Just a few hours ago approximately 2,000 Egyptian riot policemen
attacked and injured volunteers of the Viva Palestina aid convoy that were
inside the port of Al Arish preparing to drive the convoy vehicles to Gaza to
deliver medical supplies and other humanitarian supplies.

Reports through Twitter from convoy participants say that there were serious
injuries to some of the volunteers who suffered blows to the head by baton
wielding policemen. Some were taken out of the port compound in stretchers and
many of the victims are being attended at a mosque at the port. There are
reports that some of the Viva Palestina volunteers are missing.

[PHOTO] One convoy member reported, "Tear gas, water cannons, rock throwing,
they are under full attack… whole thing happened when convoy members were still
locked inside this gated compound, then suddenly a very large group of plain
clothes 'people' arrived at the compound with sticks and stones… 20 members were
injured in the attack and there are some people from the convoy who are missing
and cannot be found."

[PHOTO] Another convoy member stated, "I was coming back from dinner with 8
brothers and sisters. . . approximately 30 riot police approached us & started
harassing pushing and hitting us. the situation escalated. We tried to lock arms
and hold each other and get to the gate. There were too many of them. Two meters
from the gate they separated us and beat the shit out of us. I got dragged under
and into a group of the riot police and was being beaten. Managed to get to the
wall. as I was being beaten one of the brothers grabbed me from across the wall
and put me into the compound. Of the nine of us, four are missing I don't know
what has happened to them."

This aid convoy that came under attack is the third Viva Palestina humanitarian
effort organized and led by Member of the British Parliament George Galloway. A
fourth convoy called the Hugo Chavez Viva Palestina Aid Convoy is planned from
Venezuela around September of this year.

[VIDEO]

http://www.aztlan.net/egyptian_police_attacks_viva_palestina.htm

===

URGENT ALERT: Viva Palestina faced with 2,000 Egyptian Riot Police!

THE PEACE AND JUSTICE FOUNDATION
11006 Veirs Mill Rd, STE L-15, PMB 298
Silver Spring, MD. 20902

URGENT ALERT!


Press TV Report On Viva Palestina Convoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04EcEb4eMEM&feature=player_embedded


Assalaamu Alaikum (Greetings of Peace):

The world is receiving a tragic lesson in why Egypt received the "honor" of a
U.S. presidential visit a few months ago. It is because this once proud "Arab
nation" has sold its soul to the Zionist agenda to such an extent that it can be
counted on to commit the most unconscionable acts in servile obeisance to that
agenda!

The forwarded message below speaks for itself. People and organizations of
conscience and good will should mount emergency demonstrations wherever an
Egyptian embassy/consulate is located; Arab and Muslim organizations should be
in the forefront of such a mobilization. If any community organizations and/or
student groups are interested in mounting such a mobilization in the DC area,
you could count on our humble support, insha'Allah.

El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan
--------------------------------------

From: alice@vivapalestina .org
To: information@ vivapalestina. org
Subject:  Viva Palestina are faced with 2,000 riot police in the port of
Al-Arish!

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 20:04:54 +0000


To all friends of Palestine

Our situation is now at a crisis point! Riot has broken out in the port of Al-
Arish.

This late afternoon we were negotiating with a senior official from Cairo who
left negotiations some two hours ago and did not return. Our negotiations with
the official was regarding taking our aid vehicles into Gaza.

He left two hours ago and did not come back. Egyptian authorities called over
2,000 riot police who then moved towards our camp at the port.

We have now blocked the entrance to the port and we are now faced with riot
police and water cannons and are determined to defend our vehicles and aid.

The Egyptian authorities have by their stubbornness and hostility towards the
convoy, brought us to a crisis point..

We are now calling upon all friends of palestine to mount protests in person
where possible, but by any means available to Egyptian representatives,
consulates and Embassy's and demand that the convoy are allowed a safe passage
into Gaza tomorrow!


Kevin Ovenden
Viva Palestina Convoy Leader

------------ ---------
Alice Howard
Viva Palestina UK - Administration Manager
Tel: 07944 512 469
Email: alice@vivapalestina .org
Website: http://www.vivapale stina.org/

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WE'RE BAAAACK!!  "JUDICIAL CHICANERY" OF FEDERAL COURT OF CANADA SIDE-SWIPED –
Call for investigation!
"Mohawk Nation News" <ioriwase@...>

MNN. On June 14, 2008, Kahentinetha and Katenies, two Mohawk women, were
viciously attacked at the Cornwall Ontario border by a special squad of about
twelve barking Canadian Border Services Agents CBSA dressed for combat.  One
woman was put into a torture stress situation meant to kill her.  She suffered a
trauma induced heart attack and is still recovering.  The other was severely
beaten and held incommunicado without access to medical attention or outside
help.  She is still recovering from her injuries.

Kahentinetha and Katenies live in the Mohawk communities of Akwesasne and
Kahnawake.  They think that everyone should be able to pass the illegal colonial
border without being assaulted or killed.

No employee or official has shown any concern for the near fatal assault
committed by the CBSA.  They filed formal complaints for a full investigation,
appropriate charges to be made against the offenders and reasonable compensation
for their arrest, assault and illegal jailing.  They sent requests to the Hon.
Robert Nicholson, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, the
Ontario Provincial Police, the RCMP, the Mohawk Akwesasne Police and the CBSA. 
They all refused to investigate.

The two women have no money and no lawyer.  They had no choice but to represent
themselves.  They filed a Federal Court of Canada lawsuit to force the police
and government agents to investigate this attempted murder.   For $2 they filed
a Statement of Claim on the "Assault, arrest and illegal detention" by Canada
Border Services Agents [Kahentinetha & Katenies v. Queen, Section 48, Federal
Court Act, T-1309-08].   At first the court registry employees seemed helpful. 
As time went on they issued misinformation and lost documents to sabotage the
lawsuit.

The crown's first response was to file an unprecedented countersuit for
Kahentinetha and Katenies to pay for Canada`s costs.  To start they wanted over
$20,000 on deposit before the case could be tried, plus all subsequent costs
thereafter.  They justified this by claiming that Kahentinetha and Katenies are
"not residents of Canada".  They based this deceptive false argument on an
unsubstantiated article from a newspaper published on the internet that
speculated that Katenies lived in the U.S.  Kahentinetha and Katenies submitted
evidence that they live in Akwesasne and Kahnawake which are located in the
portion of the colony of Canada known as "Quebec".  They are considered
residents of Canada by the Canadian government.  The court refused to accept the
evidence.

Kahentinetha and Katenies were pleased with FCC's order that respects Indigenous
jurisdiction over Turtle Island.  According to Canada's own order and laws, the
demand for money is a human rights violation and Canada must remove its border
control.

Prothonotary Mireille Tabib of FCC issued the order that the two women must put
$6,500 before the case would proceed.  Kahentinetha and Katenies appealed.  They
argued that Canada cannot claim that Kahnawake and Akwesasne are not part of
Canada so as to classify them as "non-residents" to make them pay court costs,
while they treat these communities as parts of Canada, including having a border
control in the center.  This was a very strong argument.  So they stooped to
skullduggery.  They "lost" the appeal documents.

When the crown did not reply, Kahentinetha phoned the FCC registry.  She was
told the documents were lost.  Then they suddenly found them.  Kahentinetha and
Katenies were instructed to re-file the appeal and to ask "for an extension of
time".

FCC Judge Francois Lemieux then issued an order denying them the extension of
time.  He made no ruling on the unconstitutional posting of money by victims of
a crime carried out by agents of the state.  His deflection made it impossible
for the women to appeal.  Such a cynical and willful obstruction of justice was
unexpected.

Kahentinetha and Katenies, having no money, no jobs and no attachable assets,
had to abandon the case.  Then on February 26, 2009, Kahentinetha filed a brand
new suit on the "Reckless disregard for the safety and security of Indigenous
Women at the Canadian Border, Akwesasne" [FCC File No. T-288-09, Kahentinetha v.
Queen].  Not forgotten is that men are also abused at the border.

Canada continues judicial chicanery with blindness to the rule of law.   As a
signatory to international human rights instruments, Canada's Constitution Act,
1982, states everyone is equal before the law.  People, no matter what part of
the world they come from, cannot be beaten up by state agents with impunity.

Hardball bullying that Kahentinetha and Katenies got from the FCC shows that it
is impossible for Indigenous to get our issues discussed rationally and resolved
according to generally accept Canadian and international legal principles.   
Canadian and international opinion does not support this high handed and
unethical behavior.

Kahentinetha is not a Canadian citizen and Kahnawake and Akwesasne are not part
of Canada as recognized by Prothonotary Mireille Tabib's order of 23 October,
2008 [FCC No. T-1309] and by Judge Francois Lemieux's order of 29 January 2009 [
FCC No. T-1309-08].

The assault can be proven by both civilian and government of Canada witnesses,
by medical and hospital records and by videotape evidence which is in the hands
of the CBSA.

Kahentinetha and Katenies' main purposes for their legal actions are to demand a
full and fair investigation of:   1)  the assault; 2)  the failure to
investigate;  3) the loss of documents and unethical treatment by the FCC;  and
4) the action to be tried without delay in the FCC at 30 McGill Street,
Montreal, Quebec.

Canada continues to use its courts as a political weapon to allow its agents to
abuse us with impunity.  This case cannot be swept under the carpet of judicial
chicanery.

Ieriwaonni & MNN Staff Mohawk Nation News www.mohawknationnews.com
katenies20@... kahentinetha2@...  Note:  Your financial help is
needed and appreciated.  Please send your donations by check or money order to
"MNN Mohawk Nation News", Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0.  Nia:wen
thank you very much.  Go to MNN "BORDER" category for more stories; New MNN
Books Available now!  Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStore
http://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews; Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updates
http://.mohawknationnews.com/news/subscription.php; Sign Women Title Holders 
petition! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois
Cases FCC T-1309-08 and FCC T-288-09, Kahentinetha v. Queen.
POLITICAL, JUDICIAL & BUREAUCRATIC "DOUCE BAGS":  Hon. Robert
"Contemptible-flunkey-who-protects
state-criminals-and-other-agents-of-repression" Nicholson, Minister of Justice &
Attorney General of Canada, Tel:  613-941-6900, Nicholson.r@..., Hon.
John ""Judicial-hit-man" Sims, Deputy Attorney-General of Canada, Dept. of
Justice, 284 Wellington St. TSA-6032, Ottawa Ontario K1A0H8 Tel:  613-946-2774,
613-992-3452, 613-942-4238, L. Bisson, Manager, Ministerial Correspondence Unit
mcu@...; Charles Payette 613-952-3653, Anil Kamal 613-943-2302 Fax: 
613-952-6006; Federal Court of Canada, 30 McGill St., Montreal Quebec H2Y 3Z7
Tel:  1-800-927-5499, 514-283-4820, Prothonotary Mireille
"Twisted-judicial-storm-trooping-gate-keeper-with-a-history-of-unconscionable-ch\
icanery-against-Ongwehone" Tabib, Judge Francois
"Rubber-stamping-petti-fogging-cheater" Lemieux; Sgt. J.L. Pettit, RCMP
Headquarters, 1200 Vanier Parkway, Ottawa K1A 0R2 Tel: 613-993-7267 Fax:
613-993-0260; Louise Steele, Ontario Provincial Police, 777 Memorial Avenue,
Orillia Ontario L3V 7V3 Tel:  705-329- 6051;
COLONIAL DOUCHE BAG PUPPETS:   Phil Fontaine of the AFN is a partner in CBSA's
Sustainable Development Strategy 2007-9; Chris Kealey, Canada Customs Excise,
Immigration Taxation Board, CBSA Media Relations 613-991-5197; President CBSA
613-952-3200, 613-957-0612, CBSA-ASFC@...; National Aboriginal
Initiative CHRC 204-983-2189 1-866-772-4880 info.com@...; Canada
Customs Port of Entry at Cornwall Island Ontario; Quebec Human Rights
presidence@...; Akwesasne Mohawk Police 613-575-2250 ex 2400; Mohawk
Security at the border 613-932-5183, 613-575-2340; Lance Markel, District
Director CBSA 613-930-3234, 613-991-1214; Brent Lefebvre, Investigator CBSA;
Susan St. Clair, Canadian Human Rights Commission, 344 Slater, Ottawa
613-995-1151, 1-888-214-1090, 613-943-5188; CBSA National Spokesperson
613-957-6500; Quebec Media Relations CBSA 514-350-6130; Chief Mohawk Council
Akwesasne 613-575-2250 nbenedict@...; Minister Stockwell Day, Ottawa
613-995-4432; Melissa Leclair Communications Pub. Safety 613-991-2863.

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Spy vs. spy, Israel vs. America


The Dark Side of the "Special Relationship"
By Justin Raimondo,
http://intifada-palestine.com/2009/10/27/the-dark-side-of-the-special-relationsh\
ip%e2%80%9d/


A silent battle has been raging right under our noses, a fierce underground
struggle pitting the U.S. against one of its closest allies. For all its
newsworthiness, the media has barely noticed the story — except when it
surfaces, briefly, like a giant fin jutting above the waves. The aggressor in
this war is the state of Israel, with the U.S., its sponsor and protector,
playing defense. This is the dark side of the "special relationship" — a battle
of spy vs. spy.
Convicted spy Jonathan Pollard — now serving a life sentence — stole secrets so
vital that an attempt by the Israelis to get him pardoned was blocked by a
massive protest from the intelligence and defense communities. Bill Clinton
wanted to trade Pollard for Israeli concessions in the ongoing "peace process,"
and he was only prevented from doing so by a threat of mass resignations by the
top leadership of the intelligence community.

The reason for their intransigence: among the material Pollard had been asked by
his Israeli handlers to steal was the U.S. attack plan against the Soviet Union.
According to Seymour Hersh, then-CIA director Bill Casey claimed Tel Aviv handed
over the information to Moscow in exchange for relaxation of travel restrictions
on Soviet Jews, who were then allowed to emigrate to Israel.

The Pollard case is emblematic — but it was just the beginning of a years-long
effort by U.S. counterintelligence to rid themselves of the Israeli incubus. Law
enforcement was — and presumably still is — convinced Pollard was very far from
alone, and that a highly placed "mole" had provided him with key information. In
his quest to procure very specific information, Pollard knew precisely which
documents to look for — knowledge he couldn't access without help from someone
very high in government circles.

In addition, the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted a phone conversation
between an Israeli intelligence officer and his boss in Tel Aviv, during which
they discussed how to get hold of a letter by then-secretary of state Warren
Christopher to Yasser Arafat. The Washington spy suggested they use "Mega," but
his boss demurred: "This is not something we use Mega for," he averred.

The search for Mega and his underlings continues to this day, as U.S.
counterintelligence attempts to rip up what appears to be a vast Israeli spy
operation by its very deep roots. That's why they went after Ben Ami Kadish, who
handed over U.S. secrets to Tel Aviv and shared a handler with Pollard, and why
they indicted Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, two top officials of AIPAC, the
powerful pro-Israel lobbying group. That's why they were listening on the other
end as Jane Harman promised an Israeli agent to intervene in the Rosen-Weissman
case. And now a new front has been opened up in this subterranean war with the
arrest of Stewart David Nozette, a top U.S. scientist who worked for the
Pentagon, had access to the most closely guarded nuclear secrets, and was the
lead scientist in the search for water on the moon.

Nozette's case is interesting because of his impressive resume: he held top
positions with the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and NASA,
and he served on the White House National Space Council under George H.W. Bush.
From 1989 until March 2006, he held "Q" clearance, which means he had access to
"critical nuclear weapon design information" and vital information concerning 20
"special access programs" — secrets only a very few top government officials had
knowledge of.

In other words, this wasn't just some mid-level schmuck who wanted to sell out
his country for cash: he was one of the big boys — the principal author of the
Clementine biostatic radar experiment, which allowed U.S. scientists to discover
water on the moon — a kind of J. Robert Oppenheimer figure, whose singular
contributions to the U.S. space program and its military applications granted
him security clearances available to a very select few.

The affidavit in support of the criminal complaint [.pdf] alleging espionage is
terse, vague in parts, and brimming with implication. Taking their cues from the
Department of Justice press release, most news reports state, "The complaint
does not allege that the government of Israel or anyone acting on its behalf
committed any offense under U.S. laws," leaving out the last three words in the
DOJ's sentence: "in this case."

In this particular case, it's true, prosecutors are going after Nozette for
violations that occurred while they were reeling him in, with a federal agent
pretending to be a Mossad officer offering him money (not very much, by the way)
in exchange for secrets. The real question, however, is what caused them to zero
in on Nozette? A Washington Times piece cites Kenneth Piernick, a former senior
FBI agent, who opined:

He must have made some kind of attempt, which triggered the FBI's interest in
him. They cut in between him and whoever he was trying to work with and posed as
an intelligence officer, agent, or courier to handle the issue, and then when he
delivered what he intended to deliver to that person, his contact was likely an
undercover FBI agent or [someone from] another U.S. intelligence service
Yet Nozette may have made more than a mere "attempt." The affidavit alleges
that, from 1998 to 2008, he served as a consultant to "an aerospace company
wholly owned by the government of Israel," during which time "approximately once
a month representatives of the aerospace company proposed questions, or
taskings, to Nozette." He answered these questions, and, in return, received
regular payments totaling $250,000.

This indicates the Feds had been on to Nozette for quite some time, and with
good cause. The affidavit also notes that, at the beginning of this year, he
traveled to "a different foreign country" in possession of two computer "thumb"
drives, which seemed to have mysteriously disappeared upon his return some three
weeks later. What was on the drives — and who were the recipients?

In 2007, federal authorities raided the offices of Nozette's nonprofit company,
the Alliance for Competitive Technology (ACT), purportedly because ACT, having
procured several lucrative government contracts, had defrauded the federal
government by overcharging. The affidavit cites an anonymous colleague of
Nozette who recalled the scientist said that if the U.S. government ever tried
to put him in jail he would go to Israel or another foreign country and “tell
them everything” he knows.

Perhaps the real reason for the raid, however, had to do with the FBI's growing
suspicion — if not certainty — he was funneling U.S. secrets to Tel Aviv. ACT is
a curious creation, a "nonprofit" group that nevertheless generated over half a
million dollars last year according to documents filed with the IRS, with over
$150,000 in salary and benefits paid out to Nozette. But it wasn't just about
money. ACT's mission statement reads like a spy's dream come true:

"The Alliance for Competitive Technology has been created to serve the national
and public interest by conducting scientific research and educational activities
aimed at expanding the utilization of National and Government Laboratory
resources. The National Laboratories possess significant technology,
technologists, and resources, of great potential value to growing U.S.
industrial organizations, both small and large. Recent changes in national
policy (the Stevenson-Wydler Act of 1986 and the NASA Technology Utilization
Program) have sanctioned the pursuit of technology transfer from these
organizations. However, the capabilities and resources present in National
Laboratories are often difficult to access by small and medium sized
organizations with limited resources. ACT will research the best mechanisms to
facilitate this transfer through focused research on technology transfer
mechanisms, and educational and instructive programs on technology transfer from
National Laboratories. In addition, ACT will enable U.S. organizations to
utilize the resources of National Laboratories through existing established
mechanisms (e.g., the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Technology Affiliates
Program). Transfer of commercially valuable technology is significantly enhanced
by such direct support of private sector efforts."

In short: ACT is all about technology transfer — from the U.S. to Israel. This,
as is well-known, is one of the favored activities of the Israeli intelligence
services, which regularly pilfer the latest American technology (especially
military applications) to such an extent that a General Accounting Office
investigation once characterized the effort as "the most aggressive espionage
operations against the U.S. of any U.S. ally."

ACT had contracts with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.,
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in Arlington, Va., and NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. It is hardly a leap of faith to
conclude that vital data flowing from these projects was fed directly into the
waiting maw of the Mossad.

Nozette was a key figure in developing and promoting the "Star Wars" ballistic
missile defense system. His colleague in the "High Frontier" movement — and the
official director of ACT — is one Klaus Heiss, like Nozette an enthusiast [.pdf]
of space colonization (who also has some strong views on other subjects).

Contacted by an FBI agent masquerading as an Israeli intelligence agent, Nozette
didn't blink when told his lunch companion was from the Mossad: "Good," he said.
"Happy to be of assistance." This was well before the issue of money was raised.
Later in the conversation, Nozette boasted of his top-level security clearances
and the range and depth of his knowledge of U.S. secrets, adding, "I don't get
recruited by the Mossad every day. By the way, I knew this day would come."
Questioned further by the undercover agent, Nozette said, "I thought I was
working for you already. I mean, that's what I always thought [the foreign
company] was — just a front."

Which it no doubt was.

Nozette agreed to be a regular "asset," yet he clearly felt his position was
increasingly precarious. He inquired about the right of return and raised the
possibility that he might go to Israel. He wanted a passport as part of his
payment, in addition to the few thousand dollars the FBI was putting in a post
office "dead drop" for him on receipt of stolen secrets.

Well, then, so what? Don't all nations, even allies, spy on each other? What's
the significance of this particular case?
On the surface, our relationship with Israel is encompassed by the terms of the
"special relationship," which has so far consisted of the U.S. giving
unconditional support to Tel Aviv's every action, no matter how brutal [.pdf] or
contrary to our interests — and tolerating, to a large degree, its extensive
covert operations on U.S. soil (or, at least, keeping quiet about them). On a
deeper level, however, the tensions in this one-way love affair have frayed the
specialness of the relationship almost to the breaking point.

This is not just due to the election of Barack Obama, who is widely perceived in
Israel as being biased against the Jewish state. These tensions arose during
Bush's second term, when U.S. policy began to perceptibly tilt away from Tel
Aviv. A particularly telling blow to U.S.-Israeli relations was the decision by
the U.S. to clamp down on visa requirements for Israelis entering the U.S.:
potential visitors from Israel are now required to undergo an interview,
restrictions on their length of stay have been extended, and admission to the
U.S. is no longer assured.

In the secret world of spooks spying on one another, the U.S.-Israeli
relationship is increasingly adversarial, while in the diplomatic-political
realm, it has nearly reached the point of open hostilities. This is thanks to
the objective conditions that determine relations among nations: in the
post-Cold War world, Israel necessarily became much less of an asset to the U.S.
In the post-9/11 world, as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have so trenchantly
pointed out, it is an outright liability.

Our self-sacrificial policy of unconditional support for Israel has earned us
implacable enemies in the Arab world and granted our adversaries a priceless
propaganda prize — and the growing awareness of this disability is something the
Israelis no doubt find disturbing. The distortion of our foreign policy by the
power of the Israel lobby is also being widely noted, and this is their real
Achilles heel.

In this case, too, the Lobby will no doubt rush to exert their influence to
downgrade Nozette's crime and even depict him as an innocent victim of
entrapment. Defenders of the AIPAC duo conjured a vast "anti-Semitic" conspiracy
within the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI to explain the alleged
persecution of Rosen and Weissman, and the same tactics are bound to be trotted
out in this instance.

That is nonsense. The FBI didn't just pick Nozette arbitrarily and conjure his
crimes out of thin air. Their target was already deeply involved with the
Israelis, and this is what brought him to their attention in the first place.

The nature and extent of Israeli spying in the U.S. is not a subject you'll see
the "mainstream" media very often touch with so much as a 10-foot pole, but when
it does the results can be ominously disturbing. I, for one, haven't forgotten
Carl Cameron's four-part series on Israeli spying in the U.S., broadcast by Fox
News in December 2001. According to Cameron, his sources in law enforcement told
him the Israelis had been following the 9/11 hijackers and had foreknowledge of
their plans but somehow neglected to tell us. And then there were those dancing
Israelis, leaping for joy at the sight of the Twin Towers burning!

This is the dark side of the "special relationship," so dark that hardly anyone
wants to acknowledge it, let alone consider its implications.

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THE PEACE AND JUSTICE FOUNDATION
11006 Veirs Mill Rd, STE L-15, PMB 298
Silver Spring, MD. 20902

MUHARRAM 1431 A.H.
(January 9, 2010)


Assalaamu Alaikum (Greetings of Peace):

A few days ago I received an e-mail alert on yesterday's anti-terrorism rally
held in Detroit (MI). I was asked to forward the alert to our lists, but I just
couldn't. Something inside me felt that the PR campaign would end up being more
about image (i.e. politically correct public relations), than about making a
statement that the public and powers-that-be needed to hear. After reading a
couple of post-rally articles, I concluded that my instincts were correct. (More
on this later, insha'Allah.)

As ALLAH is my witness, my immediate reaction to the earliest reports of the
incident involving the young Nigerian Muslim's attempt to hurt himself (and
possibly others) on the plane that was in the process of landing in Detroit, was
that he was not in his right mind; that this was a troubled young man who was
not mentally well.

The question that came to mind was, did he do this on his own, or was he
manipulated by someone else into doing what he did? And if the latter, was that
person a professed Muslim? Or was it a non-Muslim provocateur motivated by a
political, and possible economic, agenda? And to my knowledge, and this is very
important, there has yet to be one report to call for this young man to be
examined to determine his state of mental health!

With that said, it pleases me to be able to forward to our readers the most
insightful commentary I've heard yet on this troubling tragedy. It pleases me
even more that it was written by a fellow Nigerian.

El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan

-------------------------

Farouk: Terrorist? No! Misguided? Yes!!!
By Dele Sobowale - Jan 4, 2010


I started reading Nigerian newspapers in 1953 —mostly those absolutely
delightful cartoon/advertisements by Nigerian Breweries featuring Sammy Sparkle.
Who in our generation can forget that mischievous character who popped up almost
every where to stop a train; to stop a fight, etc, and the punch line —“I did
says Sammy Sparkle; its time for STAR”.

I was also a good listener; in fact the best listener when my father, a Yoruba
man who would gladly lay his life on the line for “Zik of Africa” and my eldest
brother, who was a die-hard Awoist engaged themselves in arguments over their
heroes. Between father, who religiously read the West African Pilot published by
Zik and my brother, who devoured the Tribune, published by Awolowo, I got to
know most of the important news of each day.

Never in those 56 years has the media in Nigeria and respected opinion leaders
made such individual and collective fools of themselves as they have done since
the news of  Farouk Abdulmutallab’s attempt to commit suicide was first
announced by the American owned CNN network on Christmas day.

Notice the words “attempt to commit suicide” because that is what most of our
commentators missed. The CBN, naturally, had gone to considerable length to
portray Farouk as a terrorist because an American aircraft was involved and the
attempt occurred as the plane was about to land in Detroit — one of America’s
largest cities. It was understandable that the news network would take the
politically “correct” position in their broadcasts with regard to this incident.
But, it was poor journalism. Worse than that; it was pure propaganda —as this
article would show.


Media executioners

While CNN’s position was understandable, the response of the Nigerian media,
opinion leaders, the Federal Government and even Farouk’s father was at first
puzzling and finally enraging. CNN labeled Farouk a “terrorist” and every damn
fool in Nigeria who had access to a page of newspaper or a few minutes on the
air in electronic media, was gullible enough to accept that label without
question and a barrage of the most prejudicial statements and commentaries
followed.

Editors, who should be more discerning, were all on holidays and they allowed
their papers to be used in the most despicable manner — to defame Farouk; to
pronounce him guilty — even before pleas are taken and to have handed the poor
misguided boy to American executioners. Well, I have a name for my media
colleagues, from CNN to Nigerian columnists — on this matter.

As far as I am concerned they are all a bunch of media executioners. They have
not even bothered with the first golden rule of journalism and law —let the
other party be heard. None of our engaging and erudite columnists has spoken to
Farouk; and failing that none had put on their thinking caps to ask themselves
if Farouk’s right — namely the right to be presumed innocent of the charges —
were being violated.

When Mark Twain, 1835-1910, wrote in Innocents at Home, “Are you going to hang
him anyhow — and try him afterward?”, he must have had in mind a situation such
as this.

And it was not only Farouk who was thoughtlessly slaughtered in the collective
race to hand the poor boy to American executioners. His parents, the Federal
Government and even the re-branding effort of the Yar’Adua’s administration and
the Nigerian nation were all taken to the media abattoir and butchered.

But was Farouk guilty of terrorism? Was his father wrong to have sent his son
abroad for his education? Should the unfortunate incident be a reason to
jettison the re-branding effort? And should Nigeria and Nigerians feel
embarrassed and hide their heads in shame? The answer to all the questions,
surprisingly, is a resounding NO!

Permit me to start in reverse order to point out how Nigerians have allowed
themselves to be fooled by US propaganda and the thoughtlessness of our public
opinion molders.

Virtually every day bombs go off in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, killing
several hundred more people than were on the Delta Airline plane that Farouk was
accused of attempting to blow off. Neither the governments nor the people in
those countries feel ashamed or embarrassed. Why? Because they, and the entire
world, realise that those carrying out these activities are in the tiniest
minority. The vast majority of the people just want to live a peaceful life —if
they can.

By the same token, 90% or more of Nigerians have never boarded an aircraft —and
probably never will. An even larger majority — close to 99.99999% know nothing
about explosives; they neither know how they are made and how they are used.

So in what way does Farouk represent them and as a result they should feel
ashamed. In fact, Farouk is a product of the foreign countries — including
Britain and America, now making the most deafening noise about a Nigerian
“terrorist” when there is none. So Nigeria and my fellow countrymen and women
have nothing to be ashamed of on this matter which the Western media and their
Nigerian collaborators have blown out of proportion — as you will soon see.

Those carpeting the father for sending his son abroad for education are simply
envious. There is probably no Nigerian today blessed with Alhaji Mutallab’s
money who will not ship his children to school abroad. And, if a university in
London harbours subversive elements hell-bent on preying on poor misguided
souls, the fault is not Alhaji Mutallab’s own; nor Nigeria’s. The fault is with
the British government which had failed to curb such activities on its campuses.

Alhaji Mutallab, as a matter of fact, deserves a pat on the back for not
engaging in cover-up. Few fathers will report their sons to the CIA or British
security forces. Alhaji made only one cardinal error —which is, jeopardising his
son’s right to strong defence when the case comes up.

He should not have released the statement that he did because it can be
misconstrued as admission that his son is guilty as charged by the media
executioners —at home or abroad. Later in this article, Alhaji and Nigerians
will be shown the way forward.

But, let me announce the destination of this journey — Nigerians should
collectively put up a fight to save Farouk’s life. And the reasons are not hard
to discover.

First, America never releases its citizens for prosecution in another country.
So contemptuous are they of the quality of other nation’s judiciary that they
don’t even believe an American can receive fair trial even in Western countries.

Secondly, Britain has provided the example of what a country should do when its
citizen is on trial in other lands. As the Farouk story was playing on SKY NEWS,
another story was on the air. A Briton had been sentenced to death in China for
smuggling hard drugs into that country.

The British government and the man’s family proceeded to mount a campaign to
free the man. He was pronounced mentally unstable — yet nobody presented a
doctor’s report to substantiate the claim. The Chinese were made to feel like
brutes despite the fact the more people are killed and more lives are destroyed
by drug trafficking than all the homicides arising from “terrorism”.

The message was clear; Britain wanted its citizen’s life to be spared
irrespective of the fact that the judgment was based on convincing proof and
guilt was beyond reasonable doubt. By contrast Farouk was being cut and
quartered at home and abroad by people who have not even heard the evidence.


Who’s a terrorist?

Now we come to the main issue —was Farouk guilty of terrorism? Was he a
terrorist? And do all the facts at our disposal point to terrorism? Few of us
are experts on the subject and even the experts don’t always agree. But, every
one is familiar with the saying that, “one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom
fighter”.

Every time a bazooka lands in Israel from the West Bank, the Israelis call it a
terrorist attack; the Palestinians call it a blow for liberation of Palestine
from the illegal occupants. When Israel, in response to the bazooka which killed
one person, sends bombers and tanks into Lebanon and reduce the city to rubbles
— including children’s hospital — the West calls it retaliation; Arabs call it
genocide.

Who’s right? It all depends on who you are. There is absolutely no reason why
Nigerians should swallow — hook, line and sinker — the West’s characterisation
of an event as “terrorist” any more than we can expect them to accept it as
“liberation effort”. At any rate, if America can recruit Britain, Australia and
other nations to fight its war in Afghanistan or Iraq, and those soldiers are
not called “terrorists” regardless of how many Arabs they massacre, what stops
the Arabs from seeking help wherever they can find it?

This is not an admission that Farouk was a recruit for al-Queda despite US
propaganda. It is to point out to everyone that there is a war on in the Middle
East started on the basis of a lie told by US President Bush and British Prime
Minister, Tony Blair, about weapons of mass destruction, WMD, in Iraq. I
recollect writing in my SUNDAY VANGUARD column before the war started that “Bush
and Blair would invade Iraq even if there is no single pen knife in the
country”.

Today the whole world knows there was no WMD; the whole world also knows that
over one million Iraqis have lost their lives since the invasion and the once
thriving country has been devastated. What can be more “terrorist” than that?

Now we come to my “son”, Farouk. I call him son, not only because I am old
enough to be his father, but because I feel pity for him and if possible, I will
adopt him. If it is possible to visit him, I will hug him and tell him that he
has not been abandoned; that in my books, he is not a terrorist. Again the facts
at our disposal should be our guide. And what do we know?


Why did he do it?

First we know that Farouk is the son of one of the richest men in Nigeria and
that he stands to inherit — if we can save him from the executioners — millions
of naira and, may be, even dollars. In fact, he will probably not ever have to
work for a living if he chooses not to and he will still live in affluence for
the rest of his life. The obvious question is: why does a fellow like that want
to blow himself up? Once that question crops up in your mind, you begin to see
the truth, namely that we have a mind disturbed in a handsome body frame.

In short Farouk was, and is still, not himself. And nothing proves this more
than the approach he adopted to end his life. In short the fellow was embarked
on suicide in the most “tragic-comical” manner.

Second, most of us forget, when reading about suicide bombers, that the first
word is SUICIDE. That comes before bomber. Obviously, any person with so much to
live for, and who contemplates suicide, is not a candidate for the electric
chair or the firing squad but a mental hospital.

Third, the poor boy, in absolute ignorance of how to manipulate the device he
procured for the suicide bid, strapped the damned thing to his vital organs —
which raises one question. Which well-adjusted young man still in his twenties
would want to blow off his “tool box”?

Even my old friends, past 70, until their dying days guarded the “strong room”
jealously. Despite the attempt by CNN and other Western media to prove that the
explosive could have blown a hole in the plane’s fuselage, which they considered
a sufficient reason to label Farouk as a “terrorist”, the fact remains that if
the device had gone off as planned, Farouk was the only sure candidate for
kingdom come. The seats next to him appeared empty and a plane might still be
landed with a hole in the fuselage. It has happened before.

Fourth, a real terrorist generally wants to witness the result of his efforts.
They plant an explosive which is detonated by remote control or with a timer
allowing them to get away before the explosion occurs. Just as in the regular
army, a soldier is trained to kill for his country, not to die. In so far as he
dies, he has been a failure. So the real terrorist wants to live to terrorise
another day.

The suicide bomber is another character all together. He would not see the
outcome of his mission — if he succeeds. In that respect, he has a lot more in
common with others embarking on self-liquidation. Having decided to end his
life, the next most important question is: how?

The methods range from those who go alone to those who decide not to “walk
alone”. And once it is decided that the exit must be accomplished by taking a
crowd along, then it does not matter whether he drives his car on the path of a
speeding train, or a fully loaded bus or a plane full of passengers. Farouk
chose the plane and he is no more a terrorist than the fellow who caused the
train to derail taking 400 people with him.


Nigerians must save Farouk

So far, all evidence at our disposal can only support one conclusion — suicide.
That it occurred on Delta Airlines and in a plane coming to land in Detroit are
secondary considerations. And if it is suicide, the fellow should not be
executed but helped. And the only people who can help him are Nigerians. And
Alhaji Mutallab must take the lead for his son to be saved.

We must adopt the Western approach; which means we establish a SAVE FAROUK
ORGANISATION. Its functions will include raising funds to ensure that Farouk
obtains the best legal team money can engage. The second is to start a
multimedia campaign, including using CNN, to convince the world that Farouk is
not a mass murderer but a sick young man.

The third is to insist that Nigeria’s leading psychiatrists should be called to
assess his mental state. It is doubtful if an American or English doctor can
accurately diagnose mental illness in a Nigerian who is not a raving lunatic
already.

Fourth, the Federal Government of Nigeria, instead of distancing itself from
Farouk, should use diplomatic approaches to get him released to a Nigerian
psychiatric hospital for treatment. The fifth is to get Nigeria’s media
executioners to stop labeling the fellow a terrorist and to join the campaign to
save Farouk.

It will not be easy, given the prejudicial statements most commentators have
made before. But, we must hold the life of every Nigerian so sacred as not to
throw them to foreign wolves when they present with evidence that they are
asking for help which  sometimes manifests itself in extremism.

Finally, this is not an issue which should be confronted by Muslims alone. I am
a Christian; but, that should not stop me from standing up and defending a
Muslim who is being led to the slaughter house as we are now doing to our son
Farouk. Will you join the struggle?

===

Scanning the Abdulmutallab story for more lies
Friday, 08 January 2010
Editor
http://www.rebelnews.org/opinion/terror/161857-scanning-the-abdulmutallab-story-\
for-more-lies


[NOTE: Website above contains numerous links for details. -WVNS]


Returning to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempt to blow up a Northwest airliner
on Christmas day, let's scan the body of evidence for government lies, the real
explosive elements. Let's give Umar a good dose of radiation with the knowledge
that first reveals the 80 grams of PETN explosive he carried in his crotch
lacked a blasting cap to blow him and the plane away. Instead, lighting with an
injection of liquid did nothing but set him on fire. As if no one in the
military or intelligence knew that.

After reading my article Scripting the `fear of flying,' my friend John
McCarthy, retired Marine captain from the Vietnam War clued me via email:
"Jerry, the false flaggers forgot that a blasting cap is required to detonate
PETN and other plastic explosives. Sure, it will burn and we used it in winter
to heat our cans of food, but a blasting cap is missing from the mix. So, the
PTB's [Powers That Be] wanted to raise the fear factor, which this incident did,
without loss of life and a $75 million dollar airplane . . . now the Israeli
firms that make the full body scanners will reap millions!"

Also, another former Marine combat captain, Gordon Duff, wrote in Veterans
Today, Evidence Mounts for US Complicity in Terrorism, "We do know a couple of
things. [Farouk Abdal's'] Dad [Alhaji Umaru Abdulmutallab], back in Nigeria, ran
the national arms industry (DICON) in partnership with Israel, in particular,
the Mossad. He was in daily contact with them. They run everything in Nigeria,
from arms production to counter-terrorism. Though Islamic, Abdulmutallab was a
close associate of Israel. He has been misrepresented. His `banking' is a cover.
Next, what do we know about the two Al Qaeda leaders Bush had released, the ones
who planned this?

"According to ABC news, the Al Qaeda leaders running the insurgency in Yemen
were released from Guantanamo, although two of the highest ranking known
terrorists there, without trial.

"Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali
Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense
Department log of detainees who were released from American custody.

"Both of the former Guantanamo detainees are described as military commanders
and appear on a January 2009 video, along with the man described as the top
leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Abu Basir Naser al-Wahishi, formerly Osama bin
Laden's personal secretary.

"With all the hoopla about trials in New York, not a word is said when top level
terrorists are released to Saudi friends of the Bush family who let them go. We
are now fighting these two Bush friends in Yemen. They are running a major
insurgency there. We have been using Cruise missiles and our jets to attack
their bases in the last weeks."

Please, read the whole article for a full frontal scan that includes the CIA
admitting that in its November 29, 2009, interview with Papa Abdulmutallab, they
were told that his son had ties to extremists in Yemen, a hotbed of al Qaeda
activity. The information was not acted on responsibly [and "the terrorist" son,
Umar Farouk], they were warned about in November was the same one they had been
tracking since August . . ."

Why do they call it an Intelligence Agency?

Once again, the Agency was caught with its pants down, scanned being involved
with Israel and Yemen, and the fact that the `terrorists' released by Bush
[were] really Israeli agents who have organized attacks against US targets.

In my article, I also wrote about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab being assisted at
the Northwest airlines desk by a well-dressed `Indian' man. The 50-something,
dapper gentleman helped Umar get on the plane without a passport, just a visa.
He claimed that Umar was a Sudanese refugee who had no money.

And so, Umar was walked by the Indian gent through Schipol (Amsterdam Airport)
past passport review, something that could happen only if an intelligence agency
had approved it. Otherwise, it's a total no-no, no passport, no flight. So was
the agency on the other side? Duff also writes that reports from Pakistan show
"that India and Israel have been involved in terrorist attacks against US
supporters . . ." Surprised?

Of course, little of the key facts are exposed in the mainstream media so you
now have to expose your body to scanners and their radiation when you fly, one
more dehumanizing event brought to you by the Department of Homeland Insecurity.
This brings us to another bit of scanning from CommonDreams.org, revealing that
Ex-Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff Abused his Public Trust by Touting
Body Scanners.

This scan follows the money involved in purchasing the scanners to a Chertoff
company client. "What Chertoff made little mention of is that the Chertoff
Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the
machines. The relationship drew attention after Chertoff disclosed it on a CNN
program Wednesday, in response to a question.

The question came from an airport passengers' rights group on Thursday that
"criticized Chertoff, who left office less than a year ago, for using his former
government credentials to advocate for a product that benefits his clients."

Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, which opposes the use of the scanners,
said that "Mr. Chertoff should not be allowed to abuse the trust the public has
placed in him as a former public servant to privately gain from the sale of
full-body scanners under the pretense that the scanners would have detected this
particular type of explosive." What you really have to scan for is conspiracy.
And there is one here.

Chertoff's push for the technology dates back to his time in the Bush
administration. Back in 2005, Homeland Security ordered the government's first
batch of scanners -- five from California-based Rapiscan Systems. These days,
"40 body scanners are in use at 19 U.S. airports." But here's the kicker: The
number is expected to skyrocket at least in part because of the Christmas Day
incident. "The Transportation Security Administration this week said it will
order 300 more machines." That's your money, taxpayer, frequent or infrequent
flyer. And it's your life these profiteer terrorists are playing with.

What's more, "In the summer, TSA purchased 150 machines from Rapiscan with $25
million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds," which was not what
that money was intended for. "Rapiscan was the only company that qualified for
the contract because it had developed technology that performs the screening
using a less graphic body imaging system, which is also less controversial.
(Since then, another company, L-3 Communications, has qualified for future
contracts, but no new contracts have been awarded.)" But give them time.

Insidiously, "Over the past week, Chertoff has repeatedly talked about the need
for expanding the use of the technology in airports, saying it could detect
bombs like the one federal authorities say Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a
23-year-old Nigerian, carried onto the Detroit-bound aircraft." How's that for
an opportunist?

"We could deploy the scanning machines that we currently are beginning to deploy
in the U.S. that will give us the ability to see what someone has concealed
underneath their clothing," Chertoff said last week in an interview on CNN. The
incident on the Detroit-bound plane provided "a very vivid lesson in the value
of that machinery," he said." It also provided a huge profit opportunity for him
and his pals to spin.

In fact, we ought to scan and strip Michael Chertoff, dual Israeli/American
citizen, of his scam to push the machines for the juice he's squeezing out of
it. Then, send him to jail on conflict of interest charges, perhaps at GITMO.
That would be real justice. Funny, how the lies appear ruthlessly clear when the
scanner of genuine intelligence is applied to them.

BTW, the Chertoff story originally appeared in the mainstream Washington Post
and was then picked up by many Internet sites. This only proves how far a little
bit of truth can go, not to mention what a scam Homeland Security is. It has $60
billion to throw around on these anti-terror gimmicks that never seem to work
except to make their pushers rich and richer. Each tragedy (or brush with it)
brings a new call for more gimmicks, but the possibility of harm doesn't
diminish. It's funny how that works.

Net-net, scanning the news for the lies and the truth is the only real
protection we have against our faux protectors, who aid and abet "terrorists,"
who virtually create them, and set them on their track to commit false-flag
operations. These acts suck up our blood and assets, like the corrupt bailouts,
and continue the dismantling of America.

We need to know we are in the hands of thieves and assassins on many levels. The
real army of protectors is comprised of all those exposing the above; whether as
whistleblowers, writing about them, standing up to or speaking out to protest
these murderous rip-offs. Yet it is difficult to keep scanning accurately under
the relentless pressure of the larger entity, the government, pressing for more
fear, surveillance, and gouging of rights. All this is done to continue the
barbarous wars in search of OPO, other people's oil, some of which, believe it
or not, we are contemplating pipelining to Israel, as Haaretz tells us.

As to our real enemies out there, we have to take a long hard look in the mirror
of memory to realize what the US as a hegemonic, colonizing Empire has done to
others to create the anger, rage and response to US appropriation of their
assets, territory, their freedom and lives. To quote Shakespeare, "The fault,
dear Brutus, is not in the stars but in ourselves."

This is not to say that foreign governments with intentions of suppressing their
people or purloining their assets and natural resources for our money and
support are not partners in crime and murderous wars. That is exactly the case.
But the scanner of human intelligence has to be on at all times determining who,
what and where these true terrorists are. What we as Americans don't have is a
lock on good or evil. Both are shaded like light and dark throughout the world.
The trick is keep up with the bad guys and expose them for what they are.

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer and life-long resident of New York City. Reach
him at gvmaz@... This e-mail address is being protected from spambots.
You need JavaScript enabled to view it . His new book, "State Of Shock: Poems
from 9/11 on" is available at www.jerrymazza.com, Amazon or Barnesandnoble.com.

Scanning the Abdulmutallab story for more lies
Fix IE Bug. Dont remove this line.
Returning to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempt to blow up a Northwest airliner
on Christmas day, let's scan the body of evidence for government lies, the real
explosive elements. Let's give Umar a good dose of radiation with the knowledge
that first reveals the 80 grams of PETN explosive he carried in his crotch
lacked a blasting cap to blow him and the plane away. Instead, lighting with an
injection of liquid did nothing but set him on fire. As if no one in the
military or intelligence knew that.

After reading my article Scripting the `fear of flying,' my friend John
McCarthy, retired Marine captain from the Vietnam War clued me via email:
"Jerry, the false flaggers forgot that a blasting cap is required to detonate
PETN and other plastic explosives. Sure, it will burn and we used it in winter
to heat our cans of food, but a blasting cap is missing from the mix. So, the
PTB's [Powers That Be] wanted to raise the fear factor, which this incident did,
without loss of life and a $75 million dollar airplane . . . now the Israeli
firms that make the full body scanners will reap millions!"

Also, another former Marine combat captain, Gordon Duff, wrote in Veterans
Today, Evidence Mounts for US Complicity in Terrorism, "We do know a couple of
things. [Farouk Abdal's'] Dad [Alhaji Umaru Abdulmutallab], back in Nigeria, ran
the national arms industry (DICON) in partnership with Israel, in particular,
the Mossad. He was in daily contact with them. They run everything in Nigeria,
from arms production to counter-terrorism. Though Islamic, Abdulmutallab was a
close associate of Israel. He has been misrepresented. His `banking' is a cover.
Next, what do we know about the two Al Qaeda leaders Bush had released, the ones
who planned this?

"According to ABC news, the Al Qaeda leaders running the insurgency in Yemen
were released from Guantanamo, although two of the highest ranking known
terrorists there, without trial.

"Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali
Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense
Department log of detainees who were released from American custody.

"Both of the former Guantanamo detainees are described as military commanders
and appear on a January 2009 video, along with the man described as the top
leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Abu Basir Naser al-Wahishi, formerly Osama bin
Laden's personal secretary.

"With all the hoopla about trials in New York, not a word is said when top level
terrorists are released to Saudi friends of the Bush family who let them go. We
are now fighting these two Bush friends in Yemen. They are running a major
insurgency there. We have been using Cruise missiles and our jets to attack
their bases in the last weeks."

Please, read the whole article for a full frontal scan that includes the CIA
admitting that in its November 29, 2009, interview with Papa Abdulmutallab, they
were told that his son had ties to extremists in Yemen, a hotbed of al Qaeda
activity. The information was not acted on responsibly [and "the terrorist" son,
Umar Farouk], they were warned about in November was the same one they had been
tracking since August . . ."

Why do they call it an Intelligence Agency?

Once again, the Agency was caught with its pants down, scanned being involved
with Israel and Yemen, and the fact that the `terrorists' released by Bush
[were] really Israeli agents who have organized attacks against US targets.

In my article, I also wrote about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab being assisted at
the Northwest airlines desk by a well-dressed `Indian' man. The 50-something,
dapper gentleman helped Umar get on the plane without a passport, just a visa.
He claimed that Umar was a Sudanese refugee who had no money.

And so, Umar was walked by the Indian gent through Schipol (Amsterdam Airport)
past passport review, something that could happen only if an intelligence agency
had approved it. Otherwise, it's a total no-no, no passport, no flight. So was
the agency on the other side? Duff also writes that reports from Pakistan show
"that India and Israel have been involved in terrorist attacks against US
supporters . . ." Surprised?

Of course, little of the key facts are exposed in the mainstream media so you
now have to expose your body to scanners and their radiation when you fly, one
more dehumanizing event brought to you by the Department of Homeland Insecurity.
This brings us to another bit of scanning from CommonDreams.org, revealing that
Ex-Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff Abused his Public Trust by Touting
Body Scanners.

This scan follows the money involved in purchasing the scanners to a Chertoff
company client. "What Chertoff made little mention of is that the Chertoff
Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the
machines. The relationship drew attention after Chertoff disclosed it on a CNN
program Wednesday, in response to a question.

The question came from an airport passengers' rights group on Thursday that
"criticized Chertoff, who left office less than a year ago, for using his former
government credentials to advocate for a product that benefits his clients."

Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, which opposes the use of the scanners,
said that "Mr. Chertoff should not be allowed to abuse the trust the public has
placed in him as a former public servant to privately gain from the sale of
full-body scanners under the pretense that the scanners would have detected this
particular type of explosive." What you really have to scan for is conspiracy.
And there is one here.

Chertoff's push for the technology dates back to his time in the Bush
administration. Back in 2005, Homeland Security ordered the government's first
batch of scanners -- five from California-based Rapiscan Systems. These days,
"40 body scanners are in use at 19 U.S. airports." But here's the kicker: The
number is expected to skyrocket at least in part because of the Christmas Day
incident. "The Transportation Security Administration this week said it will
order 300 more machines." That's your money, taxpayer, frequent or infrequent
flyer. And it's your life these profiteer terrorists are playing with.

What's more, "In the summer, TSA purchased 150 machines from Rapiscan with $25
million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds," which was not what
that money was intended for. "Rapiscan was the only company that qualified for
the contract because it had developed technology that performs the screening
using a less graphic body imaging system, which is also less controversial.
(Since then, another company, L-3 Communications, has qualified for future
contracts, but no new contracts have been awarded.)" But give them time.

Insidiously, "Over the past week, Chertoff has repeatedly talked about the need
for expanding the use of the technology in airports, saying it could detect
bombs like the one federal authorities say Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a
23-year-old Nigerian, carried onto the Detroit-bound aircraft." How's that for
an opportunist?

"We could deploy the scanning machines that we currently are beginning to deploy
in the U.S. that will give us the ability to see what someone has concealed
underneath their clothing," Chertoff said last week in an interview on CNN. The
incident on the Detroit-bound plane provided "a very vivid lesson in the value
of that machinery," he said." It also provided a huge profit opportunity for him
and his pals to spin.

In fact, we ought to scan and strip Michael Chertoff, dual Israeli/American
citizen, of his scam to push the machines for the juice he's squeezing out of
it. Then, send him to jail on conflict of interest charges, perhaps at GITMO.
That would be real justice. Funny, how the lies appear ruthlessly clear when the
scanner of genuine intelligence is applied to them.

BTW, the Chertoff story originally appeared in the mainstream Washington Post
and was then picked up by many Internet sites. This only proves how far a little
bit of truth can go, not to mention what a scam Homeland Security is. It has $60
billion to throw around on these anti-terror gimmicks that never seem to work
except to make their pushers rich and richer. Each tragedy (or brush with it)
brings a new call for more gimmicks, but the possibility of harm doesn't
diminish. It's funny how that works.

Net-net, scanning the news for the lies and the truth is the only real
protection we have against our faux protectors, who aid and abet "terrorists,"
who virtually create them, and set them on their track to commit false-flag
operations. These acts suck up our blood and assets, like the corrupt bailouts,
and continue the dismantling of America.

We need to know we are in the hands of thieves and assassins on many levels. The
real army of protectors is comprised of all those exposing the above; whether as
whistleblowers, writing about them, standing up to or speaking out to protest
these murderous rip-offs. Yet it is difficult to keep scanning accurately under
the relentless pressure of the larger entity, the government, pressing for more
fear, surveillance, and gouging of rights. All this is done to continue the
barbarous wars in search of OPO, other people's oil, some of which, believe it
or not, we are contemplating pipelining to Israel, as Haaretz tells us.

As to our real enemies out there, we have to take a long hard look in the mirror
of memory to realize what the US as a hegemonic, colonizing Empire has done to
others to create the anger, rage and response to US appropriation of their
assets, territory, their freedom and lives. To quote Shakespeare, "The fault,
dear Brutus, is not in the stars but in ourselves."

This is not to say that foreign governments with intentions of suppressing their
people or purloining their assets and natural resources for our money and
support are not partners in crime and murderous wars. That is exactly the case.
But the scanner of human intelligence has to be on at all times determining who,
what and where these true terrorists are. What we as Americans don't have is a
lock on good or evil. Both are shaded like light and dark throughout the world.
The trick is keep up with the bad guys and expose them for what they are.

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer and life-long resident of New York City. Reach
him at gvmaz@... This e-mail address is being protected from spambots.
You need JavaScript enabled to view it . His new book, "State Of Shock: Poems
from 9/11 on" is available at www.jerrymazza.com, Amazon or Barnesandnoble.com.

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Three Cheers for the Swiss People
by Paul Green
January 9, 2010
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/green-p6.1.1.html


There are not many people I will happily take my hat off for in this world. But
the Swiss people are among those few. In a sea of despotism these people have
maintained an island of liberty even into the modern age of the all-intrusive
State.

Just going on a visit to Switzerland is an eye opener for the average European –
especially the British. Time and again in my conversations while there, or with
clients who bank, have lived, or just go there on holiday, the same conclusion
has been drawn: everything Swiss is like the very best of other countries, only
better. It is pretty much the only major country in Europe where things just
work and get done as they should, with a minimum of fuss and dead on time.

Second class trains, for example, are better in Switzerland than many first
class trains in the UK. I'm not a fan of mass transportation as a rule, but in
Switzerland it is mostly private companies and it makes sense considering the
terrain and weather. It is also a very great pleasure, not just because of the
trains and the scenery, but because of the almost complete absence of
ill-mannered people – there is no "riff-raff" element whatsoever.

The British are beset by riff-raff – which frankly makes any use of public
transport not only ideologically undesirable, but also socially so. This subject
came up while I was on a boat in the middle of Lake Geneva, in a discussion with
a Swedish man on holiday with his family. He claimed – having lived in both the
UK and Sweden – that things were even worse in his country. I still find it hard
to believe, but after numerous illustrations on both sides, we more or less
called it a draw.

A History of Liberty

The EU bureaucrats hate them. The Swiss are both outside the EU and represent
the opposite of the top down Nazi/Commie combination agenda they ultimately
stand for. Switzerland didn't even join the UN until seven years ago and then
only by the narrowest voting margin. Pick almost any area of society and the
Swiss do it their own unique way – with at least a splash of liberty thrown in.

Fire departments are one example – run by local volunteers in most places out of
town. The only other place I know of with that kind of voluntary public service
would be some small towns in America.

Guns and the military are yet another example. Guns are everywhere – and crime
is nowhere. In fact they have at least two of the most peaceful, crime-free
cities in the world – according to various online authorities. Zurich even has a
half-holiday in October for the "boy shooting" contest and American-style fair
where young boys – and girls too – compete with assault rifles at targets.


Their defensive militia was feared even by Hitler and has stayed where it
belongs – at home – without barging around the world murdering innocent people
who get in the way. Somehow they have been protected without pre-emptive murder
or decimating their families around the world.

Then there is Swiss banking; that bastion for something like a third of the
world's cross-border invested private wealth. The Swiss stance on bank secrecy
might best be described as neutrality, in the war of States against their
citizens – with private leanings in favour of the oppressed citizens.

If there is anyone in the world I would trust with my money it would be one of
the unincorporated, unlimited-liability Swiss Private Bank partnerships. If I
had to choose any other kind of bank, Switzerland would still be at the top of
the list, even taking into account several South and Central American countries
with, on paper, stronger privacy.

All of this entrusted wealth is certainly not due to government, and even the
bankers are merely beneficiaries of an environment entirely due to a streak of
liberty within the Swiss people. This goes back even beyond the William Tell
rebellion of the 14th century. Whether the details of that are myth or not, the
popularity of the story reflects the traditional fighting spirit of the Swiss
people when it comes to imposition by the State.

It goes back into the particularly deep Christian roots of Switzerland – which
seems to have had just about the right mix of denominational dissent to have
prevented them being absorbed into the State. There is no denying the very
Christian nature of the Swiss, both historically and still today – even if
misplaced faith in the State is now more of a contender.

Politics and Taxes

Swiss politics is interesting in that it is so decentralized. I have heard that
the Swiss confederation even acted as a model for the United States. In local
elections voting is done by simply a show of hands in the local village hall or
in the open air. In 1978, the region of Jura actually seceded from the
jurisdiction of Bern and technically from Switzerland, to be later readmitted in
its own right.

This could only happen because Switzerland is not really a single country, but a
confederation of largely autonomous "cantons" – 26 in all – and these cantons
compete amongst each other, such as in providing the most favourable business
and tax climate. A visit to the site comparis.ch will show that one of the
choices the Swiss people have is the amount of tax they pay.

As one example, the canton of Obwalden formerly had one of the higher tax rates,
but to compete brought it down to a flat 10% – though cantons Zug and Schwyz are
better known for their low taxes. In the south, cantons Vaud, Geneva and the
Italian-speaking Ticino are currently lowest. Also, it is perfectly possible for
any reasonably wealthy person to cut a special deal with a canton for a much
lower rate. In fact, the wealthier the better – the lack of social envy and its
politics is unusual and noteworthy.

There are also occasional amnesties to provide for tax which is not paid. The
evaded amounts are actually lower percentage-wise than the much more oppressive
surrounding countries. This can only be due to lower rates, more local
accountability and less violent collection methods leading to less resentment
and motivation for resistance. Tax evasion, if found out, might land an offender
in a somewhat uncomfortable civil action, but it is not a crime.

The Enemy Within

Of course, in recent years the Federal State has made inroads that are
unprecedented. This also means that there is now a significant class of federal
officials – and therein lies the real threat to the liberties of the Swiss. In
addition to the usual busybody motivations, there are ambitious pro-EU
infiltrators within the system.

For example, the people won't give up their guns – so some politicians are now
after their ammunition. Because if they can get it all, the balance of raw
last-resort power ultimately shifts from the people to the State, as it did long
ago in most other European countries.

Then, with the complete legal abandonment of gold in the Swiss Franc a decade
ago – although implementation began just 5 years ago, with the support of the
Right – the tentacles of the central banking elite are spreading widely. Also
spreading far and wide is their stupidity (and/or conspiracy) – such as in
massively risky Eastern European loans with the newly created "money".

But the establishment has at least been restrained by the decentralized Swiss
system, and politicians do not have the unaccountable free hand that those in
other countries have. In addition, they can always be held back by the powerful
mechanism of a referendum.

The Swiss referendum is not a tool of dictators like in some other countries,
where the State gets to choose and phrase the question to its own advantage, or
to keep asking till it gets the answer it wants. It may potentially be a
"majoritarian" tool, but a Swiss referendum can be initiated by any citizen who
can raise the required 50,000 signatures.

Short of cantons actually seceding, it is this referendum – as well as the
restraint that even its threat provides – that is the real hope for Switzerland;
because even if less extreme than elsewhere, the Swiss parties have fallen into
the trap of the false Left-Right paradigm.

Left, Right and Centre

The Centre-Left has held the limited reins of consensus power in Switzerland
since the 1950s, with a token representation from the Right. The Left may have
some strengths, but many weaknesses. One of their main weaknesses is the
expansion and intrusion of the State into financial affairs – specifically,
taxation.

It was the Left therefore that recently caused widespread outrage amongst the
Swiss people by appearing to weaken or even abandon Swiss bank secrecy. Rarely
had such strong language been used as was later heard in Parliament and rarely,
if ever, had words like "treason" been used before of politicians in a
mainstream newspaper – La Liberté of Fribourg is well named.

The Swiss people themselves remain strongly behind bank secrecy – perhaps 75% of
them – and within Switzerland, even the taxman cannot violate this. Yet somehow,
to the puzzlement of statists around the world, Switzerland still survives and
does so as one of the richest, most blessed and most peaceful countries in the
world.

The Right does include some overt bigots (the Left having better camouflage),
but it also includes some who will stand firm on critical issues. And the Right
are rising – which is welcome if only as a counterbalance, despite the
inevitable strains of nationalism, regimentation and authoritarianism.

Thankfully the Swiss people have often rejected the excesses of both Left and
Right, even if they have been unable to quite put their finger on liberty as the
sole outcome they are looking for. By and large, for example, they want to be
civil with their European neighbours and they don't generally harass foreigners
within – but nor do they want other countries or cultures poking them in the
eye.

The Backlash Begins

Such was the case in recent days, after the French tried to use stolen HSBC
Geneva account details to put pressure on Switzerland. A scheduled tax
information-sharing agreement has therefore been put on indefinite hold. Long
may it be obstructed. Hans Rudolph Merz, the cowering Swiss Prime
Minister/Finance Minister spearheading the recent sell-outs, has been forced to
show some spine or let his party face the wrath of the voters in coming
elections.

But here is a key fact: none of the recent information-sharing agreements have
been approved by Parliament nor have they been tested in the Swiss courts. Many
elements of the UBS debacle (not all bad news) were certainly illegal, and on
Friday January 8, a Swiss court ruled as much.

On top of this, the youth wing of the Swiss People's Party along with a small
party in the Italian speaking canton of Ticino, have been actively gathering
signatures for a referendum on the issue of bank secrecy.

Best of all, a recent poll has shown that the more Switzerland is bullied to end
it, the more strongly the Swiss people support bank secrecy. When even Swissinfo
(the Swiss BBC-type federal website) are talking in more than one article of a
bank secrecy fight-back, there must be something to it.

It was politicians and officials, not the people of Switzerland, who betrayed
the account holders that gave Switzerland their trust. Unless their Parliament,
judges and courts do likewise – and with the support of the people in a
referendum – I do not believe that Swiss bank secrecy is dead.

Even as things stand with the new information-sharing agreements, if an account
holder can keep the account secret, the Swiss will too. Those agreements,
although disgraceful, do not automatically share information – a foreign
government would have to first obtain account details, and then lodge a specific
information request along with enough evidence. The account holder also has an
appeal process within Switzerland.

But like Swiss cheese, their bank secrecy does have holes and privacy steps are
absolutely essential to retain it. One compromise as recently as in the nineties
was to end anonymous accounts. If these were still in place, nobody would care
about data theft. But instead, events have confirmed that registration leads to
confiscation – in this case of wealth. Other privacy concerns include overseas
bank transfers and card transactions which, without precautions, can disclose
account details for the world to see.

Down But Not Out

But numbered or pseudonymous accounts are still possible as well as corporate,
trust and nominee arrangements – with second passports also being very useful.
With such steps in place, the main privacy risk is in the internet activity log
recorded at the client's end. Without Practical Internet Privacy steps (part 2)
this leaves a record in place that contains the name of the bank and that leads
right to the door of the account holder. Ordinary telecoms (except possibly
throwaway mobile phones, in an emergency only) and even the post (use a mail
drop and/or mail held at the bank) are also now potential giveaways.

Other than these privacy measures at the client's end, it now all rests with
those 7.7 million people in the Alps, whose ancestors held off even the Nazis.
Time will tell whether the current generation have been brainwashed enough to
surrender. I don't think so.

Join me in praying they will be able to stand – much private wealth depends upon
Switzerland as a place of escape and safety. And the Swiss people are going to
be tested again – previous compromises have made that a certainty. Just like
appeasing the schoolyard bully.

But I do expect in 2010 there will be a fight-back. Internal officials and
politicians with allegiance to the State, the EU, and/or central-banking
globalists will try and dampen it by fobbing the Swiss people off with some
rhetoric or window dressing. But I am hopeful there will also be a real
backlash.

The last time Swiss banking was attacked with such intensity was in the
thirties, when France tried to pry open bank accounts, followed by the Nazis.
That was when existing bank secrecy was codified into law under penalty of
imprisonment. It is in the years since, that Switzerland has become one of the
richest countries per capita in the world – with banking and the respected
quality products associated with its wealthy clientele, as economic mainstays.

It is a different generation now, and I never put all my trust in people –
mainly because they are human. But if I had to trust one bunch of people, all in
one place at one time – with a fat wad of cash, bullion or gold certificates –
it would still have to be the Swiss.

A Resolution and a Conclusion

I hope many readers will resolve in 2010 to get some sort of Swiss bank account
– if only to annoy their governments or to act as a cloud of cover for others.
Perhaps start with a small account, preferably locally based and not a
multinational – maybe a cantonal bank. Keep it big enough to be respectable and
small enough not to be legally reportable ($10,000 in the US), or just enough
over to add a little excitement.

As a very worst case scenario, in the extremely unlikely event of an
investigation, you can even enjoy fighting tooth and nail with the tax
collectors – and leisurely decide if or when to cave in, eventually, after they
have expended much energy for little or nothing. Then put it down to serving
your fellow-man and get a new account.

But with basic precautions, there is no reason for this to ever happen and if,
as I expect, the Swiss make some amends for the current situation, you will have
a very private and useful bastion of private property in place for the future.

However, it might be a good idea to keep that particular account small, as a
semi-public or "pass-through" account. Depending upon events, you could later
put more serious amounts into a different multi-currency or precious metals
account, knowing your money to be in the safest possible hands – but still
remaining useable for business, investing or trading, unlike a buried cache of
gold coins. One other positive thing about Switzerland is that, at many banks,
gold is as easily obtained and transferred as foreign exchange.

The dynamics of liberty and society are difficult to analyse in the best of
times – and especially so in the short term. Nevertheless, I am basing this
article on the premise that the Swiss people mean what the recent polls (and
many before them) say they do.

If you look as most do, at the Swiss government, or listen to the OECD – or even
to the new head of the Swiss Bankers Association – then bank secrecy is dead.
But Switzerland is not like other top down societies, and I prefer to look at
the Swiss people. It is they who will have the last word.

For all they have done for private wealth in the world and for their unwavering
support for bank secrecy – even through an intense assault in a time of crisis –
I think the Swiss people deserve three cheers:

Hip-hip...


Paul Green was born in the UK and currently works from home there as an
independent emergency callout specialist for home and small business computer
users. He is married with five children – all at home – and the three of school
age are homeschooled. Over the years he has also traded the financial futures
markets and worked as a one-stop advertising copywriter/ voice-over artist/
music and jingle producer.

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Venezuelan F-16 fighter jets 'intercept US warplane'
Sat, 09 Jan 2010
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=115691§ionid=351020704


Chavez accuses the US of violating Venezuelan airspace.


Venezuela has scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to ward off a US 'military plane'
amid reports of "US trespassing the country's airspace."

President Hugo Chavez has ordered the fighters to confront a US P-3 maritime
patrol aircraft that had purportedly violated Venezuela's airspace, Reuters
quoted the Venezuelan president as saying on Friday.

"They are provoking us ... these are warplanes," Chavez noted, showing a picture
of the plane, which he said, had taken off from US military bases on the
Netherlands' Caribbean islands and from neighboring Colombia on two separate
occasions.

He said the Venezuelan fighter jets forced the US plane away after the
'incursions.'

Meanwhile, Pentagon officials have denied the charges and expressed unawareness
of the latest development.

"We can confirm no US military aircraft entered Venezuelan airspace today. As a
matter of policy we do not fly over a nation's airspace without prior consent or
coordination," Reuters quoted an unnamed Defense Department Spokesperson as
saying on January 8.

The US Southern Command claims that its surveillance operations are 'only' meant
to counter drug trafficking in South America.

GHN/MTM/DT

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Pakistan opposition parties: Shoot US drones down
Fri, 08 Jan 2010
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=115675§ionid=351020401


Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan (R) and Seyyed Munawar Hasan


The mainstream political opposition parties of Pakistan condemn the US drone
attacks in country's tribal region, urging Islamabad to shoot them down.

Criticizing the attacks as "foreign intrusion," the parties' officials said that
the US is violating Pakistan's sovereignty.

Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) and the Jamaat-e-Islami parties have demanded
the government on Friday to ensure autonomy of the country by making its
policies effective, a Press TV correspondent reported.

Talking to reporters, Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan, a PML-N lawmaker and a former
chief minister of North West Frontier Province, said effective strategy is
required to halt drone attacks which have killed hundreds of civilians in the
recent past.

Jamaat-e-Islami chief Seyyed Munawar Hasan, addressing the Friday sermon at
Lahore, also said that the government should take stern steps and shoot down the
unmanned US aircrafts.

He said the government should register a strong protest against the US, which
has been constantly attacking the sovereignty and integrity of Pakistan.

He said the weak policies of the government in Islamabad has instigated the US
to turn Pakistan into its colony.

On Friday, missiles fired from a US drone killed five alleged militants in Tappi
village in North Waziristan near Afghan border, a stronghold of pro-Taliban and
al-Qaeda-linked militants.

This was the fourth US missile attack in the tribal district over the last eight
days.

===

Pakistan says US drone attacks must end
Sat, 09 Jan 2010
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=115722§ionid=351020401


Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Friday reiterated his country's
concerns over the US drone strikes in talks with a delegation of visiting US
senators.

The US delegation is led by Senator John McCain, the former presidential
candidate.

Gilani said his government was "disappointment over the continuing drone
attacks" and criticized Washington for not sharing pilotless drone technology
with Islamabad, Pakistan's official APP news agency reported Saturday.

Pakistan says it can fight militants operating in its border areas better if it
has the know-how.

Senator McCain, who led the US delegation, defended the drone strikes, saying
they are "one of many tools that we must use to try to defeat a very determined
and terrible enemy."

US officials say the drone strikes are carried out under an agreement with
Islamabad. Pakistan denies any such agreement.

Washington has stepped up its drone strikes in Pakistan since seven CIA agents
were killed in neighboring Afghanistan almost ten days ago. At least four people
died in the latest missile attack.

Pakistan's opposition parties, meanwhile, have expressed regret over the
attacks, asking the government to shoot them down.

In 2009, the attacks, launched by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in
cooperation with the Pentagon, reportedly killed more than 700 civilians in the
country.

They have also fueled anti-American sentiments in the Muslim Pakistan.

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MP George Galloway deported from Egypt
08/01/2010
Viva Palestina
http://www.palestin e-info.co. uk/en/default. aspx?xyz= U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MD
I46m9rUxJEpMO% 2bi1s7b1oMQ4MRm1 vYA9s5c0Fbmv2% 2fvFERioaAvp6RmR 1gVwaoxf7h2LbmFX
jWG%2bNxRPyAJdAT T74lft3a9NN1sETq oxfAXV%2bBYG9F81 w2N0rtH3Q% 3d


British MP George Galloway was officially deported from Cairo today (Friday),
when Egyptian plain-clothes police officers bundled him onto a London plane.

Galloway had been trying to return to Rafah after news broke that seven of the
Viva Palestina convoy members were said to be arrested. Police, who at one point
were numbered at 25 mainly plain-clothes officers, refused to allow him to
return.

Several officers even followed Galloway to the toilet, rest room and a BA
lounge.

The incident began after George Galloway and his colleague Ron McKay arrived at
the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt.

As soon as they emerged onto Egyptian soil both Men were forcibly pushed into a
van, refused exit and told that they were leaving the country. They were then
driven off in a police convoy. Viva Palestina convoy of 550 people from 17
countries was attacked by Egyptian riot police and plane clothes intelligence
officers in the early hours of Wednesday (6th January). 55 of the convoy members
were injured and 7 were also arrested.

However Galloway and Turkish MP's struck a deal with Egyptian authorities, part
of this deal was that the 7 detainees were released without charge.

On the enforced drive to Cairo, news came through of the  imminent arrest of the
7 but when Galloway demanded to return to Rafah, permission was repeatedly
denied.

====

MP George Galloway deported from Egypt
08/01/2010
http://www.palestin e-info.co. uk/en/default. aspx?xyz= U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MD
I46m9rUxJEpMO% 2bi1s7b1oMQ4MRm1 vYA9s5c0Fbmv2% 2fvFERioaAvp6RmR 1gVwaoxf7h2LbmFX
jWG%2bNxRPyAJdAT T74lft3a9NN1sETq oxfAXV%2bBYG9F81 w2N0rtH3Q% 3d


British MP George Galloway was officially deported from Cairo today (Friday),
when Egyptian plain-clothes police officers bundled him onto a London plane.

Galloway had been trying to return to Rafah after news broke that seven of the
Viva Palestina convoy members were said to be arrested. Police, who at one point
were numbered at 25 mainly plain-clothes officers, refused to allow him to
return.

Several officers even followed Galloway to the toilet, rest room and a BA
lounge.

The incident began after George Galloway and his colleague Ron McKay arrived at
the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt.

As soon as they emerged onto Egyptian soil both Men were forcibly pushed into a
van, refused exit and told that they were leaving the country. They were then
driven off in a police convoy. Viva Palestina convoy of 550 people from 17
countries was attacked by Egyptian riot police and plane clothes intelligence
officers in the early hours of Wednesday (6th January). 55 of the convoy members
were injured and 7 were also arrested.

However Galloway and Turkish MP's struck a deal with Egyptian authorities, part
of this deal was that the 7 detainees were released without charge.

On the enforced drive to Cairo, news came through of the  imminent arrest of the
7 but when Galloway demanded to return to Rafah, permission was repeatedly
denied.

Source: Viva Palestina

===

Galloway: More convoys expected from Venezuela, South Africa, Malaysia
07/01/2010
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpM\
O%2bi1s74yXaEXAZuBpURvFGFK%2fD%2btCf%2b4K91Ml39ish%2bpytEOw40L093rYCKzSMuXgJu%2b\
2OnJOsIfbN5ZF0bQLMwZRTUVzdj6xuVfIcUWMU4JiDXM0%3d


GAZA, (PIC)-- British MP George Galloway has vowed that more aid convoys would
be organized for Gaza from Venezuela, South Africa and Malaysia.

Speaking at a program for Al-Jazeera TV on Wednesday night, he said that the
Venezuelan and South African presidents would head their countries' convoys
while former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohammed would head his country's aid
convoy.

Galloway lashed out at the Egyptian authorities for assaulting members of the
Lifeline-3 convoy in El-Arish just for bringing food and medicine to the
besieged people of Gaza.

The Egyptian authorities promised to allow the convoy to enter Gaza through
El-Arish harbor but they did not live up to their promises on the contrary they
"besieged us, they locked us up, they betrayed us", he said.

The MP described El-Arish incidents as a "shame on Egypt", expressing conviction
that 80% of the Egyptian people do not approve the way his convoy was treated.

He recalled that other convoys were treated in similar ways, adding that Egypt
was playing the role of dividing the Arab world.

Galloway described statements by the Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Husam
Zaki in which he said that the convoy members did not abide by the Egyptian
instructions as "Sheer lies".

===

One Egyption dead Palistinians shot in aid convoy clash on Egypt, Gaza border
CNN
Jan 06, 2010


In a (CNN) news release, organizers said protests between activists and Egyptian
security forces broke out Tuesday night when Egyptian authorities at Al-Arish
ordered some trucks in the convoy to pass through an Israeli-controlled
checkpoint. The activists preferred the goods to be transported via Egypt's
Rafah crossing, which sits directly on the border of Gaza. Galloway told
Britain's Sky News Wednesday that it was "completely unconscionable" that Egypt
would direct 25 percent of the convoy to an Israeli crossing, saying it "would
never make it to Gaza."

Convoy participants said more than 1,000 security personnel were deployed by
Egypt, and that ten members of the convoy were injured, four of them seriously,
and seven others arrested. "It is shocking that the Egyptian government is
behaving in this way. There can be no justification for preventing this aid, and
the people who have worked so hard to provide it, from reaching Gaza," said
Betty Hunter, a convoy organizer.

===

Viva Palestina Starts Entry To Gaza
Wednesday January 06, 2010 21:28
Report by George Galloway


The Viva Palestina Convoy, and after facing ongoing Egyptian rejection and
violent attacks by the Egyptian security forces, started on Wednesday evening to
roll into the besieged Gaza Strip.

Thousands of Palestinians, carrying flowers and flags, gathered in the streets
while the convoy continued to move in.

A Press conference would be held on Thursday and would be followed by the
official ceremony of handing the international humanitarian aid.

The Qatar-based Al Jazeera reported that a convoy of eight truck started
crossing the Rafeh Terminal.

On its website the Viva Palestina reported that "convoy continues to move into
the strip to be greeted by flowers and flag-waving crowds. Press conference
later to be followed tomorrow with ceremony to hand over the aid".

===

17.30 GMT Wednesday 6th January


One month, thousands of miles, ten countries, one ship and a four flights later,
Viva Palestina has begun to enter the besieged Gaza Strip.

"We are all emotional to see that all of Gaza are out to greet us! Our Viva
Palestina convoy is symbolic!  It shows the Palestianian people just how much
the people of the West do care.
" We come in peace to deliver humanitarian aid and we hope that our convoy (and
convoy's like ours) will help to build pressure on the Israeli government to
break the siege."
Kevin Ovenden, convoy leader

18.30 GMT - Convoy continues to move into the strip to be greeted by flowers and
flag-waving crowds. Press conference later to be followed tomorrow with ceremony
to hand over the aid.

====

2 Palestinians shot in Egypt border protest
Wed, 06 Jan 2010
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=115490§ionid=351020202


Egyptian forces Wednesday inflicted gunshot wounds on at least two Palestinians
during protests against Cairo's steeling its border with the blockaded Gaza
Strip.

The incident occurred when security forces confronted the protesters on the
Egypt-Gaza border, Reuters reported.

The Egyptian government is building a steel wall along the border to prevent the
trafficking of any goods to the strip.

The coastal sliver continues to suffer from an all-out Israeli-imposed blockade
which has deprived it of its basic necessities for over two years.

On Wednesday, Egyptian riot police injured 55 people during clashes with
Gaza-bound human rights activists.

===

European organizations, Turkish masses protest Egyptian assault
06/01/2010
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpM\
O%2bi1s7RawNLZr%2fUEr%2fKuR9zS2iUWIKYfW8x2RZeBaKPbWru69zOdHjL9KC%2fCZdmtThR8JFpZ\
OvoEqjRV9D0pzDPYJWBssr6f19mP9QDUk3hEIAHQo%3d


LONDON, (PIC)-- An alliance of solidarity with the Palestinian people in Europe
has called for demonstrations in front of the Egyptian embassies in a number of
European capitals to protest the Egyptian security authorities' assault on
members of the international aid convoy Lifeline-3 in El-Arish on Tuesday night.

The alliance, grouping 14 European organizations, said that the rallies would
take place at the same time in a bid to pressure Cairo into halting the
blackmail against the Lifeline convoy and to protest the savage assault on its
members.

The alliance, in a press release, predicted that thousands would attend the
sit-ins including Palestinian and Arab communities in addition to foreign
sympathizers and human rights groups.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Turkish people gathered in front of the Egyptian
consulate in Istanbul after midnight Tuesday to denounce the Egyptian assault,
which injured many of the international solidarity activists.

A number of angry protestors threw stones at the consulate building and
threatened to storm the premises in the event the Egyptian authorities attacked
the convoy anew.

The convoy includes five Turkish lawmakers and tens of Turkish trucks.

===

Galloway convoy plans Gaza entry
05/01/2010
http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=252068


British MP George Galloway [MaanImages]

Jerusalem – Ma'an – A long-delayed British-led aid convoy expects to enter the
Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing from Egypt at 2pm local time on Tuesday, the
convoy's spokeswoman Alice Howard told Ma'an.

Early Tuesday morning, Egyptian authorities withheld the passports of 157 people
travelling with the convoy at the airport in the city of Al-Arish, including
that of British Member of Parliament George Galloway.

Those that had arrived in Al-Arish were told that the remaining 400 volunteers
due to enter Gaza with the convoy on Tuesday would not be allowed to transit,
the Viva Palestina organization said.

The passports were stamped with entry and exit stamps, but were then returned to
their holders with the exit stamp removed, the campaigners said.

Despite the setback, the convoy carrying medical and humanitarian aid intends to
enter Gaza on Tuesday.

The convoy was left stranded in Aqaba, Jordan on Christmas Eve when Egyptian
authorities announced that the convoy would not be allowed to dock in Nuweibeh.
Following negotiations, the convoy was told to return to Syria and send its
supplies to Al-Arish by ferry.

Volunteers from 17 countries around the world will leave over 150 vehicles they
have travelled in for the Palestinian population in Gaza.

Galloway led two successful convoys to Gaza last year.

===

Unbreakable in Cairo
Dana Elborno writing from Cairo, Live from Palestine, 4 January 2010


International activists hold a Palestinian flag at the pyramids in Cairo. (Dana
Elborno)

Though I have lived most of my life in and around Chicago, it has never been my
complete home. My sisters and I were born as first-generation
Palestinian-Americans coming from Kuwait and for this reason our lives in
Chicago always felt temporary -- we were only supposed to stay until the Gulf
War was over, we finished school, the occupation ended, the siege was broken,
etc. The only accepted rhetoric about our presence in America was and continues
to be, "This is not our home, we are from Gaza." The semantics of a Gazan home
are lovely, but the only sense of Gaza I have is as fleeting as gusts of dust
that blow off of old pictures. These faded images of a time and place that no
longer exist leave us with nostalgia for memories we never even lived. It is the
most porous of identities and I feel the gaps palpably.

For this reason -- and maybe more so, for our political agenda -- my older
sister and I signed up for the Gaza Freedom March. Aside from the family history
that draws us to Gaza, we are unwavering in our belief that the siege must end
and the humanity of Palestinians in Gaza has been grossly disregarded throughout
this whole catastrophe that began more than 60 years ago, and especially during
Israel's assault on Gaza last winter. The Gaza Freedom March gave us an outlet
to voice these beliefs and mobilize with a global community of like-minded
activists -- almost 1,400 of them from over 40 countries.

When we made our way to Cairo, the march that was planned to take place side by
side with Palestinians in Gaza quickly turned into a round of protests against
the Egyptian government after they canceled our permits to travel to and enter
the besieged territory. Our personal narrative quickly became overpowered by the
political situation between Egypt, Israel, the Arab World and the "West." We
protested for four days straight. In contexts like these, all of us fighting for
the freeing of Palestine are Palestinians. There was a beautiful strength in our
numbers and diversity. We were empowered and united, fighting to go to Gaza
together.

Then Suzanne Mubarak, wife of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, so "graciously"
offered to send only 100 of us to Gaza to deliver our small amounts of
humanitarian aid. The GFM organizers only had a couple of hours to respond and
eventually agreed under these pressing conditions. That night, we stayed up late
in the Lotus Hotel with organizers, passionately debating whether the decision
made was the right one, and if we were to accept it, who should go. By the time
we left the Lotus, the GFM steering committee in Gaza wanted 100 to come and
join their march. They believed international presence was crucial to keeping
the march an effort of civil society and ultimately protecting the 50,000 Gazans
who had mobilized to fill the streets and march towards the Israeli-controlled
Erez crossing. So, in spite of all the controversy, a list of 100 persons was
made to fill the seats on the two buses and priority was given to internationals
of Palestinian descent who have never seen Gaza, people just like me and my
sister.

Six hours later, it was Thursday morning and we showed up to the bus loading
zone in downtown Cairo. The GFM's steering committee in Cairo announced that
organizers in Gaza reversed their decision late in the night; they no longer
supported the deal reached with the Egyptian government. Hedy Epstein, a
Holocaust survivor on hunger strike to protest the Egyptian government's refusal
to let us travel to Gaza, chose not to board the bus and gave a beautiful,
emotional and painful speech explaining her decision. Not even the organizers in
Cairo endorsed these buses anymore, but they left it up to us to decide whether
or not we would board them. Immediately, internal tensions escalated and there
seemed to be no right decision; we found ourselves in the belly of a
directionless beast and our personal momentum to go home for the first time was
directly conflicting with the political priorities for Gaza.

Accepting these buses and boarding them was in effect changing our political
goal to a weak humanitarian goal. The Gaza Freedom March was supposed to stand
as a testament of a global voice yelling, "Enough is enough, break the siege."
These buses turned us into a small delegation of people carrying humanitarian
aid into a land under siege. That is simply not who we are. Or even worse, these
buses had turned us into a disconnected group of people with individual reasons
for going to Gaza. Again, this is not at all who we were. Of course I am not
saying that I was not ambivalent about wanting to go as an individual; all I
have ever wanted to do is go to Gaza and walk into the pictures of our home that
hang on walls and sit on mantles in our house in Chicago. But as a part of a
political group, neither my sister nor I could board that bus with a clear
conscience.

It was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made, but in the end I was sure:
it was either all of us go or none of us. If only 100 went, the news story would
have changed from 1,400 protest against the siege in Gaza to Egypt allows 100
activists into Gaza. I did not want to be used as a pawn by the Egyptian
government to save their face in the Arab world, nor did I want to weaken the
political message of the Gaza Freedom March. The work we were doing in Cairo had
been effective and I wanted to continue being a part of it. Our protests were on
the front page of every Egyptian newspaper and our efforts were actively
discussed on late-night talk shows in the Middle East. Suddenly everyone had
something to say about these foreigners in Egypt protesting for Gaza. Political
pundits were asking all over Egypt's airwaves, "Why do foreigners care more
about the plight of Palestinians than the Arab World?" and "Why isn't Egypt
opening the borders?"

The next day I woke up in Cairo, feeling even more empowered. All of the
confusion had really put us in a position to define who we were, what our goals
were, what we wanted and the risks we were willing to take to get it. We pulled
up to the next protest in front of the Egyptian National Museum at 10am,
entrenched in this renewed clarity, and uniquely hopeful. As I crossed the
street to get to the mass of protesters and police, I saw the police building
their barricade around protesters who were trying to stage a symbolic march to
Gaza. A woman about 60 years old was resisting the police who were forcibly
trying to barricade her. I saw Egyptian police forces drag and beat her in the
street and at the time, my reflex was to photograph the abuse. While pressing up
against the commotion and shooting countless pictures, I made eye contact with
one of the officers. Immediately, four men jumped on me and held me down. One of
the officers covered my eyes with his hands, while other officers beat me and
and pried my camera out of the cage I was creating around it with my body. They
told me they were going to shatter my camera in the street and I started a
desperate plea with the officers to return it to me and let me leave. As I tried
to get up, my hair was pulled and I was back on the ground. The officers
eventually returned my camera after taking my memory card and threw me on to a
pile of protesters inside the barricades.

That was the worst of it. Soon things calmed down and everyone was sitting. We
fell back into our default chants, "Free Gaza! Free Gaza!"

Though chanting, I felt broken -- we didn't get to Gaza, the siege continues and
we had been publicly abused. Furthermore, the media focused on the 85 persons
who went to Gaza, though they had disassociated themselves from Gaza Freedom
March, and our efforts in Cairo became old news. I couldn't help but wonder,
"What's it all worth?" Ultimately though, I realize that this is exactly how
politics of activism can break a political activist and I won't let that happen.
On a personal level, I fervently hope that someday the strangers on the streets
of Gaza City will look familiar and my relatives in Gaza will no longer appear
only in photographs -- but that isn't the priority. My priorities are political.
The humanity of Palestinians in Gaza must be validated and this will never
happen while Gaza is under siege. At this point, my sisters and I are in the
third generation of activists to march, stand, sit and protest for Palestine.
The persistence of Palestine as a humanitarian crisis can be wildly
disheartening, but the persistence of the resistance movement is equally -- if
not more so -- heartening. That's what it's all worth. The spirit of the
resistance movement has not yet been broken, despite everything that has let us
down or disappointed us. We are a people united for Palestine and we embrace
this struggle. It is at times emotionally exhausting, but we aren't broken and
we will break the siege of Gaza.

Dana Elborno is a 20-year-old journalism student in Chicago.

===

Fanning the Flames of Freedom from Cairo to Gaza and Beyond
Written by by Emily Ratner
Sunday, 03 January 2010 20:17


http://mondoweiss.net/2010/01/from-the-pyramids-to-the-strip-we-have-had-many-vi\
ctories-in-cairo.html

http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/01/fanning-the-flames-of-freedom-from-cairo-to-ga\
za-and-beyond/


  / January 3rd, 2010

The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class–it
is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of freedom.

–Anna Julia Cooper, page 27, my US passport

The Gaza Freedom March announced the Cairo Declaration to End Israeli Apartheid
on January 1st, and so yesterday hundreds of Marchers smuggled freedom's smoke
signals in our luggage as we climbed into buses, vans, and taxis and made a mad
dash for the Rafah border crossing. My own van was pulled over at the first
checkpoint on the way out of Cairo, where we sat on a dusty curb for two hours
before being forced to turn back. As we waited for guards to run our passport
numbers and strategized about next steps, a small bus filled with our French
friends sped by on the other side of the road, headed back to Cairo. Their hands
formed peace signs through the windows as they shouted at border guards, and we
were reminded once again of the historic nature of these days, when more than
1,300 people have come to Egypt from 43 different countries to support our
sisters and brothers in Gaza. When we were first pulled over I felt silly for
thinking our small van, filled with aging activists and suitcases overflowing
with medicine and other forms of aid, would be permitted to pass to Rafah. As we
drove away from the checkpoint, where we picked up two stragglers who had been
pulled from buses and told they must return as well, my thinking began to
change: Even if none of us arrive in Gaza (an impossibility given the
resourcefulness of this remarkable group), our global solidarity community has
accomplished something amazing here in Cairo, and in countries around the world.
We will now leave Egypt, either for Gaza or for our homes, with a unified call
to action, and a concrete plan to continue this crucial work.

We have seen so many victories here in Cairo in the crazy days since the
Egyptian Foreign Minister announced we would not be permitted to cross the Rafah
border. There are some moments when the haze of Cairo clouds our eyes with dust
and disappointment, but we sing our successes into the smog of this city,
reminding ourselves and our allies around the world that our efforts will not be
deterred by Egyptian guards at checkpoints and the Israeli politicians who are
calling the shots:

On December 27, the French group of over 300 allies and mentors took over
Giza/Charles de Gaulle St, a terrifyingly busy thoroughfare, when their
Rafah-bound buses did not arrive at the French Embassy. They held the street for
a full hour before agreeing to wait for the buses on the sidewalk in front of
the Embassy. They camped in "Giza Strip" for a full five days, guarded by three
rows of riot police.

On December 29, Hedy Epstein, an 85 year-old Holocaust survivor, began a widely
reported hunger strike with thirty activists, announcing that they will feast
when all of Gaza feasts.

Later that night, hundreds of internationals stood alongside hundreds of
Egyptians, who bravely protested Binyamin Netanyahu's visit to Egypt and
demanded an end to the siege.

On December 30, the Egyptian government sent two buses of marchers to Gaza in an
effort to temper the terrible press Mubarak is receiving in Egypt and throughout
the Arab world. So many of us refused to be satisfied by this token gesture that
the buses were not full when they reached Gaza.

Later that day, hundreds protested at the American Embassy, where police managed
to fracture them into small, highly guarded groups but could not divide the
loud, unified voice with which they demanded an end to the siege, both from the
streets in front of the Embassy and from negotiations inside.

Also on December 30, 25 French activists raced an enormous Palestinian flag to
the top of one of the pyramids as hundreds of Egyptians and others cheered them
on in this highly illegal act. This was the flag's second trip to the top of the
pyramid since we've arrived.

On December 31, more than 500 internationals set out on a Freedom March to Gaza
from the Egyptian Museum, where they stopped heavy traffic on Tahrir Square and
fought fearlessly against guards who violently moved them to pedestrian areas.
In Gaza, internationals joined Palestinian marchers in the trek to the Erez
crossing, where hundreds upon hundreds protested the siege from the Israeli side
of the border. Thousands more joined solidarity protests around the world.

On January 1, more than 500 protested at the Israeli Embassy, forcing global
attention on the government that is desperately seeking to divert our efforts to
the Egyptian government's role in the siege. We have proved that we will not be
fooled.

Later that night, the South African delegation officially announced the Cairo
Declaration that we have worked together to create in partnership with our
sisters and brothers in Gaza. The Declaration demands an end to Israeli
Apartheid, lists our renewed commitments, and provides an action plan as we move
forward in this important work. In a week of historic events, this document
proves we have accomplished the mission that brought us to Cairo: We are now
united with the people in Gaza, and have a unified plan as we move forward in
our crucial work.

While Egyptians turn us away from check points and borders, we remember that it
is the Israeli government that has demanded we be kept out of Gaza. And the
Israelis have made this demand because they are terrified of our movement. Their
weapons and soldiers are no match for the ideas we carry with us, sparked in
Palestine and now aflame in Egypt and throughout the world. Our global community
join Palestinian civil society in some demands of our own, which the Israelis
cannot quell by preventing our passage to Gaza. As the Cairo Declaration states,
we demand Self-Determination for all Palestinians. We demand an End to the
Occupation. We demand Equal Rights for All within historic Palestine. We demand
the full Right of Return for all People of Palestine.

And we insist that as a global solidarity movement, we have the right to make
these demands. Egyptian guards have been unable to stop us as we scream our
demands from atop the pyramids, from the sidewalks of the U.S. and Israeli
Embassies, and from the front pages of newspapers in Egypt, Kuwait, Yemen, and
around the world. Allies have stamped these demands into the world's streets as
they march for Palestine's freedom.

We must make these demands because our work is too important to wait for the the
governments of the world to acknowledge that the Israelis will never offer
Palestinians what they are owed. We can make these demands because we have the
power of a global boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement that will some day
be strong enough to cripple the Israeli economy, if we do the work we have
promised here in Cairo. And, as Anna Julia Cooper so eloquently states in the US
passport that was rejected by Egyptians working on behalf of Israelis yesterday,
we will make these demands because freedom is the birthright of humankind.

We celebrate our sisters and brothers in Gaza and throughout Palestine, who have
worked so hard to bring us to this historic moment. We celebrate allies here in
Cairo and around the world, who are renewing their commitment to their crucial
solidarity work by endorsing the Cairo Declaration. And we celebrate all of the
travelers who slowly make their way to Rafah, whether they arrive or not. May
the Egyptians run our passport numbers thousands of times as they turn us back.
May the Israelis be reminded again and again that they have only encouraged us
to work more tirelessly than we have so far. May the U.S. government be reminded
of the wisdom of Cooper's words, spat on every time we are rejected at a
checkpoint or border crossing. May we leave Cairo with more hope than when we
arrived that the siege will end and Gaza and all of Palestine will be free.

Emily Ratner is an organizer and mediamaker based in New Orleans. In June she
traveled to Gaza with a New Orleans delegation. This month she will be joining
thousands of Palestinians and internationals for the Gaza Freedom March on
December 31st. Help us get there. She can be reached at: 
emily@... This e-mail address is being protected from spambots.
You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

===

55 activists injured in clashes in Egypt
Wednesday, January 6, 2010 10:00 AM
http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/55-activists-injured-in-clashes-in-eg\
ypt/


Press TV – January 6, 2010 03:16:54 GMT
Around 55 people have been injured in clashes between Egyptian riot police and
Viva Palestina activists at the Egyptian port of El-Arish.
The scuffles broke out after Egypt said it would not allow 59 humanitarian
assistance trucks of the Viva Palestina convoy to enter Gaza.

Talks in which a delegation of Turkish lawmakers sought to convince Egyptian
officials to change their minds proved fruitless.
The convoy arrived in El-Arish to attempt to break the siege of Gaza.
Earlier, Cairo had said it would only allow 157 members of the Viva Palestina
convoy, which is led by British politician George Galloway, to drive to Gaza.
However, later the Egyptian government agreed to allow 400 of the group's
volunteers entry to the Gaza Strip.
The convoy has over 200 vehicles laden with basic food items and medical
supplies.

===

Fanning the Flames of Freedom from Cairo to Gaza and Beyond
by Emily Ratner
Sunday, 03 January 2010
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/01/from-the-pyramids-to-the-strip-we-have-had-many-vi\
ctories-in-cairo.html

http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/01/fanning-the-flames-of-freedom-from-cairo-to-ga\
za-and-beyond/


The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class–it
is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of freedom.

–Anna Julia Cooper, page 27, my US passport


The Gaza Freedom March announced the Cairo Declaration to End Israeli Apartheid
on January 1st, and so yesterday hundreds of Marchers smuggled freedom's smoke
signals in our luggage as we climbed into buses, vans, and taxis and made a mad
dash for the Rafah border crossing. My own van was pulled over at the first
checkpoint on the way out of Cairo, where we sat on a dusty curb for two hours
before being forced to turn back. As we waited for guards to run our passport
numbers and strategized about next steps, a small bus filled with our French
friends sped by on the other side of the road, headed back to Cairo. Their hands
formed peace signs through the windows as they shouted at border guards, and we
were reminded once again of the historic nature of these days, when more than
1,300 people have come to Egypt from 43 different countries to support our
sisters and brothers in Gaza. When we were first pulled over I felt silly for
thinking our small van, filled with aging activists and suitcases overflowing
with medicine and other forms of aid, would be permitted to pass to Rafah. As we
drove away from the checkpoint, where we picked up two stragglers who had been
pulled from buses and told they must return as well, my thinking began to
change: Even if none of us arrive in Gaza (an impossibility given the
resourcefulness of this remarkable group), our global solidarity community has
accomplished something amazing here in Cairo, and in countries around the world.
We will now leave Egypt, either for Gaza or for our homes, with a unified call
to action, and a concrete plan to continue this crucial work.

We have seen so many victories here in Cairo in the crazy days since the
Egyptian Foreign Minister announced we would not be permitted to cross the Rafah
border. There are some moments when the haze of Cairo clouds our eyes with dust
and disappointment, but we sing our successes into the smog of this city,
reminding ourselves and our allies around the world that our efforts will not be
deterred by Egyptian guards at checkpoints and the Israeli politicians who are
calling the shots:

On December 27, the French group of over 300 allies and mentors took over
Giza/Charles de Gaulle St, a terrifyingly busy thoroughfare, when their
Rafah-bound buses did not arrive at the French Embassy. They held the street for
a full hour before agreeing to wait for the buses on the sidewalk in front of
the Embassy. They camped in "Giza Strip" for a full five days, guarded by three
rows of riot police.

On December 29, Hedy Epstein, an 85 year-old Holocaust survivor, began a widely
reported hunger strike with thirty activists, announcing that they will feast
when all of Gaza feasts.

Later that night, hundreds of internationals stood alongside hundreds of
Egyptians, who bravely protested Binyamin Netanyahu's visit to Egypt and
demanded an end to the siege.

On December 30, the Egyptian government sent two buses of marchers to Gaza in an
effort to temper the terrible press Mubarak is receiving in Egypt and throughout
the Arab world. So many of us refused to be satisfied by this token gesture that
the buses were not full when they reached Gaza.

Later that day, hundreds protested at the American Embassy, where police managed
to fracture them into small, highly guarded groups but could not divide the
loud, unified voice with which they demanded an end to the siege, both from the
streets in front of the Embassy and from negotiations inside.

Also on December 30, 25 French activists raced an enormous Palestinian flag to
the top of one of the pyramids as hundreds of Egyptians and others cheered them
on in this highly illegal act. This was the flag's second trip to the top of the
pyramid since we've arrived.

On December 31, more than 500 internationals set out on a Freedom March to Gaza
from the Egyptian Museum, where they stopped heavy traffic on Tahrir Square and
fought fearlessly against guards who violently moved them to pedestrian areas.
In Gaza, internationals joined Palestinian marchers in the trek to the Erez
crossing, where hundreds upon hundreds protested the siege from the Israeli side
of the border. Thousands more joined solidarity protests around the world.

On January 1, more than 500 protested at the Israeli Embassy, forcing global
attention on the government that is desperately seeking to divert our efforts to
the Egyptian government's role in the siege. We have proved that we will not be
fooled.

Later that night, the South African delegation officially announced the Cairo
Declaration that we have worked together to create in partnership with our
sisters and brothers in Gaza. The Declaration demands an end to Israeli
Apartheid, lists our renewed commitments, and provides an action plan as we move
forward in this important work. In a week of historic events, this document
proves we have accomplished the mission that brought us to Cairo: We are now
united with the people in Gaza, and have a unified plan as we move forward in
our crucial work.

While Egyptians turn us away from check points and borders, we remember that it
is the Israeli government that has demanded we be kept out of Gaza. And the
Israelis have made this demand because they are terrified of our movement. Their
weapons and soldiers are no match for the ideas we carry with us, sparked in
Palestine and now aflame in Egypt and throughout the world. Our global community
join Palestinian civil society in some demands of our own, which the Israelis
cannot quell by preventing our passage to Gaza. As the Cairo Declaration states,
we demand Self-Determination for all Palestinians. We demand an End to the
Occupation. We demand Equal Rights for All within historic Palestine. We demand
the full Right of Return for all People of Palestine.

And we insist that as a global solidarity movement, we have the right to make
these demands. Egyptian guards have been unable to stop us as we scream our
demands from atop the pyramids, from the sidewalks of the U.S. and Israeli
Embassies, and from the front pages of newspapers in Egypt, Kuwait, Yemen, and
around the world. Allies have stamped these demands into the world's streets as
they march for Palestine's freedom.

We must make these demands because our work is too important to wait for the the
governments of the world to acknowledge that the Israelis will never offer
Palestinians what they are owed. We can make these demands because we have the
power of a global boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement that will some day
be strong enough to cripple the Israeli economy, if we do the work we have
promised here in Cairo. And, as Anna Julia Cooper so eloquently states in the US
passport that was rejected by Egyptians working on behalf of Israelis yesterday,
we will make these demands because freedom is the birthright of humankind.

We celebrate our sisters and brothers in Gaza and throughout Palestine, who have
worked so hard to bring us to this historic moment. We celebrate allies here in
Cairo and around the world, who are renewing their commitment to their crucial
solidarity work by endorsing the Cairo Declaration. And we celebrate all of the
travelers who slowly make their way to Rafah, whether they arrive or not. May
the Egyptians run our passport numbers thousands of times as they turn us back.
May the Israelis be reminded again and again that they have only encouraged us
to work more tirelessly than we have so far. May the U.S. government be reminded
of the wisdom of Cooper's words, spat on every time we are rejected at a
checkpoint or border crossing. May we leave Cairo with more hope than when we
arrived that the siege will end and Gaza and all of Palestine will be free.

Emily Ratner is an organizer and mediamaker based in New Orleans. In June she
traveled to Gaza with a New Orleans delegation. This month she will be joining
thousands of Palestinians and internationals for the Gaza Freedom March on
December 31st. Help us get there. She can be reached at: 
emily@... This e-mail address is being protected from spambots.
You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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Northwest Bomb Plot 'Oddities'
By Lori Price
10 Jan 2010
(This page will be updated!)
http://www.legitgov.org/northwest_bomb_plot_oddities.html


In 2008, the ACLU estimated the US 'No Fly List' to have grown to over 1,000,000
names -- heck, even Cat Stevens and the late Senator Ted Kennedy were on it --
and it continues to expand. But, suspected terrorist Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab,
who was curiously able to obtain military-grade high explosives --80 grams of
PETN (Gee, where'd he get that?) -- managed to escape airport security and
detonate his underwear bomb!

In April 2009, American authorities reportedly refused an Air France flight from
Paris to Mexico entry into US airspace because a left-wing journalist writing a
book on the CIA was on board. Hernando Calvo Ospina, who works for Le Monde
Diplomatique and has written on revolutionary movements in Cuba and Colombia,
figured on the US authorities' 'no-fly list.' Air France said the April 18
flight was forced to divert to the French Caribbean island of Martinique before
continuing its journey (telegraph.co.uk).

Got it? Write a book critical of the CIA -- you cannot fly. Carry explosives
(allegedly from Yemen) on board when the US is trolling for an excuse to invade
and occupy Yemen for its oil -- yes you can! The US needs false flags to provide
cover for illegal invasions and occupations. The 9/11 terrorist attacks (aka
inside job, six ways to Sunday) worked well for the US government; the
security-industrial complex made billions and US corporaterrorists were able to
negotiate the wholesale theft of Iraq's oil.

According to CNN, the terror suspect's father tried to warn authorities. CNN
reported: The father of a man suspected in a botched terror attack aboard a
Northwest Airlines flight contacted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria recently with
concerns his son was planning something, a senior U.S. administration official
said Saturday. The father -- identified by a family source as Umaru Abdul
Mutallab -- contacted the U.S. Embassy "a few weeks ago" saying his son, Umar
Farouk Abdulmutallab, had "become radicalized," the senior administration
official, who is familiar with the case, told CNN.

And yet, Abdulmutallab was not obliged to undergo any additional airport
screening layers, prior to boarding for the last leg of his journey to Detroit.

Also, lest we forget: Three key provisions of the Patriot Act are scheduled to
expire 31 December 2009. Hmm. I wonder if post-Abdulmutallab they will get
renewed?

Abdulmutallab was thwarted by a quote, unquote vacationing movie producer,
Jasper Schuringa, who, within seconds, asserted that he not only tackled the
suspect and put him in a headlock but also tried 'to search his body for any
explosives' (CNN). Unless one was a bona-fide law enforcement professional or a
military agent, who on earth would think of searching a man who had just set
himself on fire, in a matter of seconds, for more explosives?

The goal is Yemeni oil. Hence the reason for the destabilization and the
purported need for the US to stop al-Qaeda (literally, 'the database'). The
Yemeni national security chief has declared that the country is receiving
assistance from the US in the crackdown on what he called 'al-Qaeda operatives'
in southern Yemen (Press TV). Translation: US corporaterrorists want Yemen's oil
and they want it NOW.



Israeli firm blasted for letting would-be plane bomber slip through 10 Jan 2010
The Israeli firm ICTS International (not to be confused with ICTS Europe, which
is a different company), and two of its subsidiaries are at the crux of an
international investigation in recent days, as experts try to pinpoint the
reasons for the security failure that enabled Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board
Northwest flight 253 and attempt to set alight explosives hidden in his
underwear. A Haaretz investigation has learned that the security officers and
their supervisor should have suspected the passenger, even without having early
intelligence available to them.

Canada ordered airline scanners months ago --Scanner technology was in the works
well before events in recent weeks 06 Jan 2010 Transport Minister John Baird
told CTV's Canada AM on Wednesday morning that Canada chose to pursue the
high-tech scanner technology months ago, putting an order in to manufacturers
"before the United States were in the queue...and before some of the countries
in Europe." He said the scanner technology was in the works well before the
events in recent weeks, leaving Canadian authorities well-informed about the
practical concerns of implementing them at nationwide airports. "This is
something we've been working on for about 15 months," said Baird.

Airline Bombing Suspect Flagged For Check At Landing 07 Jan 2010 As the White
House prepared Thursday to release a preliminary report on the Christmas Day
bombing attempt aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit,
there was word that security officials had flagged the name of the bombing
suspect after he was already on his way. U.S. officials say the Nigerian man was
supposed to get extra screening once he arrived, because of his apparent ties to
extremists. Customs and Border Protection officials screen passengers against
terrorist watch lists before international flights leave for the U.S., and then
check names against a different database while the flight is in the air. [LOL!]
It was during this second check that officials flagged the alleged bomber.

Obama security adviser says bomb report a shocker 07 Jan 2010 Americans will
feel "a certain shock" from a White House report to be released on Thursday on
security lapses in the attempted December 25 bombing of a Detroit-bound
airliner, U.S. national security adviser James Jones said in a USA Today
interview. President Barack Obama "is legitimately and correctly alarmed that
things that were available, bits of information that were available, patterns of
behavior that were available, were not acted on," Jones said in the interview
published on Thursday. ['A certain shock.' Oh, that a Cheney 'burrower' ensured
that Abdulmutallab was not on the 'No-Fly' list, so that the US would be
attacked under Obama? Odd, as Obomba is funding and fomenting more rage and
possible acts of terrorism (through killer drone attacks, etc.) than Bush. See:
Administration Moves to Protect Key Appointees 18 Nov 2008.]

U.S. learned intelligence on airline bomb suspect while he was en route 06 Jan
2010 U.S. border enforcement officials came close to stopping the attempted
bombing of a Northwest Airlines jet while the suspect was en route to Detroit on
Christmas Day, new data show. U.S. border security officials learned of
intelligence about the alleged extremist links of the suspect in the Christmas
Day airline bombing attempt as he was en route to Detroit and had decided to
question him when he landed, officials said in new disclosures today.

Obama Says Government Knew of "Other Red Flags" in Terror Threat 06 Jan 2010
President Obama said Tuesday that the United States government had sufficient
information to uncover the terror plot to bring down an airplane on Christmas
Day, but intelligence officials "failed to connect those dots" that would have
prevented the young Nigerian man from boarding the plane in Amsterdam. "This was
not a failure to collect intelligence, it was a failure to integrate and
understand the intelligence that we already had," Mr. Obama said after a
two-hour meeting with his national security team at the White House.

Ah, then came the dawn. Yemen seizes 'Israel-linked' cell 07 Oct 2008 Yemeni
President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said the security forces have arrested a group
of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence. Mr Saleh did not
say what evidence had been found to show the group's links with Israel, a
regional enemy of Yemen. The arrests were connected with an attack on the US
embassy in Sanaa last month which killed at least 18 people, official sources
were quoted saying. [Hmm. Guess they didn't get the whole cell.]

U.S. Customs: Second person handcuffed on Christmas Day was on Flight 253, after
all 02 Jan 2010 A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection now says that
a man who was handcuffed and questioned by authorities on Christmas Day was a
passenger on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 -- just days after saying that person
arrived to Detroit aboard a different flight. In an email to The Detroit News
Thursday night, Customs spokesman Ron Smith acknowledged that a person from
Flight 253 was handcuffed after search dogs found something in his carry-on bag.
Smith said the email was based on new information he had received. The passenger
was not arrested or detained, and was allowed to leave Detroit Metro Airport
with the rest of the Flight 253 passengers, according to WWJ.

Official confirms 2nd man interviewed from Flight 253 --Couple on 253 did see
2nd man in cuffs, customs officer says 02 Jan 2010 A U.S. Customs official
reversed himself Friday, admitting a passenger from Northwest Flight 253 was
placed in handcuffs, searched and released after a security dog alerted officers
to the passenger's carry-on luggage. Ronald G. Smith, chief U.S. Customs and
Border Protection officer in the Detroit area, sent an e-mail to The Detroit
News late Thursday apologizing that the information on the passenger -- which
was made public by a pair of Taylor attorneys, Kurt and Lori Haskell, who were
passengers on the flight -- was not officially announced earlier. FBI officials
had said only one man from the flight was arrested.

White House Adviser Briefed in October on Underwear Bomb Technique 03 Jan 2010
White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan was briefed in October on an
assassination attempt by Al Qaeda [al-CIAduh] that investigators now believe
used the same underwear bombing technique as the Nigerian suspect who tried to
blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day, U.S. intelligence and
administration officials tell NEWSWEEK. The briefing to Brennan was delivered at
the White House by Muhammad bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia's chief counterterrorism
official. In late August, Nayef had survived an assassination attempt by an
operative dispatched by the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda who was pretending to turn
himself in.



MI5 knew of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's UK extremist links 03 Jan 2010 The
security services knew three years ago that the Detroit bomber had "multiple
communications" with Islamic extremists in Britain, it emerged this weekend.
Counterterrorism officials said Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was "reaching out" to
extremists whom MI5 had under surveillance while he was studying at University
College London. None of the information was passed to American officials, which
will prompt questions about intelligence failures prior to the attack. British
officials have now passed a file to their US counterparts on Abdulmutallab's
activities in Britain while he was a student from 2005 to 2008. It shows his
repeated contacts with MI5 targets who were subject to phone taps, email
intercepts and other forms of surveillance.

Flight 253 passenger Kurt Haskell: 'I was visited by the FBI' 31 Dec 2009
Following up on a visit from FBI officials about an eyewitness account first
described to MLive.com, Michigan attorney Kurt Haskell described the visit in
comment sections across MLive on Wednesday. Haskell and his wife, Lori, were
aboard Flight 253 when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to destroy the
plane. They say another man tried to help Abdulmutallab board the plane in
Amsterdam.

Airline bomber suspect studied in Houston 31 Dec 2009 The Nigerian man accused
of trying to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day over Detroit attended an
intensive, Islamic education seminar in Houston last year designed for top
student scholars, an organization confirmed Wednesday. Shaykh Waleed Basyouni,
vice president for the AlMaghrib Institute in Houston, said 23-year-old Umar
Farouk Abdulmutallab was living in London in the summer of 2008 when he attended
the nonprofit institute's annual "IlmSummit" with about 150 other students.
Basyouni said other participants in the seminar, which was held in Houston
during the first two weeks of August 2008, remembered Abdulmutallab as being
very quiet and keeping to himself.

US aware 'Nigerian' prepared for terror attack 30 Dec 2009 The US was aware that
"a Nigerian" in Yemen was being prepared for a terrorist attack - weeks before
an attempted bombing on a US plane. ABC News and the New York Times say there
was intelligence to this effect, but its source is unclear. Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab flew from Lagos to Amsterdam before changing planes for a flight
to Detroit on which he allegedly tried to detonate a bomb.

Second person was detained by U.S. Customs after alleged attack on Flight 253 29
Dec 2009 A person was detained by customs at Detroit Metro Airport on Friday
following Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's alleged attack on Northwest Airlines
Flight 253, according to a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It
is unknown why the person was detained or whether the person will face any
charges, spokesman Ron Smith told MLive.com. Bill Carter, a spokesman with the
FBI in Washington, D.C., said in an interview Tuesday that Abdulmutallab was the
only person arrested or charged in relation to Friday's foiled attack.

Report: Dutch police investigating report of accomplice in Northwest Flight 253
terror plot 28 Dec 2009 Reuters reports Dutch military police are investigating
claims that an accomplice may have helped Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab board
Northwest Flight 253 in Amsterdam on Christmas day without a passport, a story
first told here on MLive.com. Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up the
Detroit-bound plane with an explosive chemical he smuggled through security.

Man videotaped entire false flag, including detonation: Oconomowoc Family
Survives Terrorist Attempt 28 Dec 2009 (WI) Patricia "Scotty" Keepman still has
a sense of humor after the harrowing experience she, her husband, daughter and
two new adopted children from Ethiopia had as a man tried to detonate an
explosive device while their plane was getting ready to land in Detroit on
Christmas Day. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab of Nigeria was charged Saturday in the
Christmas Day attempt that only sparked a fire on the flight from Amsterdam.
They were sitting about 20 rows behind Abdulmutallab, in a center aisle... Her
daughter said that ahead of them was a man who videotaped the entire flight,
including the attempted detonation. "He sat up and videotaped the entire thing,
very calmly," said Patricia. "We do know that the FBI is looking for him
intensely. Since then, we've heard nothing about it."

Detroit bomber linked to MI5 suspect 30 Dec 2009 The Detroit bomber Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab was linked to a Muslim extremist under surveillance by MI5 while
he was living in Britain, it has emerged. The Security Service have found that
the 23-year-old was connected to a suspect it was investigating while he was
studying at university in London. The connection was discovered after record
checks by MI5 following the attempted suicide bombing on Christmas Day by
Abdulmutallab on a US-bound plane. Until now, it was thought that the first time
MI5 had any evidence of Abdulmutallab was when he was put on a "watch list"
earlier this year after being refused a student visa because he had given
details of a bogus college. But MI5 has now discovered he was on the "periphery
of a past incident" sources said, although he was not said to have been under
surveillance himself.

U.S. Had Information Before Christmas of a Terror Plot --The government also had
more information about where Mr. Abdulmutallab had been and what some of his
plans were. 30 Dec 2009 President Obama was told during a private briefing on
Tuesday morning while vacationing here in Hawaii that the government had a
variety of information in its possession before the thwarted bombing that would
have been a clear warning sign had it been shared among agencies, a senior
official said. Two officials said the government had intelligence from Yemen
before Friday that leaders of a branch of Al Qaeda there were talking about "a
Nigerian" being prepared [by his CIA handlers] for a terrorist attack.

'The information on AbdulMutallab had been sent to CIA headquarters in Langley,
Virginia.' Source: CIA failed to circulate report about bombing suspect 29 Dec
2009 The father of terrorism suspect Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab talked about his
son's extremist views with someone from the CIA and a report was prepared, but
the report was not circulated outside the agency, a reliable source told CNN on
Tuesday. Had that information been shared, the 23-year-old Nigerian who is
alleged to have bungled an attempt to blow up a jetliner as it was landing in
Detroit, Michigan, on Christmas Day might have been denied passage on the
Northwest Airlines flight, the source said. U.S. officials said the father, a
former Nigerian banker, expressed his concerns about his son's radicalization
during at least one meeting and several calls with officials at the embassy in
Nigeria. The information on AbdulMutallab had been sent to CIA headquarters in
Langley, Virginia, but it sat there for five weeks and was not disseminated, the
source said.

Two al Qaeda Leaders Behind Northwest Flight 253 Terror Plot Were Released by
U.S. [by Bush] --Former Guantanamo Prisoners Believed Behind Northwest Airlines
Bomb Plot; Sent to Saudi Arabia in 2007 28 Dec 2009 Two of the four leaders
allegedly behind the al Qaeda [al-CIAduh] plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines
passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison
in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense
documents. American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo
to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program"
and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials. Guantanamo prisoner
#333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to
Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of
detainees who were released from American custody. Al-Harbi has since changed
his name to Muhamad al-Awfi.

US jet plot suspect 'was in Yemen in December' 29 Dec 2009 The Nigerian man
accused of trying to blow up a jet over the US on Christmas Day was living in
Yemen until earlier this month, Yemeni officials have said. The foreign ministry
said Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was in Yemen from August until the beginning of
December, the official Saba news agency reported. He had a visa to study Arabic
at an institute in the capital Sanaa.

Anti-terror officials let terror suspect keep visa 28 Dec 2009 The State
Department says counterterrorism agencies were warned that the Nigerian man who
allegedly tried to blow up an airliner Christmas Day may be under extremists'
influence. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly says it was up to the National
Counterterrorism Center to block Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from entering the
U.S. He says U.S. counterterror agencies received the information on Nov. 20, a
day after it was provided by the father, but it was not enough to revoke the
visa.

Father of terror suspect reported Mutallab to US Embassy 6 months ago 27 Dec
2009 The father of the al Qaeda terrorist behind Friday's attempted explosion
aboard a Northwest flight bound for Detroit reported his son's fanatical
religious views to the U.S. Embassy six months ago, according to a Nigerian news
outlet. The young man, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, is the son of Alhaji Umaru
Mutallab, a former Nigerian minister and bank chairman. He became wary of his
son's religious beliefs and reported his activities to the U.S. Embassy as well
as Nigerian security services half a year ago, according to the Nigerian
newspaper This Day.


Source: Terror suspect's father tried to warn authorities 27 Dec 2009 The father
of a man suspected in a botched terror attack aboard a Northwest Airlines flight
contacted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria recently with concerns his son was
planning something, a senior U.S. administration official said Saturday. The
father -- identified by a family source as Umaru Abdul Mutallab -- contacted the
U.S. Embassy "a few weeks ago" saying his son, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had
"become radicalized," the senior administration official, who is familiar with
the case, told CNN. Abdulmutallab, 23, was charged in a federal criminal
complaint Saturday with attempting to destroy the plane Friday on its final
approach to Michigan's Detroit Metropolitan Airport, and placing a destructive
device on the aircraft, the Department of Justice said.

Father alerted US about Nigerian plane bomb suspect 27 Dec 2009 The father of a
Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a transatlantic jet on Christmas Day
had voiced concerns to US officials about his son. The father, a top Nigerian
banker, warned US authorities last month about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's
extreme views, say officials. US sources confirm a file was opened, but say the
information did not warrant placing the accused on a "no-fly" list.

Airline bomber was barred from Britain --Man who allegedly attempted to blow up
US jet had UK visa request refused in May 27 Dec 2009 The son of a prominent
Nigerian banker, who allegedly attempted to blow up a transatlantic flight over
America, was barred from returning to Britain earlier this year. Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab, 23, graduated from a university in London last year but his visa
request was refused in May when he attempted to apply for a new course at a
bogus college. Abdulmutallab, described as a devout Muslim, attempted to ignite
an explosive device on a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day after
shouting about Afghanistan.

Flight 253 passenger: Sharp-dressed man aided terror suspect Abdul Mutallab onto
plane without passport 27 Dec 2009 A Michigan man who was aboard Northwest
Airlines Flight 253 says he witnessed Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab trying to board
the plane in Amsterdam without a passport. Kurt Haskell and his wife, Lori, of
Newport, Mich., were returning from a safari in Uganda when they boarded the NWA
flight on Friday. Haskell said he and his wife [attorneys with Haskell Law Firm
in Taylor] were sitting on the ground near their boarding gate in Amsterdam,
which is when they saw Mutallab approach the gate with an unidentified man.
While Mutallab was poorly dressed, his friend was dressed in an expensive suit,
Haskell said. He says the suited man asked ticket agents whether Mutallab could
board without a passport. "The guy said, 'He's from Sudan and we do this all the
time.'" Mutallab is Nigerian. Haskell believes the man may have been trying to
garner sympathy for Mutallab's lack of documents by portraying him as a Sudanese
refugee.

Unclear If Suspect's Name Was On Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment List
--The list, maintained by United States National Counterterrorism Center,
includes about 550,000 names 27 Dec 2009 The Nigerian man accused of trying to
ignite an incendiary device aboard a trans-Atlantic jetliner on Friday came to
the attention of American officials at least "several weeks ago," but the
initial information was not specific enough to raise alarms that he could
potentially carry out a terrorist attack, a senior Obama administration official
said on Saturday... It was unclear whether Mr. Abdulmutallab's name was entered
into the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment list, which includes people
with known or suspected contact or ties to a terrorist or terrorist
organization. Those people, however, are not necessarily placed on the federal
government's so-called no-fly list, which prohibits persons entering the United
States because of known or suspected [or imagined] terrorists links. Mr.
Abdulmutallab was not on that list, federal officials say.

US authorites divert Air France flight carrying 'no-fly' journalist to Mexico
--American authorities reportedly refused an Air France flight from Paris to
Mexico entry into US airspace because a left-wing journalist writing a book on
the CIA was on board. 29 Apr 2009 Hernando Calvo Ospina, who works for Le Monde
Diplomatique and has written on revolutionary movements in Cuba and Colombia ,
figured on the US authorities' "no-fly list". Air France said the April 18
flight was forced to divert to the French Caribbean island of Martinique before
continuing its journey and that it might ask the US Transportation Security
Administration for compensation. A spokesman for Mr Ospina's French publisher,
Le Temps des Cerises, said: "Hernando, who was heading to Nicaragua to research
a report, thus found out that he is on a 'no-fly list' that bans a number of
people from flying to or even over the United States." Some 50,000 people are
said to be on the list set up under George W. Bush, the former US president
[sic]. The publisher accused the Central Intelligence Agency of being behind Mr
Ospina's blacklisting, pointing out that the journalist was currently
researching a book about the spy agency. "It shows to what degree its paranoia
(has reached)," it said.

'I was trying to search his body for any explosives.' Passenger says he helped
thwart terror attack 27 Dec 2009 Passenger Jasper Schuringa told CNN that with
the aid of the cabin crew, he helped subdue and isolate Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab, who was charged Saturday with trying to destroy a plane.
Schuringa of Amsterdam, Netherlands, said he was traveling to Florida to visit
friends. The journey aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 had been mundane, he
said. But as the plane neared its destination of Detroit, Michigan, he heard a
pop that sounded like a firecracker going off, and someone started yelling:
"Fire! Fire!" Then, there was smoke. "Around 30 seconds later the smoke started
to fill up on the left side beneath this person," he said. That's when Schuringa
said he knew something was wrong. "I basically reacted directly. I didn't think.
When you hear a pop on the plane you're awake, trust me," Schuringa said. When
he noticed that Abdulmutallab was not moving, he grew suspicious. "I was on the
right side of the plane and the suspect was on the left side, there were quite
some seats in between." He jumped over the passenger next to him and lunged over
Abdulmutallab's seat, "Because I was thinking he's trying to blow up the plane,
and I was trying to search his body for any explosives."

Airports intensify security measures worldwide in wake of failed bomb attack
aboard U.S.-bound jetliner --Terror suspect charged in jetliner bomb plot 26 Dec
2009 Federal authorities have charged Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, of Nigeria,
with attempting to destroy Northwest flight 253 with a "destructive device" as
it descended into Detroit on Christmas Day. In a case of attempted terrorism
that has sparked a worldwide intensification of security at airports, U.S.
officials said Saturday afternoon that a preliminary FBI analysis found a
bomb-making chemical called PETN in the device Abdulmutallab tried to detonate.
The affidavit, filed in the Eastern District of Michigan, also said FBI agents
discovered the remnant of a syringe near the suspect's seat, part of what the
agents believe was part of the explosive device.

Investigators: Northwest Bomb Plot Planned by al-Qaeda in Yemen --Officials Say
Bomb Materials Sewn Into Suspect's Underwear by Top Terror Bomb Maker 26 Dec
2009 The plot to blow up an American passenger jet over Detroit was organized
and launched by al-Qaeda [al-CIAduh] leaders in Yemen who apparently sewed bomb
materials into the suspect's underwear before sending him on his mission,
federal authorities tell ABC News. Investigators say the suspect had more than
80 grams of PETN, a compound related to nitro-glycerin used by the military. The
so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, had only about 50 grams kin his failed
attempt in 2001 to blow up a U.S.-bound jet.

Yemen is focus of new US front against al Qaeda --The Pentagon is to spend more
than $70 million over the next 18 months, and use teams of Special Forces to
train and equip Yemeni military, Interior Ministry and coast guard forces. 28
Dec 2009 The United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front
against the Al-Qaeda terror network in Yemen, accoding to The New York Times
newspaper. A year ago, the Central Intelligence Agency sent a number of its top
field operatives with counter-terrorism experience to the country, the newspaper
said. At the same time, some of the most secretive special operations commandos
have begun training Yemeni security forces in counter-terrorism tactics, the
report said.

Officials Point to Suspect's Claim of Qaeda Ties in Yemen 27 Dec 2009 Federal
authorities on Saturday charged a 23-year-old Nigerian man with trying to blow
up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, and officials said the suspect
told them he had obtained explosive chemicals and a syringe that were sewn into
his underwear from a bomb expert in Yemen associated with Al Qaeda [al-CIAduh].
The authorities have not independently corroborated the Yemen connection claimed
by the man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was burned in his failed attempt to
bring down the airliner and is in a hospital in Michigan. But a law enforcement
official briefed on the investigation said on Saturday that the suspect's
account was "plausible," and that he saw "no reason to discount it."

US bombs Sa'ada governor's house, Houthis say 27 Dec 2009 A US fighter jet has
carried out multiple airstrikes on the home of a senior official in Yemen's
northern rugged province of Sa'ada, Houthi fighters say. The Yemen-based Houthi
fighters say the warplane struck the home owned by the governor of Sa'ada
province, Hassan Mohammad Manna in five blitzes. There were no reports on
possible casualties in the attacks.

Yemen confirms receiving US military support 27 Dec 2009 The Yemeni national
security chief has declared that the country is receiving assistance from the US
in the crackdown on what he called 'al-Qaeda operatives' in southern Yemen.
Mohamed al-Anisi has told the Saudi Arabian newspaper Okaz that Yemeni forces
were cooperating with the US military on attacks against al-Qaeda camps, DPA
reported on Saturday. Yemen's confirmation comes as an ABC report revealed that
US President Barack Obama had signed the order for a recent military strike on
Yemen in which scores of civilians, including children, were killed.

Yemen oil min- oil majors mull investments-paper 21 Feb 2009 Yemen has received
investment offers from oil majors including Exxon Mobil Corp and Total, Oil
Minister Amir al-Aidarous said in remarks published on Saturday. Yemen's
Ministry for Oil and Mineral Resources has received eight oil investment bids
from international companies, pan-Arab daily al-Hayat quoted Aidarous as saying,
four of which were from oil majors seeking direct negotiations with Yemen. The
companies include Exxon Mobil, Total, and BP, the minister said, but did not
elaborate on the nature of the investments. Other companies that made bids
included Austrian oil and gas group OMV, Nexen, and Occidental, he said.

House Delays Patriot Act Spy Vote By David Kravets 16 Dec 2009 The House of
Representatives tabled on Wednesday legislation to reform U.S. surveillance law.
The two-month delay puts off a collision with a competing Senate version. House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined to include a vote on the Patriot Act in a Pentagon
funding bill. The move automatically extends provisions of the Patriot Act that
would otherwise expire at year's end. The Senate is likewise expected to delay
the matter. The act, hastily adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks,
greatly expanded the government's ability to spy on Americans in the name of
national security. A key difference between the House and Senate packages
concerns the standard by which the FBI may issue so-called National Security
Letters -- although Wednesday's vote prolongs the time for more backroom
negotiations. Reforming NSL powers is a key bone of contention in the Patriot
Act debate, even though it is not one of the three Patriot Act provisions that
was scheduled to expire Dec. 31.

Police lose battle over evidence of 'British 9/11' plot --Scotland Yard must
reveal whether it had CIA intelligence 26 Dec 2009 Scotland Yard has been
ordered to reveal whether it has any evidence to support America's claim that
Britain was saved from a 9/11-style disaster by the CIA's secret foreign
interrogation centres. The Times has won a case under the Freedom of Information
Act forcing British police to say whether the US stopped a plot to fly planes
into Canary Wharf and Heathrow. The claim was made by President [sic] Bush when
he first acknowledged the existence of a clandestine CIA prison network created
to fight his War on of Terror. Scotland Yard has been given 35 days to comply or
appeal. If it admits that there is no such intelligence, it would undermine any
political defence for America's strong-arm tactics in fighting terrorism.

BTW, I hope the FAA enjoyed this page as much as the DHS and the Navy Network
Information Center did, etc.
204.108.0.11 - - [28/Dec/2009:21:45:49 -0500] "GET
/northwest_bomb_plot_oddities.html HTTP/1.1" 200 32177
"http://www.[redacted].com/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1;
SV1; GTB5; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET
CLR 3.5.30729)"
204.248.24.163 - - [28/Dec/2009:14:20:06 -0500] "GET
/northwest_bomb_plot_oddities.html HTTP/1.1" 200 10170
"http://www.[redacted].com/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1;
DHSI60SP1001; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; DHSI70;
DHSI70)"
138.162.8.57 - - [28/Dec/2009:07:24:51 -0500] "GET
/northwest_bomb_plot_oddities.html HTTP/1.1" 200 31220
"http://www.[redacted].com/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1;
SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648;
.NET CLR 3.5.21022)"
Oh yeah. And treas.gov, the DoD Network Information Center and tons of other
.govs and .mils.
199.196.144.11 - - [30/Dec/2009:16:48:32 -0500] "GET /graphics/logosmalr.gif
HTTP/1.1" 200 5526 "http://www.legitgov.org/northwest_bomb_plot_oddities.html"
"Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; GTB6.3; .NET CLR 1.1.4322;
.NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)"
63.167.255.151 - - [28/Dec/2009:10:51:19 -0500] "GET
/northwest_bomb_plot_oddities.html HTTP/1.1" 200 31220
"http://www.[redacted]com/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1;
SV1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; InfoPath.1)" ...etc.
Happy New Year to all!

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Qaradawi: Abbas must be stoned if proven guilty
Sat, 09 Jan 2010
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=115700§ionid=351020202


Egyptian cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi


Doha-based Egyptian scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi says if it is proven that
acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas instigated the Israeli war
against Gaza, he must be stoned.

"During the debate raised over the Goldstone UN report which accused Israel of
war crimes against Gaza, there were reports that Abbas encouraged Israel to
launch its offensive against Gaza," Qaradawi said as he delivered a Friday
sermon at Doha's Omar bin al-Khattab mosque.

"There also were reports that he stalled a vote on the report by the UN Human
Rights Council," said the Egyptian scholar, who is a Qatari citizen, as well.

"The Arab League should investigate the matter, and if it is proven that Abbas
instigated the Israeli war against Gaza, he deserves to be publicly stoned in
Mecca because this would be a betrayal on his part," he added.

However, Qaradawi pointed out that he was not issuing a religious ruling
(fatwa), but simply calling on the Arab league, the Organization of the Islamic
Conference, and certain other unbiased parties to conduct a probe.

"I did not issue a fatwa. I am not a judge or investigator," he stated,
rejecting a contrary claim made by the acting Palestinian Authority Chief.

Abbas accused Qaradawi of issuing such a fatwa, while speaking to members of the
Qatari media during a visit he paid to the Persian Gulf littoral state last
week.

MJ/TG/DT

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Justice Corps helps young adults with criminal records find jobs in their own
communities.


Seeking to Intervene With Young Adults Before Crime Becomes a Way of Life
By KAREEM FAHIMNYC
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/nyregion/04offenders.html?th&emc=th


"I came here sick," said Derek Freeman, who has a drug-dealing conviction and
was one of the first participants in the NYC Justice Corps.


Almost every time he was released from jail, Wilfredo Hierrezuelo stumbled back
in, once after an arrest for dealing drugs, another time after he assaulted a
school safety guard. By the time he walked out of Rikers Island in October 2008
at age 23, he had spent about seven years of his life behind bars.

He tried breaking that cycle, signing on with agencies that were supposed to
connect him with employers. But one agency, he said, focused too narrowly on
finding a temporary job, and another, in the Bronx, simply "wasn't for me." Last
month, he began his fourth program, a city-financed pilot project that started
in September in neighborhoods in the South Bronx and central Brooklyn where
large numbers of people are sent to prison every year.

In those neighborhoods, the city estimates, there are about 4,000 young people
who have been convicted of a crime and would be eligible for such a program. The
odds against people like Mr. Hierrezuelo staying out of jail are long: 41
percent of prisoners released from Rikers Island end up being arrested again
within a year and 34 percent end up back in the jail, according to the city's
Department of Correction.In the basement of a Brooklyn community center, Mr.
Hierrezuelo listened to Derek Freeman tell a story of escape from the cycle.

"I came here sick," said Mr. Freeman, who has a drug-dealing conviction and was
one of the first participants in the program, called the NYC Justice Corps. He
was disrespectful when he arrived and was almost thrown out of the program, he
said. But now, Mr. Freeman is leading a team of young men who are weatherizing a
nearby home.

"The work is good work," he said. Mr. Hierrezuelo reacted cautiously to what he
heard.

"It sounds good," he said, as he played a video game during a break in the
morning lectures. "I have a son. Something's got to change."

Determining whether Justice Corps is more effective than other programs will
take time, but organizers said that a number of features, including a
requirement that participants work in their own communities, made it different
and more promising. And they said they were heartened by early numbers that
showed an 85 percent retention rate through the first five months.

All the participants so far have been black or Hispanic, from 18 to 24 years
old, and all but 15 have been men. Most are referred by parole and probation
officers. Of the 119 original participants in the six-month program, 18 have
left, either because they were rearrested, had entered drug treatment programs
or were thrown out for violating the program's code of conduct.

Some of those cases illustrate the difficulties of pulling young people away
from their criminal pasts. Braulio Martinez, 19, already had a juvenile robbery
conviction when he was arrested in the subway in November and accused of
stealing a laptop. He started in Justice Corps in December, but the following
month, Mr. Martinez, a self-assured, aspiring animator and poet, was sent back
to Rikers Island for violating his probation terms. He is awaiting trial on the
charge of theft.

In an interview at the jail, he said he did not steal the laptop, was tired of
being on probation and regretted having to leave the Justice Corps program. Mr.
Martinez hoped to go back.

"They take you to the water," he said. "You decide whether to drink."

Organizers say they must reach men like Mr. Martinez early, before jail becomes
a habit.

"We're tackling one of the hardest issues in our society," said Jeremy Travis,
the president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "This is a time when
young people get off track."

"We're trying to turn people who are growing up in poverty and engaged in some
sort of antisocial behavior and make them pro-social in some aspect of their
lives," Mr. Travis said.

The college, the city's Center for Economic Opportunity and the Department of
Correction are partners in the Justice Corps. The Justice Corps is a hybrid of
the national youth corps movement, the Depression-era program that put young
people to work on community projects, and more traditional post-prison programs
that help former inmates find work, shelter and education.

Most important, the organizers said, young people are reintroduced to
communities that in some cases they damaged.

"This program really appreciates a sense of self-value and worth," said Linda I.
Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services who oversees the agency
financing the program. "It's such an important thing for people to appreciate
you're part of a larger community and making a contribution."

The Justice Corps sponsors tasks like painting a community center; participants
are paid $8.50 to $9.50 an hour while they search for longer-term employment.

Such transitional jobs are a feature of many programs for people who have been
in prison or otherwise in trouble with the law.

A continuing study of one such program in New York, the Center for Employment
Opportunities, which provides technical assistance to the Justice Corps,
suggests mixed results. So far, it has found that while the program
significantly reduced recidivism and initially generated a large increase in
employment, by the end of a year, participants were no more likely to have
regular work than people who were not in the program, according to Dan Bloom of
MDRC, a nonpartisan social policy research organization that is conducting the
study. Mr. Bloom said the Justice Corps might benefit from its emphasis on young
adults.

"If you can change someone's trajectory," he said, "the logic of it makes
sense."

The program is also seeking to distinguish itself by offering participants
full-time work in so-called green-collar jobs. Susan Tucker, who helped conceive
the program and who is the director of the After Prison Initiative at the Open
Society Institute, said the focus on emerging sectors like energy efficiency
contrasted with the "uninspiring" nature of many post-prison programs, where
people released from jail "get training for jobs that don't exist or that
they're barred from holding."

Still, the program's work goals may be a challenge to achieve. Participants in a
similar program in New Orleans have struggled to find scarce jobs in
environmental fields. Regardless, those participating in the Justice Corps
program said that at least they saw the potential for a fresh start.

Jaguar Loftin, 19, who said he had been arrested on a weapons charge, wrapped
insulation around pipes in a Brooklyn home on a recent morning and said he saw a
future in weatherization. Yordanis Jusino, 25, was among a crew of men and women
a few weeks ago preparing the Claremont Neighborhood Center in the South Bronx
for coats of fresh paint.

Ms. Jusino spent seven years in state prison for attempted murder. Before that,
she lived in a group home. She has found intermittent work since her release, in
construction and for a company that does telephone surveys.

For many of the young people in the Justice Corps, participation is required by
their parole or probation officers. But Ms. Jusino said she volunteered, hoping
the program would open new doors, perhaps helping her achieve a dream of working
with children whose parents are incarcerated. And indeed, she recently found a
part-time job with a group called Exodus Transitional Community, another
post-incarceration program, mentoring the children of people in prison. But it
has been difficult, she said, "coming home to a society that, all they care
about is your past."

"They do all these background checks, credit checks," she said. "What you do now
is pretty much irrelevant. It's just hard."

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Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year old doctor from Zarqa, Jordan
Martyrdom Operator Killed Top CIA operatives and Playboy King's Cousin


A severe blow by the Islamic Resistance
newtrendmag.org


      The news has come out in bits and pieces about a serious blow struck by the
Islamic movement known as al-Qaida. Piecing it together from wire services, the
following picture emerges:

       On December 30, 2009 seven American and a Jordanian intelligence officer
were killed by a martyrdom operator  named Humam, a Jordanian Muslim. Another 6
CIA men were wounded. The attack was first repoirted by the US as the death of 8
"civilians." The question then arose, what would civilians be doing in a war
zone, near Khost, not far from the Pakistan frontier. The next item was that one
of those killed was a former Navy Seal, America's most expensive special forces.

       The next item was that the group killed included 5  CIA officers,
including the top station officer, a woman. Then we learned that 2 of those
killed were from the specially trained group of killers known as Black Water.

      Then we learned that the officers killed were in charge of directing the
drones which have been bombing Pakistani villages. Finally, NPR reported on
January 8 that one of those killed was in charge of specific targeting by the
drones.

     The most interesting part of the story was that Captain Ali bin Zeid a
cousin of King Abdullah, the playboy dictator of Jordan, was among those killed.
The Jordanians tried to tell their people that he was in Afghanistan for
"reconstruction" and was a "martyr!"

      US reports leave no doubt that the playboy king's cousin was an essential
part of the CIA-drone operation. He was fooled by Humam [shaheed] into thinking
that Humam would get all the al-Qaida leaders killed and had traced the
whereabouts of the number two Islamic resistance leader Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri.

      It has come out in detail now that Jordanian intelligence, including the
informant killed by Humam, was also responsible for killing Abu Musa'ab
al-Zarqawi who put up tough resistance against the US occupation of Iraq.

===

Latest Drone Attacks on Pakistan: CIA revenge?


       On January 6, US drones fired missiles into the tiny village of Sanzalai,
35 km from Miranshah in Northern Waziristan. As the villagers sifted through the
wreckage to find bodies and the injured, another drone attacked the rescuers..
At least 17 people were killed. Indications are that several of those killed
were Arab volunteers who had come to help the Taliban, as speculated by
Pakistani intelligence which is very happy with the attack.

      The area is the stronghold of Hafiz Gul Bahadur. Local tribes had allowed
Pakistani troops to pass thru their territory on the premise that they would be
safe from such attacks. The local people may now join the Pak Taliban.

===

Conventional Fighting Continues in Afghanistan

        January 3, 2010. Associated Press reported the first Taliban raids of the
new year which have killed 4 US troops and a British elite trooper. There were
no Talban losses. The US refused to release any details, indicating that the
situation is bad.
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ------
     Taliban Hit Canadian Troops
     Dec. 30, 2009: On the outskirts of  Kandahar city, Taliban hit a Canadian
unit and blew up one of its armored vehicles. Canada admitted four of is elite
trops were killed. A fifth person killed was a Canadian [female]  journalist
riding embedded with the troops in the armored vehicle.
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
--------- --------- ------
Muslim Infiltrator
     December 29: An Afghan soldier being trained by US troops, opened fire on
the trainers, killing one US soldier, injuring others.
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------

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US Troops Execute 10 Afghan Children: Protest rallies in Kabul & Jalalabad. A
First: Obama burned in Effigy.

newtrendmag.org


       On December 26, 2009, in a remote area of Kunar province, US troops went
into a village, took out 10 children, 6 of them only 12 years old, and killed
them. Probably the troops were enraged that they could not find the Taliban
sniping at them This atrocity has outraged the general population  in the cities
of Kabul and Jalalabad where there is little support for the Taliban.
      On December 30, Afghans  demonsrated in those two cities and held Obama
responsible for the crimes. For the first time he was burned in effigy.

Associated reported the tragic events as follows [within parenthesis] . {empasis
added}

[Several hundred Afghans demonstrated in the capital and in the eastern city of
Jalalabad where the likeness of Obama, adorned with a small American flag,
burned on a pole held above demonstrators. In Kabul, protesters carried signs
that read: "Does peacekeeping mean killing children?" and "Stop killing us."

Karzai said in a statement that he talked to the relatives of the Kunar victims
to express his condolences and pledge to bring to justice those responsible for
the attack.

Asadullah Wafa, a senior adviser to Karzai who led a 10-member investigative
team to Kunar province, said he was convinced that all those killed were
innocent civilians.

"I have talked to the principal of the school in the village and he gave us
details about the killed children," Wafa said. "The schoolchildren cannot be
al-Qaida."

According to the NATO statement, the initial review by Wafa's delegation
"asserted that the dead were unarmed civilians removed by international forces
from their homes and shot."]

Latest on the execution of children [With thanks to Sis. Hamdiyya]. From the
Times of London:

In a telephone interview last night, the headmaster [of the local school] said
that the victims were asleep in three rooms when the troops arrived. "Seven
students were in one room," said Rahman Jan Ehsas. "A student and one guest were
in another room, a guest room, and a farmer was asleep with his wife in a third
building.

"First the foreign troops entered the guest room and shot two of them. Then they
entered another room and handcuffed the seven students. Then they killed them.
Abdul Khaliq [the farmer] heard shooting and came outside. When they saw him
they shot him as well. He was outside. That's why his wife wasn't killed."

A local elder, Jan Mohammed, said that three boys were killed in one room and
five were handcuffed before they were shot. "I saw their school books covered in
blood," he said.

The investigation found that eight of the victims were aged from 11 to 17. The
guest was a shepherd boy, 12, called Samar Gul, the headmaster said. He said
that six of the students were at high school and two were at primary school. He
said that all the students were his nephews.

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Expanding terror watch list discriminates against Muslims
Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi
January 12. 2010
http://www.detnews.com/article/20100112/OPINION03/1120320/Expanding-terror-watch\
-list-discriminates-against-Muslims


  Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's alleged attempt to commit suicide on Northwest
Flight 253 to Detroit has created more questions than answers. President Barack
Obama has taken an honorable approach by declaring "the buck stops with me."
This sense of responsibility helps our nation continue to be a shining light of
liberty, democracy and human rights for the world.

To connect the dots of intelligence failures, we need real solutions and not
just a continuation of past policies. I have traveled through the Amsterdam
airport a lot. It seems to be one of the best and most secure airports in the
world.

During the past decade, millions of ordinary travelers including myself have
navigated the maze of the Amsterdam airport's special security procedures. Yet
suddenly this alleged terrorist, whose father had already alerted authorities
about extremist associations, passed through security without special checking.

Flight 253 passengers Kurt Haskell and his wife have said Abdulmutallab was let
on board without normal passport checking procedures because of the help of an
individual who was well-dressed and appeared to be of Indian ethnicity.
Americans deserve to be told the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

In response to the reported attempt by Nigerian Abdulmutallab to ignite
explosives aboard the airplane, the Transportation Security Administration has
decided to add to the watch list many innocent Americans and passengers from 13
Arab and Muslim countries plus Cuba. This is not the answer.

While it is an obligation for citizens to contribute to the security of our
nation, our liberty must not be a scapegoat. That is the spirit of American
Founding Father Patrick Henry.

To use Abdulmutallab's case to expand discrimination against Muslims is unfair
and immoral. In the beginning, the Palestinians were labeled terrorists because
they resisted occupation. This labeling has since spread to all Arabs, Muslims
and now Islam itself.

Applying double standards and dividing political violence into good and bad
hasn't helped in the past and won't in the future.

No one forces us to follow the faith of Islam, and we wouldn't choose this faith
if it taught us extremism and violence. True Islam is peace.

Terrorism is a crime not only against the people and property but also against
morality.

Detroit Muslim leaders, community members and the Muslim passengers of that
aircraft sent a message to the world that there is no place in Islam or in any
true faith tradition for terrorism and the destruction of human life. The Ten
Commandments says "You shall not murder," and Prophet Mohammad said even in a
serious battlefield the life of the enemy's women and children must be safe.

Religious extremism is a cancer in many countries and is not unique to Islam. It
is caused by social, political, cultural and economic factors and should be
treated with education, and social services. To win this struggle, we need to
diagnose the diseases and have the determination to create peace and justice. I
wish our president the best in dealing with this political and social challenge.


Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi heads the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights.
Send letters to The News at 615 W. Lafayette, Detroit, MI 48226, (313) 496-5253
or letters@....

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COMMON SENSE
For the Arabs, it is the backseat
Hassan Al-Haifi
Monday, January 11, 2010



One is not baffled anymore by the mediocrity of Arab politics and the
ungodliness of most of the leadership in the Arab World, with the word being
used here more as a symbolic contempt rather than a real feeling of desire to be
subordinate to most of the clowns that make up the roster of Arab leaders.

Yes, contempt would be an even kind reaction to the pitiful displays of Arab
political and diplomatic maneuverings in a complex and intertwining world that
our mostly aged leaderships have yet to even understand, let alone be able to
wiggle through.

Thank goodness the Lord Al-Mighty made Islam a global affiliation and never
guaranteed that the Arabs (at least in the Arab World) should be at its
spearhead. For all the means and resources at their disposal, the Arabs have
proven that they are the world's sloppiest and most narrow minded administrators
of the bounties God has bestowed upon them.
Having said that, one cannot help but be reassured that the Lord Al-Mighty has
bestowed alternative Moslems with intellect and culture to take on the banner
and uphold the causes of the Moslem World. Yes, this is indeed reassured by the
latest developments one is seeing in many a Moslem country, the leadership of
which has learned that to go about life the Arab way is a freeway to failure and
very likely doom.

Just by seeing the big concerns that bother the Arab leaders, the observer is
aghast that the Arabs, for example can view Iran as a worse threat to them than
Israel! But if one sees the current Arab media, one cannot help but notice the
fallibility of our own emotions.

Israel has literally forced itself in the heart of the Arab World at the cost of
an entire indigenous population of their very own loosing their homeland and
becoming chronic victims of the most unholy occupation in history, while our
Arab leaders have no qualms whatsoever about the Zionist menace and suffice by
lip service treatment of the Palestine issue, while not finding any fault with
Israel's doings.

It is really appalling that we only find great relief from fellow Moslems in
Turkey, Malaysia and Iran who vehemently speak out against the Zionist menace
and its evil doings in the Holy Land. On the contrary, quite a few Arab leaders
look forward to the day when Israeli and American jets mount their blitzkrieg on
Iran. Ask any Arab citizen about President Hugo Chavez, and they will come back
with "God bless him".

But if you mention any of the Arab diehards, who like to call themselves
leaders, who are constantly spoon fed by their overpaid media to their people,
and all you hear is "May they burn in hell!" Mind you, this observer has no
personal grudges against any of our great leaders, as the Lord Al-Mighty has
spared me the agony of their wrath and the dubious nature of their displays of
gratuity.

However, one cannot help but realize the overwhelming disapproval of the Arab
leaders among their constituencies in particular or their nation as a whole.
Better yet, all one has to do is ask these leaders why they do not put the love
of their people for them to the test by instituting real and free elections and
see how much favor they have amongst their constituencies? Then at least they
will have some gauge to evaluate the lying cheaply bought pens and propaganda
machines they have set up to keep their public image shining.
Of all the Arab leaders that strike most of the Arab citizens as deplorable,
those who have a knack for keeping their countries in an unrelenting aura of war
and violence are bound to be given First Prize for Horrendous Leadership.

In fact these leaders would not be able to shut their eyes at night if sound
barrier breaking jet fighters do not continuously break the silence of the night
or if the sounds of ambulances sirens do not scream as they try to break through
the congested pot holed streets to take the dead and wounded to the nearest
hospitals or to the Martyrs' Cemetery, where they would be honored with the
whole slate of the national leadership, who would never dare to send their very
own sons to do battle with their ever changing enemies.

May God bless Recep Tayyib Erdogan, Mahathir Mohammed, and yes Ahmedenjad for
reminding us how true Muslims should act and rule.

The Sa'ada War Must End!

If there is any hope for Yemen and its Government getting back its sanity, this
would only come if the bloody madness in Sa'ada comes to an end immediately.
This is a war without purpose; a war without mercy; a war that will lead to the
total deterioration of what ever is left of national pride as Yemenis and as
Arabs.

One should also not forget to express one's appreciation for the remarkable
mission from Egypt that came and went empty handed, but did not forget to cash
in on some of the war funding being administered by outside watchers. The
mission truly showed us how much the Arab World is now lacking in leadership.
But then Amro Moussa has never been a favorite among news audiences from the
Atlantic to the Gulf anyway.

Yemen Times 19 10 2009
Issue 1304

posted by Hassan (Yemen)

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Darfurians Admit Exaggerating Conflict
Ismail Kamal Kushkush, IOL Correspondent
IslamOnline.net


Many translators and witnesses admitted fabricating stories and exaggerating
information about the Darfur conflict. (IOL photo)
ADDIS ABABA – Many Darfurians are coming out to admit being engaged in providing
exaggerated numbers and false information to foreign journalists and
international investigation teams visiting refugee camps in Chad.

"We are sons of Darfur with direct connections to what is happening in the
region," Sulayman Ahmad Hamid, a former member of the rebel Sudanese Liberation
Movement/Army (SLM/A), told several Sudanese and foreign reporters.

"We helped provide international investigation teams with translators and
witnesses," he said, citing cooperation with the International Criminal Court
(ICC).

Darfur in Focus

"We told witnesses being questioned to exaggerate the number of victims killed
or raped in Darfur."

The Darfur conflict broke out in 2003 when rebels took up arms against the
Khartoum regime accusing it of discrimination.

The UN says that 300,000 have died as a result of war, disease and malnutrition,
but the Sudanese government has put the number at nearly 10,000.

No independent field-research accounts are available to date.

In March, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar
al-Bashir charging him with committing war-crimes and crimes against humanity in
Darfur.

Hamid and many others are members of a new group calling itself the National
Group to Correct the Track on the Darfur Crisis (NGCTDC).

"As a rebellion we had hoped to achieve gains for the people of Darfur," says
Kamal al-Din Ali, the general secretary of NGCTDC.

"But today, Darfur is a source of income for many groups and an excuse to
implement foreign agendas."

Ali affirmed that his group upheld the right of Darfurians for justice and
compensation, but rejected exaggerated stories about the war.

"This does not mean we will give up on the rights of our people. But we will not
be part of agendas that seek to divide Sudan like Yugoslavia or Iraq"

Fabricated


"We will not be part of agendas that seek to divide Sudan like Yugoslavia or
Iraq," said Ali. (IOL photo)


Salah Muhammad Mansur, a pharmacist by t raining, fled to Chad when the war
broke out in 2003 and joined the SLM/A in the Chadian capital N'djamena.

There, Mansur worked as a translator for visiting journalists, activists and
investigation teams.

"In late May 2004, I worked as a translator for the American organization
Coalition for International Justice (CIJ)," he recalled.

"We visited Hajr Hadeed, Kharshana and Daga camps. When we questioned a refugee
how many people were killed in your village, if they said ten, I would tell the
investigator 200," Mansur admitted.

"If they asked how many women were raped, if they said ten, I would tell them to
say 200

"If the refugee said they were attacked by the Janjaweed, I would tell them no,
say that government forces also provided help from behind."

The Janjaweed=2 0are a militia accused of having ties to the government of
Sudan.

Mansur explains why he and other Darfurian translators opted to exaggerate
information for visiting journalists and investigation teams.

"We were mad at that government at the time because of what had happened.

"Plus, we were simply employees, the weather was hot, the terrain was harsh and
we wanted to get our work done."

Ismail Muhammad Yusuf was a witness to an attack carried out by the Janjaweed in
the village of Shataya in 2004 and later fled to Chad.

He recalls that in June 2005, three investigators came and asked him how many
people were killed in his village.

"I said 116-177, but the translator then argued that these investigators came
from far places, so you must give a greater number, say 300."

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