Malaysia finds itself on tenterhooks because minority issues have been handled
poorly.


Muslims Have No Monopoly over 'Allah' : Anwar Ibrahim
By ANWAR IBRAHIM
JANUARY 25, 2010
Wall Street Journal


Malaysia has once again resurfaced in international headlines for the wrong
reasons. Over the last two weeks, arsonists and vandals attacked 10 places of
worship, including Christian churches and Sikh temples. Though there were no
injuries and the material damage is reparable, the same cannot be said about the
emotional and psychological scars left behind. After numerous conflicting
statements from government officials, the underlying causes of the violence are
still unaddressed. Malaysia's reputation as a nation at peace with its ethnic
and religious diversity is at stake.

Malaysia's poor handling of religious and sectarian issues is not unique. The
ill treatment of minority groups in Muslim countries is often worse than the
actions Muslims decry in the West. I have called attention to the broader need
in the Muslim world for leadership that demonstrates consistency and credibility
in our call for justice, fairness and pluralism. These values are embedded in
the Islamic tradition as the higher objectives of Shariah expounded by the
12th-century jurist al-Shatibi.

We have seen Muslims around the world protest against discriminatory laws passed
in supposedly liberal and progressive countries in the West. Yet just as France
and Germany have their issues with the burqa and Switzerland with its minarets,
so too does Malaysia frequently fail to offer a safe and secure environment that
accommodates its minority communities.

The recent arson attacks exemplify what's wrong with the way Malaysia regards
its non-Muslim citizens. The attacks were provoked by a controversy over the use
of the word "Allah" by Malaysia's Christian community, which numbers over two
million, or about 10% of the population. In late 2007, the Home Ministry banned
the use of the word by the Herald, a Catholic newspaper, and later confiscated
15,000 copies of Malay-language Bibles imported from Indonesia in which the word
for God is translated as "Allah." A Dec. 31, 2009 ruling by the Kuala Lumpur
High Court overruled the earlier ban, asserting constitutional guarantees
regarding the freedom of religion in Malaysia. Since then, an already tense
situation boiled over, largely due to incitement by a few reckless politicians,
the mainstream media and a handful of nongovernmental organizations linked by
membership and leadership to the United Malays National Organization, the ruling
party.

For example, Utusan Malaysia, the nation's largest Malay-language daily—which is
also owned by UMNO—has inflamed Muslim religious sentiments by accusing
non-Muslims of desecrating the name of the "Muslim" God and alleging a Christian
conspiracy to overrun this predominantly Muslim nation through conversion. I
have seen these incendiary propaganda techniques used before, when politicians
and demagogues exploit public sentiment to garner support by fomenting fear.
Such tactics are useful diversions from embarrassing scandals ranging from
controversial court decisions, to allegations of exorbitant commissions
extracted from military procurements, to the theft of two jet engines from the
inventory of the Royal Malaysian Air Force. This behavior has been exacerbated
since the ruling party lost its two-thirds majority in parliament last year.
UMNO is now desperately struggling to regain public support.

Few Muslims around the world would endorse the claim that we have a monopoly on
the word "Allah." It is accepted that the word was already in the lexicon of
pre-Islamic Arabs. Arabic's sister Semitic languages also refer to God as
"Allah": namely, "Elaha" in Aramaic, and "Elohim" in Hebrew. Historical
manuscripts prove that Arabic-speaking Muslims, Christian and Jews have
collectively prayed to God, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, as
"Allah" for over 1,400 years. The history of Islam in Southeast Asia is known
for its pluralistic and inclusive traditions, and amicable relations between
Muslims and non-Muslims have been the norm for generations.

Muslim scholars outside of Malaysia thus find our "Allah" issue absurd and
cannot fathom why it has sparked protest and outrage. Minority Muslim
populations living in the West, particularly in the aftermath of 9/11, have
diligently tried to remind the public that Muslims, Christians and Jews share
common Abrahamic roots and ultimately worship the same God.

Local sensitivities have been aroused over this issue. They should be handled
through dialogue and engagement. Instead of permeating a sense of insecurity or
a siege mentality, Muslims must be encouraged to engage and present their
concerns to the Christians in a constructive manner. The example of Muslim Spain
is a moment in our history to which Malaysian Muslims should aspire. But efforts
toward fostering a convivencia are not only found in the past. The ongoing
"Common Word" initiative, a global effort launched in 2007 that captured the
support of over 130 of the world's most prominent Muslim scholars, has made
historic progress towards building goodwill among Muslims and Christians to find
ways to live in sincere peace and harmony. It is ironic that noble efforts such
as these are being undone by the actions of Muslims themselves.

Malaysia's international reputation has taken a beating since Prime Minister
Najib Razak was sworn in last year. Despite his efforts to promote national
unity, news about the caning of a young Muslim woman charged with drinking, the
mutilation of a cow head in protest of the construction of a Hindu temple, ill
treatment of Muslim converts who revert to their earlier faith and even the
outlawing of the practice of yoga by Muslims have many at home and abroad
wondering which direction Malaysia is headed under Mr. Najib's leadership. There
are already misgivings about governance, human rights, the rule of law and
rampant corruption; Malaysia dropped 10 spots on Transparency International' s
2009 Corruption Perception Index, our worst showing in over 15 years. The vision
of Malaysia as a peaceful and stable location for investment, tourism and
migration is now in peril.

This matters most for Malaysians who have to contend with an increasingly
polarized social and political landscape. Malaysia cannot afford to be held
hostage by the vested interests of a few who manipulate faith and identity as a
means to elicit fear for political and economic gain. This is old politics, and
it has become clear that those who incite hatred are only doing so to prolong
their monopoly on power. The majority of Malaysians reject this approach. They
realize that overcoming the challenges we face—a stagnant economy, declining
educational standards and rising crime—depends on our ability as a nation to
internalize and make real the principles of fairness and justice to all.


Mr. Anwar, a former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, is a member of parliament
for the Justice Party and leader of the opposition.

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Another Week in the Aafia Siddiqui Trial
By: ondelette Saturday January 30, 2010 5:00 pm
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/27350




It's been a long week in the "terrorism" trial in Manhattan. A week which ended
with first Mayor Bloomberg then President Obama backing away from trying any
more terrorists there. Which is what the commentators wanted all along, Michelle
Malkin and her supporters, that is. Aafia Siddiqui, about whom very few people
cared for years, has suddenly become the cause célèbre for those who want
suspects waterboarded, new courts formed, military tribunals held, and prisoners
kept indefinitely for the duration of a conflict they will never end. Never mind
that nobody knows for sure how indefinitely she's been held already. Or that her
accusers are looking more and more like the guilty parties. She may just be
convicted on fear or is it hate?

As always, Petra Bartosiewicz is doing an excellent job of blogging the trial.
Her daily blogs are at CagePrisoners.

I wrote already about Monday, when the nameless but very sympathy evoking
injured Chief Warrant Officer testified. And the medic testified and was
questioned about a statement given to the FBI five days after the incident in
which she reported being told that the Captain would get "fried" if anyone found
out it was his gun, but the Chief Warrant Officer wouldn't. Ms. Siddiqui also,
in one of her increasingly perceptive "outbursts" claimed she was shot by
somebody else. Hustle her out again.

The defense began their case, thus, with the prosecution having failed to
substantiate that the M-4 was ever fired, and with conflicting testimony about
how she supposedly fired it, and with testimony about two alleged holes in the
wall from the M-4 bullets, but no casings or bullet pieces, and the
prosecution's own forensics expert saying there was no proof an M-4 was ever
fired in the room.
So they brought on a forensics expert who has examined hundreds of such gunfire
scenes and testified on behalf of the government about them. He testified that
in his judgment the holes were not from M-4 bullets and that he doubted they
were from gunfire at all. Remember that, because it isn't clear the jury did.

The defense's other witness testified by video, meaning a video tape of
testimony from Ghazni. He was the Afghan counterterrorism chief, and he was at
the scene, and he was there before the Americans arrived, and he clearly
testified that Ms. Siddiqui did not pick up a gun or shoot at anyone, rather the
Americans went behind the curtain where she was, three shots were fired, and Ms.
Siddiqui went down with gunshot wounds, and was suddenly being whisked away by
the Americans, Hamid Karzai on his way notwithstanding.

The defense sent letters to the judge to prevent their client from testifying on
grounds that her mental state was degenerated, and that she would likely talk
about negotiating with the Taliban which would work against her with the jury.
The prosecution insisted on giving her her constitutional rights to take the
stand. Probably the first time since she was arrested in Ghazni, but not the
only time this week, that the government cared about rights of the accused. They
held a hearing with the jury sequestered, and the judge asked Aafia Siddiqui if
she could remain on the subject and understood the proceedings. Probably the
first time since Judge Berman got on the trial that he cared enough to ask her
if she understood the proceedings, since he pointedly didn't during her
competency hearings which were all about — whether she understood the
proceedings.

But wait, there is another issue, and this one was so glaring during the
competency hearings as to make one hang one's head in shame at the state of
American rule of law. It regards the FBI transcripts, two page write-ups by the
day of her interrogation while in the Craig Field Hospital in Bagram, starting
with the day she got there, apparently. The timeline for her transportation came
out in the prosecution's testimony, she was operated on in the field at 1am on
July 19th, and then transported to Bagram and placed in a room with 24/7 lights
and three cameras, on a four-point restraint bed. The interrogation logs begin
with that morning which was — when she arrived?

So the judge and the defense team asked Aafia Siddiqui about those
interrogations. She (the defense must have been thanking their stars) reported,
and later also testified with the jury present, that she was dizzy the whole
time, that she was on morphine and percocet the whole time, that she was denied
sleep the whole time, that she was worried about her daughter and other children
the whole time, that the male interrogator threatened her that she told them
everything or she would be handed over to "the really bad guys" and watched when
they opened her clothing to change her dressings, that she was dependent on her
interrogators for food, water, to use the toilet, that she had no idea they were
agents because everybody had their badges turned backwards that entered her
room, and that she was not Mirandized until she got to New York and saw no
consulate representatives (the "equivalent right" to Miranda when not in the
United States), and that she thought she was headed back to the secret prison
the prosecution so dearly wants expunged from her "outbursts". They so dearly
want to admit the FBI notes that "prove" she was never held incommunicado, that
she was in Karachi the whole time. They who have their own problems with FBI
transcripts which seem to indicate that the soldiers and FBI agents in the room
in Ghazni are covering up a cold-blooded shooting or a panic shooting of a
prisoner who, in terms of the military who shot her, was a civilian and a
prisoner and hors de combat regardless.

So, upon hearing that the defendant was drugged, deprived of sleep, in a stress
position, and threatened and believed her children threatened, ruled that her
comments in such a situation were "voluntary and knowing", and the FBI
transcripts could be used to impugn her testimony. After all, the Supreme Court
declined to review an opinion about prisoner abuse not on American soil, the
jury is so petrified that jurors who are pointed to or spoken to are in fear for
their lives, and the family's advocate, International Justice Network's Tina
Foster, has said that regardless of how weak the prosecution's case, which
currently looks like a flea circus, it all comes down to whether an American
jury can acquit a woman with a scarf covering her face.

Aafia Siddiqui's testimony was by all accounts lucid and to the point. She
preliminarily testified about her childhood and education, and when she got to
the matter of the trial, mentioned that she had moral objections to the trial
but testified anyway. [For those new to the case, her moral objections include
that $2 million in Pakistani money is being spent on her even though she
believes she will be convicted anyway, which she believes should go to the poor,
and that she believes it is her accusers who should be on trial -- for shooting
her.] She testified that she peaked through the curtain with the thought of
trying to escape because she was sure they would take her back to "the secret
prison", and then she was shot, she says, by two people, and hit twice. She
heard them say, "We're taking this bitch with us," passed out and went in and
out on the way to Bagram, but heard someone say that a couple of people would
lose their jobs if she died.

The prosecution tried to impugn her testimony by asking about the contents of
her bag, she said it wasn't her bag, and the notes were things she was ordered
to copy from a magazine in the "secret prison". And when they asked about her
shooting ability, and simultaneously put up a slide of a picture of a gun from
her "notes" for effect, I guess, she asked that the slide be taken down, that
she never drew it, and told the prosecuting attorney Jenna Dabbs, "You can't
build a case on hate, you should build it on fact." Needless to say, the line
was carried in much of the press as an incoherent outburst. To my mind, it was
the most lucid comment since this whole sorry detention of people as information
units, torture, incommunicado enforced disappearance solitary confinement sleep
deprivation, drugging, threatening, enhanced interrogation, child torture,
desecration of the Constitution and international treaties began.

Lamely, the prosecution put another witness on the stand, this one a gun range
instructor from Braintree, Mass, whom the FBI found apparently two weeks ago by
asking if he recognized a picture of her, and he did. He testified that she took
a 12 hour NRA sanctioned course on pistol shooting and fired "400 to 1200
rounds" during the course (she says she never took that course, but took one in
physical conditioning). He has no records of her taking it, supposedly in 1990,
no certificates issued, no record of it at the NRA, nothing, he just recognizes
one student, out of all of them, after 20 years and seems to have just
remembered it. Not sure why that's supposed to prove that nothing Aafia Siddiqui
says can be trusted, maybe it's the "white guy who's a member of the NRA" v.
"brown woman in a chadoor" thingy. I'm so confused. Apparently, when the
prosecution presents its case, the prosecution calls witnesses to the stand, and
when the defense presents its case, the prosecution calls witnesses to the
stand. Or something.

But Michelle Malkin's rantings that this trial proved you couldn't try
terrorists in New York City got amplified all over the internet and in
newspapers and television stations around the country last week, until Mayor
Bloomberg and President Obama pulled the plug and will move the trials. Is it
just me, or should a brown girl like her worry just a leeetle bit more about
convicting brown girls for nothing at all but being different?

Of course, all of this has played in the foreign press, and to the Pakistanis,
this is confirmation both of her innocence and of her incarceration and torture.
You see, if the events in the room in Ghazni are not as the Americans say, and
few in Pakistan believed they were anyway, and if Pakistani journalists are
denied access to the trial and have to watch it in another room on video, and if
Pakistanis have been put on a list in the last month of people who require
special searching by the TSA at American airports, and if now the prosecution
looks like it is covering up a cowardly shooting by a room full of American
soldiers of an unarmed 100lb woman who disappeared during a time when their
president bragged about making money selling Pakistanis to the Americans, what's
not to believe? If there is a guilty verdict in the courtroom in Manhattan after
what's transpired there, the world, at least for the few billion in Asia, will
see that Americans no longer believe in human rights and the rule of law. It's
as simple as that.

So it was no surprise on Friday, when Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudry of the Lahore
High Court ordered the barrister handling the Aafia Siddiqui case there on
behalf of her family (which is related to a Senate inquiry to press charges
against the former president and head of the national police for kidnapping and
rendition into torture — to wit, to the Americans), to send any and all evidence
he has on her disappearance, to her defense attorneys in the United States, and
that after 7 years, police investigators returned to the scene of the abduction
with Ahmed Siddiqui, the New York defendant's eldest son.

In the eyes of the U.S. Department of Justice, Aafia Siddiqui, the dangerous
terrorist "Lady al Qaeda", is on trial for attempted murder. In the eyes of the
world, the United States of America is on trial for abduction, black sites,
torture, and attempted murder to cover it up.

You can't build a case on hate, you should build it on fact.
Maybe that's why she thought she could change things by talking to President
Obama.

===

Aafia Siddique Trial in depth
01/02/2010


Day One http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=30901

Day Two http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=30931

Day Three http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=30933our

Day Four http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=30942

Day Five http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=30960

Day Six http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=30967

Day Seven http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=30973

Day Eight http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=30978

Day Nine http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=30990

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U.S. citizen in CIA's cross hairs
By Greg Miller
January 31, 2010
The Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-cia-awlaki31-2010jan31,0,2089112,full.story


The agency builds a case for putting Anwar al Awlaki, linked to the Ft. Hood
shootings and Christmas bomb attempt, on its hit list. The complications
involved are a window into a secretive process.

This Oct. 2008 file photo shows Imam Anwar al Awlaki in Yemen. The cleric, who
was born in New Mexico, has been linked to recent terrorism cases. (Associated
Press / January 30, 2010)


Reporting from Washington - The CIA sequence for a Predator strike ends with a
missile but begins with a memo. Usually no more than two or three pages long, it
bears the name of a suspected terrorist, the latest intelligence on his
activities, and a case for why he should be added to a list of people the agency
is trying to kill.

The list typically contains about two dozen names, a number that expands each
time a new memo is signed by CIA executives on the seventh floor at agency
headquarters, and contracts as targets thousands of miles away, in places
including Pakistan and Yemen, seem to spontaneously explode.

No U.S. citizen has ever been on the CIA's target list, which mainly names Al
Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, according to current and former U.S.
officials. But that is expected to change as CIA analysts compile a case against
a Muslim cleric who was born in New Mexico but now resides in Yemen.

Anwar al Awlaki poses a dilemma for U.S. counter-terrorism officials. He is a
U.S. citizen and until recently was mainly known as a preacher espousing radical
Islamic views. But Awlaki's ties to November's shootings at Ft. Hood and the
failed Christmas Day airline plot have helped convince CIA analysts that his
role has changed.

"Over the past several years, Awlaki has gone from propagandist to recruiter to
operational player," said a U.S. counter-terrorism official.

Awlaki's status as a U.S. citizen requires special consideration, according to
former officials familiar with the criteria for the CIA's targeted killing
program. But while Awlaki has not yet been placed on the CIA list, the officials
said it is all but certain that he will be added because of the threat he poses.

"If an American is stupid enough to make cause with terrorists abroad, to
frequent their camps and take part in their plans, he or she can't expect their
citizenship to work as a magic shield," said another U.S. official. "If you join
the enemy, you join your fate to his."

The complications surrounding Awlaki's case provide a rare window into the
highly secretive process by which the CIA selects targets.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano declined to comment, saying that it is "remarkably
foolish in a war of this kind to discuss publicly procedures used to identify
the enemy, an enemy who wears no uniform and relies heavily on stealth and
deception."

Other current and former U.S. officials agreed to discuss the outlines of the
CIA's target selection procedures on the condition of anonymity because of their
sensitive nature. Some wanted to defend a program that critics have accused of
causing unnecessary civilian casualties.

Decisions to add names to the CIA target list are "all reviewed carefully, not
just by policy people but by attorneys," said the second U.S. official.
"Principles like necessity, proportionality, and the minimization of collateral
damage -- to persons and property -- always apply."

The U.S. military, which has expanded its presence in Yemen, keeps a separate
list of individuals to capture or kill. Awlaki is already on the military's
list, which is maintained by the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command. Awlaki
apparently survived a Dec. 24 airstrike conducted jointly by U.S. and Yemeni
forces.

The CIA has also deployed more operatives and analysts to Yemen. CIA Deputy
Director Stephen Kappes was in the country last month, just weeks before a
Nigerian accused of training with Al Qaeda in Yemen boarded a jetliner bound for
Detroit on Christmas Day.

From beginning to end, the CIA's process for carrying out Predator strikes is
remarkably self-contained. Almost every key step takes place within the Langley,
Va., campus, from proposing targets to piloting the remotely controlled planes.

The memos proposing new targets are drafted by analysts in the CIA's
Counter-Terrorism Center. Former officials said analysts typically submit
several new names each month to high-level officials, including the CIA general
counsel and sometimes Director Leon E. Panetta.

Former officials involved in the program said it was handled with sober
awareness of the stakes. All memos are circulated on paper, so those granting
approval would "have to write their names in ink," said one former official. "It
was a jarring thing, to sign off on people getting killed."

The program is governed by extensive procedures and rules, but targeting
decisions come down to a single criterion: whether the individual in question is
"deemed to be a continuing threat to U.S. persons or interests."

Given that standard, the list mainly comprises Al Qaeda leaders and those seen
as playing a direct role in devising or executing attacks. Espousing violence or
providing financial support to Al Qaeda would not meet the threshold, officials
said. But providing training to would-be terrorists or helping them get to Al
Qaeda camps probably would.

The list is scrutinized every six months, officials said, and in some cases
names are removed if the intelligence on them has grown stale.

"If someone hadn't popped on the screen for over a year, or there was no
intelligence linking him to known terrorists or plans, we'd take him off," the
former official said.

The National Security Council oversees the program, which is based on a legal
finding signed after the Sept. 11 attacks by then-President George W. Bush. But
the CIA is given extensive latitude to execute the program, and generally does
not need White House approval when adding names to the target list.

The only exception, officials said, would be when the name is a U.S. citizen's.

The CIA has at times considered adding Americans' names to the target list. None
were ever approved, the officials said, not because their citizenship protected
them but because they didn't meet the "continuing threat" threshold.

Adam Gadahn, a California native now believed to be hiding in Pakistan, has been
indicted on charges of treason and providing support to Al Qaeda. But Gadahn,
former officials said, has mainly served in a propaganda role.

Officials said that whether Awlaki is added to the list hinges more on
intelligence agencies' understanding of his role than any concern about his
status as a U.S. citizen.

"If you are a legitimate military target abroad -- a part of an enemy force --
the fact that you're a U.S. citizen doesn't change that," said Michael Edney,
who served as deputy legal advisor to the National Security Council from 2007
until 2009.

Awlaki, 38, was known for delivering fiery sermons at mosques in San Diego and
suburban Virginia before moving to Yemen in 2004. Because of his radical online
postings, he has been portrayed as a catalyst or motivator in nearly a dozen
terrorism cases in the U.S. and abroad.

But it was his involvement in the two recent cases that triggered new alarms.
U.S. officials uncovered as many as 18 e-mails between Awlaki and Nidal Malik
Hasan, a U.S. Army major accused of killing 13 people at Ft. Hood, Texas. Awlaki
also has been tied to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of
attempting to detonate a bomb on a Detroit-bound flight.

"Awlaki's interested in operations outside of Yemen, and he's trying to recruit
more extremists, including Westerners," said the U.S. counter-terrorism
official. "His knowledge of Western culture and language makes him valuable to
[the offshoot] Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula.

"Taking him off the street," the official said of Awlaki, "would deal a blow to
the group."

The CIA has carried out dozens of Predator strikes in Pakistan over the last
year. The program is not foolproof, as drone strikes often kill multiple people
even when the intended target escapes. The CIA has also made grievous mistakes
in counter-terrorism operations, including capturing individuals misidentified
as terrorism suspects. But the program remains valuable to U.S. officials.

President Obama alluded to the campaign in his State of the Union speech last
week, saying that during his first year in office, "hundreds of Al Qaeda's
fighters and affiliates, including many senior leaders, have been captured or
killed -- far more than in 2008."

Many of those strikes were aimed at gatherings of militant groups or training
complexes, current and former officials said. In such cases, the CIA is free to
fire even if it does not have intelligence indicating the presence of anyone on
its target list.

The CIA has carried out Predator attacks in Yemen since at least 2002, when a
drone strike killed six suspected Al Qaeda operatives traveling in a vehicle
across desert terrain.

The agency knew that one of the operatives was an American, Kamal Derwish, who
was among those killed. Derwish was never on the CIA's target list, officials
said, and the strike was aimed at a senior Al Qaeda operative, Qaed Sinan
Harithi, accused of orchestrating the 2000 attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole.


greg.miller@...

Julian E. Barnes in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.

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Omar Khadr Should be Repatriated Now
Human Rights Watch
http://themuslim.ca/2010/01/30/omar-khadr-should-be-repatriated-now-human-rights\
-watch/


THE Supreme Court of Canada agreed Canadian officials violated Khadr's human
rights and that he continues to be threatened by the effect of those violations.
The Court unequivocally condemned Canada's participation in Khadr's
interrogations at Guantanamo as violations of Khadr's human rights, Canada's
constitution, and "basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained
youth."
The Court Friday condemned Khadr's treatment in the strongest terms.
In a unanimous ruling of all Judges released Friday, the court declared that
Canadian officials breached Khadr's right to life, liberty and security of the
person under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

However, the Supreme Court of Canada declined to order the Canadian government
to seek Khadr's repatriation because doing so would intrude upon the executive's
discretion in foreign affairs. However, the court held that the effects of US
and Canadian violations continue into the present and that the Canadian
government must, in exercising its foreign affairs powers, take this into
account.
"We … leave it to the government to decide how best to respond to this judgment
in light of current information, its responsibility for foreign affairs and in
conformity with the charter," the ruling said.

Khadr, 23, has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since he was arrested in
Afghanistan at age 15 (in 2002), accused of throwing a grenade that killed a
U.S. soldier. However, the evidences contradict the charge. He is scheduled to
be tried in July by a U.S. military court on charges of murder, conspiracy and
support of terrorism.
Human Rights Watch said Friday that The Canadian government should immediately
request the repatriation of Canadian citizen Omar Khadr from Guantanamo even
though Canada's Supreme Court did not order it to do so.

"Canada was complicit in some of the abuse Omar Khadr faced at Guantanamo" said
Andrea Prasow, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch. "Canada's
Supreme Court condemned Khadr's treatment in the strongest terms. The Harper
government should now work to bring Omar Khadr home to Canada."

During his more than seven years in US custody, both at the US-run Bagram prison
in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo, Khadr was reportedly subjected to abusive
interrogations. He told his lawyers that he was subjected to sleep deprivation,
shackled in painful positions, threatened with rendition to Egypt, Syria, or
Jordan for torture, and used as a "human mop" after he urinated on the floor
during one interrogation session.

In 2003, Canadian officials, including Canadian Security and Intelligence
Service (CSIS) agents, interrogated Khadr at Guantanamo even though they had
been informed that he had been subjected to three weeks of sleep deprivation in
order to make him "more amenable" to talking to them.

Omar Khadr, Guantnamo child detainee

Khadr, a native of Toronto, is slated for trial by military commission for
allegedly throwing the grenade that killed US army medic Christopher Speer in
2002. In 2005, Khadr was charged with murder and conspiracy and is slated for
trial by military commissions at Guantanamo that do not meet international fair
trial standards.
Every other Western country whose nationals were detained at Guantanamo has
successfully requested their return, Human Rights Watch said. Canada stands out
as the sole exception.

"The United States was clearly Khadr's primary abuser, but Canada was complicit
in his mistreatment," Prasow said. "The Canadian government should do the right
thing and seek Khadr's return home."

A Canadian federal court first ordered Ottawa to request Khadr's return in April
2009, after finding that Canada had violated its constitution and was likely in
violation of its international human rights obligations by cooperating with the
United States' abusive interrogation regime. The court said requesting Khadr's
repatriation was the only remedy it could offer to address the serious and
ongoing human rights violations of a Canadian citizen.

The Canadian government appealed the ruling, and in August 2009, an appeals
court upheld the lower court ruling. The government again appealed, and Canada's
Supreme Court heard the case in November 2009.
Human Rights Watch, in conjunction with the University of Toronto law faculty's
human rights clinic, appeared before the court on Khadr's behalf as one of nine
interveners in the case. Arguing that Canada had become complicit in US
treatment and abuse of Khadr, Human Rights Watch said the only reasonable remedy
would be for Canada to seek his repatriation.

"The court's ruling puts the ball in the Canadian government's court," Prasow
said. "Canada should now act to protect Khadr's rights as an ill-treated
Guantanamo detainee and as a former child soldier. The best way to do this would
be to make a real effort to return him to Canada."

The American Civil Liberties Union pointed to the decision as affirmation that
the U.S. should reverse its decision to try Khadr before a military commission
and should repatriate him to his home country for rehabilitation.

"This decision underscores the need for the U.S. to reverse its decision to
prosecute Omar Khadr before an illegal military commission," said Jamil Dakwar,
Director of the ACLU Human Rights Program. "As a teenager, Omar Khadr was
subjected to abusive interrogations and sleep deprivation by U.S. officials
without access to court or counsel, and with no regard for his status as a
juvenile. It is encouraging that the Canadian justice system has found that this
is no way to treat youth in detention, and recognized that Omar Khadr's rights
continue to be violated. Omar Khadr should be sent back to Canada where he can
be rehabilitated."

The U.N. Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict,
which the U.S. ratified in 2002, obligates the U.S. to ensure special safeguards
for children under 18 who are taken into U.S. custody. This week, the U.S.
government issued a report in response to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of
the Child, which had criticized U.S. non-compliance with the protocol with
respect to the detention and treatment of juveniles in U.S. military custody
abroad.

The U.S. report did not adequately address the fact that current policy fails to
take into account obligations of the Optional Protocol, especially regarding
U.S. prosecution of suspected child soldiers before a military commission.
According to the report, as of December 2009 only five juveniles remain in U.S.
military custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The U.S. is bound by international law to consider the age of prisoners when
they are captured and to give juveniles certain protections regarding their
treatment, detention and prosecution," said Jennifer Turner, human rights
researcher with the ACLU Human Rights Program. "Canada has found that Omar
Khadr, who has spent a third of his life in Guantánamo, was denied these basic
rights. The U.S. must finally grant him the rights he has been denied for so
long, and enact comprehensive policies regarding the treatment of juveniles
still in detention so that no child has to grow up in a military prison ever
again."

The U.S. government which, since the Obama administration came into office, has
talked a good talk for the inmates of Guantanamo has completly lost its way on
its plans for corrective actions. Fundamental justice for the victims of
Guantanamo is part of the wreckage of America's ineffective policies in
correcting the horrors of previous American policies on terrorism.

Khadr's future is now left to the mercies of the Canadian federal government
which has not yet demonstrated either mercy or compassion. Opposition Liberal
leaders rhetoric of human rights, social justice and liberty should also be
judged and tested now.


The Canadian Supreme Court's decision can be read at the following link:
scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2010/2010scc3/2010scc3.html


KEY DATES IN KHADR MISERIES


July 27, 2002: Omar Khadr, 15, is shot three times by American troops in
Afghanistan.

April 24, 2007: Khadr is officially charged with murder, attempted murder,
conspiracy, spying and providing material support to enemy.
May 11, 2007: Federal Court of Appeal orders Canadian intelligence officials to
hand over all material on Khadr to a judge, who will determine what can be
released to his lawyers.

June 4, 2007: An American military judge drops all charges against Khadr.

Sept. 24, 2007 Military review court overrules June 4 decision.
May 23, 2008: The Supreme Court of Canada rules unanimously Ottawa must hand
over documents and transcripts of his interrogations to Khadr's lawyers.

Dec. 12, 2008: A U.S. soldier's report casts doubt on the Pentagon's claim Khadr
threw a grenade that killed Sgt. Christopher Speer.

Aug. 14, 2009: Federal Court of Appeal upholds an earlier ruling ordering the
federal government to ask U.S. to return Khadr to Canada.

Jan. 29, 2010 The Supreme Court confirms Canadian officials violated Khadr's
constitutional rights, but leaves it up to federal government whether to ask
U.S. to return him.

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German firm cancels deal with Iran port due to Israeli pressure
By Barak Ravid
Haaretz
January 25, 2010
http://wp.me/pIUmC-18l


After heavy diplomatic pressures from the Israeli government, a German
construction company on Monday canceled its end of a contract to renovate the
Bander Abbas Port in Iran.

Israel's ambassador to Berlin told Chancellor Angela Merkels' top aides, as well
as foreign ministry officials, that Iran has been exporting weapons from that
port bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Ambassador Yoram Ben Ze'ev stressed that the Gaza-bound weapons ship "Francop,"
which was recently apprehended by the Israel Defense Forces in the
Mediterranean, had been dispatched from that Iranian port.

A political official said that the Israeli embassy received word just over a
week ago of a deal in the works between the Hamburg Company, which is partly
owned by the German government, and the Iranian agencies.

Ben Ze'ev stressed that Israel viewed the contract as German assistance to an
Iranian arms deal with terror organizations, and a violation of United Nations
resolutions.

At Israel's request, German officials contacted the company owners and hinted
that ir preferred the deal be terminated. Several days later, the company
announced that it would withdraw from the contract.

President Shimon Peres arrived in Berlin on Monday ahead of international
Holocaust Memorial Day on Wednesday, during which he is scheduled to address the
German parliament in Hebrew.

The president will also speak to Merkel regarding Germany's financial ties with
the Islamic country.

===

Israeli activists: Germany's blanket support for Israel is `harmful and immoral'
by Adam Horowitz
January 26, 2010
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/01/israeli-activists-germanys-blanket-support-for-isr\
ael-is-harmful-and-immoral.html


The following letter is being circulated in advance of Shimon Peres's visit to
Germany to commemorate international Holocaust Remembrance Day.


January 2010
Shimon Peres Does Not Speak for Us !

We are writing this letter as Israeli citizens. Some of us are 1st, 2nd or 3rd
generation Holocaust survivors, and we are all activists who are pursuing peace
and justice for everyone in our troubled region. We wish to express our concern
regarding Germany's Middle East policy, which is harmful and immoral. Our appeal
also regards the upcoming visit of Israeli president Shimon Peres to Germany
this week.

While it is certainly justified to condemn and act against attacks on innocent
Israeli civilians, it is morally unacceptable that German decision-makers
consistently ignore, or even defend, Israeli attacks on innocent civilians,
which inflict a much higher number of casualties, mostly in Lebanon and in the
Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Furthermore, we are concerned about a
climate of fear in German politics, when moderate and well-founded criticism of
severe Israeli violations of human rights is treated with McCarthyite methods,
such as the attacks against Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul and Herman Dierkes.

When President Shimon Peres lands in Berlin, an honest person should not lavish
him with automatic praise, but ask, politely yet firmly, why he has been a
member or a senior propagandist for Israeli governments which have used cluster
munitions , flechette artillery shells and white phosphorus bombs in densely
populated civilian areas in Gaza and Lebanon, have built more settlements in the
OPT and have imposed separate legal systems for Israeli settlers in the OPT and
their Palestinian neighbors. One can also ask him why he authorized the
kidnapping and ill-treatment of an Israeli citizen in Rome (Mr. Mordechai
Vanunu, September 1986), a clear violation of international law, and why it
should be acceptable for one state in the Middle East to acquire nuclear
weapons, a situation which necessarily brings about a dangerous arms race in
this volatile region. One can ask him why he authorized, as Prime Minister in
April 1996, the mass bombing of villages in Southern Lebanon, explicitly aimed
at creating a wave of refugees flooding Beirut. We suspect that Mr. Peres has
not learned that it is illegal to inflict lethal collective punishment on a
civilian population.

Germany should obviously draw a lesson from the Holocaust, and other genocidal
policies carried out by Germans. The true lesson is that everyone should stand
up for universal principles of human rights. Therefore, Germany is morally
obliged not only towards Jews living in Israel, but also towards Palestinian and
Lebanese civilians.

President Shimon Peres, who has been responsible for numerous severe human
rights violations, should not be regarded as the representative of world Jewry.
In fact, he does not even speak for all Israeli Jews. We call on the German
government to stop ignoring or justifying severe human rights violations
committed by Shimon Peres and the State of Israel, including those documented by
the Goldstone Report, and to stop providing the weapons which facilitate these
violations.

Signatories:

Gali Agnon
Udi Aloni
Galit Altshuler
Adam Yishay Amorai
Zohar Atai
Ofra Ben-Artzi
Ronnie Barkan
Ilil Bartana
Eitan Buchvall
Adi Dagan
Maayan Dak
Yossi David
Shiri Eisner
Michael Engel
Eva Ferrero
Tamar Freed
Prof. Rachel Giora
Maya Golan
Elana Golden
Vardit Goldner
AdAr Grayevsky
Yoav Haas
Dr. Roni Hammermann
Iris Hefets
Shir Hever
Seffy Hurwitz
Chaya Hurwitz
Iaroslav Youssim
Peretz Kidron (Holocaust refugee)
Assaf Kintzer
Felicia Langer (Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel) 1990, Erich-Mühsam-
Prize 2005)
Moshe Langer
Noam Lekach
Yonatan Mendel
Zohar Milchgrub
Susanne Moses
Regev Nathansohn
Ofer Neiman
Dr. David Nir
Dr. Eyal Nir
Orly Noy
Hava Oz
Prof. Nurit Peled-Elhanan (Sakharov Prize for Human Rights 2001)
Moshe Perlstein
Fanny Michaela Reisin
Attorney Emily Schaeffer
Itamar Shapira
Roy Siny
Nirit Sommerfeld
Gideon Spiro (survivor of Pogromnacht 1938)
Shir Sternberg
Aliyah Strauss
Sahar Vardi
Einat Weizman-Diamond
Elian Weizman
Maya Wind
Tom Yuval
Yahav Zohar
David Zonsheine
Moshe Langer

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Egypt/Palestine : The Wall of Shame
by Tariq Ramadan
http://www.tariqramadan.com/spip.php?article10974


It is common knowledge that the Palestinians have long been direct victims of
the directionless, spineless and hypocritical polices of the Arab leadership. It
is equally common knowledge that the State of Israel need make no effort to
impose its vision, its methods and its objectives. Given the support of the
United States, Europe's guilty silence and the compliant passivity of the Arab
regimes, we know what to expect. The foreign policy of most Arab states has been
described with good reason as "pro-Zionist." Their cowardice and treachery comes
as no surprise.

Following last year's murderous attack on Gaza by Israeli forces, we may have
thought we'd seen the worst. That judgment failed to take into account the
ingenuity of the "worse yet" scenario produced by the Egyptian regime and the
"religious authorities" of al-Azhar. In the name of "national security", of the
fight against "terrorism", and ultimately, of combating "corruption",
"smuggling" and "drug trafficking", the Egyptian government is building a wall
reaching twenty meters below ground level to stop the "Gazans" from carrying out
their "illegal" activities and from digging "smuggling tunnels." Of course, the
Egyptian government has no intention of confining the inhabitants of Gaza to
their hell; of course, the measure is dictated only by concern for national
security! So persuasive is the argument that the committee of religious experts
of al-Azhar quickly endorsed the government decision, declaring it to be
"islamically legitimate" ("in conformity with the Shari'a") for the country to
protect its borders. (The al-Azhar scholars were responding to a fatwa issued by
the International Union of Muslim Scholars that had ruled the exact opposite,
that the Egyptian decision was "islamically unacceptable.")

For shame! So this is how justice is mocked, how power and religion are misused.
The Palestinian people, and most of all the inhabitants of Gaza, are denied
their dignity and their rights; deprived of access to food, to water and to
basic health care. And now, the Egyptian government becomes the ally of Israeli
policy at its worst: isolating, strangling, starving, and smothering Palestinian
civilian life after having eradicated hundreds. The aim is clear: to choke off
all resistance and to destroy its leadership. The Egyptian government has
blocked convoys attempting to deliver badly needed aid to the Palestinian people
in an effort to raise the siege of Gaza. The mobilization that brought hundreds
of women and men from around the world to Rafah was met by refusal upon refusal
by the Cairo authorities, along with a strategy of selective humiliation.
For shame! No wonder the Israeli government purring with contentment. After all,
a new and "promising" start for the "peace process" has been announced! There
will be something for everybody: the United States, along with Saudi Arabia and
Egypt has spared no efforts to draft a new and "comprehensive" program. A
splendid "peace process" indeed, in whose name civilians have suffered months of
blockade before their leaders are invited to take their place at the "free" and
"respectful" negotiating table. Israel can keep on purring: it can play for more
time without making the slightest concession. Settlement activities are to be
temporarily frozen—except for construction projects already underway. Finer
negotiations would be hard to find!

It cannot be repeated often enough: the Egyptian "national security wall" is a
wall of shame. The religious authorities that have legitimized it have behaved
exactly like the notorious "ulama" (Muslim scholars) or "Islamic councils" that
openly serve power, whether of dictators or the forces of colonialism, or of
some self-styled Republic specializing in the manipulation of religion. What can
possibly remain of their credibility after issuing a "political fatwa" that
lends the Islamic endorsement of craven scholars to the power of dictatorship?
Silence would have been far better.

We must condemn these unacceptable acts, and stand beside those who resist with
dignity. If successive Israeli governments know one thing—with which we must
agree—it is this: the Palestinian people will not surrender. For those who may
still harbor doubts, we must add a second certainty, that of time: History is on
the side of the Palestinians; it is they who represent, today and tomorrow, hope
for the noblest human values. To resist oppression, to defend one's legitimate
rights and one's land, to never yield to the arrogance and to the lies of the
mighty. As for the power of the Israelis, the Egyptians and others, as for the
fatwas of government-appointed ulama, these things too will pass; they will
pass, and will be forgotten. Happily forgotten. For the duty of memory is
transformed into forgetfulness when it comes to the names and the acts of
dictators, traitors and cowards.

===

86 Muslim scholars issue fatwa against Egypt's steel wall
26/01/2010 ]
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpM\
O%2bi1s7bq3OGmeeNzOCtMjKqZ9PraeKJKc%2b1197BRXxs%2f7FCq26A4dNUlFIb8w4lR8iiEFFRvIb\
kSx3dKyEBOJCObAoylvMZp%2fujD%2fTGRuCihw69S0%3d


CAIRO, (PIC)-- 86 Muslim scholars on Monday issued a fatwa prohibiting the
closure of the Rafah border crossing and the building of Egypt's steel wall,
stressing that the fatwa (religious edict) issued by Al-Azhar scholars regarding
the wall is incorrect and religiously invalid.

In a statement signed by them, the scholars said that Egypt's closure of Rafah
crossing and its building of a steel wall on its borders with the impoverished
Gaza Strip tighten the noose around the Muslim Arab people of Gaza in compliance
with Zio-American dictates.

The scholars underlined that when Al-Azhar institution legalized the crime of
building this wall, it turned against its noble message and fabricated an
opinion beyond Islam.

They added that Al-Azhar fatwa was not based on research papers and was not
discussed at length, noting that Al-Azhar institution did not invite all its
members when it stated its opinion on the wall.

This fatwa, according to the scholars, is against the religious texts that
oblige Muslims to support their brothers whose lands are occupied.

The signatories to the statement are Salahuddin Sultan, a professor of sharia
science at Cairo university, Awad Al-Qarni, a noted Saudi scholar and academic,
Dr. Ahmed Al-Raisuni, an expert at the international Islamic Fiqh academy, and a
number of members of the international union of Muslim scholars.

In the same context, Dr. Aziz Dweik, the speaker of the Palestinian legislative
council (PLC), strongly denounced Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak for blatantly
vowing to continue the building of the steel wall along Gaza borders.

"Did not Mubarak say that he would not starve Gaza people? Does he intend
through building this wall not to starve them as he said," Dr. Dweik questioned
in a statement to Al-Quds satellite channel.

Mubarak had lashed out in a speech on the anniversary of the Egyptian police day
at all those who opposed the building of the wall and described it as an act of
sovereignty.

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Autopsy Shows Mich. Imam Shot 21 Times, Handcuffed


Video: Shocking Details of Slain Imam's Autopsy (Fox)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCYKZq9JLnc

===

CAIR, other civil liberties groups and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), who is chairman
of the House Judiciary Committee, have all called for an investigation into the
death of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah. Earlier this month, Conyers sent a letter
to Attorney General Eric Holder to ask the Justice Department's civil rights
division to investigate both the October shooting and whether the FBI violated
the Constitution by using informants in mosques. A report detailing the imam's
autopsy is scheduled for official release on Monday.

"The shocking details of the imam's autopsy raise a number of disturbing
questions that need to be answered," said Dawud Walid, executive director of
CAIR's Michigan chapter. "First of all, did the FBI agents follow established
procedure when they shot the imam 21 times? How was the imam shot in the back?
Was it proper procedure to handcuff either a dead body or a mortally-wounded
suspect? If the agents found the imam alive following the shooting, did they
call for medical assistance? All these questions need answers."

===

Autopsy in imam shooting to be released Monday
George Hunter
January 29. 2010
The Detroit News
http://www.detnews.com/article/20100129/METRO/1290430/1361/Autopsy-in-imam-shoot\
ing-to-be-released-Monday#ixzz0ecmCDhEH


Dearborn -- The autopsy of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who was killed three
months ago during a gunfight with the FBI at a Dearborn warehouse, is expected
to be released Monday.

Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad said he likely will hold a press conference
at 10:30 a.m. Monday announcing the results.

"We're striving to finish the autopsy part of the investigation so we can
release it," Haddad said.

The Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed to The Detroit News in
December that the report was completed then, but was withheld at Haddad's
request because he did not want it released until his department finished its
investigation.

Abdullah, 53, was killed Oct. 28 by FBI agents who were about to arrest him
during a sting operation. The FBI has accused Abdullah of being the leader of a
radical Muslim separatist group involved in fencing stolen goods.

As federal officials were in the process of taking Abdullah into custody at an
FBI-controlled warehouse near Michigan Avenue and Oakwood, several shots were
fired. When the smoke cleared, Abdullah was dead, along with an FBI dog, which
federal agents say was shot and killed by Abdullah.

Muslim leaders have questioned how many times Abdullah was shot, whether he
suffered dog bites and if he was handcuffed after being shot. Those questions
may be cleared up with the release of the autopsy.


ghunter@... (313) 222-2134

===

Conyers: Review FBI case on imam
BY BEN SCHMITT and TODD SPANGLER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
Jan. 14, 2010
http://www.freep.com/article/20100114/NEWS02/1140430/1001/News/Conyers-Review-FB\
I-case-on-imam


While federal prosecutors were trying to protect vital evidence in a case
against a group they described as Islamic extremists, U.S. Rep. John Conyers
asked the U.S. Attorney General on Wednesday for a thorough investigation into
the shooting death of the group's leader, Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah.

Conyers, a Detroit Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, sent a
letter to Attorney General Eric Holder calling for the Justice Department's
civil rights division to investigate whether the FBI violated First Amendment
freedoms by using undercover agents in mosques and other houses of worship.

Conyers cited reports that government informants recorded incriminating
statements at Abdullah's mosque before he died in a shootout with authorities
during an Oct. 28 raid in Dearborn.

"The shooting of Imam Abdullah has been controversial from the moment the first
bullets flew, and passions continue to rise in Detroit and around the world,"
Conyers said.

Federal authorities have defended the shooting, saying they were conducting a
raid of a warehouse linked to a suspected Islamic extremist group when Abdullah
opened fire.

Abdullah's autopsy findings have not been released as Dearborn police continue
to investigate his killing. Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad said Wednesday
that he expects the investigation to be finished by Jan. 31.

Eleven defendants in the case are charged in a criminal conspiracy that includes
illegal firearms and fencing of stolen goods. Defense lawyers have scoffed at
accusations of terrorism.

Prosecutors filed a motion Wednesday asking a judge to order defense lawyers not
to copy any of the video or audio evidence from undercover informants.

"In return for defense counsels' assurance that the audio and videotape and
other materials will not make their way onto YouTube or into some other public
forum, the government has already begun providing discovery," U.S. Attorney
Barbara McQuade wrote. "The government is working diligently and in good faith
to balance the need to provide discovery with the need to safeguard the lives of
the sources."


Contact BEN SCHMITT: 313-223-4296
or bcschmitt@...

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USA  Vs. AAFIA SIDDIQUI.
FEAR vs. FACT.

Bismillaah, wal-hamdulilaah, was-salaatu was-salaamu 'alaa rasoolillaah,
Assalaamu alaykum wa rahmatuallahi wa barakatuhu


Cageprisoners Inside the Courtroom Coverage
by Petra Bartosiewicz
Feb 3, 2010, DAY 12, USA v SIDDIQUI


After a day and a half of deliberation, a 12-member jury found Siddiqui guilty
today on charges that she tried to kill a team of U.S. soldiers and FBI agents
in Afghanistan in 2008. The verdict was announced just after 2 p.m. in a packed
courtroom. Siddiqui remained silent as each juror answered "yes" when asked if
she was guilty on all counts. As the jury was ushered from the courtroom,
Siddiqui spoke out, saying, "This is a verdict coming from Israel, not America,"
and then turned to the spectator gallery and said, "Your anger should be
directed where it belongs. I can testify to this and I have proof."

Siddiqui now faces up to 50 years in prison on seven charges, including
attempted murder, assault, and possession of a firearm while committing a
violent crime. The firearm charge alone carries a mandatory minimum of 30 years
in prison. Sentencing is set for May 6 in the same courtroom where her nearly
three-week trial took place. Within minutes of the verdict news sites and blogs
had spread the word of Siddiqui's conviction. The case has been widely reported
in the Pakistani press and protests and vigils have been held for Siddiqui in
Pakistan. Outside the courthouse, her attorney Elaine Sharp said Siddiqui was
"adamant she doesn't want to see any violent protest" as a result of the
verdict. Defense attorney Charles Swift told reporters the case was about "fear
versus fact," and said that prosecutors portrayed Siddiqui as a terrorist though
she was not charged with any terrorism offense. The prosecution team of
Christopher LaVigne, David Rody and Jenna Dabbs did not comment publicly. A
statement later released by the U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District
of New York, said the jury had "brought Aafia Siddiqui to justice."

Over the past two days of deliberations jurors periodically sent notes to the
judge requesting to see the testimony of various witnesses. At one point they
returned to the courtroom to inspect the M-4 rifle Siddiqui is said to have
fired at the U.S. team, and the 9mm revolver the U.S. Army chief warrant officer
used to shoot her. Periodic laughter could be heard coming from the jury room
today as deliberations continued. When jurors sent word that they had reached a
verdict, the prosecution and defense teams filed into the courtroom. U.S.
Marshals and court security officers ringed the spectator gallery and Siddiqui
was brought into the courtroom from the holding cell she has spent much of the
trial in. Siddiqui's brother, Mohammed, who has attended every day of the trial
and taken detailed notes throughout the proceedings, sat several rows directly
behind his sister. At the announcement of the verdict he shook his head and put
his notepad back into his suit pocket.

Jurors did not find that the shooting was premeditated, which would have carried
a potential life sentence, but Siddiqui may get effectively just that because
prosecutors are expected to ask the judge to apply a terrorism enhancement,
which will likely push her sentence towards the maximum number of years. In
addition to the mandatory 30 years in prison she faces on the firearm charge,
she could get as many as 20 years in prison on two charges of attempted murder
and assault, as well as 8 years on three lesser assault charges. Her sentence on
the attempted murder and assault charges may be served concurrently, but the
sentence on the firearms charge must be served consecutively.

Although Siddiqui was not charged with terrorism, prosecutors cast her as a
would-be terrorist by introducing documents she was allegedly found with in
Ghazni, Afghanistan on July 17, 2008, the day before the shooting incident. The
documents, which reference "cells," "dirty bombs" and a "mass casualty attack,"
and name New York City landmarks like the Empire State Building, were the
subject of fierce wrangling by prosecutors and defense attorneys. On the eve of
the trial Judge Richard Berman ruled in favor of the prosecution and said they
could introduce the documents to show Siddiqui's intent in the shooting.
Siddiqui's defense team acknowledged the documents were in her hand, but when
Siddiqui took the stand in her defense she did little to clarify where they were
from or why she had them, saying only that she had not packed her bag and didn't
know how she got them. She later suggested she copied the text on the documents
from a magazine. Prosecutors said the documents demonstrated Siddiqui had the
"knowledge and the know-how" to attack the U.S. The excerpts shown in court,
however, suggested something less than a master terrorist. One page showed a
crude sketch of a gun that was described as a "match gun" that operates by
lighting a match. In the absence of any counter-narrative from the defense, the
documents remained suggestively incriminating and provided a backdrop for the
charges. Full page excerpts of the documents were shown in open court on an
overhead projector during the trial, but were too distant for those in the
spectator gallery to make out the words, and the judge later issued a protective
order sealing their contents from public view.

Because the charges against Siddiqui were limited to the shooting in Ghazni, the
trial unfolded in a kind of vacuum. Early in the case Siddiqui's defense team
suggested she was a victim of the "dark side," picked up by Pakistani or U.S.
intelligence, but prosecutors insisted they found no evidence she'd ever been
illegally detained. By the time of the trial, no mention was made of Siddiqui's
whereabouts during her five missing years. No explanation was given as to why a
would-be terrorist would wander around openly with a slew of almost theatrically
incriminating materials in her possession. No questions were raised about the
whereabouts of her two missing children, one of whom is a U.S. citizen. And yet,
references to the backstory came trickling out in ways that must have seemed
strange to the jurors, who were given strict instructions not to read anything
about Siddiqui or the case. During Siddiqui's testimony she made numerous
references to "secret prisons" and "torture." FBI agents also testified that
Siddiqui told them she believed her missing children were likely dead, and that
she was worried for the safety of her eldest son, with whom she'd been found in
Ghazni. Her statements, like her outbursts in the courtroom, were dismissed by
prosecutors as calculated attempts to sabotage the proceedings. Her defense
attorneys, who made an unsuccessful appeal to the judge to have her blocked from
testifying in her defense, said she was mentally unstable. Siddiqui's mental
health will likely be a major issue on appeal. After she was brought to the U.S.
to face charges in August 2008, the court initially found her mentally
incompetent, but after an extensive psychiatric evaluation the decision was
reversed and she was deemed fit to stand trial.


Petra Bartosiewicz is a freelance journalist who has written for numerous
publications, including The Nation, Mother Jones, and Salon.com. Her forthcoming
book on terrorism trials in the U.S., The Best Terrorists We Could Find, will be
published by Nation Books early next year. You can find her investigation of
Aafia Siddiqui's case, "The Intelligence Factory: How America Makes its Enemies
Disappear," in the November 2009 issue of Harper's magazine (www.harpers.org)
and at her website www.petrabart.com. She can be reached at
petrabart@....

===

Surah Isra 17 verse 80 Say: "O my Lord! let my entry be by the Gate of Truth and
Honor and likewise my exit by the Gate of Truth and Honor; and grant me from Thy
Presence an authority to aid (me)."

Ameen.

NOTE:  Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is an innocent woman who has been subjected toyears of
imprisonment and torture.  At the time of her arrest, her young children were
taken from her and she does not know to this day what happened to them.  It is
believed the baby was killed at that time.  For more information on this
horrible example of brutal American imperialism, go to

http://freedetainees.org/aafia-siddiqui-children

===

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

SAFAR 1431 A.H.
(February 4, 2010)


Assalaamu Alaikum (Greetings of Peace):

I begin with an apology and explanation for just now releasing a statement on
yesterday's verdict of our sister, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. While each of these
trials leave their own emotional imprint, this one affected me on a far deeper
level than others have in the past. The only person that I sent an e-mail to
yesterday concerning the trial's outcome was Yvonne Ridley in Britain. Earlier
in the day she requested that I let her know as soon as a verdict was reached;
and given the time, energy and sacrifice that she has devoted to this case, I
felt the obligation to oblige. My statement (below) was brief:

Aafia was found "guilty" on all counts, and to be honest, I'm feeling a bit
emotionally devastated right now. I'm going to take a few days off to re-group,
because my emotions (a mix of anger, pain, and shame) are much too raw for me to
be trying to issue any statements. I'm convinced that ALLAH (SWT) will sustain
Aafia through this [new] trial; but I have profound concern for this deeply
disturbed country called America.

The struggle continues...


My sister Yvonne's response (being the warrior that she is on the other side of
the Atlantic) was the following:

salaams bro,

don't get angry - get even ... between you and I we can kickstart a new
campaign, we just need to re-charge our batteries. You and I are both devastated
but the really sad thing is that Aafia will not be in the least bit surprised
having given up any hope a long time ago of ever getting justice.

sr y


With that said, I should also note that last night I got very little sleep; and
so I picked up The Noble Qur'an in the middle of the night and began reading -
from Suratul Baqara, Tauba, and Anfal. This reading, and the little writing that
I did (in a notebook) until the time of fajr (early morning prayer), left me
physically exhausted, but spiritually refreshed. I'm in a much better place now,
mentally (alhamdullilah).

There are a couple of Qur'anic passages that resonated deeply with me last
night:

"Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their wealth; for
theirs, in return, is the Garden of Paradise. They fight in His cause, and slay,
and are slain..." (S. 9:111)  And further,

"We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods
or lives, or the fruits of your toil; but give glad tidings to those who
patiently persevere - who say when afflicted with calamity: To ALLAH we belong
and to Him is our return." (S. 2:155)

There is also a hadith of the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) which reads
as follows:

"Be mindful of ALLAH, you will find him before you. Get to know ALLAH in
prosperity, and He will know you in adversity. Know that what has passed you by
was not going to befall you; and what has befallen you was not going to pass you
by. Know that victory comes with patience, relief with affliction, and ease with
hardship."

I believe that Aafia is instinctively and intellectually aware of these truths,
and thus, she is in a good place, despite the oppressive (man-made) adversity
that she is presently confronted with. And now that I have been reminded of
these truths myself, I too am in a better place than I was yesterday.

Insha'Allah, before the upcoming weekend is out, I will write a full
report/analysis on the trial, the verdict and the struggle ahead for those of us
committed to justice and freedom for Aafia Siddiqui. The struggle MUST
continue...and it will NOT be won in the courts of the land. I am reminded of
something that the late (and celebrated defense attorney) Bill Kunstler once
said to me: "Political trials cannot be won on legalities alone." How right he
was!

Aluta Continua
(The struggle continues),

El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan


Insha'Allah, Aafia Siddiqui related programs are already scheduled at a
community library in Boston, MA, on Tuesday, Feb 23rd, and at a college in New
York on Wednesday, Feb 24th. We are also exploring the possibility of holding a
"Town Meeting" at the Shabazz Center (NYC) before the month is out.  (If any New
York area recipient of this post can assist us with that, it would be deeply
appreciated.)

What follows are three informative post-verdict media pieces on Dr. Aafia
Siddiqui.

===

News CENTRAL/S. ASIA

US verdict sparks Pakistan protests


Many in Pakistan believe Siddiqui is innocent and thousands have protested
against the verdict [AFP]


Thousands of Pakistanis have staged rallies against the conviction of a
Pakistani scientist found guilty of trying to kill American servicemen in
Afghanistan.

Protests were held on Thursday in several cities in Pakistan, where many believe
that Aafia Siddiqui is innocent.

The neuroscientist, branded "Lady Qaeda" by some in the US press, disappeared
for five years before her arrest in Afghanistan in 2008.
She was convicted in a New York court on Wednesday.

Siddiqui, who was arrested in 2008, was accused of grabbing a US serviceman's
rifle and opening fire on her American interrogators, who returned fire.

While none of the US agents or personnel were injured, Siddiqui was shot in the
incident.

Siddiqui's relatives condemned the verdict, with Fauzia Siddiqui, her sister,
saying the verdict had "rejuvenated" the family.

"And we're proud to be related to her," she said, speaking from the Pakistani
city of Karachi.

"America's justice system, the establishment, the war on terror, the fraud of
the war on terror, all of those things have shown their own ugly faces."

The AFP news agency quoted Ismat Siddiqui, Aafia's mother, who lives in Karachi,
as saying the family had been braced for the verdict but would continue to work
for her release.

"I did not expect anything better from an American court. We were ready for the
shock and will continue our struggle to get her released," she was quoted as
saying.

Government 'dismayed'

Pakistan's government has expressed "dismay" over the verdict, vowing to consult
her family and lawyers on how to get Siddiqui released.
Abdul Basit, a foreign ministry spokesman, said the government would do its best
to secure her release.

===

Siddiqui was missing for five years prior
to her arrest in Afghanistan [EPA]


"The ultimate objective is to get her back to Pakistan and we would do
everything possible and we'll apply all possible tools in this regard," he said.

Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital,
said that as far as public opinion is concerned, the verdict is definitely not
in favour of the Americans.

"There is also disappointment with the [Pakistani] government for failing to
find a diplomatic way out and getting Aafia Siddiqui back home, because they
feel she was innocent."

Before her arrest, Siddiqui had been missing for five years, during which time
her family alleges she was held at the US military's Bagram airbase in
Afghanistan.

Both the US and the Pakistani authorities deny that Siddiqui was in custody
before her arrest in 2008 in the town of Ghazni.

Hyder said: "Many hundreds of people have disappeared from Pakistan - they're
still not accounted for - and now that Dr Aafia's case has come up, that's
likely to be a rallying point for the anti-American sentiment."

Trial 'flawed'

Cageprisoners, a UK-based rights group, rejected the verdict, citing the fact
that evidence about Siddiqui's whereabouts prior to her arrest had been
disallowed from the trial.

"The case of Aafia Siddiqui carries great significance in terms of the ability
of the Obama administration to administer justice," Asim Qureshi, a spokesman
for the group, said, referring to the administration of Barack Obama, the US
president.

"Already we have seen a blanket refusal to look at the facts of her detention
prior to 2008, this verdict will only confirm what many already believe, that it
is impossible for Muslim terrorism suspects to receive a fair trial in the US."

At the time of her arrest Siddiqui was allegedly carrying containers of
chemicals and notes referring to mass-casualty attacks and New York landmarks.

But she was not charged in connection with those materials and the charges she
was convicted of made no mention of terrorism.

During the trial, Linda Moreno, Siddiqui's defence lawyer, argued that there was
no evidence the rifle Siddiqui was accused of taking had ever been fired, since
no bullets, shell casings or bullet debris were recovered and no bullet holes
detected.

Moreno also said the testimony of the government's six eyewitnesses contradicted
one another.

Siddiqui faces up to life in prison when she is sentenced on May 6.

Her lawyers have said they intend to appeal the verdict.

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Not Your Father's Army
By Chuck Baldwin
February 5, 2010
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2010/cbarchive_20100205.html


Most of us Americans have a deep and abiding respect and admiration for our
country's fighting men who have served--and are serving--within the US Armed
Forces. We appreciate their willingness to put themselves in harm's way for the
preservation of our nation's liberty and independence. We honor their sacrifice.
Indeed, many of us share that sacrifice with the deaths, dismemberments, and
paralysis of our most cherished loved ones who were killed or injured in the
line of duty.

It is time, however, that we awaken to the reality of what our military is
becoming and where it is heading. Suffice it to say, this is not your father's
army.

On December 8, 1941, my father, Ed Baldwin--along with his two brothers, Bud and
Gene--marched down to a recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas, to enlist.
The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor the day before, and no branch of service
had to beg people to enlist that day. Bud joined the Navy. Gene joined the
Marines. When government officials saw Dad's resumé, they selected him to help
construct the atomic bomb. All three brothers served their country with
distinction throughout the war.

But what all of us need to realize is, World War II was the last
constitutionally fought war in which America has been engaged. The United
Nations was created at the end of WWII, and ever since then, our military forces
have increasingly become the "peacekeeping" arm of that evil institution.

Since WWII, American forces have fought major wars in South Korea, South Vietnam
(including Laos and Cambodia), Kosovo, the Persian Gulf (Kuwait), Iraq,
Afghanistan, and now Pakistan--all for the benefit of the United Nations. Add to
these major wars lesser conflicts (except to those Americans killed or wounded
in them) such as Lebanon, Dominican Republic, Congo (Zaire), Iran, El Salvador,
Libya, Grenada, Honduras, Chad, Panama, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Saudi Arabia,
Macedonia, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Tanzania, and Somalia. And this does not
take into account the countless CIA-sponsored Black Ops missions that have taken
place all over the world.

Yes, American forces have been used to both put people in power and take people
out of power all over the world. And as often as not, the people we put in power
were counted among the "bad guys," while the people we removed from power were
"good guys." Remember, our own CIA was the organization most responsible for the
rise to power of Osama Bin Laden. And it was the US government that
surreptitiously set up the murder of Dr. Jonas Savimbi, who was one of the best
friends the United States had overseas. Plus, does anyone remember how the US
treated our friend, the Shah of Iran? Yes, some of us are old enough to remember
when Iran was one of the best friends we had in that region of the world.

But mind you, not one single war in which American forces have been engaged
since WWII has been constitutionally fought. Not one!

Ever since the United Nations was created, its interests have dominated the
usage of US forces. In fact, our military today is quickly morphing into the tip
of the spear for a burgeoning, global New World Order. To those with eyes to
see, the evidence is everywhere. It's not even being hidden anymore. Have you
seen that new US Navy television commercial? It boldly proclaims, "The US Navy:
A GLOBAL FORCE For Good." (Emphasis added.)

This politically correct, UN-dominated New World Order has changed (and is
changing) our US military right before our eyes. It has taken the greatest and
proudest independent fighting force in the world--one created to defend the
people and property of the United States--and turned it into a global military
policeman for the evil Machiavellians at the UN.

In order to convert the US military into a true "Global Force," several changes
are being forced upon our fighting men.

First, more and more women are entering the US military.

Currently, women comprise about 20% of military personnel. And for the first
time in US history, women are actively engaged in combat units in the current
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The massive integration of women in combat may
serve the interests of political correctness, but it does not serve the
interests of combat effectiveness. Neither does it serve the interests of family
and child rearing. And I don't care how old fashioned that sounds!

Wives and mothers are the backbone of family nurturing. To willingly take
mothers away from their children--and subject both mother and child to the
separation and suffering that military life demands--is both unnatural and
cruel.

And there is another stark reality that few people want to discuss: the fact
that 30% of all women in the US military are raped. Yes, you read it right: 30%.

According to NPR, "In 2003, a survey of female veterans found that 30 percent
said they were raped in the military. A 2004 study of veterans who were seeking
help for post-traumatic stress disorder found that 71 percent of the women said
they were sexually assaulted or raped while serving. And a 1995 study of female
veterans of the Gulf and earlier wars, found that 90 percent had been sexually
harassed."

See the report at:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103844570

Government and military brass know that the introduction of women into the
military environment (especially the combat environment) is reaping problems of
epidemic proportions, but they are deliberately ignoring and even covering them
up.

For example, does anyone recall the name Jamie Leigh Jones? According to ABC
News, "A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR
coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up
the incident.

"Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a
KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping
container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment,
she'd be out of a job."

See the report at:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3977702&page=1

And this story leads into another phenomenon being created within this New World
Order army: the way our government and military are increasing their use of
"private" or "independent" contractors. In the past, these people were always
known simply as mercenaries. Call them what you will, mercenaries are now a
major component of the way our government wages war.

According to Global Research, "The growing use of private armies not only
subjects target populations to savage warfare but makes it easier for the White
House to subvert domestic public opinion and wage wars.

"Americans are less inclined to oppose a war that is being fought by hired
foreign mercenaries, even when their own tax dollars are being squandered to
fund it.

"'The increasing use of contractors, private forces, or, as some would say,
"mercenaries," makes wars easier to begin and to fight--it just takes money and
not the citizenry,' said Michael Ratner, of New York's Center for Constitutional
Rights. 'To the extent a population is called upon to go to war, there is
resistance, a necessary resistance to prevent wars of self-aggrandizement,
foolish wars, and, in the case of the United States, hegemonic imperialist
wars.'"

See the report at:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14972

Remember, at any given moment, there might be as many--if not more--mercenaries
fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan as there are US military forces. For example,
according to the Christian Science Monitor, in early 2008, the number of
mercenaries fighting in Iraq numbered more than 190,000. Remember, in addition
to the benefit of not drafting US citizens to fight these perpetual wars (and
thus avoid incurring the wrath and resistance of the American public),
mercenaries enjoy the luxury of not having to comply with the military rules of
engagement. And the stories of atrocities committed by US-employed mercenaries
in Iraq and Afghanistan are too numerous to list.

In addition to the Jamie Jones case mentioned above, consider the case where
Blackwater (now called Xe) mercenaries mowed down 17 Iraqi citizens in an
unprovoked attack. And, of course, no one at Blackwater was held accountable for
these murders. Reports of abuse, cruelty, and savagery by mercenaries in Iraq
are commonplace. According to the Global Research report, "Many soldiers of
fortune on private payrolls previously served dictators in South Africa, Chile,
and elsewhere."

The Washington Post quotes Brigadier General Karl Horst, an advisor to the U.S.
Joint Force Command as saying, "These guys [mercenaries] run loose in this
country [Iraq] and do stupid stuff. There's no authority over them, so you can't
come down on them hard when they escalate force . . . They shoot people, and
someone else has to deal with the aftermath. It happens all over the place."

And you wonder why the United States is viewed so negatively around the world?

Granted, there is a place and proper use for mercenaries. Fred E. Foldvary,
Senior Editor of The Progress Report, rightly observes, "One alternative to U.S.
military action against terrorists who have attacked the U.S. and other
countries, and are threatening further attacks, is to enact Letters of Marque
and Reprisal. Article I, Section 8, paragraph 11 of the U.S. Constitution
authorizes Congress to 'grant letters of Marque and Reprisal and make rules
concerning captures on land and water.' A 'reprisal' means an action taken in
return for some injury. A reprisal could be a seizing of property or guilty
persons in retaliation for an attack and injury. It could include forces used
against the perpetrators for the redress of grievances. A reprisal could even
involve killing a terrorist who is threatening further harm and cannot be
captured.

"'Marque' is related to 'marching' and means crossing or marching across a
border in order to do a reprisal. So a letter of Marque and Reprisal would
authorize a private person, not in the U.S. armed forces, to conduct reprisal
operations outside the borders of the U.S.A.

"Such Letters are grantable not just by the U.S. Constitution, but also by
international law, which is why it was able to be included in the Constitution.
The Letters are grantable whenever the citizens or subjects of one country are
injured by those in another country and justice is denied by the government of
that country, as happened with the attack by persons who were in Afghanistan."

See Foldvary's column at:

http://www.progress.org/fold232.htm

And that is exactly what Congressman Ron Paul attempted to do. He proposed H.R.
3076, the September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001, to authorize the U.S.
State Department to issue such Letters. See Dr. Paul's Press Release at:

http://www.house.gov/paul/press/press2001/pr101101.htm

However, neither the Congress nor the White House--Democrat or Republican--has
any intention of following the Constitution; therefore, Letters of Marque and
Reprisal were never authorized. As a result, no authority has been granted to
these mercenaries to wage war on behalf of anyone, especially not the people of
the United States.

But what unauthorized mercenaries do accomplish is to fulfill the demands of
internationalists and globalists to use unaccountable and uncontrolled (at least
by normal military protocols) private armies for their own personal and
nefarious purposes.

The next step for our politically correct "Global Force" is the authorization
for homosexuals to serve openly in the US military. This has long been the goal
of globalists, and it is now about to happen.

It was globalist President Bill Clinton who introduced the current "Don't Ask,
Don't Tell" policy that allows homosexuals to serve in the US armed forces--but
not openly. Of course, this was a major departure from US military history. From
George Washington's Continental army until the Clinton administration,
homosexuality was deemed "incompatible" with military service. And now globalist
Barack Obama is leading Congress to change the policy even further by allowing
homosexuals to serve openly in the US military.

However, please consider this: if our governmental and military leaders would
cover up the raping of American servicewomen by servicemen, don't you know that
they will cover up the raping of American servicemen by homosexual servicemen?
Mark this down: mixing sex (heterosexual or homosexual) and military service is
a recipe for disaster. And the potential damage inflicted upon military units
(especially combat units) is exacerbated exponentially by the introduction of
large numbers of homosexuals and women into those units. (This is the universal
sentiment of virtually every active duty or retired serviceman I have ever
spoken with.) But it does fit perfectly into the plans of the New World Order
architects, who want to use the US military as much for the advancement of their
politically correct agenda as they do for any actual military purpose.

Plus, dare I mention how that many violent gangs in North America are
encouraging their members to join the US military in order to learn tactics and
skills, which enable them to more effectively inflict their criminality upon the
American people? Well, it's true. And our military brass knows it's true, and
yet they still allow these thugs to enter our military. Hispanic gang members,
especially, are entering the US military in droves.

According to a report in The American Conservative magazine, "[R]ecent figures
indicate that gang membership in the Armed Forces significantly surpasses
civilian levels. Stars and Stripes reported that 1 to 2 percent of the military
are gang members, compared to 0.02 percent of the general population."

See the report at:

http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/may/05/0012/

No, ladies and gentlemen, it is not your father's army. And, sadly, while many
of our fine military leaders (not to mention many of our active duty soldiers,
sailors, airmen, and Marines) see all of this taking place, they are practically
powerless to stop it, because political correctness and globalism run rampant in
Washington, D.C., including at the Pentagon.

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Ignoring Torture Claims and Questionable Evidence, New York Jury Convicts
Pakistani Scientist Aafia Siddiqui
Democracy
Now!http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/4/ignoring_torture_claims_and_questionabl\
e_evidence


A New York jury has convicted the US-educated Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia
Siddiqui of attempted murder for shooting at US forces while jailed in
Afghanistan in 2008. None of the Americans were injured, but Siddiqui was shot
and wounded while in US custody. Human rights groups have long alleged that
Siddiqui was forcibly disappeared by Pakistani authorities in 2003 and
interrogated and tortured at the behest of the United States. In her testimony,
Siddiqui claimed to have been held in a US secret prison. We speak to Siddiqui
family spokesperson Tina Foster of the International Justice Network and Petra
Bartosiewicz, an independent journalist who has been closely following
Siddiqui¡¯s case. [includes rush transcript]


Tina Foster, Executive Director of the International Justice Network and the
spokesperson for Aafia Siddiqui¡¯s family.

Petra Bartosiewicz, independent journalist who wrote about Aafia Siddiqui in the
November 2009 edition of Harper¡¯s Magazine and covered the trial with daily
dispatches for the website Cage Prisoners. She is also working on a book titled
The Best Terrorists We Could Find, an investigation of terrorism trials in the
US since 9/11.

Rush Transcript
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide
closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank
you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, More...

JUAN GONZALEZ: We begin today with one of the most baffling cases in the
so-called war on terror, the story of thirty-seven-year-old Aafia Siddiqui.

On Wednesday, a New York court convicted the American-educated Pakistani
neuroscientist of attempted murder for shooting at US soldiers and FBI agents
while detained in Afghanistan in 2008.

Back in 2003, Aafia Siddiqui was wanted by law enforcement and the FBI and
suspected of links to al-Qaeda leadership. But the MIT-trained scientist had
mysteriously disappeared along with her three children, two of whom are US
citizens. She reappeared five years later in Afghanistan with her oldest son and
was arrested on suspicion of carrying chemicals and notes referring to
¡°mass-casualty attacks¡± in New York.

Aafia Siddiqui was not tried on terrorism charges or for her alleged ties to
al-Qaeda. The case against her rested on events that took place the day after
she was arrested in Afghanistan in July of 2008. The prosecution said she
grabbed an unattended rifle and opened fire on a group of US soldiers and FBI
agents who were questioning her. None of the Americans was injured, but Siddiqui
was shot and wounded while in US custody.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, on Wednesday, the jury reached a unanimous verdict, finding
Siddiqui guilty of attempted murder, armed assault, and using and carrying a
firearm. She faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. Defense lawyers argued
there was no physical evidence that Siddiqui had touched the rifle.

ELAINE SHARP: I disagree with the jury¡¯s verdict. In my opinion, it is wrong.
There was no forensic evidence, and the witness testimony was divergent, to say
the least. This is not a just and right verdict. It is a just and right system,
but the jury¡ªjuries do make mistakes. Juries do go wrong. And my opinion is
that this was a verdict that was based on fear and not fact.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, human rights groups have long alleged that Siddiqui was
forcibly disappeared by Pakistani authorities in 2003 and interrogated and
tortured at the behest of the United States. In her testimony last week,
Siddiqui claimed to have been held in a secret prison by the Americans.

For more on the case of Aafia Siddiqui, we¡¯re joined here by two guests. Tina
Foster is the executive director of the International Justice Network. She¡¯s a
spokesperson for Aafia Siddiqui¡¯s family. Petra Bartosiewicz is an independent
journalist who has been closely following this story. She wrote about Aafia
Siddiqui in the November issue of Harper¡¯s Magazine, the piece called ¡°The
Intelligence Factory: How America Makes Its Enemies Disappear.¡± She¡¯s working
on a book called The Best Terrorists We Could Find, an investigation of
terrorism trials in the US since 9/11.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Tina, let¡¯s begin with you. Your response
to the verdict?

TINA FOSTER: Well, the family¡¯s response obviously is one of great
disappointment, but I can¡¯t say a great deal of shock, because from the
beginning of this trial, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was portrayed as a terrorist, and
instead of assuming the presumption of innocence, which most criminal defendants
get when they come into a courtroom, Dr. Aafia had already been painted very
much as a dangerous woman before she was even brought into the courtroom. And
so, I think we saw during the course of the trial that she suffered the
prejudice that was¡ªthat had already been laid as a foundation.

So, the family is going to obviously be calling for an appeal. We¡¯re obviously
most concerned about Aafia¡¯s mental state, because during the trial, she
clearly was not herself. She made a number of outbursts during the trial, and we
think that is directly related to the trauma that she suffered while in secret
prisons and while tortured for those five years while she was missing. In
addition, she¡¯s been in solitary confinement for a year and a half while in US
custody. That has also contributed to her deteriorating mental state.

And probably perhaps most importantly, why my organization became involved in
this case is the two children, the two youngest children of Dr. Aafia, who were
three months old and four years old when they were captured, are still missing.
And the International Justice Network believes that those children were also
taken into detention at the same time that Aafia was, and we¡¯re still looking
for those two children.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the decision of the government, even though the alleged crime
that she was on trial for happened in Afghanistan, to have the trial here in New
York, what was the basis for that?

TINA FOSTER: Well, I mean, I think that this is a pattern that we¡¯ve seen
actually since 9/11 of individuals who should probably stay in the criminal
justice systems of the places where they are detained being shifted around in
sort of a shell game. I think Aafia Siddiqui was likely in a number of secret
prisons in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, before she came to be in US custody.

When she came into US custody, the first that we had heard from the family,
after five years of her disappearance, was that she had¡ªshe was at Bagram
Hospital in US custody, and she had been shot several times. And the explanation
that was given were the facts that were alleged in the shooting.

AMY GOODMAN: Petra Bartosiewicz, let¡¯s go back to the beginning. You wrote this
very interesting story in Harper¡¯s Magazine about Aafia. Tell us how you got
interested, and then tell us her story from the beginning, this MIT-trained
neuroscientist. What happened to her?

PETRA BARTOSIEWICZ: Well, I first heard about the case in August 2008, when she
was brought to the United States from Afghanistan. And as Tina was saying, the
issue of why she was brought here, she was entitled to a consular visit in
Afghanistan, which she didn¡¯t receive.

And the jury was told that she was brought to the United States to face charges
because she opened fire on US soldiers, and that was the justification. But what
the jury didn¡¯t hear is this huge back story in this case, which kind of gives
it the all-important context, and I think the trial sort of happened in a vacuum
where it was just about this shooting in a room. But what they were not told was
that she¡¯d been missing for five years and that when she went missing in 2003,
she was a suspected al-Qaeda operative. And she was never charged with that in
this case.

AMY GOODMAN: When you say she went missing, where was she?

PETRA BARTOSIEWICZ: Well, she went missing from Karachi, Pakistan. That¡¯s most
of the reports. She actually spent about eleven years in the United States. She
was educated in the US. She came to the US from Pakistan, and she joined her
brother in Houston. He lives in Houston now. And she studied at MIT and
Brandeis. And two of her three children were born in the US. She was married in
the US to a Pakistani man.

And she lived a normal life until just after 9/11, when there were some reports
that brought mainly her husband, I think, at the time, under suspicion. And they
were interviewed by the FBI, and nothing really came of it. She eventually
returned to Pakistan. She divorced. And then, in 2003, she went missing. But
right around the time she went missing, there were increasing reports that she
was wanted for questioning. And then later she was named an al-Qaeda¡ªsuspected
al-Qaeda operative. But for five years, no one heard anything about her.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, in your efforts to get to the back story, as you say, you
traveled all over Pakistan. She comes from a very prominent family, you
suggested in the article, and you interviewed several of the relatives. And
generally the press accounts there assumed she was in CIA or US custody during
all that time?

PETRA BARTOSIEWICZ: Yes, I think the main¡ªthe story that most people believe in
Pakistan is that she was picked up, but by Pakistanis. I think the conventional
wisdom is that the US intelligence community relies on the Pakistani
intelligence community very heavily, and so the belief is that she would have
been picked up by the Pakistanis. And my reporting suggested that, as well, and
that she was either handed over to the CIA immediately or soon after or at some
point.

Some people are held in what is called custodial¡ªin a custodial situation,
where the Pakistanis might have control over them physically, but the US has
access to question them. There are numerous documented accounts of that. And the
belief was, though, that she was picked up. Now, there are also reports that she
was on the run for some period of time, but it does seem that she was held
somewhere for some period of this time.

AMY GOODMAN: The title of your article, ¡°The Intelligence Factory: How America
Makes Its Enemies Disappear,¡± what do you mean by that?

PETRA BARTOSIEWICZ: Well, the war on terrorism is fought largely through
intelligence gathering, not really evidence building as in a crime like a
murder, for example, where you¡¯re going back after the fact. Terrorism is
fought mainly in terms of future: what is going to happen, who might do
something, what might they do. And intelligence is sort of the fodder for these
investigations.

But intelligence is primarily produced by detainees. And so, we sort of are in
this position now where we are needing to produce more and more detainees, who
then produce that intelligence. And because we now have all of these confirmed
reports about the types of interrogations that are happening, we know that
there¡¯s a lot of false intelligence being generated. And that leads to other
people being detained. And I think the main tool that investigators use these
days is kind of associations, who knows whom, and that¡¯s the primary connection
that gets people on the radar. The question of what that relationship actually
means, which is all-important, is less investigated.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Tina Foster, I¡¯d like to ask you about the trial itself, though.
I guess the most dramatic moment is when she gets on the stand and says that she
was being tortured while in US custody. She went on the stand against the advice
of her lawyers. She appeared to have a very contentious relationship with the
lawyers, claiming that they didn¡¯t represent her. Could you talk about that
whole aspect?

TINA FOSTER: Sure, sure. You know, Aafia, when she was brought to the United
States in July of 2008, August 2008, she was assigned lawyers, but there was a
period of time when she did not have anyone assigned to her. The government of
Pakistan stepped in and hired defense lawyers, who were considered a legal dream
team at the time. But by the time that had happened, Dr. Aafia had already lost
complete faith in the US justice system. She did not trust any court-appointed
lawyers, any lawyers that were going to be assigned to her, and she insisted
that she wanted to at least have access to a phone book so she could try to find
her own lawyers. That was denied by the judge. The judge said, ¡°Listen,
there¡¯s a lot of lawyers sitting right here. We¡¯re ready to try this case, and
I¡¯m not going to give you more time to go find your own lawyer.¡± That, I
think, set the stage for a very contentious relationship, where Aafia, you know,
continually disavowed her lawyers, did not¡ªwas not allowed to maintain any sort
of relationship with them, and, I think, ultimately was denied effective
assistance of counsel as a result of that, not by any mistake the lawyers made,
but that was the judge¡¯s call at the time.

When she took the stand, against the advice of her attorneys, she clearly had a
story she wanted to tell. And she had not been able to tell it during the trial.
She did her best to stay, you know, within the judge¡¯s parameters of what she
was allowed to talk about, because, of course, he wouldn¡¯t¡ªthough he allowed
all of the evidence against her trying to portray her as a dangerous terrorist,
he did not allow the defense to broach that area. So, she came across, as Petra
said, you know, speaking in a vacuum, and the jury didn¡¯t hear the back story.
So she may have appeared a little bit irrational in their minds, because they
hadn¡¯t heard that the reason she didn¡¯t know that the boy that was found with
her was her son is because they had been separated five or six years ago, and
she had not been allowed to see him. So, a lot of the things she said seemed
shocking to the jury.

AMY GOODMAN: Tina, can you explain how Aafia resurfaced in Ghazni in 2008?

PETRA BARTOSIEWICZ: Well¡ª

AMY GOODMAN: Petra.

PETRA BARTOSIEWICZ: She was found in Ghazni with a boy, who turned out to be her
son, and she was suspected of being a suicide bomber. She was really just
wandering around in the city of Ghazni. And she was said to have on her a slew
of documents and some chemical substances, which I think some were just
cosmetics. There were some chemicals also. But they were sort of bizarrely
incriminating, almost you would write into a movie script. They had words like
¡°mass-casualty attack¡± and ¡°cells¡± and named landmarks in New York City, and
there were pictures of guns, which, when we saw them in the courtroom, were sort
of like something that a child would really draw. They were described as a match
gun that could be lit with a single match, and really not the kind of thing that
I would expect a seasoned al-Qaeda operative to have with her if she was
wandering around.

She turned out not to be a suicide bomber. But she was arrested, supposedly with
these documents, and she was taken to an Afghan¡ªto a local police station. And
she was¡ªaccording to Afghan police who testified at the trial, she was beaten
the night that she was arrested by numerous people. I think she was also caned.
She was tied to a bed to restrain her. Later she was released from the bed, and
she was in a room that was divided by a curtain. It was a very small room. She
was behind this curtain. And that¡¯s where she was when this shooting incident
occurred.

A US team had been alerted to her presence. FBI officials were called in from
another base in Afghanistan. They flew in the following morning to identify her
and to interrogate her and also to take her with them. That was the goal. But
they were told by the Afghans that they could not do that, that they could
question her, but they would not be allowed to take her. And they were ushered
into this room on the second floor of the police station, where she was behind
that curtain, unbeknownst to them, they say. And Afghan officials were already
there, some people from the Ministry of Interior and some soldiers from the
police station. And that is when this shooting supposedly took place.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And then I think you also mentioned in your article that, again,
another bizarre aspect of this very bizarre case is that she somehow¡ªthat there
was a rifle that just happened to be on the floor near her, even though she was
a suspected connected¡ª

AMY GOODMAN: Lady al-Qaeda?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Lady al-Qaeda, and they just happened to leave a rifle that she
managed to grab and then attempt to shoot some of the agents.

PETRA BARTOSIEWICZ: Well, this is the most disputed part of this case, which is
what happened after those US soldiers and FBI agents entered that room. What is
agreed upon is that they were all there. She, herself, testified that she moved
towards the curtain to peek out to see who was there, and she intended to try to
escape. She wanted to get out of there. That¡¯s what she told the jury.

Now, what happened next is the big question. According to the testimony of the
US team, which was the soldiers and the FBI agents, they say that a warrant
officer, who brought his M-4 automatic rifle with him, set it down near the
curtain and that she somehow reached past the curtain, grabbed the gun, and
aimed it at them, and actually got two shots off. And there were differences in
the eyewitness testimony. Some of the people said they didn¡¯t see the shooting.
Some said that they saw her shooting from one of the beds that was in the back
of the room. Some said she was next to the bed. There were all sorts of
different versions of how this happened. The room was quite small and quite
crowded, so people had different vantage points.

But what¡¯s interesting is that there was no forensic evidence whatsoever that
she shot that gun. There were no fingerprints on the gun. There were no bullet
holes in the walls. There were no casings on the floor. There was an abundance
of evidence that she had been shot. They found the casings from the revolver
that shot her. They found¡ªshe was obviously wounded, so that was very clear.

I think that clearly what happened in¡ªto a certain degree, is that the people
in that room were startled when they saw her. And what happened next¡ª

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me ask something about the coverage of the trial,
Petra¡ªthe reporters, Pakistani reporters, not being allowed in. Can you explain
who covered the trial and why some weren¡¯t in?

PETRA BARTOSIEWICZ: Well, the¡ªbefore the trial actually started, there was an
enormous amount of attention on this case for years, and has been, in Pakistan
and much of the Muslim world. And a lot of the Pakistani press came to New York
City to cover the trial on a day-to-day basis. But the only credentials that
were issued for the courtroom itself were for journalists who have an NYPD press
pass, which is actually difficult to get, and it¡¯s meant mainly for crime scene
reporters. I don¡¯t have that kind of pass, either. A lot of courthouse
reporters don¡¯t have that pass. But that meant that the press rows were
reserved only for those people.

And there were about thirty journalists who were credentialed, but they were
mainly, you know, the New York City dailies, television stations, radio
stations. And most of those outlets don¡¯t cover these kinds of trials from the
beginning to the end. They¡¯re there for the first day; they¡¯re there for the
last day. And in between, the press rows were very empty.

And the first day, there were only six spaces for public seating, so everybody
else was put into an overflow courtroom where they watched the proceedings on a
television set. But that meant that whenever exhibits were put on the overhead
projector, we couldn¡¯t see that. Some of the witnesses came down off the stand
to testify in front of the jury to look at some actual drawings and sketches of
the room. We couldn¡¯t really even hear them when they testified on that.

So there was a limited amount of ability to get to the courtroom. The press
was¡ªI have to say, the Pakistani press was eventually let into the courtroom,
because I think the judge realized that there were not many people covering the
case inside the courtroom, but they never really received the actual credentials
that would give them that right to be there every day.

AMY GOODMAN: What has changed in covering¡ªin dealing with terror suspects, from
Bush to Obama, Tina Foster?

TINA FOSTER: Surprisingly little, unfortunately, I think. You know, in terms of
the challenges that are faced by this country in repairing its image
internationally, I think that President Obama has done a much better job in
terms of articulating the¡ªyou know, a more neutral, friendly, positive
approach. However, for those of us like myself at the International Justice
Network who have been working on secret prisoner cases, people detained at
Bagram instead of Guant¨¢namo, all of these issues are a repeat, unfortunately,
of what we saw under the Bush administration. So I think that this trial, in
particular, of Aafia Siddiqui is one that is going to be watched in Pakistan
quite¡ªit¡¯s already of monumental significance in Pakistan.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And she faces now a possible life-in-prison sentence?

TINA FOSTER: Yeah, she faces a potential life sentence. The sentencing won¡¯t
happen for several months. But in the interim, you know, we see that the
Pakistani media and community are extremely upset, and they think that this is a
travesty of justice, because, of course, they have seen the six years of back
story and have been following this from the beginning, and they view Dr. Aafia
as a torture victim, as someone who symbolizes the hundreds, if not thousands,
of people who¡¯ve disappeared as part of the US-led war on terror.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we will leave it there now, though we will continue to follow
the case. Tina Foster, executive director of the International Justice Network,
spokesperson for Aafia Siddiqui¡¯s family. And thank you very much to Petra
Bartosiewicz, who is an independent journalist closely following Aafia
Siddiqui¡¯s case. We will link to her piece at Harper¡¯s called ¡°The
Intelligence Factory: How America Makes Its Enemies Disappear.¡±

===

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was framed by Zionists
and railroaded in a New York Jewish court

by Ernesto Cienfuegos
La Voz de Aztlan


Los Angeles, Alta California - February 4, 2910 - (ACN)   Yesterday, a
diminutive MIT and Brandeis University educated neuroscientist and Muslim mother
of three was found guilty of the attempted murder of her
torturers while being interrogated in an Abu Ghraib type USA prison in
Afghanistan.  Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani,  now faces imprisonment for the
rest of her life.

Her story demonstrates the intense Islamophobia and deep hatred that Zionists
have towards Muslims. The verdict came down in a "virtual" Jewish court in
Jewish New York that was presided by a Jewish judge.  Dr. Siddiqui had no chance
for a fair trial, especially when the majority of the jurors where Jewish.
According to some news sources, there were no Muslims on the jury.

As a Christian, I can not help associate Dr. Siddiqui's trial with the one that
Jesus Christ received in the Jewish Sanhedrin after he was framed by the
Pharisees for the Roman authorities.  Like Jesus Christ, Dr. Siddiqui was also
tortured. She suffered incredible torture and repeated rapes for 5 years as
"Prisoner  650"  at the USA Bagram Theater Internment Facility in Afghanistan
which according to international human rights groups is similar or worse than
the now infamous US run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq where beatings, daily
humiliations, rapes and torture of Iraqi Muslim prisoners took place.

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was essentially framed by modern day Pharisees within the
FBI.  Today, the FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security and Military Intelligence have
a significant number of pro-Israel Zionists within their ranks. At the Abu
Ghraib prison, it was the Zionists within the CIA and Military Intelligence that
committed the worst of the horrific abuses against the Iraqi Muslim prisoners.

Dr. Siddiqui was the target of incompetent and paranoid  Zionists in the FBI
simply because she was a Muslim with friends and family members in Pakistan that
were critical of Israel and US foreign policies. These Zionists within the FBI
accused Dr. Siddiqui of being an Al Queda terrorist which in turn facilitated
the  Zionist press in the USA to label Dr, Siddiqui "Lady AL Queda" during the
trial.

In 2003 while Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was in Pakistan visiting her father and mother,
the Zionists within the FBI ordered their Pakistani Secret Service (ISI) lackeys
to pick up Dr. Siddiqui for interrogation.  The ISI abducted her and her three
children. She was taken to the USA run Bagram prison where she was repeatedly
raped, waterboarded and suffered other forms of torture. The ISI then
temporarily released the traumatized victim, planted evidence on her and
re-arrested her on charges of terrorism. They then set up a situation inside the
prison to accuse her of attempting to kill FBI agents and US soldiers.

The  torturers alleged that as she was about to be questioned by the FBI and US
soldiers in a room at the Afghan prison, that she picked up an M4 rifle and
fired at a US soldier. They state that this is when she was shot in the abdomen.
An Amnesty International official said "It seems extraordinary to imagine that
four U.S. agents who'd gone to pick her up ¡ª two military, two FBI ¡ª along
with at least two Afghan translators, were somehow surprised by this woman, who
overpowered them, grabbed a gun, flipped the safety, fired off a couple of
shots, and then could only be subdued by shots to the torso."

Dr. Siddiqui spent 5 years at the hellish Bagram prison and until she was
brought to New York to face trial on attempted murder charges. Two of her
children are still missing and no one knows where they are. One of the missing
children was born in the USA.

It is difficult to understand why the American people allow the Zionists to
commit such evil in the name of the USA.  Also, how can Americans  allow 30
billion dollars of their tax money, in the next ten years, to go for weapons for
the war criminals of the Israeli Zionist regime that massacred over 300
Palestinian children one year ago in Gaza.  There is no doubt in my mind, these
nefarious Zionists within the USA and in Israel will eventually destroy
themselves,  the country and probably the entire Western world.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Related La Voz de Aztlan article:

Was neuroscientist Dr. Aafia Siddiqui
raped and tortured at US Bagram prison?
http://www.aztlan.net/strange_case_of_dr_siddiqui.htm

===

Was Head Money Paid For Aafia Siddiqui?
By Ahmed Quraishi
Thursday, February 4, 2010
http://aq-lounge.blogspot.com/2010/02/was-head-money-paid-for-aafia-siddiqui.htm\
l


Advocates of, and apologists for, the US government's position on Pakistani
scientist Dr. Aafia Siddiqui are arguing that she was a member of an al Qaeda
sleeper cell and that she held extreme views.

This line of reasoning seeks to undermine the stronger case that exists in favor
of the wrongs done to her, and the wrongs that US and the Pakistani governments
have done to the rights and honor of Pakistani citizens.

There is little doubt that Dr. Siddiqui had weird ideas. She also tried hard to
get in contact with al Qaeda terrorists wanted by law. And she is probably not
telling the whole truth about her activities and intentions.

But it is also true that:

- She was tortured and turned into a human wreck
- She was illegally flown to the United States
- She was kidnapped in Pakistan
- Her kidnappers used her underage children to blackmail her
- Washington or Islamabad possibly tried to use her to infiltrate al Qaeda under
duress
- The lives of her three underage kids, who are Pakistani citizens, have been
destroyed
- She has not committed any act of terror
- US government has failed to prove her ties to al Qaeda [the excuse that US
government is giving for this is that this would expose intelligence sources]
- US government's case on her attempt to kill US agents is fraught with legal
loopholes
- Her indictment came because of the fear of terror manipulated by the US
government more than the strength of evidence against her

Our contention is that she didn't actually commit any act of terror. She is
guilty of contacting people wanted by law. It is wrong to torture her like this
until death. It is wrong to kidnap Pakistanis from our streets. It is wrong to
destroy the lives of her three underage kids, who are Pakistani citizens, while
the Pakistani government does nothing.

Other countries, including the US, do everything to protect their own
citizens even when they have committed crimes. In US government's case, pressure
was applied on foreign governments to hand back US citizens involved in
prosecutable crimes, in places as diverse as Italy [murder], Iran [espionage]
and Japan [rape by US soldiers].

In Dr. Aafia's case, she's received more than her share of punishment for
committing no crime really, and her arrest through kidnap from Pakistan's
streets is wrong as a principle.

A point to ponder: someone in Pakistan pocketed the head money that US
government put on her. As if it's not enough that Washington meddles in
Pakistani politics and tries to influence who comes to power in our country, we
have a rotten political system where people in politics, bureaucracy and
military collude in humiliating Pakistani citizens. This has to stop.

Is the incumbent pro-US Pakistani government reluctant to take a stand on Dr.
Aafia's case because head money was paid for her?

Why Pakistan's rulers ignore the wider implications of this case: the
systematic way of humiliating Pakistani citizens that has become a policy under
the so-called war on terror, practiced in the US and the UK?

We want the government of Pakistan to stand up for its citizens. Period.

If it can't, Pakistanis should change this failed political system and
replace it with new faces unburdened by a client relationship with
Washington and London.

===

'Disappeared' Pakistani woman convicted of attempted murder
From Larry Johnson¡¯s blog: Looking for Trouble.
http://www.larryjohnsononline.com/2010/02/03/disappeared-pakistani-woman-convict\
ed-of-attempted-murder-charges-in-new-york-city/


Aafia Siddiqui, a U.S.-trained Pakistani scientist, was convicted Wednesday of
charges that she tried to kill Americans while detained in Afghanistan in 2008.
The Associated Press reported that Siddiqui, 37, was convicted on two counts of
attempted murder, though the crime was not found by the jury to be premeditated.
She was also convicted of armed assault, using and carrying a firearm, and
assault of U.S. officers and employees.

The three-week trial made it sound like Siddiqui, who U.S. authorities had
previously described as an al-Qaida sympathizer, had suddenly appeared in
Afghanistan where she was arrested and then interrogated by Afghan and U.S.
officials. (It was during that interrogation that Siddiqui allegedly staged her
attack using a rifle a U.S. officer had left unattended in the room.)

The truth is Siddiqui had been ¡°disappeared¡± in Pakistan by Pakistani
intelligence forces in 2003. (She likely was picked up because U.S. intelligence
agencies were saying she had terrorist links.)

A report in the Pakistani press said that Siddiqui and her kids, then 7, 5, and
6 months old, had been seen being detained by Pakistani authorities. Days later,
a spokesman for Pakistan¡¯s interior ministry and two unnamed U.S. officials
confirmed that she was in custody and being interrogated. Several days later,
however, Pakistani and American officials apparently changed their minds, saying
it was unlikely she was being held.

Siddiqui¡¯s mother, Ismet, has said that a few days after Siddiqui¡¯s
disappearance, a man on a motorcycle arrived at her house and told her Aafia was
being held and that she should keep quiet if she ever wanted to see her daughter
and grandchildren again.

Interestingly enough, on July 7, 2008, only a few weeks before Siddiqui¡¯s
arrest in Afghanistan, Yvonne Ridley, an award-winning British journalist and
patron of Cage Prisoners, a human rights organization, had sparked an uproar by
calling a press conference in Islamabad to demand that the United States hand
over an unidentified female prisoner being held at the U.S.-run Bagram prison in
Afghanistan.

Ridley said the woman, whom she called the ¡°Gray Lady of Bagram,¡± had been
held in solitary confinement for years. And while no one knew for sure the
identity of that prisoner, Ridley said she thought it was Siddiqui. Several
former U.S. captives have also reported that a female prisoner, known only as
prisoner 650, was being held in Bagram. And according to news reports, the
former captives said she had lost her sanity, and cried all the time.

Ridley had written previously about ¡°Prisoner 650¡å and her four-year ordeal of
torture and repeated rapes, saying that her cries had prompted the male
prisoners to go on a hunger strike. And, at the Islamabad press conference,
Ridley said she called her a ¡°Gray Lady¡± because she was almost a ¡°ghost, a
specter whose cries and screams continue to haunt those who heard her.¡±

At her trial in New York, Siddiqui said she had been tortured and held in a
secret prison before her detention. AP reported that she said charges that she
attacked U.S. personnel who wanted to interrogate her were ¡°crazy.¡± ¡°It¡¯s
just ridiculous,¡± Siddiqui told the court.

And it is ridiculous. More likely this woman has been charged, and now
convicted, of these crimes to cover up years of U.S. torture. The United States
will never regain a position of trust in the world as long as a miscarriage of
justice like this is unchallenged and uncorrected.

===

Are Children of Dr. Aafia Still Alive?
http://pakbee.com/2010/02/are-children-of-dr-aafia-still-alive/


Throughout the trial of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, human rights observers have been
waiting anxiously for more clues as to what happened to her and her children
during the five years that she was reported missing by family members. They come
every day earlier and earlier, to ensure they get a seat in the very limited
space reserved for the public.

Shortly after the trial began as a government eyewitness described the documents
that were allegedly found in her possession, including hand written notes on how
to make a dirty bomb, she shouted out ¡°it¡¯s a lie¡­I was told to copy from a
magazine¡­if you were held in a secret prison and your children were tortured¡±;
at which point she was whisked away by U.S. Marshalls.

The court then took a recess and when the trial resumed, prosecutors requested
that it be stricken from the record. But in closing remarks, defense attorney
reminded everyone that the prosecution never challenged that assertion.
Something terrible happened to Dr. Siddiqui, Moreno said. But without more
information, it would be hard for any juror who is not an avid consumer of
non-mainstream or foreign media, to be able to even imagine what that horror may
have been.

In the morning before the closing remarks, the last government witness, FBI
Special Agent, Angela Sercer testified. Sercer monitored Siddiqui for 12 hours a
day over a two week period while she was at a hospital in Bagram. She tried to
rebut Aafia Siddiqui¡¯s testimony, by saying that Siddiqui told her she was in
¡°hiding¡± for the last five years and further that she ¡°married¡± someone to
change her name.

However under cross examination, Sercer admitted that while at the hospital
Siddiqui expressed fear of ¡°being tortured¡±. Sercer also admitted that
Siddiqui expressed concern about the ¡°welfare of the boy¡± and asked about him
¡°every day¡±. Moreover, that Siddiqui only agreed to talk to her upon promises
that the boy would be safe. According to the testimony Siddiqui said that the
Afghans had ¡°beaten her¡±; that her ¡°husband had beaten her and her
children¡±; and that she was ¡°afraid of coming into physical harm¡±.

When Sercer was further questioned about what Siddiqui said about her children
during that two week period, she admitted that Siddiqui expressed concern about
the ¡°safety and welfare of her children¡±, but felt that the ¡°kids had been
killed or tortured in a secret prison¡±. ¡°She said that they were dead, didn¡¯t
she¡± asked Defense attorney, Elaine Sharpe; reluctantly Sercer answered,
¡°Yes¡±.

Siddiqui herself may not know whether the children are alive or not. In a
psychiatric report she told an interviewer ¡°my baby is flying but he does not
grow¡±, ¡°maybe it¡¯s because I¡¯m not nursing him¡±. Nonetheless, it is
surprising that the testimony presented at her trial did not prompt an immediate
state department investigation. After all, at least one of the children, Maryum,
who would now be 10 years old, is a U.S. Citizen.

If it is true that the kids have been killed, then, the question arises, who
will be charged with ¡°attempting to murder a U.S. National¡±, for that crime?

===

Pakistan Gags Siddiqui Family
by Ibrahim Sajid Malick
http://ibrahimsajidmalick.com/pakistan-gags-siddiqui-family/1067/


After the guilty verdict against Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman charged with
attempted murder in the U.S, was announced, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, her
attorney, spoke to reporters outside the Federal Court House where the trial was
held. Despite all the bravado of Pakistani officials implying that Siddiqui
would be released, this verdict ensures that she will spend a few more decades
in U.S. Custody.

Sharp told reporters that her client, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was picked up by
Pakistani Intelligence officials on March 29, 2003 outside of her home in
Karachi. They arrived in two black cars and placed Siddiqui in one car and the
children in another car. Siddiqui says that she was immediately hooded and
drugged and when she woke up she was tied to a gurney in a place that could not
have been Karachi because the air was very dry.

Sharp also discussed the issue of the missing children. She said that the baby
was killed during the arrest, but Siddiqui does not know if the girl, Maryam,
who would now be 11 years old, is alive or not. Siddiqui was shown a picture of
her baby laying in a pool of blood.
American reporters continued to find Siddiqui¡¯s claims incredulous and
questioned Sharp on the plausibility. Do you really believe her?, a reporter
asked Sharp. ¡°Yes!¡±, she replied.

Sharp said that a gag order was placed on the family by the Government of
Pakistan, who made this a pre-condition for the release of the oldest child
Ahmed. This is why no one from the family has been able to talk openly about
what may have happened to her and her children for 5 years.

Many reporters have also said that an ISI official frequented the proceedings
and told them ¡°off the record¡± that Siddiqui is actually part of an Al-Qaeda
sleeper cell.

Many legal observers have questioned if there was a conflict on interest in the
Government of Pakistan paying for the defense when they themselves are
implicated in her kidnapping. Dr. Siddiqui, according to her attorney, requested
that all her supporters not engage in any violence in protest against the
verdict.

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Unexpected Partners
Muslims Helping Haiti
By WAJAHAT ALI
http://www.counterpunch.org/waj01282010.html


Haiti is experiencing unimaginable suffering from its devastating earthquake,
with more than 150,000 dead and one to three million individuals displaced.
Individuals, groups and governments from around the world have stepped in to do
what they can. United by their religious tradition of charity, Muslims have
emerged as effective partners in aid and relief work.

The international effort to aid Haiti by individuals, Islamic relief
organizations and the governments of Muslim-majority countries reflects a
proactive generosity and empathy espoused by the Prophet Muhammad and the
teachings of the Qur'an. Charity, in fact, is one of the five obligations for
Muslims, and Muslim organizations have been working alongside other faith-based
groups to fulfill this duty.

Islamic Relief, one of the most respected and successful disaster relief
charities in the world, has used technology, new media and social networking
sites to mobilize people. Along with "Seekers Digest", a popular Muslim
community blog run out of Canada, Islamic Relief hosted the "Muslim Online Haiti
Fundraiser" and raised over $100,000 in two hours. The organization also used
its existing partnership with the Mormon Church to send hygiene kits and
temporary shelters to Haiti, in addition to pledging a total of $2.5 million.

Islamic Relief also sent an emergency response team to directly assist victims
in Haiti. These Muslim aid workers have been updating a daily blog with sobering
first-hand accounts of the tragedy.
Assisting Islamic Relief, Muslim American artists and community activists
convened to put on a concert in New York City, hosted by the Inner-City Muslim
Action Network (IMAN), and used the opportunity to raise donations for Haiti. In
Chicago, IMAN partnered with a local synagogue and church to raise aid money.

Governments and non-governmental organizations (NGO) of countries that are more
often known as recipients of aid have also reached out. Two Pakistani NGOs,
Al-Khidmat Foundation and Edhi Foundation, are mobilizing relief efforts to help
Haitians despite the country's own political and economic volatility. Both
organizations have considerable expertise in this area due to the massive 2005
earthquake that killed nearly 80,000 in northern Pakistan. The Edhi Foundation
has already pledged $500,000 to assist Haiti.

Speaking on Haiti's catastrophe, the president of Al-Khidmat Foundation,
Niamatullah Khan, said, "Islam exhorts us to help those who are in trouble....
Humanity comes first."

In the Middle East, Dubai Cares, a non-profit dedicated to ensuring education
for young children, is providing immediate assistance to 200,000 children in
Haiti through its international partners who are already on the ground. And the
governments of Bahrain, Kuwait, Morocco and Turkey have each pledged $1 million
in aid, in addition to sending cargo planes filled with medical supplies, food,
tents and blankets.

Iran donated 30 tons of humanitarian aid, including food, tents and medicine
through its Red Crescent Society. And Palestinians, through the Red Cross, have
begun an effort to send donations.
Furthermore, Lebanon sent a plane with 25 tons of tents and three tons of
medical supplies. And Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation, sent $2.1
million in aid. "As a country that has been itself devastated by a similar
situation, we are absolutely saddened by what's happening in Haiti," Indonesian
Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said at an Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) meeting in Vietnam. "We call on the ASEAN community, including
ourselves, of course, to do what we can do to assist them."

According to Habiba Hamid, a Fellow of the Centre for the Study of Global
Governance at the London School of Economics, this pattern of charity is not an
aberration but the norm for Muslim communities. She says, "Without [Muslim
countries], we would not have the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) today,
which is proving critical in Haiti currently." In 2008, when the WFP issued an
urgent call for funds in light of increased food and fuel prices that raised
global hunger and poverty levels, Saudi Arabia pledged $500 million, leading the
WFP to recognize King Abdullah as a "Champion in the Battle Against Hunger."

Although the journey to rebuilding Haiti is long and painstaking, Muslim relief
efforts worldwide prove that sometimes our most reliable and effective partners
in humanitarian endeavors are not always the ones we expect.


Wajahat Ali is a Muslim American of Pakistani descent. He is a playwright,
essayist, humorist and Attorney at Law, whose work, "The Domestic Crusaders" is
the first major play about Muslim Americans living in a post 9-11 America. His
blog is at http://goatmilk.wordpress.com/

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Taliban to execute US soldier if Aafia not released
By Mushtaq Yusufzai
Friday, February 05, 2010
http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=27072


PESHAWAR: The Afghan Taliban on Thursday demanded the release of Dr Aafia
Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist who has been convicted by the US court on
charges of her alleged attempt to murder US soldiers in Afghanistan, and
threatened to execute an American soldier they were holding currently. They
claimed Aafia Siddiqui's family had approached the Taliban network through a
Jirga of notables, seeking their assistance to put pressure on the US to provide
her justice.

"Being Muslims, it becomes our religious and moral obligation to help the
distressed Pakistani woman convicted by the US court on false charges," said a
senior Afghan Taliban commander. The commander, whose militant network is
holding the US soldier, Bowe Bergdahl, called The News from an undisclosed
location in Afghanistan and threatened to execute the American trooper if their
demand was not met. He claimed AafiaSiddiqui's family had approached the Taliban
network through a Jirga of notables, seeking their assistance to put pressure on
the US to provide her justice.

"We tried our best to make the family understand that our role may create more
troubles for the hapless woman, who was already in trouble. On their persistent
requests, we have now decided to include Dr Aafia Siddiqui's name in the list of
our prisoners in US custody that we delivered to Americans in Afghanistan for
swap of their soldier in our custody," explained the militant commander.

He claimed family members of Dr Aafia told the Taliban leadership that they had
lost all hopes in the Pakistan government and now Allah Almighty and the Taliban
were their only hope. Later, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid also called
The News from somewhere in Afghanistan and owned a statement given by the
Taliban commander.

The militant commander alleged that the US soldier, whom his fighters kidnapped
from Afghanistan's Paktika province near the border with Pakistan's troubled
South Waziristan in June 2009, had admitted his involvement in several raids in
Afghanistan. "Since he has confessed to all charges against him, our Islamic
court had announced death sentence for him," the Taliban leader claimed.

The same Taliban faction released a video of the captive US soldier on Christmas
Day. Taliban said they had been shifting the soldier all the time due to the
search operations by the US and Afghan forces. He said the only way Americans
could save life of their soldier was to release 21 Afghan prisoners and the
"innocent" Pakistani lady.

Most of their prisoners, he claimed, were being held at the Guantanamo prison.
"We believe that like the Israelis, the Americans would be ready soon to do any
deal for taking possession of the remains of their soldier, but it would be late
by then," he stressed. Dr Aafia's family could not be approached for comments on
the Taliban claim.

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Justice Official Clears Bush Lawyers in Torture Memo Probe
By Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman
http://freedetainees.org/8649?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaig\
n=Feed%3A+freedetainees%2FZCdR+%28freedetainees.org%29


For weeks, the right has heckled Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. for his plans
to try the alleged 9/11 conspirators in New York City and his handling of the
Christmas bombing plot suspect. Now the left is going to be upset: an upcoming
Justice Department report from its ethics-watchdog unit, the Office of
Professional Responsibility (OPR), clears the Bush administration lawyers who
authored the "torture" memos of professional-misconduct allegations.

While the probe is sharply critical of the legal reasoning used to justify
waterboarding and other "enhanced" interrogation techniques, NEWSWEEK has
learned that a senior Justice official who did the final review of the report
softened an earlier OPR finding. Previously, the report concluded that two key
authors—Jay Bybee, now a federal appellate court judge, and John Yoo, now a law
professor—violated their professional obligations as lawyers when they crafted a
crucial 2002 memo approving the use of harsh tactics, say two Justice sources
who asked for anonymity discussing an internal matter. But the reviewer, career
veteran David Margolis, downgraded that assessment to say they showed "poor
judgment," say the sources. (Under department rules, poor judgment does not
constitute professional misconduct.) The shift is significant: the original
finding would have triggered a referral to state bar associations for potential
disciplinary action—which, in Bybee's case, could have led to an impeachment
inquiry.

The report, which is still going through declassification, will provide many new
details about how waterboarding was adopted and the role that top White House
officials played in the process, say two sources who have read the report but
asked for anonymity to describe a sensitive document. Two of the most
controversial sections of the 2002 memo—including one contending that the
president, as commander in chief, can override a federal law banning
torture—were not in the original draft of the memo, say the sources. But when
Michael Chertoff, then-chief of Justice's criminal division, refused the CIA's
request for a blanket pledge not to prosecute its officers for torture, Yoo met
at the White House with David Addington, Dick Cheney's chief counsel, and
then–White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. After that, Yoo inserted a section
about the commander in chief's wartime powers and another saying that agency
officers accused of torturing Qaeda suspects could claim they were acting in
"self-defense" to prevent future terror attacks, the sources say. Both legal
claims have long since been rejected by Justice officials as overly broad and
unsupported by legal precedent.

A Justice official declined to explain why David Margolis softened the original
finding, but noted that he is a highly respected career lawyer who acted without
input from Holder. Yoo and Bybee (through his lawyer) declined requests for
comment.

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Haiti Must Not be Rebuilt
Alex Kurtagic
Monday, 25 January 2010
http://www.rebelnews.org/opinion/race/175665-haiti-must-not-be-rebuilt


Day after day, our brains are blitzed by the media with the horror from Haiti.
While I would not wish a like disaster to befall my friends and loved ones, I
cannot help but roll my eyes at the Western governments' response.

I do not mind the initiatives to forgive Haiti's external debt, as I understand
enough about modern banking to know that banks lose nothing except profits when
writing off a so-called 'loan': When banks issue a 'loan', as it happens, they
are not lending actual assets that they have in their possession, but are, in,
fact, creating an electronic fiction, out of nothing and backed by nothing, with
a few keystrokes and clicks of a mouse on a computer. For this and other
reasons, which I shall discuss later, I fully agree with the idea of writing off
Haiti's loans.

I also do not mind Western charities lending succour to the victims, provided
said charities are private institutions, funded by private, consenting donors.

In agreement with Cong. Ron Paul, however, I do mind when a Western government,
such as that of Barack Obama in the United States, seeks to commit its
taxpayer's money to a programme of reconstruction in that part of the world.
This is not so much because Western countries are all technically bankrupt and
have been for years: after all, we still have the material means and
intellectual wherewithal to extricate ourselves from our economic plight. No.
This is because reconstructing Haiti would simply repeat the mistakes of the
past, which have shown, conclusively and supported by examples elsewhere, that
any effort to encourage a former colony now run by Black Africans to become a
Western-style society, complete with rule of law, a thriving market economy,
property rights, industrial production, modern communications, and the like, is
futile and counterproductive. Haiti must not be re-built.

Haiti's death toll - currently estimated at 200,000 - might have been caused by
an earthquake, but it did not have to be that high. Walter E. Williams,
professor of economics at George Mason University, pointed out a few days ago
that

Northern California's 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was more violent, measuring
7.1 on the Richter scale, resulting in 63 deaths and 3,757 injuries. The 1906
San Francisco earthquake measured 7.8 on the Richter scale, about eight times
more violent than Haiti's, and cost 3,000 lives.

That Haiti's death toll was 3,000 times higher than that of Loma Prieta, and 66
times higher than that of San Francisco owes less to an "especially cruel and
incomprehensible" cataclysm than to Haitian's lack of work-ethic, corruption,
and ability to plan ahead.

True, Haiti is one of the world's least developed countries and the poorest in
the Western hemisphere, with 80% living below the poverty line and 54% living in
abject poverty; and, in our world, calamities only multiply in the absence of
money - without money it is difficult to do anything. But Haiti was not always
poor. In the 18th century, Haiti, then under French rule and called
Saint-Domingue, was the most prosperous French colony in the New World. Its
enormously profitable plantations produced sugar, coffee, cotton, and indigo,
and drew in tens of thousands of French settlers. The impoverishment of Haiti,
the first Black-ruled republic on the planet, with a population that is 95%
Black, has taken place since its independence in 1804. In the struggle for
independence, nearly 200 plantations were burnt or destroyed, and 24,000 of the
by then 40,000 White settlers were killed.

Since then, there have been 32 coups d'etats, the forests have been destroyed,
the population has exploded, and Haiti has come to rank near the bottom out of
179 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index.
Indeed, the situation has become so chaotic at times that the United States has
been forced to deploy troops there on three separate occasions: in 1915 (until
1934), during which time the United States funded a huge reconstruction
programme; in 1958, during which time the United States attempted to once again
rebuild Haiti's economic infrastructure; and in 1994 (until 1996), during which
time yet another rebuild tool place under Operation Uphold Democracy and
Operation New Horizons.

The situation before the quake was no better a century ago. Writing in 1900,
Hesketh Pritchard, an explorer and fellow of the Royal Geographic Society,
reported in his book Where Black Rules White: A Journey Across and About Hayti:

What most astonishes the traveller in Hayti is that they have everything there.
Ask for what you please, the answer invariably is, 'Yes, yes, we have it.' They
possess everything that a civilised and progressive nation can desire. Electric
light? They proudly point to a [power] plant on a hilltop outside the town.
Constitutional government? A Chamber of Deputies elected by public vote, a
Senate, and all the elaborate paraphernalia of the law: they are to be found
here, seemingly all of them. Institutions, churches, schools, roads, railways .
. . On paper their system is flawless . . . If one puts one's trust in the
mirage of hearsay, the Haitians can boast of possessing all desirable things,
but on nearer approach these pleasant prospects are apt to take on another
complexion.

For instance, you are standing in what was once a building, but is now a
spindle-shanked ghost of its former self. A single man, nursing a broken leg,
sprawls on the black, earthen floor; a pile of wooden beds is heaped in the
north corner; rain has formed a pool in the middle of the room, crawling and
spreading into an ever wider circle as the last shower drips from the roof. Some
filthy sheets lie wound into a sticky ball on two beds, one of which is
overturned. A large, iron washing tub stands in the open doorway.

Now where are you? It would be impossible to guess. As a matter of fact, you are
in the Military Hospital of the second most important town of Hayti, a
state-supported concern in which the soldiers of the Republic are supposed to be
cured of all the ills of the flesh . . .
It was the same with the electric light. The [power] plant was here, but it did
not work. It was the same with the [Army's] cannon. There are cannon, but they
won't go off. It was the same with their railways. They were being 'hurried
forward,' but they never progressed. It was the same with everything.

Pritchard's account is often sympathetic towards Haitians, but, all the same,
the picture that emerges is very negative. In the final chapter, the explorer
concluded:

The present condition of Hayti gives the best possible answer to the question,
and, considering the experiment has lasted for a century, perhaps also a
conclusive one. For a century the answer has been working itself out there in
flesh and blood. The Negro has had his chance, a fair field, and no favor. He
has had the most beautiful and fertile of the Caribbees for his own; he has had
the advantage of excellent French laws; he inherited a made country, with Cap
Haitien for its Paris . . . Here was a wide land sown with prosperity, a land of
wood, water, towns and plantations, and in the midst of it the Black man was
turned loose to work out his own salvation. What has he made of the chances that
were given to him? . . . Today in Haiti we come to the real crux of the
question. At the end of a hundred years of trial, how does the black man governs
himself? What progress has he made? Absolutely none. When he undertakes the task
of government, he does so, not with the intent of promoting the public weal, but
for the sake of filling his own pocket. His motto is still, "Pluck the fowl, but
take care she does not cry out". Corruption has spread through every portion and
every department of the Government. Almost all the ills of the country may be
traced to their source in tyranny, the ineptitude, and the improbity of those at
the helm of state . . . Can the Negro rule himself? Is he congenitally capable?
. . . Today, and as matters stand, he certainly cannot rule himself.

A century later, we may be justified in reaching a similar conclusion.
Having said this, I am not here to replicate simplistic conservative arguments
that blame Haitians for their predicament and prescribe solutions based on
democracy, liberalisation, education, investment, accountability, transparency,
and open markets. There is no doubt that Haitians, like sub-Saharan Africans,
are the architects of their own misfortunes; but it is disingenuous to judge the
diverse peoples of the world in terms of how well they conform to a European
standard. As I have argued here and elsewhere, not all the peoples of the world
were destined to be exactly like us. And, certainly, not all needed, or even
desired, to be exactly like us.

Port au Prince vs Soweto: Black rule looks the same on both sides of the
Atlantic.

19th-century explorers of sub-Saharan Africa - the Haitians' ancestral homeland
- were shocked by the absence of civilisation in traditional black African
societies. The latter's uncivilisation, however, was not the abnormal result of
failed states or the World Bank's interest rates, because these did not exist at
the time: It was their normal condition. Uninfluenced by European or Arabic
cultures, these were prehistorical tribal societies, which had never developed a
written script, recorded history, used money, kept calendars, maintained roads,
or had any need for an administration or a code of law. These societies still
exist today in the African bush, and if they have changed noticeably or at all
in the past 50,000 years, they certainly have not changed in our direction.
Obviously, the traits that characterise us Europeans, and which we value so
highly, were not essential for survival in the sub-Saharan bush; and, by
extension, what Europeans find normal and natural, Black Africans find abnormal
and artificial. Ideologies of progress and modernity - defining products of the
liberal European mind - never occurred to the black man, even if subsequently he
found them instrumentally useful. It is not surprising, therefore, that when a
modern nation-state is placed under Black rule, conditions rapidly deteriorate:
At best, Blacks are able to simulate the outer forms the European system, but
never their substance.

With this in mind, it should be obvious that rebuilding Haiti would be a waste
of time. I would also call it a form of imperialism. That the Western political
establishment fails to recognise it and act accordingly, even though deep down
our politicians know it, owes more to ideology than to ignorance of the facts.

The Left has a religious belief in progress. And, although they do not realise
it, their thinking is profoundly Eurocentric.

Consequently, the Left interprets history as a process in which humans -
essentially Europeans with exotic skin colours and minor differences in
physiognomy - go from worse to better, measured against values that are
important to Europeans and no one else. When progress fails to happen, the
self-absorbed, navel-gazing Left blames Europeans and sees it as the product of
the imperfect implementation of Leftist theories. Unfortunately, modern
conservatives have been influenced the Left and merely prefer a capitalistic and
pragmatic - as opposed to a socialistic and utopian - interpretation of the
Left's progress ideology. The result is a campaign for ever more aid and
development, fuelled by the belief that, given enough money, education, and
opportunity, the Third World (including even Haiti) will eventually converge
with Europe. For the Left, the daydream is universal equality; for the
conservatives, bigger markets for capitalist enterprise.


Voodoo: distinct African flavour

Without a radical eugenics programme, however, the progress utopia will remain a
fanciful dream.

With regards to the death toll in Haiti, I of course blame the Spanish and the
French for purchasing slaves and shipping them to the Caribbean to work on their
plantations. Had they dispensed with this nefarious practice and relied,
instead, on their own muscle, Hispaniola would be today an immensely rich
island, well prepared for any natural disaster. Short of loopy schemes such as
shipping 9 million Haitians back to Africa, however, I propose that the best
that we can do at this stage is not to re-build, but to complete the demolition.
Subsistence farming, single-story mud dwellings of simple construction, no
motorised vehicles, no electricity, no money, no books, no manufactured tools,
and, most importantly, no firearms, trade, or Western intervention, is the model
to follow. Let Haitians lose all vestiges of European civilisation and
re-organise themselves in a manner harmonious with their endowments,
sensibilities, and ancestral culture. Let them find their own point of
equilibrium, even if it diverges greatly from ours. There is nothing wrong with
voodoo or a pre-industrial, agricultural society, if that is what works for the
people who live in it.


Alex Kurtagic was born in 1970. He is the author of Mister (published by Iron
Sky Publishing, 2009) and the founder and director of Supernal Music.

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Professor Tony Martin & the Jewish Onslaught


Incident at Wellesley College:
Jewish Attack on Black Academics
by Tony Martin
http://www.blacksandjews.com/TonyMartin.html


  In 1993, Prof. Tony Martin added the Nation of Islam's book The Secret
Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Vol. 1 to his Wellesley College course on
Black History. Thus began the Jewish Onslaught against him and all Black
academics in America.



Biography

TONY MARTIN has taught at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, since 1973. He was
tenured in 1975 and has been a full professor of Africana Studies since 1979.
Prior to coming to Wellesley he taught at the University of Michigan-Flint, the
Cipriani Labour College (Trinidad) and St. Mary's College (Trinidad). He has
been a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota, Brandeis University,
Brown University and The Colorado College. He also spent a year as an honorary
research fellow at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad.

Professor Martin has authored or compiled and edited eleven books, including
Literary Garveyism: Garvey, Black Arts and the Harlem Renaissance and the
classic study of the Garvey Movement, Race First: the Ideological and
Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement
Association. In 1965 he qualified as a barrister-at-law at the Honourable
Society of Gray's Inn (London). He did his M.A. and Ph.D. in history at Michigan
State University and the B.Sc. honours degree in economics at the University of
Hull (England).

Professor Martin is currently working on biographies of three Caribbean women --
Amy Ashwood Garvey, Audrey Jeffers and Trinidad's Kathleen Davis ("Auntie Kay").
He is also nearing completion of The Afro-Trinidadian: Endangered Species/Oh,
What a Nation and a study of European Jewish immigration to Trinidad in the
1930's.




Incident at Wellesley College:
Jewish Attack on Black Academics
by Tony Martin



In January 1993, I was minding my own business and teaching my Wellesley College
survey course on African American History when a funny thing happened. The long
arm of Jewish intolerance reached into my classroom. Unknown to me, three
student officers of the Jewish Hillel organization (campus B'nai B'rith
stablemates of the Anti-Defamation League), sat in on my class and remained for
a single period only. Their purpose was to monitor my presentation. As one of
them explained in a campus meeting later, Jewish students had noticed The Secret
Relationship Between Blacks and Jews among my offerings in the school bookstore.
The book documents the considerable Jewish involvement in the transatlantic
African slave trade, the dissemination of which knowledge they, as Jews,
considered an "anti-Semitic" and most "hateful" act.

One hour and ten minutes undercover convinced these three young Jews that I was
teaching this book as a legitimate historical work. They seemed to think that it
belonged rather in the realm of "hate literature."

There appears to have been some prior collusion between the Hillel students and
their adult counterpart, the Anti-Defamation League, for Hillel almost
immediately began passing out ADL materials targeting the book. These included,
inevitably, an ADL reprint of "Black Demagogues and Pseudo-Scholars" by Harvard
University's Henry Louis Gates, Jr., (New York Times, 20 July, 1992), African
America's most notorious Judaeophile. In the weeks and months to come, Gates
would be quoted in nearly every attack on my use of the book, as proof that
"all" respectable, distinguished and right thinking African American scholars
condemned it. The Jews unilaterally anointed Gates with the mantle of head
African American scholar in charge of Black academia. He became, in their
contrived and wishful thinking, the personification of the entire African
American community.

The Hillel activists left my class and headed straight for the president, dean
and associate dean of the college. They then went to the current chair of my own
department, Africana Studies. Like their elders (for example in the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee, by whom Hillel operatives are formally trained
in the art of deception and dirty tricks), they evinced a bulldog-like instinct
for going after the jugular of their intended victims. For the last three
decades of Jewish assaults on Black progress, that jugular has usually meant the
economic livelihood of Black people.

By the time that four of the Hillel executive and their rabbi director came to
see me they had already mobilized those they perceived of as capable of doing me
grievous economic harm. Their task was made considerably less arduous by the
fact that the dean of the college, incoming acting president, outgoing chair of
the board of trustees, incoming chair of the board of trustees, head and deputy
head of the student government, most of the faculty holding endowed chairs and a
goodly portion of the tenured faculty, not to mention sundry other persons in
high positions, were all Jews. The dean of the college is also on the advisory
board of the Friends of Wellesley Hillel.


Dr. Martin's Self-Defense

In January 1993, on the eve of the Jewish onslaught against me (for teaching
that Jews were implicated in the African slave trade), I already had some
interest in Black-Jewish relations. It is difficult not to, if one teaches
African American history. I had also done some research on Jewish refugee
immigration to Trinidad in the 1930's and '40's. This research was facilitated
by the cordial cooperation of Jewish informants in two Caribbean countries.
United States Jews encountered in the course of the research displayed the gamut
of reactions, from friendliness to suspicion to hostility. The idea of a Black
man turning up at a Jewish archive to research Jewish history proved unnerving
to some. (On the other hand, Jewish scholars are a familiar sight at Black
archives, not only as researchers but sometimes even as staff archivists. One of
the most prestigious of the Black archival repositories, the Moorland- Spingarn
Collection of Howard University, is actually part-named after a Jew).

At one of the Jewish archives I visited, the lady in charge characteristically
put me through the appropriate litmus test. "Do you know Len Jeffries?" she
asked, with the mien of one presiding over an inquisition. "I wonder if knowing
Len Jeffries automatically disqualifies me from using these archives," I mused
to myself. But, like George Washington, I could not tell a lie, so I was
constrained to be forthcoming. "Yes, I know him," I replied. "We are
professional colleagues. I have known him for many years." She was visibly taken
aback by this answer and I feared the worst.

She regained her composure, however, and the interrogation continued. "Have you
read The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews?" "I have heard of it," I
replied truthfully, "but I have not read it. Funny enough, though, I passed
someone selling it on the sidewalk just a few minutes ago." My reading of the
book was still a few months into the future, but already I could not fathom what
all the fuss was about. "If it is established," I suggested to her, "that white
people enslaved Africans, and if Jews were an important part of white society,
then why should anyone be upset by a book that illustrates the Jewish role in
the slave trade?"

My innocent question now appears to have been imbued with prophetic insight. Or
maybe it was simply a case of famous last words. The fact that I cannot remember
with precision what her response was, in an otherwise clearly recollected
conversation, probably reflects the imprecision of her answer. She could not
come up with a coherent rationale for her denunciation of the book. As I reflect
in hindsight on that conversation, with the benefit of six months of the Jewish
onslaught to guide me, it seems as if the major Jewish agencies issue edicts, as
it were. Then the Jewish rank and file simply fall in line. "Theirs not to make
reply,/Theirs not to reason why,/ Theirs but to do and die...." The power of the
Jewish leadership over their constituency is impressive indeed, the presence of
some dissenting voices notwithstanding.

But our conversation was not over yet. It was to take an even more unexpected
turn. "Have you heard of the Crown Heights riots?" she enquired, referring to
tensions between the Black and Hasidic Jewish communities in Brooklyn, New York.
A confrontation had been triggered by the unpunished killing of young Gavin Cato
and the maiming of his cousin Angela Cato by a Hasidic vehicle, as the children
played on the sidewalk in front of their house. A Jewish student, Yankel
Rosenbaum, was killed in the ensuing scuffles. "Yankel Rosenbaum was doing
research right here," she said. "He was in here every day, reading the files,
just like you. He sat at the same table where we have placed your materials."
Even with my own personal Jewish onslaught still many months into the future,
this revelation proved a sobering one to me. And as I ponder it with the benefit
of a tempestuous hindsight, I wonder what inscrutable fate brought me to this
archive, to this conversation, to Yankel Rosenbaum's table, at a time when my
authorship of a book called The Jewish Onslaught would have seemed a bizarre
improbability.

I could not know then that I would ere long be plunged into an intense reading
of Jewish and Black-Jewish history, covering many lands and historical periods,
as I sought to bring to my situation a more wide-ranging perspective. The
onslaught of the last six months now threatens to turn me into an expert on
Jewish history. For that I must thank the purveyors of intolerance with whom I
have had to do battle of late.

What I offer here is an involved yet detached look at the onslaught against me,
from my unique vantage point as both intended victim and historian. This is
written in the heat of battle. Perhaps time, further study and more reflection
may either modify or enrich the analysis offered here. But the immediacy of
analysis can only be captured now.

Over the last six months I have been fairly deluged with articles, books,
newspaper clippings, letters, unpublished documents and references for further
perusal. As if obeying the orders of an unseen force, well-wishers (known and
unknown) have seen to it that my crash course in Black-Jewish history should not
be wanting in resource materials. Even the senders of hate and hostile mail have
fit into the plan, for their clippings have been useful and informative.


Editorial Statement

Barely a week after the publication of The Jewish Onslaught, Wellesley's new
president, Diana Chapman Walsh, has taken the extraordinary step of issuing a
formal denunciation of the new book. In a December 9, 1993 statement
disseminated to all students, faculty, staff, alumnae and "friends of the
college" she declares as follows -- "We are profoundly disturbed and saddened by
Professor Martin's new book because it gratuitously attacks individuals and
groups at Wellesley College through innuendo and the application of racial and
religious stereotype."

Due to President Walsh's newness on campus, it can plausibly be surmised that
she has relied heavily on the opinions of her advisors. The baleful influence of
these shadowy figures is plainly evident in the palpable one-sidedness of the
presidential proclamation, in its reliance on sweeping derogatory
generalizations and in its inability to support its assertions with
documentation of any sort. In all these ways and more the presidential statement
is reflective of official and quasi-official approaches of the last twelve
months.

Our new president has squandered a golden opportunity to bring fresh leadership
and even-handed tolerance to the present controversy.


Martin on the Presidential Denunciation of The Jewish Onslaught

The Jewish Onslaught was published as a response to the unprincipled attacks,
defamatory statements, assaults on my livelihood and physical threats directed
against me for several months. These emanated principally from the Jewish
community and its agents and were triggered by my classroom use of a work
detailing Jewish involvement in the African slave trade. In The Jewish Onslaught
I sought to put my subjective situation into the context of deteriorating
Black-Jewish relations of recent decades. I also attempted to evaluate the
tactics used against me in the context of the well-documented dirty tricks that
the Jewish groups have used against me in the context of the well-documented
dirty tricks that the Jewish groups have used against Andrew Young, Jesse
Jackson, David Dinkins, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Len Jeffries, Black parents in
Ocean Hill-Brownsville (Brooklyn) and any number of Euro-American individuals
and organizations.

The Jewish Onslaught is a book of analysis supported by normal scholarly
documentation. There is not a single "stereotype" or generalization in it that
is not buttressed by evidence, either from my personal experience of the last
year or from the historical record. I challenge President Walsh to move from her
broad derogatory generalizations to specific instances to prove otherwise.

President Walsh, like many of the Jewish spokespersons, has a problem with my
"recurrent" and allegedly "gratuitous" utilization of "racial or religious
identification of individuals...." This is her way of saying that Black people
are not allowed to respond to Jews as Jews. Even after being attacked primarily
by the Hillel Foundation, American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League,
American Jewish Congress, Jewish Community Relations Council and every Jewish
newspaper and spokesperson for miles around, I am supposed to maintain the
fiction that the onslaught against me is ethnically and religiously
indeterminate.

A recent article in Black Books Bulletin mentions over twenty books on
Black-Jewish relations in the personal library of its author. The author is
aware of only two books by Blacks on the subject. If President Walsh (and the
Jewish community) are to have their way, then this will forever remain a one-way
discourse. I therefore ask again, as I asked in The Jewish Onslaught, "What
makes Jews so special? By what dispensation in Adam's will do they enjoy
monopolistic privileges over a debate that concerns Blacks as well as Jews? Who
has placed them beyond the reach of scholarly enquiry and ethnic
identification?"

President Walsh claims that The Jewish Onslaught "violates the basic principles"
of, among other things, the "norms of civil discourse." Yet, in her zeal to
uncover "innuendo" in my work she seems to have missed the blatant lack of
civility in the many articles attacking me. Is she not aware of Professor
Marcellus Andrews' Wellesley News reference to me as a "racist Pied Piper?" Did
no one show her his description of Wellesley's Black women as "intellectually
weak and morally lazy?" Did Mary Lefkowitz, Mellon Professor in the Humanities,
neglect to send President Walsh a complimentary copy of her article in Measure
(No. 118, September/October 1993), wherein she maliciously and scurrilously
alleged that I called a student "a white fucking bitch?" Lefkowitz alleged
further that "The young woman fell down as a result of his onslaught and Martin
bent over to continue his rage at her." Did President Walsh not see, in her
reading of The Jewish Onslaught, the text of a racist cartoon by a Wellesley
alumna in the Boston Jewish Times? The cartoonist designated Black women as "Ms.
Washington" (no different than the "Hymietown" remark that Jews claimed to be so
scandalized by) and seemed to suggest that Black students be taught from the
works of segregationists, Ku Kluxers and pseudo-scientific racists. Did
President Walsh not read the Jewish hate mail reproduced in The Jewish Onslaught
? "I hate niggers to my very bone marrow," ran a typical sentence. "Not all Jews
debate apes. Some of us want them all to die." I have been a veritable oasis of
civility in the present debate.

I agree with Justice Holmes, as quoted by President Walsh -- "The best test of
truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of
the market." The Jewish onslaught has consistently striven to stifle the
"competition of the market" by its defamatory rantings and its demands for my
dismissal. The present presidential proclamation regrettably ranges itself
alongside this ignoble campaign.

But "the competition of the market" has yet managed to assert itself, as can be
seen in the steadily shifting positions of the onslaught. From an initial denial
that Jews had any role in African slavery at all, there slowly emerged a
reluctant admission of minor and peripheral involvement. As the debate
intensified and the Jewish denial of the undeniable threatened to expose its
adherents to ridicule, the Washington Post (first among major newspapers, to the
best of my knowledge), was finally permitted to admit the full extent of Jewish
culpability. In a carefully staged (and not at all pro-Black article) of October
17, 1993 the deniers of Jewish involvement in the African holocaust were shown
to be as wrong as they could be.

The present controversy demands honest dialogue, not crude attempts at
demonization. If President Walsh desires to extricate herself from the hole into
which she has fallen, let her collaborate with me (and with interested
students), on the convening at Wellesley College of a serious scholarly
conference on the role of Jews in the African slave trade. She can invite Skip
Gates, Cornel West and anyone else acceptable to the Jewish establishment to
argue their case. I will nominate an equal number of scholars to defend the
perspective which I endorse. The spirit of Justice Holmes will be lifted.

As my mother used to say, "One hand can't clap." As Ray Charles was wont to
soulfully sing, "It takes two to tango."


Anti Martin Hatred

Internet Threats
Amherst · An Internet computer message suggested the arming of Jews to kill
Blacks immediately following a scholarly address on Black history to the
University of Massachusetts community. This threat of violence appeared in the
Discussion Group for the National Faculty Network, a collection of college
professors throughout the United States. The message was posted to the network
the night of the lecture in which Wellesley College professor Tony Martin
outlined the oppressive structure of the African slave trade. The computer
mailbox address indicated that the writer is a Jewish professor at Mount Holyoke
College in Massachusetts who attended the event:


" Shalom all. I am still shaking right now....I just walked in the door....I
know with the Hillel here we are together in a great community -- working on a
response to the disgusting events of tonight...but for now I am asking all of
you for a response. Learn to operate AK-47, and have good supply of ammunition,
so you will be ready when they come to kill us....



And how do we stop these anti-semites from speaking? I doubt there is a way to
stop them from speaking. They are more numerous and more prepared to use raw
brute force. Even if you could take them to court and win an injuction against
these bastards, it will just be seized upon by the rest of the blacks as further
evidence of a Jewish conspiracy against blacks."

According to campus police, the gathering, sponsored by the Black student
organization, was completely peaceful and the participants were law-abiding.
Martin is the author of thirteen books and numerous articles and is the world's
foremost expert on the Marcus Garvey movement. According to sources, Professor
Martin was immediately informed of the threat but would not comment on security
operations.




Jew Stalks Black professor
Russian-Jewish stalker claiming to be "on a mission" threatened to attack
Professor Tony Martin at his Wellesley College office. Martin, whose
best-selling book The Jewish Onslaught examines the role of organized Jewry in a
slanderous attack on Afrocentricity, was unharmed and not present during the
April 21 incident.

A "profusely sweating" Alexander Nechaevsky, 34, told campus police that after
viewing a televised lecture by Dr. Martin he found him to be "rude and a racist"
and came to "confront" him about his views. In the lecture Martin outlined the
Jewish origin of the Hamitic Myth which claims that Black humans are cursed
black by God and which provided justification for the African slave trade.

Nechaevsky ranted that "he was not a Jewish wimp and that he was from Russia
where they know how to handle things." He then conversed at length with a Jewish
professor who has led the campus onslaught against Martin.

Martin said that he is not surprised at the attack. "Part of the Jewish
onslaught against Black thinkers is to create an atmosphere of intolerance which
leads to violent confrontations."

Police ejected Nechaevsky and banned him from Wellesley College property. Later,
Martin's office received telephone threats saying that "Tony Martin better watch
his step."

Students arrested for heckling Israeli Ambassador at UC Irvine
February 9, 2010
http://jta.org/news/article/2010/02/09/1010535/oren-heckled-by-arab-students-in-\
la

The video:

http://blogs.jta.org/telegraph/article/2010/02/09/1010542/oren-at-irvine


NEW YORK (JTA) -- At least 11 students were arrested for interrupting a lecture
by Israel's U.S. ambassador at a California university.
Michael Oren was interrupted repeatedly during his speech Monday night at the
University of California, Irvine, which for years has been at the center of
campus wars over Israel.

Oren was removed from the stage for a period because of the outbursts, prompting
a university faculty member to take the podium and admonish the crowd, calling
the incident "embarrassing."
Oren returned to finish his speech but did not take questions from the audience,
as was scheduled, Haaretz reported.

In a statement received by the Orange County Register, the university's Muslim
Student Union said, "We condemn and oppose the presence of Michael Oren, the
ambassador of Israel to the United States, on our campus today."

The University of California, Irvine has long been a flashpoint for the Israel
wars on American campuses, with both sides leveling accusations of intimidation.
The Zionist Organization of America complained about the situation to the U.S.
Department of Education, which concluded there was insufficient evidence that
the university had failed to adequately respond to complaints of harassment.

More recently, the ZOA called on the Department of Justice to probe alleged
fund-raising activities on behalf of Hamas by Irvine students.

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My Country Has Been Hijacked"
Munich Peace Rally Speech
By Cynthia McKinney
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24641.htm


Thank you for allowing me to come from the United States and participate in this
rally for peace.

My country has been hijacked by a criminal cabal intent on using the hard-earned
dollars of the American people for war, occupation, and empire.

As a result, the national leadership of my country, both Democratic and
Republican, became complicit in war crimes, torture, crimes against humanity,
and crimes against the peace.

As a Member of Congress from the Democratic Party, I drafted Articles of
Impeachment against George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice.  Later, when
Democrats voted to support more war rather than take care of the needs of the
people, I declared my independence from them and all national leadership; the
Green Party nominated me to run for President, which I did on a platform of
truth, justice, peace, and dignity.

I watched as Candidate Barack Obama came here to Germany to speak.  I saw tears
on the faces of many in the crowd who believed that, finally, there was
something worth believing in again.  That America had turned a page from its
evil playbook that had so outraged and disappointed the world.  That good was
finally about to triumph over evil.

I know that beleaguered people all over the world, victims of cruel and deadly
military, economic, imperial policies finally could believe in hope and change. 
And America could be believed in again.

Everywhere I went all over the world there were pictures of Barack Obama,
slogans "Yes, We Can," and the words "Hope" and "Change" plastered everywhere.

And after eight years of George W. Bush, Barack Obama seemed to be the man the
world was waiting for.

So when the Candidate became the President, we held our breath in anticipation.

That torture and rendition; spying on innocent, dissenting Americans; war and
occupation; crimes against the U.S. Constitution and crimes against the peace
would end and that the United States would finally join the community of
nations.

Sadly, one year into the Presidency of Barack Obama, that is not the case.

On our front door step we have witnessed U.S. complicity in the overthrow of
President Zalaya in Honduras and the hostile takeover of Haiti by 20,000 troops
with guns sent in when the devastated people needed food, doctors, and heavy
lifting equipment.

President Obama is expanding U.S. troop presence in Colombia, threatening the
people's gains in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

President Obama has drones killing innocent people in Pakistan, Afghanistan,
Yemen, and Somalia.  And Administration lawyers are trying to figure out how to
legally kill U.S. citizens.  You even have U.S. assassination teams on German
soil!

Sadly, President Obama is guilty of every item I cited in my Articles of
Impeachment against President Bush.

Both Tony Blair and President Obama justify war in Afghanistan by citing the
tragedy of the September 11th attacks in New York and on the Pentagon.  But my
government has not told the truth about what really happened that day.  Just
like they lied to start a war against Iraq.

So what are we to do? Let us work together on behalf of truth, justice, peace,
and dignity.  I will struggle in the U.S. and I will struggle with you:

Not one more dime for war.


We can't give in and we can't give up.  We must take our countries back.

International Peace Conference, Keynote Address

By Cynthia McKinney

The most recent official report on employment states that 85,000 U.S. jobs were
lost in the month of December.  Everything I have read indicates that things are
going to get a lot worse in the United States before they get better.

Already, the United States has slipped to 7th in the world's best places to
live, behind France, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, and New Zealand. The U.S.
place in the world will slip more than that in the future if the brakes are not
put on current trends.

The United States is rapidly becoming a country even more divided:

Over 31% of Puerto Ricans live in poverty, making them the poorest ethnic group
in the U.S. Meanwhile the war on Latinos continues with police harassment,
racial profiling, and deportations of the undocumented--for driving, if you can
believe that.

Approximately 166 legal cases winding their way through U.S. courts target
Palestinians in the United States who were trying to help Palestine, and they
are being prosecuted with new laws that would have been unthinkable a generation
ago—like the Secret Evidence Act.  My sister, Lynne Stewart, an activist lawyer
of conscience, sits in a U.S. prison right now because she dared to represent a
Muslim cleric who ran afoul of the U.S.  What a message that sends to other
lawyers committed to the notion that everyone at least deserves a fair trial.

According to United for a Fair Economy, whose work I adore, Black unemployment
is now at 14.7 percent compared to 8.7 % for whites.  And in 2007, for every
dollar of white wealth, a black family had just one dime.

From the sub-prime banking scam alone, because of mortgage foreclosures, Blacks
and Latinos are currently experiencing the greatest loss of wealth in recent
U.S. history because 53% of blacks and 47% of Latinos were saddled with
sub-prime mortgages, as compared to only 26% of whites.  The greedy banking
class were in a feeding frenzy, feeding on black and brown hopes to become a
part of the American Dream.

According to a recent study, U.S. schools today are more segregated than in the
1950s.  In our most diverse state, California, one-half of black and Asian
students attend segregated schools, as do one fourth of Latino and Native
American students.

And, young black girls are experiencing unwanted sterilizations and other
complications because of forced vaccinations with an experimental drug in these
schools.

In 1954, the Supreme Court found that segregation inherently meant "unequal."

Correspondingly, schools in low-income areas are highly unequal with not even
the slightest remediation of the root societal causes that strongly affect
student performance.

This of course feeds quite nicely into the prison-industrial complex that is a
nice money-maker for those with the disposable income to invest in the private
prisons of the U.S., or are lucky enough to have a business that contracts with
the prisons to employ U.S. inmates for pennies an hour.

Yes, the United States, imprisoning more people than any country on the planet,
has become an incarceration nation, but only for certain people.  Be suspected
of being a Latino driving without a drivers license and you can get stopped and
deported for having one tail light bulb that's out; but Presidents George Bush,
Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama can order the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
innocents all over the planet and they walk around free without the worry of
even a citizen's arrest, let alone a warrant from a real, legal Tribunal.

Incredibly, Whites whose fortunes were sinking in the pile of unkept political
promises and debilitating U.S. national debt were proselytized to by special
interest media that hatred of the "other" was OK.  There was little national
outrage when Pat Robertson said that Hugo Chavez should be assassinated and
then, more recently, when this man of the cloth opined that Haitians suffered so
much because they made a deal with the devil to throw off French slavery.

Incredibly, while a record number of Blacks are seeking emergency food
assistance, and people of color are losing not only their homes, but their
dreams too, FOX News and CNN propagandize that it is those "others," those
people of color who are responsible for the drowning of White America. And that
includes President Obama who, one Southern Baptist preacher prayed to God should
die.  I wonder, who is his God?

True to fashion, the news that is watched by most people in the United States
refuses to tell the people the truth of the conditions facing too many in our
country and why.

However, according to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, certain
Whites also constitute part of the problem: according to her they are
environmentalists and white supremacists. Interestingly, hatred spewing from the
likes of special interest television hosts seems OK as long as they buy into the
Republican/Democrat political paradigm and stay there.

Napolitano's enemies of the state, White supremacists and environmentalists,
left that conformist paradigm over two generations ago.  And I believe that any
of us who leave that paradigm, and begin to think for ourselves and then act
politically on our own independent, critical analysis can begin to put our
country on the road to real independence from the special interests that have
overtaken every aspect of our governmental, legal, and political apparatus, and
like a parasite, has sapped the life from our body politic.

But leaving the acceptable political order puts us in the crosshairs of those
whose position and power come from it.

And because the United States today is a rudderless, leaderless, divided society
coming apart at the seams, now is the time more than ever that we need to employ
what public schools in this country stopped supplying long ago:  critical
thinking about where we want to stand as a community of nations and where we in
the United States want to stand as a country.

And this brings me to the real winners in the midst of this socio-economic
collapse.  Most people spend so much time looking at the losers in such a
scenario, and we must care about the innocent victims that pay the ultimate
price in the grand political power plays of our day.  But, we must not neglect
taking the time to study who it is that is actually sneaking off with the stolen
merchandise.

There are real winners and they are the ones whom George Bush called his base: 
that is, the haves and the have mores.

President Obama has hastened approximately 23.7 trillion of our hard-earned
dollars to them. Therefore, the real purpose of our political activity must be
to thwart the wholesale theft of a nation under the guise of "Hope," "Change,"
and "Yes we Can."

That is the only purpose our political activities must now be geared toward.

It means then, that, those of us who have stepped outside of the "acceptable"
political paradigm must be willing to break bread with one another and find
common ground on which we can operate. My experience has been that such
interactions only enhance future opportunities for positive political
interactions.

A careful read of the COINTELPRO papers will reveal that the biggest fear inside
the government was that the interests of those who pulled the strings would get
totally engulfed and swallowed up by Black people and White people coming
together during that time, of the civil rights movement and beyond, and
successfully pressing for a full justice agenda that encompassed both domestic
AND foreign policies.  If they were afraid of that then, I guarantee you they
are still afraid of it, now.

Secondly, the leadership of this new movement cannot be the leadership that is
responsible for the death of the truth, justice, and peace movements inside the
United States.

Going to the same people who caused the problem by abandoning their
publicly-stated convictions is not going to get us closer to the truth or peace.

This means that we might have to thin our ranks, but we will at least know that
those deep in the trenches with us are not sleeping with the enemy.

Finally, we need a voting bloc that places peace and the budget priorities of
peace and people's needs above any other special interest.  This voting bloc
will not support any candidate running for office from The War Party.  Because
it should be crystal clear to everyone who cares about peace that we can't get
from here to where we want to be by doing what those who are responsible for
this mess want us to do.  We've got to do something different in order to take
our country back and make our country better.

The fact is that unless we are willing to step outside of the box of political
conformity, we will continue to get what we've always gotten.

Now, finally for the record, let me say that I left Congress, not because I
wanted to, but because the special interests and the War Party wanted me out.

What could I have possibly done to raise their ire?

Well, for the twelve years that I was in Congress, I:


1. Filed articles of impeachment against George Bush, Dick Cheney, and
Condoleeza Rice;

2. Voted against every Pentagon appropriation, considering it immoral to spend
so much money on war when millions of our children go to bed hungry every night;

3. Defied Congressional Democratic Party leaders, by holding a Congressional
Hearing exploring the role of race and class in the government's response to
Hurricane Katrina and introduced legislation to punish law enforcement that
prevented the mostly Black citizens fleeing the floodwaters from crossing over
from New Orleans into its mostly White suburbs;

4. Wrote legislation to ban the importation of coltan from the Democratic
Republic of Congo into the United States because of the horrific human rights
abuses committed during its mining;

5. Was the first Member of Congress to ask the Bush Administration of the
September 11, 2001 attack on the United States, what did it know and when did it
know it; and I

6. Led the Congressional Black Caucus Task Force at the 2001 World Conference
Against Racism, defying President Bush's boycott.

Currently, I am an endorser of the Brussels Tribunal that cooperated in the
filing of a lawsuit in Spain against all the U.S. Presidents responsible for war
crimes in Iraq.

I participate in the Malaysia Peace Organization's efforts to criminalize war,
establish a War Crimes Tribunal, and hold leaders accountable for their wars.

And in December of 2008, I tried to take humanitarian supplies to the people of
Gaza after the start of Operation Cast Lead and the Israeli military rammed and
destroyed our boat.

In June 2009, I tried to take crayons to the children of Gaza and the Israelis
hijacked our boat, kidnapped us, took us to Israel, where I spent seven days in
an Israeli prison.

I do with my body what I did with my Congressional office.

I left Washington because the pro-Israel Lobby was able to utilize all of its
leverage inside both the Democratic and Republican parties target and oust me. 
They ousted me because I dared to believe that all human beings, including
Palestinians, have human rights.

In 2007, at a peace rally in front of the Pentagon, I did what I am now asking
one million U.S. voters to do:  I declared my independence from a national
leadership that had caused my country to become complicit in war crimes,
torture, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace.

I joined the Green Party and in 2008, ran for President of the United States.  I
traveled the length and breadth of my country and now I travel the world
carrying a message of truth, justice, peace, and dignity.  I spent approximately
10 of the 12 months in 2009 outside of the country.

But, I'm being told now by my friends and supporters that it's time to come back
home.  That the real heavy lifting is inside our country.  That if we want life
to be better for the people in the refugee camps all over the world, that we've
got to change the policies coming out of Washington, D.C.

My very first campaign theme was "Warriors Don't Wear Medals, They Wear Scars." 
And I've borne my scars in public for all the world to see.

And honestly, sometimes, I wonder if it's worth it.  I take a look at where the
world is and I say what could I possibly do to stop this.

And then, I think of the people of Gaza whom I saw after Israel's Operation Cast
Lead.  I saw in Gaza, the indomitable spirit of humanity.  Despite the pain, the
murder, the killing, the destruction--I saw life.  I experienced love.

But we don't have to go to Gaza to gain inspiration to continue to struggle.  If
we just dare to look into the eyes of the homeless man looking for a warm bed,
or the tired face of a mother on her way to work at 6:00 in the morning when
it's still dark, if we would just dare to love the nameless human beings whose
lives turn on the policies that powerful politicians choose to support or
ignore, I know we can become inspired.  And in the process, spark some bit of
hope in the desperate and the hopeless.

No one deserves to be hopeless.

So, I've come a long way to be with you.  And I thank you for the invitation.

When we were organizing our "Emergency Anti-Afghanistan Escalation Rally" in
front of the White House, one of my supporters reminded me of my own saying: "We
must never give in when we are right."

Peace is right and we must never give up.

Thank you so much for giving me this time to share with you this evening.

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Evacuation of most civilians will give commanders leeway to use air-to-ground
missiles which have enraged Afghans


Thousands of Civilians Flee Afghan Region as Nato Plans Onslaught
by Jon Boone
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Guardian/UK
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/06-0


KABUL - Ten of thousands of Afghan civilians are abandoning an area of central
Helmland where UK and US forces are set to launch one of the biggest operations
of the year.

British troops during a firefight with Taliban forces in Helmand. Photograph:
Major Paul Smyth/PA/MoDThe evacuation of most civilians from the town of Marjah
and surrounding areas will give commanders greater leeway to use
mortars-and-air-to ground missiles which have enraged Afghans in the past when
responsible for civilian deaths.
US generals have unusually made no secret of their plan for a major onslaught
against the town close to Helmand's besieged provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.

Larry Nicholson, commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force which will
spearhead the fight, has said he is "not looking for a fair fight".

Marjah is regarded as a stronghold of both Taliban insurgents and drug
trafficking networks which must be removed to "protect" the people who live
there. But so far the warnings have only had the effect of encouraging civilians
to flee.

Abdul Salam, who has an extended family of 14 in the Marjah area, said his
village looked almost deserted as most of its families had left for the cities
of Lashkar Gah, Kandahar and Herat.

"They just picked up their jewellery and other small valuables and left
everything behind," he said.

However, some civilians had remained because they could not afford to leave.

"People know they cannot protect everything, and they are more concerned about
saving their lives than their houses. The people cannot protect their country
from the infidels, so how can we protect our houses?"

The counterinsurgency plan pushed by Stanley McChrystal, the US commander of all
Nato forces in Afghanistan, aims not to alienate the population. But a Marjah
resident, an elder reached by phone, who was not prepared to give his name, said
he had evacuated his family a week ago because he feared "the worst attack
ever".

"Always when they storm a village the foreign troops never care about civilian
casualties at all. And at the end of the day they report the deaths of women and
children as the deaths of Taliban," he said.

A spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, as the Nato troops
are known, said that the main reason for publicity for the operation was to
encourage insurgents to leave, but if civilians were also encouraged to evacuate
that would be "helpful".

Most of the extra 30,000 US troops earmarked for the Afghan campaign will
support Nato efforts in areas where the alliance has a presence, in a bid to
keep insurgents out of villages. The battle for Marjah will therefore be a
relatively rare push into an area not yet cleared of insurgents.

It is regarded as particularly important because an estimated 100,000 people
live in the area - a relatively dense population for a largely desert province
dotted with rural communities.

Marjah is also on the south-western doorstep of Lashkar Gah, home to the
headquarters of the British military and civilian efforts in the province.

The fraught security in Lashkar Gah was highlighted yesterday when a motorbike
packed with explosives detonated close to a crowd gathered on the city outskirts
to watch a dog fight; it killed at least three people and injured at least 26,
including seven children.

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Power cut to about 50% of Gazans as fuel runs out
Sun, 07 Feb 2010
PressTV


Children play near Gaza's only power plant.


One of the two generators of Gaza's only power plant has been shut down due to a
shortage of fuel, cutting power to around 50 percent of the residents of the
Gaza Strip.

The Gaza Energy Authority announced on Saturday that the remaining amount of
fuel is enough to operate the other generator until Sunday morning.

The capacity of Gaza's only power plant has been curtailed to 30 megawatts, and
power may have to be cut to another 10 percent of the residents of the Gaza
Strip if bad weather continues since it causes electrical malfunctioning, the
energy authority added.

The fuel for the plant is purchased from and delivered by Israel, via trucks
through the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza.

The Gaza Energy Authority has called on international parties, Arab states, and
members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference to end Gaza's power crisis
by holding the Ramallah-based Ministry of Finance responsible for decreasing the
fuel allowance into Gaza, which it said mirrored Israel's blockade policy on the
Strip.

A European Union contract paying for fuel shipments expired on November 30,
2009, Kan'an Obeid, the deputy manager of the Gaza Energy Authority, said on
Thursday.

While the EU had been providing the service after the contract expired, EU
officials recently notified the Gaza Energy Authority that they would no longer
pay for the fuel shipments unless the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah drafted
a new agreement and payment scheme.

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Seven Pakistani nationals are being held at Guantanamo Bay, but if it keeps the
Americans happy, the government in Islamabad doesn't care


Pleasing Mr Obama
By Fatima Bhutto
http://freedetainees.org/4350


Zachary represents scores of America's most secretly guarded prisoners. When he
meets his clients, they are often chained to the ground in shackles. He told me
how some of the guards at the prison are 18-year-olds, suckered into the job
with the lure of extra pay and the promise that they are a buttress against the
aspirations of global terrorism. Visits from the Dallas Cowboys football
cheerleaders and Victoria's Secret lingerie models, who have dropped by to rally
the troops, make the difficult job and the long hours away from home
occasionally worthwhile.

But last June, when I met Zachary, a lawyer with Reprieve – the British
organisation set up by Clive Stafford Smith to defend the rights of prisoners
across the world – we weren't there to talk about him. Reprieve, which has a
tiny office in Islamabad, was trying to drum up interest in Pakistan for the
seven of its nationals being held in Guantanamo. Reprieve staff made the rounds;
they called up the foreign minister and other notables in the PPP-led government
hoping to convince them to lobby for their prisoners. No one bit; government
officials did not seem to be terribly concerned.

Pakistan is a premier ally in the war on terror and it is with a certain amount
of pride that the government proclaims that the road to Guantanamo started here
in Pakistan. According to Reprieve, several Pakistani prisoners at Guantanamo
were handed over for huge rewards, resulting in dubious profiteering by the
state.

While other allies in the war on terror, including Britain under the divinely
inspired Tony Blair and (surprisingly) Saudi Arabia, demanded the return of
their citizens, calling their detainment at Gitmo unacceptable by their
country's legal standards, Pakistan seems not to have put up much of a fight.
There are no Pakistani lawyers working directly on the cases of Pakistani
nationals held at the prison, no local NGOs involved in the case of defending
Pakistanis incarcerated abroad.

Katznelson was in Pakistan to speak about one citizen in particular – Saifullah
Paracha, a businessman from Karachi who disappeared during a 2003 business trip
to Bangkok. Paracha, who exported textiles to the United States, never left
Bangkok airport or cleared immigration, and it was weeks before his family
learned that he was being held at a US airbase in Bagram, Afghanistan. Paracha,
whose eldest son was also taken into custody, was eventually moved to Guantanamo
where, for the first two years, he had no legal representation.

He suffers heart problems, and has yet to see the complete evidence used to keep
him as a guest of the US prison system.

The charges against Paracha are tenuous and vague. It is alleged that he helped
al-Qaeda and that he ran a terror network. He did not. He had met, through his
business dealings, several dubious sorts, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the
"principal architect" of the 11 September 2001 attacks, and even Osama Bin
Laden, but these meetings occurred before the men became infamous, no money has
changed hands, and no contact or links were maintained.

Paracha's 16-year-old daughter, Zahra, has not seen her father for six years.
"It's mind-boggling to me to even think about my father and brother because they
are, in essence, political prisoners of a cold war between America and imaginary
terrorists," she wrote in an email to me. Now, she despairs at getting justice
under the new US administration because already, in 2009, the issue of
Guantanamo is beginning to seem stale: a talking point a new president discusses
at press conferences, a faraway jail we've never been bothered enough about to
deal with.

Barack Obama's administration has pledged to close down Guantanamo; the closure
of the prison is a priority, it has been said. But the president's conservative
opponents won't give up Gitmo without a battle, warning that an exodus of
prisoners is unlikely to make America a safer place.

In an article in the Washington Post on 5 February, Jim Riches, a retired
firefighter who lost his son Jimmy in the 11 September 2001 attacks, is reported
as saying this of President Obama's decision on Guantanamo: "I want to let them
[the government] know that these men are dangerous."

Zahra, who created a website to publicise her father's case when she was 13
years old, thinks the "average American doesn't give a damn" about the
illegality of her father's and brother's arrest and detention. She might be
right. Unfortunately, it seems that the average Pakistani doesn't care much,
either.

In Pakistan, the government is hard at work ensuring that Afghanistan doesn't
turn out to be Obama's Vietnam, as ominously declared by Newsweek this month.
Since the new administration took office, Pakistan's northern areas have been
subject to three unmanned drone attacks. President Asif Ali Zardari made the
bizarre choice, in the run-up to these attacks, of presenting the US assistant
secretary of state Richard Boucher (they call him Richard Butcher here in
Karachi) and Joe Biden with the national Hilal-e-Imtiaz award for their
"services to Pakistan".

So, nothing has changed since Obama's election, for Pakistan at least. Nor, with
talks of an Afghan surge and troop increase, are they likely to change for the
imprisoned Pakistanis any time soon.

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Khadr is drawing the Obama administration into a fierce debate over the
propriety of putting a child soldier on trial.


Former boy soldier, youngest Guantanamo detainee, heads toward
military tribunal
By Peter Finn
Washington Post
http://snipurl.com/ubyef
[http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103028329089&s=108072&e=0017Q_xz60XSrk1BbieGo2OrS\
4vXgcnlhXys9o34-xZC3G4olQCB833yHSspK403UerMNwm0bKeaTyKVDUtB4OXNkXwWVWf_KHVUyH5ox\
Qs5f10S7qBdy-UcA==]


Omar Khadr, the youngest detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was 15 when he
allegedly threw a grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces medic in
Afghanistan. Now, more than seven years later, Khadr is drawing the Obama
administration into a fierce debate over the propriety of putting a child
soldier on trial.

The struggle against al-Qaeda has thrown up few detainees with as baleful and
unlikely a background as Khadr's -- a father who moved his family to Afghanistan
and inside Osama bin Laden's circle of intimates when Omar was 10; a mother and
sister who said the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were deserved; and a brother, the
black sheep of the clan, who said he became a CIA asset after his capture in
Afghanistan.

This background has convinced U.N. officials, human rights advocates and defense
lawyers that Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was an indoctrinated child soldier and,
in line with international practice in other conflicts, should be rehabilitated,
not prosecuted.

"The U.N. position is that children should not be prosecuted for war crimes,"
said Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N. special representative for children and
armed conflict, after meeting administration officials in October.

But U.S. government officials said they expect to go to trial at Guantanamo Bay
in July and will put Khadr before a jury of military officers on multiple war
crimes charges, including murder. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has said
that the Khadr prosecution is one of six detainee cases assigned to a military
commission rather than federal court.

Holder's decision initially drew little notice amid the clamor that followed the
simultaneous announcement that Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other alleged
conspirators in the Sept. 11 attacks would be tried in New York.

But the Khadr case could prove to be another lightning rod in the debate over
the administration's detention and prosecution decisions, sparking the kind of
international scrutiny that few other military tribunals will generate.

Khadr's fate seems increasingly certain. Last month, Canada's Supreme Court
ruled unanimously that it would not compel the Canadian government to seek his
repatriation, as it had been previously ordered to do. Now, Khadr's case will
probably be the first full military commission trial under President Obama.


Grenades from the rubble


On July 27, 2002, U.S. Special Forces working with Afghan troops surrounded a
compound in a village in eastern Afghanistan. When those inside refused to
surrender -- and opened fire, killing two Afghan soldiers -- Apache attack
helicopters, A-10 Warthog fighter jets and, finally, two F-18 jets unleashed
their arsenals, reducing the hideout to rubble.

When the dust settled, American forces approached the ruined compound, only to
be blasted by a grenade thrown by someone inside. Delta Force 1st Sgt.
Christopher Speer, a father of two, would die more than a week later at a
military hospital in Germany. Another Special Forces soldier, Sgt. Layne Morris,
was blinded in one eye by another grenade.

Inside the compound was one survivor, Khadr, who had been shot twice in the
chest.

Military prosecutors, who charge that Khadr threw the deadly grenade, said the
Canadian's age does not excuse his actions. They note that a military judge in
2008 rejected a defense motion that the commissions did not have jurisdiction
over the crimes of a child soldier.

"His age, family background, the culture he grew up in are all going to be part
of a trial, and they are all going to be factors that the members can consider,"
said Navy Capt. John F. Murphy, the chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay,
referring to the military term for jurors. "We're not hiding from the fact that
he was 15 years old. . . . Even in our traditional court system, we try
15-years-olds, and we try them as adults."

There is no strict international prohibition against prosecuting child soldiers,
but there is a general consensus on the issue. The U.N.-backed Special Court for
Sierra Leone, for example -- which was set up to try people accused of grave
human rights violations -- allowed the prosecution of people 15 and older, but
no minors were put on trial.

"I could have prosecuted anyone under the age of 18 for war crimes and crimes
against humanity, but I chose not to," said David M. Crane, the former chief
prosecutor for the Sierra Leone court and a law professor at Syracuse
University. "I didn't think any person under that age had the requisite mens
rea, the evil-thinking mind, to commit a war crime. It's a rare thing, almost
unheard of, that we prosecute children."

But Michael A. Newton, a former State Department official who helped set up the
Sierra Leone court, said Crane's exercise of prosecutorial discretion carries no
weight in other legal settings.

"The key issue is: Does international law prohibit the prosecution of people
below the age of 18? And the answer is no," said Newton, a professor of law at
Vanderbilt University. "It's disfavored but not prohibited. Remedial training
and rehabilitation is the norm. Prosecution is the exception, but prosecution is
not prohibited."

Murphy also pointed out "a historic basis to charging minors and prosecuting
them in commissions." He noted that the United States and Britain prosecuted
Nazi minors in military tribunals after World War II, and that some were
imprisoned.

American attorneys for Khadr, now 23, said they will continue to press the
argument that their client, as an alleged juvenile offender, should not be tried
in a military tribunal.

"Omar Khadr is not in Afghanistan but for his father," said Kobie Flowers, one
of Khadr's attorneys. "He conscripted the boy -- and what choice did Omar have?"


Living with al-Qaeda

Khadr's father, Ahmed Said Khadr, immigrated to Canada from Egypt as a young
man, and his mother, Maha Elsamnah, a Palestinian raised in Egypt and Saudi
Arabia, moved to Canada with her family when she was 17. Drawn first to the
anti-Soviet jihad, Ahmed Said and his kin shuttled back and forth between Canada
and Pakistan, where the family patriarch worked for an Islamic charity. In 1995,
the father was detained in connection with a bomb attack on the Egyptian Embassy
in Islamabad, but the charges were eventually dropped.

The following year, Omar Khadr moved to Afghanistan, and he and his family
briefly lived inside bin Laden's compound outside Jalalabad and were frequent
visitors to another, outside Kandahar. Khadr's older brothers attended al-Qaeda
training camps, according to Canadian reports.

The family was in Kabul when the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were
attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, and fled into Pakistan. But the father sent Khadr
back into Afghanistan with an al-Qaeda operative, Abu Laith al-Libi. The
Pentagon alleges that Khadr received military training and, just before his
capture, joined an al-Qaeda unit making improvised explosive devices to attack
U.S. forces.

Khadr's father remained in Pakistan, where he was killed in a shootout with
Pakistani forces in October 2003. One of his sons, Kareem, was shot and
paralyzed in the firefight. Another son, Abdurahman, told the Canadian
Broadcasting Corp. that he cooperated with the CIA after his capture in
Afghanistan and was inserted into the prison at Guantanamo Bay to gather
intelligence. He said he eventually broke off the relationship with the agency
after it sent him to Bosnia, where he was supposed to infiltrate extremist
groups. The CIA declined to comment.

Omar's mother, while still in Pakistan, outraged the Canadian public and
dismayed Khadr's attorneys when she said of the Sept. 11 attacks in a CBC
documentary: "Let them have it." Added his sister, Zaynab, only her eyes visible
behind a black head cover, "You don't want to feel happy, but you just sort of
think, well, they deserve it."

The Canadian government has shown little interest in getting Khadr back, and
antipathy in Ottawa is driven in significant part because of public disdain for
his family. They are known by some as "Canada's first family of terrorism."

Questions of evidence

Defense lawyers said Holder's assignment of the Khadr case to the military
illustrates the Obama administration's acceptance of a two-tier system of
justice in which flawed evidence that would be disallowed in federal court can
be admitted in a tribunal.

The government defends its decision.

"The forum decision in the Khadr case was made after a careful assessment of all
the factors identified" in a protocol developed by the Justice and Defense
departments, said Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman. "Although we cannot
discuss how all the protocol factors were applied to the Khadr case or other
specific cases, we note that this case involves a grenade attack on U.S.
soldiers in a war zone, that the defendant was apprehended in a war zone in the
context of active hostilities, and that the case was initially investigated and
evidence gathered by military personnel."

Flowers, Khadr's attorney, said government lawyers indicated at a meeting in
early November that they would introduce statements in a military commission
that they would not use if the case went to federal court. A Pentagon
spokeswoman declined to discuss any meeting with the defense.

Khadr's attorneys said the government's case is riddled with problems.

They said that their client was tortured in military custody and that all
statements, even if given later and seemingly voluntarily to FBI agents, are
contaminated by the alleged earlier abuse, which, they said, included threats of
rape, stress positions and the use of snarling dogs.

Flowers also challenged the government's contention that Khadr threw the grenade
that killed Speer. "The evidence," he said, "is extremely problematic."

But soldiers involved in the firefight that led to Speer's death and Khadr's
capture have no such doubts. Morris, the blinded Special Forces soldier, who
lives in Utah, said Khadr should remain in U.S. custody.

"Mr. Khadr is where he needs to be, and he needs to stay there for a long time,"
Morris said.

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Elie Wiesel's Ignoble Recruits
By JOHN WALSH
http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh02172010.html


Is there nothing that is safe from debasement by the propaganda machine of the
U.S. and Israel?  A full-page ad in the Sunday NYT of February 7 provides the
answer.  Sponsored by Elie Wiesel's modestly named  "The Elie Wiesel Foundation
for Humanity," and signed by 44 Nobel Laureates, 35 of them in the physical
sciences, it urges brutal and lethal actions against Iran.

Before getting to the cruel prescriptions, which Wiesel and his recruits offer
for Iran, let us consider their reasoning such as it is.  In a single brief
topic sentence they assert their central claim that the Iranian government
"whose irresponsible and senseless nuclear ambitions threaten the entire world
continues to wage a shameless war against its own people."  Two charges are
fired off in this brief sentence, and it is all too easy to conflate them.  So
let us take them one at a time, as is the habit in science when one wishes for
clarification.

The first charge deals with Iran's nuclear "ambitions," but the ad does not say
what these ambitions are.  And then it asserts without evidence that such
"ambitions" threaten "the entire world."  This is certainly a very grave charge,
and some scintilla of evidence should be offered for it.  But none is provided,
not one word, not even a footnote or reference in this spacious advert.  Yes,
such allegations are made repeatedly and vehemently by government figures in Tel
Aviv and Washington and by many segments of the US and Israeli press.  But what
is the evidence for these allegations?  Many of them turn out to be false as
exemplified by a recent AP story, which was pulled after being exposed on
Antiwar.com by Jason Ditz.  Many of the same voices which now warn that Iran is
a nuclear threat "to the entire world" assured us not long ago that Saddam
Hussein was connected to Al Qaeda and that he had weapons of mass destruction,
both of which turned out to be shameless lies.  And is it not strange that
Russia and China, so proximate to Iran, are not obsessed, as is the U.S. about
this threat to "the entire world"?  The signatories of the ad ought not to make
such intemperate and incendiary assertions without at least a reference to
unimpeachable evidence.  No such reference is provided.  Is this the proper
standard of thought and reason, which a Nobel in the physical sciences implies?

The second claim wrapped up in the topic sentence is that the Iranian government
is engaging in a "shameless war on its own people."   This too is quite a
striking charge, going far beyond the usual charge that the recent Iranian
elections were rigged which in fact does not appear to be the case.   In what
does this "shameless war" consist.  Certainly there are human rights abuses and
striking ones in Iran, just as there are in many countries who are US allies,
but that does not amount to a government's "war on its own people." The U.S. and
Israel make charges against Iran almost daily, and so Iran is certain to be
demonized in our elite press which so often functions as stenographer for the
government.  The same media treatment was given Iraq so very recently, and it is
amazing that this fact did not deter the signatories from the intemperate
statements in this ad.  Earlier under the presidency of Bush I we were treated
to stories of infants being pulled from incubators and discarded on hospital
floors in Kuwait by Iraqi troops during the run up to the US attack on Iraq in
the first Gulf War.  These charges uttered by Bush I himself were lies,
concocted by a P.R. firm, as we later learned.

Given that there are human rights abuses in Iran, although we do not know their
extent, two questions arise.  Who are we to criticize Iran when our own
government has been abducting, secretly detaining and torturing people all over
the planet?  Historically, the CIA overthrew the duly elected Iranian government
of Mossadegh in the 1950s and installed the Shah whose brutality was legendary
and who was eventually ousted in 1979.   Today the CIA is still engaging in
"extraordinary renditions" under Obama as it did under Bush and probably before.
And Israel is equally guilty of crimes against humanity with the Apartheid order
it is imposing in the occupied territories, as Jimmy Carter demonstrated in his
recent book, this being the most egregious of human rights violations since it
is based on ethnicity.

Now let us turn to the vicious prescriptions called for by Wiesel and his
recruits.  They first call for "harsher sanctions," without any mention of
restrictions on such sanctions.  We already know that sanctions as practiced by
the U.S. are a recipe for massive death and destruction.   We know what the
years of sanctions did to Iraq under the presidencies of Clinton and Bush II. 
When Madeleine Albright was informed in a notorious TV interview that 500,000
Iraqi children had died due to those sanctions, she did not deny it but replied
"This is a very hard choice, but ... we think the price is worth it."  Do the
signers of this ad agree with Albright's assessment in the case of Iraq and now
Iran?  Sanctions are far from harmless and they fall hardest on the helpless and
rarely on the powerful.  In 2000 Christian Aid stated:

"The immediate consequence of eight years of sanctions has been a dramatic fall
in living standards, the collapse of the infrastructure, and a serious decline
in the availability of public services. The longer-term damage to the fabric of
society has yet to be assessed but economic disruption has already led to
heightened levels of crime, corruption and violence. Competition for
increasingly scarce resources has allowed the Iraqi state to use clan and
sectarian rivalries to maintain its control, further fragmenting Iraqi society."

And yet Wiesel's recruits call for sanctions almost casually.  They would do
well to read Brian Cloughey's essay on "The Evil of Sanctions," and the sources
to which he refers.

But Wiesel's recruits do not stop there.  They go on to call for "concrete
measures" to protect the "new nation of dissidents in Iran."  But these concrete
measures are not spelled out.  What could they be?  There are only two that
appear on the lips of those who are demonizing Iran these days in Tel Aviv and
Washington:  "sanctions" and "war."  This ad will certainly be used by those who
wish to attack Iran, as Israel has threatened.  Do the signers understand this? 
Since they are intelligent men and women, they must.  Are they then calling for
war?

In signing onto Wiesel's statement, the Laureates have put themselves in very
questionable company.  Although he claims to speak out for "human rights,"
Wiesel is very selective in the cases he chooses.  He has not and will not
criticize Israel and its Apartheid policies, and in fact attacks those who do. 
In an interview with Haaretz wherein Wiesel announced his ad campaign, he
"blasted Judge Richard Goldstone, saying his report on the Israeli offensive in
Gaza was "a crime against the Jewish people."   Goldstone's report is in fact
quite mild, but it makes clear that the crimes of Israel against the
Palestinians of Gaza are atrocities much like those in Sabra and Shatilla years
ago.  Do Wiesel's recruits know that his view of human rights is quite
selective?

One cannot know the motives that drove Wiesel's recruits to sign such a
thoughtless and cruel document.   Certainly the document reflects the wave of
propaganda on Iran to which we are all subjected.  But that is no excuse.  These
are after all intelligent men and women and should see through such propaganda,
given our recent and historical experience.  Certainly this writer holds many of
these signers in great regard, and one can only hope that their signatures were
obtained without time to examine the matter properly.  In this case a retraction
is in order.  Finally, one cannot help but wonder whether Wiesel's recruits felt
that signing on to such a statement would be fine now that Obama is in charge
and he is a man they can trust.  If so, this is another sign of the gift to the
Empire that is Obama.

In the end Wiesel's signers, Nobel Laureates though they may be, are of small
stature next to those giants of science, humanitarians as well as thinkers, who
were unafraid to take on authority in their work and in their role as citizens.
Einstein and Galileo and many others must be tossing in their tombs over
Weisel's handiwork.


John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@....

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Verdict on Dr Afia
By Saeed Qureshi
http://www.uprightopinion.com


When Dr Afia was first picked up by the moles of intelligence in March 2003 in
Pakistan against the charge of her association with the Al-Qaida terrorists. She
was secretly kept in Afghanistan's notorious Bagram prison for 5 years without
any trial. Finally when a British female journalist disclosed her presence by
hearing her screams as prisoner number 650, the concerned American authorities
reluctantly moved her to the United States. Here too it took considerable amount
of time for her case of abetment of Islamic terrorist to be initiated before the
court.

But while the previous charge seems to have been pushed on the back burner, a
new charge was framed and brought against her. She was accused of snatching a
gun from an American soldier with a view to fire at him. Now when one looks at
the hearing the whole case put up by the prosecution is replete with
contradictions. It is utterly unimaginable for a delicate, educated women
reduced to a skinny skeleton of bones after years of rigorous incarceration to
first snatch a gun and then aim at some one. The whole incident took place
behind a curtain with no direct witness.

The case otherwise calls for mercy to the defendant on humanitarian grounds.
Someone from the American penal and legal system should have a heart and honest
courage to point out the clumsy way she is being prosecuted in the American
court. A totally mentally and physically broken women whose fault or crime is
yet to be established conclusively, has been so much brutalized that one
disdains the claims of the upholders of human rights and refinement of human
civilization in the present age of enlightenment.

Even if there was scuffle that in normal circumstances can take place, did she
deserve 5 years of unwarranted stay in one of the most horrifying prisons of
wild land called Afghanistan? Have a heart and look closely at the credentials
of the case that even a child can figure out  is frivolous  and is being blown
out of proportion by the quarters who would in any case like her to be declared
a convict. The justice stands totally wounded and abandoned by the people who
are so powerful to get a convoluted verdict irrespective of the merits of the
case.

Dr. Afia, a U. S. citizen and a refined woman did not actually hurt anyone, did
not injure any one nor was implicated in any offence that would entitle her to
such a long jail term without trial which she has already gone through. By all
indications she is a law abiding US citizen with good academic record. What is
called Christian mercy was not shown to her and where is the noble concept of
benefit of doubt?

She has never been given a chance to give her point of view so that there would
have been a clearer picture whether she was wrongly picked upon mere doubt or
there was some substance behind that. After all she is an American citizen but
perhaps her tag of being a Muslim American is an anathema to her tormenters who
in any case wanted to prove them justified. Who is going to restore to her the 7
years of her life that this sophisticated women spent in the stinking and
dreadful dungeon of Afghanistan and in U.S. prison.

Her children were not her accomplices if at all she came under suspicion of her
abductors. How and why these innocent souls were made to suffer so enormously?
Has the conscience of the entire world gone dead? What kind of war on terror is
being waged when the pristine concept of justice is audaciously trampled to the
extent that the future of the small kids of a suspect female also stands
darkened?

The trust of fair trial for those who are rightly or mistakenly apprehended
loses its validity when seen the crude and discriminate way all are targeted
alike: the hardened and proven criminals and those with scant suspicion or
drummed up charges like Dr. Afia.

Since Dr. Afia has already suffered immensely and perhaps unjustifiably she
deserves a presidential pardon or reconsideration of the verdict handed out by
an ambivalent jury which took two days to reach this otherwise controversial
decision. The whole case is shrouded in unclear proceedings and is supported
perhaps by doubtful and spurious evidence. For the human conscience, the
American spirit of humanism, the constitution of the United States of America,
for the sake of a fair legal system and for sanctity of the immortal Bill or
Rights, Dr. Afia is eligible to be freed and rejoin her family and children also
suffering trauma and agony all these years along with Dr. Afia's harrowing
afflictions and unspeakable tribulations.

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Binyam Mohamed: text of letter which reveals court's criticism of
'deliberately misleading' security service:


Here we publish a lawyer's letter detailing how the Master of the Rolls
condemned MI5 for withholding intelligence from the foreign secretary and the
courts over complicity in torture


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/10/binyam-mohamed-torture-letter
[http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103028329089&s=108072&e=0017Q_xz60XSrmp6E8ZSJ_cjH\
L1uc92NeroKxZG9aKtoXqxw7T9M_jBLR2aq-iPmyEa2n0CczvjS-BjIa26KbbyVfMSOoTXauh7JJKKdg\
SMxId_HzI2gye75t9DW3JLeSGEzWkCMGbmg9Y2YYn8DosnCRsyCePb8EG4UJF_TekqWzdkHl2QYZLELT\
IhC48w9suM]


Binyam Mohamed: the government lawyer's letter to the court of appeal, annotated
by Ian Cobain
Wednesday 10 February 2010


The government's lawyer, Jonathan Sumption QC, wrote a letter to the court of
appeal on Monday in which he protested about the withering criticism of MI5 in
the draft copy of the Binyam Mohamed judgment.

The appeal judges, led by the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, agreed to
redact one paragraph, number 168, which was particularly critical of the
security service. A decision will be made on Friday about whether this
paragraph, or part of it, will be published.

However, the court ruled today that Sumption's letter could be made public - and
this makes clear the condemnation of MI5 by the Master of the Rolls.

In Sumption's own words, he states that anyone reading the original judgment
would believe "that the Security Service does not in fact operate a culture that
respects human rights or abjures participation in coercive interrogation
techniques".

Here the Guardian's Ian Cobain annotates the key points in Sumption's letter.
Click on the yellow highlighted text to read Cobain's analysis. [from above url]


8 February 2010

Dear Sirs,

Case No.: TI/2009/2331/QBACF: R (Binyam Mohammed) v. Secretary of State for
Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

Judgment is due to be delivered in this case on Wednesday 10 February 2010. The
Court will be receiving a separate letter about typing corrections and other
obvious errors. The purpose of this present letter is to deal with an important
matter of substance, which I would invite the Court to consider before handing
down their judgment in final form. I would be grateful if you would lay it
before them.

At paragraph 168 of his Judgment, the Master of the Rolls makes some
observations about the previous 'form' of SyS. I assume from the context that he
is referring to the Security Service, although in paragraph 64 the Master of the
Rolls defines SyS as including the Secret Intelligence Service as well, and a
reader less familiar with the context might assume that he was referring to
both.

The Master of the Rolls's observations, to whichever service they relate, are
likely to receive more public attention than any other part of the judgments.
They will be read as statements by the Court (i) that the Security Service does
not in fact operate a culture that respects human rights or abjures
participation in coercive interrogation techniques; (ii) that this was in
particular true of Witness B whose conduct was in this respect characteristic of
the service as a whole ('it appears likely that there were others'); (iii) that
officials of the Service deliberately misled the Intelligence and Security
Committee on this point; (iv) that this reflects a culture of suppression in its
dealings with the Committee, the Foreign Secretary and indirectly the Court,
which penetrates the service to such a degree as to undermine any UK government
assurances based on the Service's information and advice; and (v) that the
Service has an interest in suppressing information which is shared, not by the
Foreign Secretary himself (whose good faith is accepted), but by the Foreign
Office for which he is responsible.

The first point that I would make about this is that the conduct of Witness B,
was referred by the Attorney-General to the Crown Prosecution Service and is
currently under investigation by the police. If the observations in the draft
Judgment appear in the final version, the publicity likely to be given to them
would be highly prejudicial to any criminal proceedings that might subsequently
be brought, as well as to the current civil proceedings brought against the
United Kingdom Government by Binyam Mohammed among others.

More generally, the Master of the Rolls' observations, which go well beyond
anything found by the Divisional Court, constitute an exceptionally damaging
criticism of the good faith of the Security Service as a whole. In particular,
the suggestion that the Court should distrust any UK government assurance based
on the Service's advice and information will unquestionably be cited in other
cases and, if applied more widely, would mark an unprecedented breakdown in
relations between the Courts and the executive in the area of public interest
immunity. The statements of ministers in this area, although embodying their own
judgements, are often necessarily based on the information and advice of the
Security Service. I am bound to suggest, which I do with genuine and not just
forensic. respect, that such grave criticisms of a public service and those who
work in it should be made only if the issue is fairly raised in advance and the
Court has an exact knowledge of the relevant circumstances. To categorise a
problem as systemic is rarely a straightforward matter. In this case, it would
be necessary at the very least to examine the methods and procedures of the
Security Service in relation to the interviewing of detainees as well as the
giving of information and advice to ministers; the basis on which the statement
to the Intelligence and Security Committee was made, and what further
information was provided to them, in particular about the treatment of
detainees; what (if any) other instances there are of the Service's knowledge of
ill-treatment of detainees interviewed by them, how information of this kind is
stored, on what occasions it is retrieved, how widely it is disseminated within
the Service and what the Service's response was. The Court has not been in a
position to do any of this. It simply does not have the material. Even if it
had, ordinary considerations of natural justice would suggest that those
responsible for the management of the Security Service should have had a proper
opportunity to respond. No submission as extreme as this was made during the
hearing, let alone supported by evidence. The Service has received no notice
whatever of the Court's intention to make such sweeping criticisms.

As to the statement that the Foreign Office has an interest in suppressing
information, in its present form this reads like an accusation of bad faith
against those Foreign Office officials who have advised the Foreign Secretary.
It may be that this was not intended. Certainly I am not aware of any material
before the Court whic suggests that such an interest exists, or that any Foreign
Office official has allowed it to influence advice given in the public interest
to the Foreign Secretary, in this or any other case.

I respectfully invite the Court to reconsider whether paragraph 168 is necessary
to its decision, and whether it really does justice to those involved.


Yours faithfully,
Jonathan SUMPTION Q.C.
cc. Nicola Smith, Treasury Solicitor
Dinah Rose QC



The draft judgment must contain comments that the judges made about the past
record of SyS - the Security Service - in relation to its use of coercive
interrogations, more commonly described as torture. These comments do not appear
in the rewritten judgment.

Although the government cannot ask the court to rewrite judgments in order to
avoid adverse publicity, this appears to be exactly what it is attempting.

In 2004, MI5 made this claim to the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC),
the group of MPs and peers that is supposed to oversee its work. The committee
broadly accepted that assurance in a report published in March 2005. MI5 has
since responded to questions from the Guardian about its involvement in torture
by claiming that this ISC report had given it a "clean bill of health". The
appeal court saw evidence that contradicted what MI5 told the ISC, and concluded
that the agency does not, in fact, respect human rights.

MI5 has been insisting for years that it is not involved in torture, despite
clear and mounting evidence that it is. According to Sumption's letter, the
appeal court's draft judgment flatly rejects MI5's claim.

The MI5 officer who gave evidence before the court is now the subject of a
criminal investigation by Scotland Yard detectives.

Sumption's letter informs us that the draft judgment makes clear that the judges
concluded that Witness B was far from alone - other MI5 officers have been
complicit in torture. Scotland Yard is also investigating an MI6 officer, and it
is thought that the detectives' inquiries about MI5 are not confined to Witness
B.

This is a statement that may have long-term ramifications at Westminster, where
many MPs regard the ISC as little more than an adjunct of MI5 and MI6, rather
than a proper and effective select committee. Some MPs say they are well aware
that the courts and the media are currently doing a better job than parliament
of holding Britain's security and intelligence agencies to account. The
assertion that MI5 has been pulling the wool over the committee's eyes will
increase pressure for a new system of parliamentary scrutiny, by a well-staffed
and funded committee, appointed by parliament rather than the prime minister,
and sitting in public whenever possible.

Not only the ISC, but the foreign secretary, David Miliband - and even the court
of appeal - has not been told the full truth by MI5. Sumption's letter suggests
that the most senior judges in the land have concluded that MI5 has been
misleading some rather important people.

Perhaps the most damning disclosure in the letter. For several years, David
Miliband, Alan Johnson and Jacqui Smith before him have been claiming that the
British government and its agencies "do not participate in, solicit, encourage
or condone" the use of torture. The letter suggests that the court has concluded
in its draft judgment that the culture of suppression runs so deep at MI5 that
those assurances, when based upon information from MI5, are worthless

MI5 has wanted to conceal from Miliband information that was held not only in
its own files, but in Miliband's own department's files.

A clear indication of the sort of condemnation of MI5 that was in the draft
judgment before it was rewritten at the government's request.

Sumption was warning that paragraph 168, one of the key paragraphs of the draft
judgment, would be seized upon by lawyers involved in the growing number of
torture and rendition cases being brought against the government, MI5 and MI6.
Within hours of the publication of the letter on the Guardian website, several
lawyers representing victims of torture were indeed studying its contents.

MI5's conduct in the Binyam Mohamed case has been so dishonest, according to
Sumption's account of paragraph 168 before it was rewritten, that it threatens
to undermine the courts' trust in reassurances from government ministers when
those reassurances are based upon information passed on by MI5. How this lack of
trust would be restored by rewriting the paragraph remains unclear.

This appears to refer to Sumption's previous comments about the court's
observation that MI5 has previous "form" for concealing evidence of its
involvement in torture. Sumption suggests that the court does not know enough
about MI5's operations to conclude this. This may be a bold argument to make,
given that the judges appear to have concluded in their draft judgment that MI5
has been concealing evidence from them.

Critics of MI5 say it is highly unlikely that its senior officers would want the
court of appeal to be in possession of this information, regardless of how
useful Sumption suggests it might be.

A legal point being made in what is otherwise a letter that appears to be
largely concerned with persuading the court to conceal its scathing condemnation
of MI5 over its involvement in torture, and MI5's subsequent attempts to conceal
evidence of its involvement in torture.

Sumption's letter informs the public that the court's net widened, and that the
draft judgment accused foreign office officials, as well as MI5 officers, of
concealing evidence. Of course, he adds, this would not have been intentional.

A final plea from a man described as one of the most formidable figures at the
bar.

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Saudi fighter jets have launched a new round of airstrikes on Houthi
positions in northern Yemen despite a truce offer put forward by the Shia
fighters.


Saudis carry out 33 airstrikes on northern Yemen
Wed, 10 Feb 2010
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=118339§ionid=351020206
[http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103028329089&s=108072&e=0017Q_xz60XSrk4pPoWzRQA06\
E1Cr-QnBW30zeUZZX8cnDgsBk-su7XjdF9mDwdmk7VMdEELnoWwu4nEhTOSvAbVhCrB_36PQjBn3iwt4\
ipXzTfyWEIPfnU-FHWgN6VCSD9omHYqt7w049jJ5Y3HgkvDh3y53


Saudi fighter jets have launched a new round of airstrikes on Houthi positions
in northern Yemen despite a truce offer put forward by the Shia fighters.

According to a statement released by the fighters on Friday, Saudi warplanes
carried out 33 airstrikes on the districts of Hinbah, Qatabir, Bani Maaz, Shada,
Muhazat, al-Ammar and villages in close proximity of the regions bordering the
oil-rich kingdom.

Saudi military aircraft dropped several bombs on homes in the conflict areas,
resulting in the civilian casualties.

The statement added that Saudi forces had fired 120 rockets on the beleaguered
areas of Shada, al-Malaheet, Qamamat and al-Madafin.

Meanwhile, Houthi fighters managed to stop Yemeni forces trying to infiltrate
Jebel Dhar Hamar overnight and set a number of army vehicles ablaze.

Yemen's Houthi fighters say provided that they do not come under fire, the Shia
forces will not attack the Saudi and Yemeni armies.

"As long as no one attacks us, we will not target any party," AFP quoted a
statement posted online by the office of Shia leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi.

Last week, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi offered to accept the government's five-point
truce terms in a bid "to avoid...the annihilation of civilians."

The fighters withdrew from at least 46 positions along the Saudi-Yemen border as
a goodwill gesture to end the months-long clashes in the north.

Riyadh announced victory last week after the fighters' truce offer and their
subsequent departure from the border towns, claiming the fighters had been
forced out of the positions.

The Yemeni government launched an all-out war against Houthi fighters in August
and was soon joined by the Saudi army.

The joint military action has taken a heavy toll on civilians in northern Yemen,
drawing repeated warnings from human rights organizations about the humanitarian
crisis there.

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The US military in Iraq freed an Iraqi freelance journalist working for the
Thomson Reuters media group on Wednesday after holding him for 17 months without
charge, the company said.


US frees Iraqi photographer held for 17 months
By Raw Story
http://rawstory.com/2010/02/frees-iraqi-photographer-held-17-months/
[http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103028329089&s=108072&e=0017Q_xz60XSrmQUPX5B2ETQq\
OPmzVzpiToyILQrrf1GAaQPqV0y_0gtUMmXl3nBxI_LsNuotb9ttuK5QhHWqXEee3H3xDCOnrLKHujCV\
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==]


BAGHDAD — The US military in Iraq freed an Iraqi freelance journalist working
for the Thomson Reuters media group on Wednesday after holding him for 17 months
without charge, the company said.

"How can I describe my feelings? This is like being born again," Reuters quoted
33-year-old Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed as saying by telephone, adding that he was
greeted emotionally by his family.

The journalist told AFP he was "very happy" to be free.

Mohammed, a freelance photographer and video cameraman for Reuters, was arrested
after US and Iraqi forces broke into his home in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, in
September 2008.

A US army statement said at the time that Mohammed had been "assessed to be a
threat to the security of Iraq and coalition forces."

But no charges were ever brought against him.

"I am very pleased his long incarceration without charge is finally over,"
Reuters quoted its editor-in-chief, David Schlesinger, as saying.

"I wish the process to release a man who had no specific accusations against him
had been swifter," Schlesinger added.

Reporters Without Borders welcomed Mohammed's release but criticised the US
military's handling of the case.

"This release is excellent news," the worldwide press freedom organisation said
in a statement.

"However it comes after long months in custody during which the US army never
deigned to give any reason for the photographer's arrest and this despite the
fact that an Iraqi court had ordered his release."

Several journalists working for foreign news organisations, including AFP, have
been arrested and held without charge by the US military in Iraq.

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More US military personnel have taken their OWN lives than have died in action


A Sign of Empire Pathology
by Finian Cunningham
Gulf Daily News


Here is a shocking statistic that you won't hear in most western news media:
over the past nine years, more US military personnel have taken their own lives
than have died in action in either the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. These are
official figures from the US Department of Defence, yet somehow they have not
been deemed newsworthy to report. Last year alone, more than 330 serving members
of the US armed forces committed suicide - more than the 320 killed in
Afghanistan and the 150 who fell in Iraq (see wsws.org).

Since 2001, when Washington launched its so-called war on terror, there has been
a dramatic year-on-year increase in US military suicides, particularly in the
army, which has borne the brunt of fighting abroad. Last year saw the highest
total number since such records began in 1980. Prior to 2001, the suicide rate
in the US military was lower than that for the general US population; now, it is
nearly double the national average.

A growing number of these victims have been deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan.
What these figures should tell us is that there is something fundamentally
deranged about Washington's "war on terror" - which is probably why western news
media prefer to ignore the issue. How damning is it about such military
campaigns that the number of US soldiers who take their own lives outnumber
those killed by enemy combatants.

What is even more disturbing is that the official figures only count victims of
suicide among serving personnel. Not included are the many more veterans -
officially classed a civilians - who take their own lives.

Most likely, these deaths are reported in some small-town newspaper in "a brief"
news item with no context or background as to what drove these individuals to
take their own lives. It is estimated that the suicide rate among veterans
demobbed from fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq is as high as four times the
national average. The US Department of Veteran Affairs calculates that over
6,000 former service personnel commit suicide every year.

Many of these men have come home to a country they have fought for only to find
no jobs, their homes repossessed by banks that have enjoyed trillion-dollar
bailouts and broken relationships.

Meanwhile, President Obama - the erstwhile peace candidate - has taken on the
role of Commander in Chief with gusto, telling his countrymen and women that
they are fighting a "just war" to "defend American lives". Only a year ago, he
was campaigning for the presidency on a ticket to end such wars. Now, more than
his predecessor, George W Bush, Obama is committing to wars without end. How
soul-destroying is that for a grunt holed up in a bunker, with his young family
back home probably telling him that they have just signed up for food stamps? In
their guts, these US soldiers must know - as many other ordinary people around
the world do - that these wars are nothing but a desperate, pathological bid by
a dying power to salvage its crumbling empire - an empire that enriches a tiny
elite and impoverishes the majority. Is it any wonder that many of them simply
lose the will to live?


Finian Cunningham is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Somalia could have been a great power in the region. But the reality is
completely different: famine, wars, lootings, piracy, bomb attacks. How did this
country sink? Why has there been no Somali government for approximately twenty
years?


Somalia: How Colonial Powers drove a Country into Chaos
INTERVIEW OF MOHAMED HASSAN
BY GREGOIRE LALIEU & MICHEL COLLON
http://snipurl.com/ubvxb
[http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103028329089&s=108072&e=0017Q_xz60XSrn50K-xrdWtLb\
iKa3r48TZ4UkNQ4_mshItT-E51O28Ks3zqGkXabbNk6bmuDvJDNuBk9EOh1YIA9YB_t9brc6br2XeOG8\
PiTAdNQCfRkyKqZg==]


Somalia had every reason to succeed: an advantageous geographical situation,
oil, ores and only one religion and one language for the whole territory; a rare
phenomenon in Africa.  Somalia could have been a great power in the region. But
the reality is completely different: famine, wars, lootings, piracy, bomb
attacks. How did this country sink? Why has there been no Somali government  
for approximately twenty years? Which scandals stand behind those pirates who
hijack our ships? In this new chapter of our series "Understanding the Muslim
World", Mohamed Hassan explains for us why and how imperialist forces have
applied in Somalia a chaos theory.

How did piracy develop in Somalia? Who are those pirates?

Since 1990, there has been no government in Somalia. The country is in the hands
of warlords. European and Asiatic ships took advantage of this chaotic situation
and fished along the Somali coast without a license or respect for elementary
rules. They did not observe the quotas in force in their own country to protect
the species and they used fishing techniques –even bombs!- that created huge
damages to the wealth of the Somali seas.

That's not all! Taking also advantage of this lack of any political authority,
European companies, with the help of the mafia, dumped nuclear wastes offshore
Somali coasts. Europe knew of this but turned a blind eye as that solution
presented a practical and economical advantage for the nuclear waste management.
Yet, the 2005 Tsunami brought a big part of these wastes into the Somali lands.
Unfamiliar diseases appeared for the first time among the population. This is
the context in which the piracy mainly developed. Somali fishermen, who had
primitive fishing techniques, were no more able to work. So they decided to
protect themselves and their seas. This is exactly what the United States did
during the civilian war against the British (1756-1763): with no naval forces,
President George Washington made a deal with pirates to protect the wealth of
the American seas.

No Somali state for almost twenty years! How is that possible?

This is the result of an American strategy. In 1990, the country was bruised by
conflicts, famine and lootings; the state collapsed. Facing this situation, the
United States, who discovered oil in Somalia a few years ago, launched Operation
Restore Hope in 1992. For the first time, US marines intervened in Africa to
take control of a country. It was also the first time that a military invasion
was launched in the name of humanitarian interference.

The famous rice bag exhibited on a Somali beach by Bernard Kouchner?

Yes, everybody remembers those pictures carefully showcased. But the real
reasons were strategic. An US State Department report recommended indeed that
the United States must stay the lonely global superpower after the Soviet Bloc
collapse. To reach that goal, the report advocated to occupy a hegemonic
position in Africa, which enjoys a vast amount of raw materials.

However, Restore Hope will be a failure. There was even that Hollywood movie
"Black Hawk Down", with those poor G.I.'s "attacked by the bad Somali rebels"…

US soldiers were indeed defeated by a Somali nationalist resistance. Since then,
American policy was to keep Somalia without any real government, even to
balkanize it. This is the old British strategy, already applied in many places:
setting weak and divided states in order to better rule them. That is why there
has been no Somali state for almost twenty years. The United States has
implemented a chaos theory in order to stop any Somali reconciliation and keep
the country divided.

In Sudan, due to the civilian war, Exxon has had to leave the country after
having discovered oil. So isn't letting Somalia plunge into chaos contrary to
American interests, which cannot exploit the discovered oil?

Oil exploitation is not their priority. The United States know that the reserves
are there but doesn't need it immediately. Two elements are much more important
in its strategy. First, prevent the competitors from negotiating with a rich and
powerful Somali state. If you consider Sudan, the comparison is interesting. The
oil that the American companies discovered there thirty years ago, Sudan is
selling it today to China. The same thing could happen in Somalia. When he was
president of the transition government, Abdullah Yusuf went to China although he
was supported by the United States. US mass media had strongly criticized that
visit. The fact is that United States have no guarantee on that point: if a
Somali government is established tomorrow, whatever is its political color, it
could probably adopt a strategy independent of United States and trade with
China. Western imperialists do not want a strong and unified Somali state. The
second goal pursued by this chaos theory is linked to the geographical location
of Somalia, which is strategic for both European and American imperialists.

Why is it strategic?

The issue is the control of the Indian Ocean. Look at the map. As mentioned,
western powers have an important share of the responsibility in the Somali
piracy development. But instead of telling the truth and paying compensation for
what they did, those powers criminalize the phenomena in order to justify their
position in the region. Under the pretext of fighting the piracy, NATO is
positioning its navy in the Indian Ocean.


What is the real goal?

To control the economic development of the emerging powers, mainly India and
China. Half of the world's container traffic and 70% of the total traffic of
petroleum products passes through the Indian Ocean. From that strategic point of
view, Somalia is a very important place: the country has the longest coast of
Africa (3.300 km) and faces the Arabian Gulf and the Straight of Hormuz, two key
points of the region economy. Moreover, if a pacific response is brought to the
Somali problem, relations between African in one hand, and India and China on
the other hand, could develop through the Indian Ocean. Those American
competitors could then have influence in that African area. Mozambique, Kenya,
Madagascar, Tanzania, Zanzibar, South Africa etc. All those countries connected
to the Indian Ocean could gain easy access to the Asian market and develop
fruitful economic relationship. Nelson Mandela, when he was president of South
Africa, had  mentioned the need of an Indian Ocean revolution, with new economic
relationships. The United States and Europe do not want this project. That is
why they prefer to keep Somalia unstable..

You say that the United States does not want Somali reconciliation. But what are
the roots of the Somali divisions?

In order to understand this chaotic situation, we must delve into Somali
history. This country had been divided by colonial powers. In 1959, Somalia
gained independence through the fusion of the Italian colony in the South, and
the British colony in the North. But Somalis were also living in some parts of
Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. The new Somali state adopted a star on its flag,
each branch representing one part of the historical Somalia. The message behind
that symbol: "Two Somalias have been united, but three are still colonized".

Facing the legitimacy of those claims, the British – who controlled Kenya-,
organized a referendum in the Kenyan area claimed by Somalia. 87% of the
population, composed mainly of Somali ethnics, voted for the Somali unity. When
the results were published, Jomo Kenyatta, a Kenyan nationalist leader,
threatened the British to throw the colonists out if they gave a part of the
territory up to Somalia. So Great Britain decided not to take the referendum
into account, and today an important Somali community is still living in Kenya.
You must understand that those colonial borders were a real disaster in the
Somali case. The border issue was besides the object of an important debate
among the African continent.

What was the issue of that debate?

In the sixties, as many African countries became independent, there was a debate
between what we called the Monrovia and the Casablanca groups. This later,
including among others Morocco and Somalia, resolved that the borders inherited
from colonialism be discussed. For them, those boundaries had no legitimacy. But
most of the African countries and their borders are colonialism products.
Finally, the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the ancestor of the current
African Union, closed the debate by decreeing that the borders were
indisputable: going back over those boundaries would provoke civilian wars
everywhere on the continent. Later, one of the OAU architects, the Tanzanian
Julius Nyerere, confessed that this decision was the best but that he regretted
the Somali outcome.


What will be the impact of the colonial divisions on Somalia?

They will create strains with neighboring countries. During those years when
Somalia advocated for revising the borders, Ethiopia became a US imperialism
bastion. The United States had also military bases in Kenya and Eritrea. At this
moment, Somalia, a young pastoral democracy, wished to build its own army. The
goal was to not appear weak in front of the armed neighbors, to support Somali
movements in Ethiopia and even to regain by force, if necessary, some
territories. But the western forces were opposed to the creation of a Somali
army.


So Somalia had tense relations with its neighbors. Was it not reasonable to be
opposed to this Somali army project? It would have provoked wars, wouldn't it?

The West did not care about conflicts between Africans but its own interests.
The United States and Great Britain were providing and training militaries in
Ethiopia, Kenya and Eritrea. Those countries were still under the yoke of very
repressive feudal systems. But they were also neocolonial regimes devoted to
Western interests. On the other hand, the power in place in Somalia was more
democratic and independent. So the West had no interest in providing for a
country that could escape its control.

As a consequence, Somalia decided to turn to the Soviet Union. This frightened
the Western forces that feared Soviet influence stretching in to Africa. Those
fears became more important with the 1969 putsch.


What do you mean?

Socialist ideas were spread in the country. An important Somali community was
indeed living in Aden in South Yemen. However, this is where Britain used to
exile persons it considered dangerous in India: communists, nationalists and so
on. They used to be arrested and sent to Aden where nationalist and
revolutionary ideas quickly developed and affected later both Yemenites and
Somalis. Under the influence of civilians with Marxist ideas, a coup d'état was
led by officers in 1969 and Siad Barre took power in Somalia.


What were the reasons of that coup d'état?

The Somali government was corrupted. He had however the cards in hand to erect
the country to the great regional power rank: a strategic position, only one
language, one religion and many common cultural elements. This is fairly rare in
Africa. But, by missing the economical development of the country, this
government has created a context favorable to divisions among clans. Under the
pretext of doing politics, Somali elites become divided. Everyone created his
own political party, without any real program, and recruited voters among the
existing clans. This increased the divisions and turned out to be totally
useless. A democracy in a liberal type was in fact unsuitable for Somalia: there
were at once 63 political parties for a three million population country! And
the government was even not able to adopt an official script, which was creating
serious troubles in the administration. Education was weak. Bureaucracy, police
and army were, however, established. This later will play a key role in the
progressive coup d'état.


"Progressive"! With the army?

The army was the only organized institution in Somalia. As a repressive
apparatus, it was supposed to protect the so-called civilian government and the
elite. But for many Somalis coming from different families and areas, the army
was also an exchange place where there were no borders, no tribalism, no clan
divisions. This is how Marxist ideas from Aden circulated among the army.  So
the coup d'état was led by officers who were most of all nationalist. They did
not have a good knowledge of socialism but they had sympathy for those ideas.
Moreover, they knew what was happening in Vietnam, and that fed anti-imperialist
feelings. The civilians, who knew Marx and Lenin's teachings lacked a mass
political party, supported the coup d'état and become the advisers of the
officers who took power.


What changes did the Somali coup d'état bring about?

One important positive aspect: the new government quickly adopted an official
script. Likewise, the Soviet Union and China were helping Somalia. The students
and the population mobilized themselves. Education and social conditions were
enhanced. The years that followed the coup d'état were in fact the best ones
that Somalia never knew. That is, until 1977.


What happened?

Somalia, which has been divided by colonial forces, attacked Ethiopia to get the
territory of Ogaden back. Ogaden was mainly populated by Somalis. At this time
however, Ethiopia was itself a socialist state supported by the Soviets. This
country had been led for a long time by  Emperor Selassie. But in the seventies,
there was an important mobilization to overthrow him. The students' movement, in
which I personally participated, made four major demands. First, to nonviolently
and democratically resolve tensions with Eritrea. Secondly, to establish a land
reform that would distribute the lands to the peasants.  Thirdly, to establish
the principle of equality among the nationalities; Ethiopia was a multinational
country led by elite who did not represent the diversity. Fourthly, to abolish
the feudal system and to establish a democratic state. As in Somalia, the army
was the only organized institution in Ethiopia and the civilians joined the
officers to overthrow Selassie in 1974.


How did two socialist states, each supported by the Soviet Union, enter
conflict?

After the Ethiopian revolution, a delegation including Soviet Union, Cuba and
South Yemen organized a round table with Ethiopia and Somalia in order to
resolve their contradiction. Castro went to Addis Abeba and Mogadishu. To him,
Somali claims were justified. Finally, the Ethiopian delegation agreed to 
seriously seriously its Somali neighbor's demands. The two countries made an
agreement stipulating that no provocation should happen as long as no decision
has been taken. Things seemed to start well but Somalia did not honor the
agreement…


Two days after the Ethiopian delegation returned to its country, Henry
Kissinger, a former Nixon Secretary of State, turned up to Mogadishu. Kissinger
was representing an unofficial organization: the Safari Club that was among
others including Shah's Iran, Mobutu's Congo, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and French
and Pakistani intelligence services. The objective of that organization was to
fight against the Soviet infiltration in the Gulf and in Africa. Under the
Safari Club pressures and help promises, Siad Barre committed a disastrous
strategic mistake of attacking Ethiopia.


What were the consequences of that war?

Soviets left the region. Somalia, still led by Siad Barre, integrated the
neocolonial network of the imperialist forces. The country had been seriously
damaged by the conflict and the World Bank and the IFM were in charge of
"rebuilding" it. This has aggravated infighting among Somali bourgeoisie. Each
regional elite wanted to have its own market. They made the divisions among the
clans' worst and contributed to the progressive dislocation of their country up
to Siad Barre's fall in 1990. Since that, any head of state succeeded to him.


But, thirty years after the Ogaden war, the opposite scenario happened: Ethiopia
was supported by the United States to attack Somalia…

Yes, as I said, since the Restore Hope failure, United States has preferred to
keep Somalia in chaos. However, in 2006, a spontaneous movement developed under
the Islamic courts to fight against the local warlords and bring unity to the
country. It was a kind of Intifada. In order to stop this movement from
rebuilding Somalia, United States decided suddenly to support the Transitional
Federal Government (TFG) after having refused to recognize it before. In fact,
they realized that their project of a Somalia without effective state was no
more possible: a movement – furthermore Islamic!- was about to lead to a
national reconciliation. In order to sabotage the Somali unity, United States
decided to support the TFG. But this later was lacking any social basis and an
army. So the Ethiopian troops, commanded by Washington, attacked Mogadishu to
overthrow the Islamic courts.


Did it work?

No, the Ethiopian army was defeated and had to leave Somalia. On their side, the
Islamic courts were dispersed in several movements that still control a big part
of the country today. As for Abdulla Yusuf's transitional government, he
collapsed and United States replaced it by Sheik Sharif, the former Islamic
Court spokesman.


So Sheik Sharif has passed to "the other camp"?

He used to be the Islamic courts spokesman because he is a good orator. But he
has no political knowledge. He has no idea what imperialism or nationalism are.
That is why western powers took him back. He was the Islamic court's weak link.
Today he chairs a fake government, created in Djibouti. This government has no
social base or authority in Somalia. It only exists on the international level
because the imperialist forces support it.


In Afghanistan, the United States said they were ready to negotiate with
Taliban. Why don't they look for discussing with the Islamic groups in Somalia?

Because those groups want to take the foreign occupier over and to allow a
national reconciliation for the Somali people. As a result, the United States
wants to break those groups: a reconciliation, through the Islamic movement or
through the TFG, is not in the interests of the imperialist forces. They just
want chaos. The problem is that today, this chaos reached Ethiopia too, which is
very weak since the 2007 aggression. A nationalist resistance movement came to
the light over there to fight against the pro-imperialist government of Addis
Ababa. With their chaos theory, United States had in fact created troubles in
the whole region. And now, they took it out on Eritrea.


Why?

This little country leads an independent national policy. Eritrea also has a
vision for the whole region: the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea,
Ethiopia) do not need foreign powers' interference; its wealth should allow it
to establish new economical relationship on the basis of mutual respect.
According to Eritrea, the region must get it together and its members must be
able to discuss about their problems. Of course, this policy frightens United
States that fears that other countries follow that example. So they accuse
Eritrea of sending weapons to Somalia and instigating troubles in Ethiopia.


Isn't Eritrea sending weapons in Somalia?

Not even a bullet! This is a pure propaganda as they did against Syria about the
Iraqi resistance. Eritrea's vision catches up with the project of Indian Ocean
revolution that we spoke about before. The western powers do not want of that
and wish to bring Eritrea back to the circle of the neocolonial states under
control, such as Kenya, Ethiopia or Uganda.


Are there no terrorist in Somalia?

Imperialist powers have always labeled as terrorists the people who fight for
their right. Irishmen were terrorists until they signed an agreement. Abbas was
a terrorist. Now, he is a friend.


But we heard about Al Qaeda in Somalia?

Al Qaeda is everywhere, from Belgium to Australia! That invisible Al Qaeda is a
logo designed to justify to the public opinion military operations. If United
States say to their citizens and soldiers: "We are going to send our troops into
the Indian Ocean in order to probably fight against China", people would be
afraid of course. But if you tell them that it is just about fighting piracy and
Al Qaeda, it won't be a problem. The real goal is however different. It consists
in setting forces in the Indian Ocean region that will be the theater of major
conflicts in the coming years. This is what we will analyze in the next chapter…


Mohamed Hassan is a geopolitics and Arab world specialist. Born in Addis Abeba
(Ethiopia), he participated in student movements on the occasion of the
socialist revolution of 1974 in his country. He studied political science in
Egypt before specializing in public administration in Brussels. As a diplomat
for his country of origin, he worked in Washington, Beijing and Brussels.
Co-writer of L'Irak sous occupation (EPO, 2003), he has also contributed to
books about Arab nationalism, Islamic movements and Flemish nationalism. He is
one of the best contemporary experts on the Arab and Muslim world.

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Abbas's militia humiliates Palestinian women in the West Bank

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpM\
O%2bi1s7DWDX6EUseUoaso433bV7w%2beTRjV75Gl4hTDPNI6dixnBf3RSN67A9%2bGgNhqp6WJLExoU\
NkHsdjF3cRmhZ607riUuxCp8k8pg76Jc9%2fzWors%3dIsraeli


A women's demonstration in the West Bank to protest the PA's political detention
policies


NABLUS, (PIC)-- The PA security forces in the West Bank have summoned Layla
Saqar for interrogation in a bid to pressure her husband Ahmad Nabhan Saqar who
has been languishing in Israeli jails for ten years now, local sources
confirmed.

According to the sources, high-profile Palestinian personalities in Nablus city
intervened to persuade Mahmoud Ghannam, the chief of the PA Mukhabarat
(intelligence) in the city to revoke the summons because it violates the ethics
and values of the Palestinian society but their efforts went in vain prompting
public anger in the city.

"The Abbas militias didn't take into considerations the family condition of
Layla Saqar as her husband in Israeli jails and she is the one taking care of
her children in the absence of her husband", the sources quoted one of the
neighbors of Layla as saying.

However, Layla refused to heed the summons, stressing she won't go to the
headquarters of any PA security forces in the absence of her husband.

Palestinian citizens in the city criticized the summons, asserting that such
policy meant to humiliate relatives of the Palestinian resistance fighters and
to pressure them to give information about them.

The husband, for his part, hailed the decision of his wife, and castigated the
Abbas militias for following such unethical behavior that "violates the dignity
and honor of the Palestinian women.

He also urged human rights organizations as well as the "respected"
personalities in Nablus city to pressure the militia of Abbas to stop such
humiliating practices against the Palestinian people.

In a related matter, the PA security forces in Ramallah city rearrested two
Palestinian citizens Muayyad Bani Oudeh and Khaled Abu Al-Baha minutes after
they released them from jail based on a court order.

Bani Oudeh was kidnapped at the hands of Abbas's militias in 2007 alleging he
was a member of Hamas Movement.

For its part, the supreme bureau of the captives of Hamas Movement in the jails
condemned the practices of the PA security forces in the West Bank, and
described summoning Saqar as an "ethical catastrophe".

"The Palestinian national reconciliation is a noble goal that we all strive to
achieve, but the practices of the PA security forces in the West Bank are
destroying any hope of achieving such reconciliation", the bureau underlined in
a statement it issued Thursday.

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Court Tosses NSA Spy Suits, Sides with White House Over Illegal Surveillance


Spying on Americans: A Multibillion Bonanza for the Telecoms
America's endless & highly profitable, "War on Terror."
By Tom Burghardt
Global Research, February 1, 2010
Antifascist Calling... - 2010-01-31
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17307


In late January, the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General
released a report that provided startling new details on illegal operations by
the FBI's Communications Analysis Unit (CAU) and America's grifting telecoms.

For years, AT&T, Verizon, MCI and others fed the Bureau phone records of
journalists and citizens under the guise of America's endless, and highly
profitable, "War on Terror."

Between 2002 and 2007, the FBI illegally collected more than 4,000 U.S.
telephone records, citing bogus terrorism threats or simply by persuading
telephone companies to hand over the records. Why? Because the FBI could and the
telecoms were more than willing to help out a "friend"--and reap profits accrued
by shredding the Constitution in the process.

So egregious had these practices become that "based on nothing more than e-mail
messages or scribbled requests on Post-it notes, the phone employees turned over
customer calling records" to the FBI, The New York Times reported.

And when questions about these dodgy practices were raised internally, top FBI
managers "up to the assistant director level" approved CAU's blatantly illegal
methodology and responded by "crafting a 'blanket' national security letter to
authorize all past searches that had not been covered by open cases," The
Washington Post disclosed.

"On some occasions" according to the Times, "the phone employees allowed the
F.B.I. to upload call records to government databases. On others, they allowed
agents to view records on their computer screens, a practice that became known
as 'sneak peeks'."

"But in a surprise buried at the end of the 289-page report" Wired disclosed,
"the inspector general also reveals that the Obama administration issued a
secret rule almost two weeks ago saying it was legal for the FBI to have skirted
federal privacy protections."

Investigative journalist Ryan Singel revealed that the "Obama administration
retroactively legalized the entire fiasco through a secret ruling from the
Office of Legal Counsel nearly two weeks ago."

"That's the same office" Singel writes, "from which John Yoo blessed President
George W. Bush's torture techniques and warrantless wiretapping of Americans'
communications that crossed the border."

While corporate media frame these stories as if they were practices of the
far-distant Bushist past, former telephone technician and AT&T whistleblower
Mark Klein, who leaked documents on the existence of secret NSA-controlled spy
rooms embedded in AT&T switching offices across the country, believes otherwise.

Klein told Wired journalist David Kravets January 29, that the President's
Surveillance Program (PSP) and internal AT&T documents suggest that the program
"was just the tip of an eavesdropping iceberg."

According to Klein, these programs are not "targeted" against suspected
terrorists but rather "show an untargeted, massive vacuum cleaner sweeping up
millions of peoples' communications every second automatically."

Yet despite overwhelming evidence of lawbreaking by the secret state and their
corporate partners, on January 21 U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker tossed
out the EFF's lawsuit, Jewell v. NSA, filed on behalf of AT&T customers fighting
the National Security Agency's illegal operations that target millions of
citizens' phone calls, emails and web searches.

In a cowardly ruling that skirts the issue of Americans' privacy rights, Walker
reaffirmed the unlimited power of the so-called "Unitary Executive," Bushist
double-speak for a presidential dictatorship; a position embraced by current
Oval Office resident, the discredited "change" President, Barack Obama.

In a further sign that the Executive Branch and secret state agencies are above
the law, Walker ruled that harm done to U.S. citizens and legal residents under
the PSP, was not a "particularized injury" but instead was a "generalized
grievance" because almost everyone in the United States has a phone and Internet
service.

Chillingly, Walker asserted that "a citizen may not gain standing by claiming a
right to have the government follow the law." This pitiful summary judgement
merely affirms the obvious: America is a lawless state where neither citizens
nor "co-equal" branches of government, Congress and the Courts, can challenge
the quintessentially political decisions made in secret by the Executive Branch.

Despite the fact that an audit by the Justice Department's own Office of the
Inspector General found that the FBI and telecom grifters colluded together to
violate federal wiretapping laws, to wit, the Electronic Communications
Protection Act (ECPA) and continue to do so today, Walker's ruling means that
Americans are left without an legal mechanism to redress the systematic
destruction of their rights.

According to enforcement provisions of ECPA: "A court issuing an order under
this section against a telecommunications carrier, a manufacturer of
telecommunications transmission or switching equipment, or a provider of
telecommunications support services may impose a civil penalty of up to $10,000
per day for each day in violation after the issuance of the order or after such
future date as the court may specify."

It is all-too-clear that were these lawsuits to go forward and the telecoms
lose, the giant phone companies and internet service providers, which the
Justice Department was forced to admit in court papers are an "arm of the
government ... when it comes to secret spying," as Wired reported in October,
would potentially face astronomical fines.

Strip away Walker's mendacious reasoning and what we're left with is another in
an endless series of moves by the capitalist state to defend the interests of
their political masters: the corporate oligarchy and financial swindlers who
resort to police state methods of rule to shore-up a crumbling empire.

EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston denounced the ruling and said, "The
alarming upshot of the court's decision is that so long as the government spies
on all Americans, the courts have no power to review or halt such mass
surveillance even when it is flatly illegal and unconstitutional."

Last June, Walker dismissed EFF's Hepting v. AT&T lawsuit that targeted illegal
collaboration between AT&T and the NSA. In that case, the court ruled that the
telecoms enjoyed retroactive immunity from liability when the
Democratic-controlled Congress, and then-Senator and corporatist presidential
candidate Barack Obama, voted in favor of the despicable FISA Amendments Act
(FAA).

Antifascist Calling reported that the Obama administration argued that Jewell
too, must be dismissed on similar grounds. Taking a page from the Bush/Cheney
playbook, the government claimed that should Jewell go forward, it would require
disclosure of "privileged state secrets."

As I wrote at the time, the claim of "sovereign immunity" and a "state secrets"
privilege means that the government can never be held accountable for blatant
illegalities under any federal statute. In other words, under such conditions
the "rule of law" is a fraudulent exercise and gross criminality, when
sanctioned at the highest levels of the state, becomes the norm as formerly
democratic and republican forms of self-governance slip ineluctably towards the
abyss of presidential dictatorship.

Following in the footsteps of his White House predecessor, the cynical nature of
Obama's rhetoric is all the more remarkable, considering that the president
announced last September amid great fanfare that his administration will "impose
new limits on the government assertion of the state secrets privilege used to
block lawsuits for national security reasons," according to The New York Times.

Despite administration posturing that it would be the most "open" in history,
"more than 300 individuals and groups have sued the government to get records"
in the year since Obama assumed office, The Washington Post reported January 27.

"In case after case" the Post disclosed, "plaintiffs say little has changed
since the Bush administration years, when most began their quests for records.
Agencies still often fight requests for disclosure, contending that national
security and internal decision-making need to be protected."

Nowhere is this penchant for secrecy more pronounced then by the Obama
administration's steadfast refusal to turn over the names of telecom lobbyists
who bought-off their congressional allies in the run-up to the passage of the
FISA Amendments Act of 2008.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been litigating a Freedom of Information
Act request against the government, demanding that the administration turn over
the names of corporate lobbyists who had contacted Congress, the Department of
Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on behalf of
their telecom clients bid for retroactive immunity under the FAA.

According to EFF, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon lobbyists forked over bundles of
cash, as the watchdog group MAPLight revealed in 2008, when they published a
list of campaign contributions to congressional Democrats who changed their
votes on FAA once the wheels had been sufficiently greased.

Despite claims of "openness" and "transparency," the administration is still
fighting hard to conceal the names of these lobbyists from the American people.
In December, EFFreported that the Justice Department "argued to the appeals
court that 'there is no public interest in the compelled disclosure of the
representatives' identities'."

Having pledged to the American people that his would be an administration based
on the rule of law and public accountability, the Obama presidency has proven
itself to be just as secretive and mendacious as the Bush/Cheney cabal that
ruled the roost for eight long and bloody years.

Our "forward looking" president, and the ruling class elites who have presided
over the destruction of our democracy demonstrate on a daily basis the
accountability-averse culture that has been a staple of American political life
for decades.

While the federal courts toss out suits by citizens demanding that their right
to privacy not be sacrificed to corporate looters and their police state
accomplices, the architects of torture and driftnet surveillance get a free
pass.

Newsweek reported January 29, that a long-awaited report from the Justice
Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) "clears the Bush
administration lawyers who authored the 'torture' memos of
professional-misconduct allegations."

Leaving aside Newsweek's placement of quotation marks around the word "torture,"
a practice fully in keeping with the corporate media's consensus that such
heinous practices have "kept us safe," Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman write
that while the probe "is sharply critical" of the "legal reasoning" used to
justify CIA and Pentagon crimes however, "a senior Justice official who did the
final review of the report softened an earlier OPR finding."

That earlier version had concluded that two of the key authors of Bushist
torture and surveillance policies, Federal Appeals Court Judge Jay Bybee and
University of California law professor John Yoo, "violated their professional
obligations as lawyers when they crafted a crucial 2002 memo approving the use
of harsh tactics."

"But the reviewer" Newsweek notes, "career veteran David Margolis, downgraded
that assessment to say they showed 'poor judgment'."

By downgrading OPR's original finding, the Justice Department is no longer
obligated to send a referral to state bar associations "for potential
disciplinary action--which, in Bybee's case, could have led to an impeachment
inquiry."

Despite the tortured reasoning of blind Obama loyalists, Dick Cheney's "Unitary
Executive" is alive and well.

After all, Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

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