Philippine city holds 'circumcision party'
May 7, 2011
AP
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/SEAsia/Story/STIStory_665931.html

								 Reynaldo Reyes, 12, holds his shorts as he walks past a group of boys
waiting for their turn during an 'Operation Circumcision' at a basketball court
in Paranque city, metro Manila. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
								 MANILA (Philippines) - HUNDREDS of boys in a Philippine
city turned out on Saturday for a day-long 'circumcision party' to
provide a safe, free procedure for a rite of passage that most local
males undergo as preteens.

Some boys cried in their mothers' arms while others bit their shirts to stifle
sobs as doctors carried out the surgery on dozens of makeshift operating tables
inside a sports stadium in Marikina city
east of Manila. Outside, other boys lined up to await their turn.

'I'm a big boy now,' one boy who had just finished the surgery bragged.
Officials said the event - touted in a press statement
as a 'circumcision party' - aims to promote safe circumcision and to
offer to poor residents free surgery that would otherwise cost at least $40
(S$50) in private hospitals.

As of mid-afternoon, nearly 1,500 boys aged 9 years and up had been circumcised
while many were still waiting in line, city health
officer Dr Alberto Herrera said. In the Philippines, pre-adolescent and
adolescent boys traditionally are circumcised during summer school break from
March to May. In rural areas, the surgery is sometimes performed by non-doctors
using crude methods.

The city also hopes to establish a world record for the number of people
attending a mass circumcision.

'We applied for the Guinness Book of World Records and we are recording
everything so we can send all the data to them and hopefully it will be
recognised,' Vice-Mayor Jose Fabian Cadiz said.
Marikina, the country's shoemaking capital, was recognised by Guinness in 2002
for creating what was then the world's biggest pair of shoes.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Syria and US Imperialism
By Sara Flounders
Global Research
May 6, 2011
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24659


When U.S. imperialism engages in an attack on any government or movement, it is
essential that the workers' and progressive political movements for change
gather as much information as is available and take a stand.

It is cowardly to be neutral and rank betrayal to stand on the same side as the
imperialist octopus, which seeks to dominate the world.

This has been an ABC for workers' movements through 150 years of class-conscious
struggles. It is the very basis of Marxism. It is reflected in union songs that
raise the challenge "Which side are you on?" and by labor organizers who explain
again and again: "An injury to one is an injury to all."

A social explosion is shaking the Arab world. U.S. imperialism and all the old
regimes tied to it in the region are trying desperately to manage and contain
this still unfolding mass upheaval into channels that do not threaten
imperialist domination of the region.

The U.S. and its collaborators are also trying to divide and undermine the two
wings of the resistance -- the Islamic forces and the secular nationalist forces
-- which together overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorships in Egypt and Tunisia.
There is now a concerted U.S. effort to turn these same political forces against
two regimes in the region that have opposed U.S. domination in the past -- Libya
and Syria.

Both Libya and Syria have their own development problems, which are exacerbated
by the general global capitalist crisis and decades of compromise imposed on
them as they tried to survive in a hostile environment of unrelenting attacks --
political, sometimes military and including economic sanctions.

The U.S./NATO bombing of Libya has clarified where imperialism stands regarding
that country. The transnational exploiters are determined to totally seize hold
of the richest oil reserves in Africa and cut off the billions of dollars that
Libya was contributing toward the development of much poorer African countries.

Syria is also targeted by imperialism -- because of its heroic defense of
Palestinian resistance over decades and its refusal to recognize the Zionist
occupation. Syria's assistance to Hezbollah in their struggle to end the Israeli
occupation of Lebanon and their strategic alliance with Iran cannot be
forgotten.

Even if a great deal of Syria's internal situation is difficult to understand,
it is important to note that in this unfolding struggle clear statements of
support for the Syrian government and against U.S. destabilization efforts have
come from Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan
Nasrallah in Lebanon and several exiled leaders of Hamas, the Palestinian
organization that was elected by the people of Gaza. These political leaders
have experienced first-hand U.S. destabilization campaigns that used corporate
media fabrications, externally financed opposition groups, targeted
assassinations, special ops sabotage and well-trained Internet operatives.

On the side of the supposedly "democratic opposition" are such reactionaries as
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, chair of the powerful Senate Homeland Security Committee,
who called on the U.S. to bomb Syria next, after Libya. Outspoken supporters of
the opposition in Syria include James Woolsey, former CIA Director and advisor
to Senator John McCain's presidential campaign.

Wikileaks exposes U.S. role

An article entitled "U.S. secretly backed Syrian opposition groups" by Craig
Whitlock (Washington Post, April 18) described in great detail the information
contained in U.S. diplomatic cables that Wikileaks had sent to news agencies
around the world and posted on its web site. The article summarizes what these
State Department cables reveal about the secret funding of Syrian political
opposition groups, including the beaming of anti-government programming into the
country via satellite television.

The article describes the U.S.-funded efforts as part of a "long-standing
campaign to overthrow the country's autocratic leader, Bashar al-Assad," which
began under President George W. Bush and continued under President Barack Obama,
even though Obama claimed to be rebuilding relations with Syria and posted an
ambassador to Damascus for the first time in six years.

According to an April 2009 cable signed by the top-ranking U.S. diplomat in
Damascus at the time, Syrian authorities "would undoubtedly view any U.S. funds
going to illegal political groups as tantamount to supporting regime change."
The Washington Post article describes in some detail the links between the
U.S.-funded opposition Barada TV and the role of Malik al-Abdeh, who is on its
board and distributes videos and protest updates. Al-Abdeh is also on the board
of the Movement for Justice and Democracy, which his brother, Anas Al-Abdeh,
chairs. The secret cables "report persistent fears among U.S. diplomats that
Syrian state security agents had uncovered the money trail from Washington."

Role of Al Jazeera

Perhaps the most revealing challenge to and exposé of the destabilization
campaign in Syria came with the resignation of Ghassan Ben Jeddo, the best-known
journalist with Al Jazeera's television news programs and chief of its Beirut
bureau. Ben Jeddo resigned in protest of Al Jazeera's biased coverage,
especially noting a "smear campaign against the Syrian government" that has
turned Al Jazeera into a "propaganda outlet."

Al Jazeera favorably covered the unstoppable mass upsurge of millions in Egypt
and Tunisia. However, this satellite news channel has also extensively reported
every claim and political charge, regardless of how unsubstantiated, made by the
political opposition in both Syria and Libya. It became the strongest voice in
the region, watched by millions of viewers, to call for U.S. "humanitarian"
intervention, no-fly zones and bombing of Libya. So it is important to
understand the position of Al Jazeera as a news corporation, especially when it
claims to speak for the oppressed.

Al Jazeera, which is based in Qatar, never reports that 94 percent of the work
force in Qatar is made up of immigrants who have absolutely no rights at all and
exist in conditions of near slavery. The brutal repression of the mass movement
in the absolute monarchy of Bahrain, which is just next door to Qatar and is now
occupied by Saudi troops, also receives little coverage on Al Jazeera.

Is this censorship because Al Jazeera TV News is funded by the absolute monarch
of Qatar, the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani?

It is especially important to note that Al Jazeera never mentions the huge U.S.
Central Command military air base right there in Qatar. Drones on secret
missions throughout the region regularly take off from this base. Qatar has also
sent planes to participate in the U.S./NATO bombing of Libya.

Qatar works closely with the U.S. State Department in supporting U.S.
intervention in the area. Qatar was one of the first Arab states, and the first
among the Gulf States, to establish relations with Israel. During the 2009
Israeli bombardment of Gaza, it canceled these relations but has since offered
to renew them.

Facebook and counter-revolution

The CIA and National Endowment for Democracy have become expert at utilizing a
barrage of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube to overwhelm
targeted governments with millions of fabricated messages, wild rumors and
images.

Fabricated alerts about struggles and splits among rival factions in Syria's
military leading to resignations turned out to be false. For example, Major Gen.
al-Rifai (Ret.) denied as baseless news broadcasts over satellite television
that he was leading a split in the military. He added that he had retired 10
years ago.

Izzat al-Rashek of the Hamas Politburo and Ali Baraka, Hamas representative in
Lebanon, denied published claims that the leadership of this Palestinian
resistance organization was relocating to Qatar from Damascus. Ali Baraka
explained that this was a U.S. fabrication to pressure Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah
and obstruct Palestinian reconciliation while raising conflict between
resistance movements and Syria.

The Syrian government has charged that snipers fired into demonstrations,
shooting army and police in an effort to have police open fire on demonstrators.

Rumors, anonymous Internet postings and satellite television reports aimed at
heightening sectarian differences are part of the destabilization campaign.

Dual character of Syria

It is not difficult to see why U.S. imperialism and its pawns in the region,
including Israel and the corrupt dependent monarchies of Jordan, Qatar, United
Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, would want to see "regime change' in Syria.

Syria is one of the few Arab states that have no relations with Israel.  Several
Palestinian resistance organizations have offices-in-exile in Syria, including
Hamas. Syria is allied closely with Iran and with Lebanon.

Syria today is not socialist nor a revolutionary country. Capitalism with its
resulting inequality has not been overturned. There is a capitalist class in
Syria; many within it have benefited from "reforms" that sold formerly
state-owned industries to private capital.

However, the Syrian state represents contradictory forces. It has been a bulwark
to protect the gains won in the anti-colonial struggles and upheavals by the
Arab masses in 1960s and 1970s. During that period many important social gains
were made, major industries and resources that had belonged to foreign capital
were nationalized, and big advances were made in guaranteed health care, living
standards and education.

Syria under the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party is fiercely secular. It has
maintained religious freedom for all while allowing no one religious grouping to
dominate or be promoted by the state.

But the regime in Syria has also harshly repressed efforts of mass movements
based in Lebanon and Syria that wanted to take the struggle further. It has
defended its repression of past movements by pointing to its precarious position
right next to Israel, the impact of two Israeli wars in 1967 and 1973, and the
resulting Israeli occupation and annexation of the important Golan Heights
region of Syria for 44 years.

Years of U.S. sanctions and past destabilization efforts have also had a
cumulative effect. The state apparatus, ever fearful of continuing outside
intervention, has become fearful of change.

It is essential to recognize this dual character and not apologize for or ignore
all the problems that flow from it.

Syria has had the added burden of providing for more than 500,000 Palestinian
refugees and their descendants for the past 63 years. Their conditions are
better than in any surrounding countries because, unlike in Lebanon and Jordan,
healthcare, education and housing are accessible to Palestinians in Syria.

Impact of Iraq war

The massive U.S. invasion and destruction of neighboring Iraq, the Bush-Blair
discussion of a similar attack on Syria in 2003, and the harsh new sanctions on
Syria have added intense pressure.

But the most dislocating factor is never discussed in the corporate media: More
than 1,500,000 Iraqis have flooded into Syria to escape the last eight years of
U.S. occupation.

This was a huge influx for a country with a population in 2006 of 18 million.
According to a 2007 report by the office of the U.S. High Commissioner for
Refugees, the arrival of 2,000 desperate Iraqis per day had an extreme impact on
all facets of life in Syria, particularly on the services offered by the state
to all its citizens and all refugees. Syria has the highest level of civic and
social rights for refugees in the region. Other surrounding countries require a
minimum bank balance and ban destitute refugees.

The unexpected arrival of these Iraqi refugees has had a dramatic impact on the
infrastructure, on guaranteed free elementary and high schools, on free
healthcare, on housing availability and other areas of the economy. It has led
to a rise in costs across the board. The prices of foodstuffs and basic goods
have gone up by 30 percent, property prices by 40 percent and housing rentals by
150 percent.

Iraqi refugees also benefited from Syrian state subsidies in gasoline, food,
water and other essential goods provided to everyone. Such a large mass of
unemployed people led to the lowering of wages and increased competition for
jobs. The impact of the global economic downturn during this difficult period
added to the problems. (Middle East Institute, Dec. 10, 2010, report on Refugee
Cooperation)

The U.S. created the refugee crisis, which left more than 25 percent of the
Iraqi population displaced by sectarian violence. Yet it accepts the lowest
number of refugees and has donated less than the cost of one day of the war in
Iraq toward U.N. relief costs. U.S. sanctions on Syria have increased the
economic dislocations.

All this has increased the awareness of the Syrian government and people about
the dangers of U.S. occupation and the internal destabilization and bloodbath
that can come with U.S.-instigated sectarian violence.

Washington claims it is worried about instability in Syria. But U.S. imperialism
as a system is driven to create instability. The overwhelming dominance and
power of military and oil corporations in the U.S. economy and the enormous
profits of military contracts endlessly reinforce the drive to seek military
solutions.

Every statement made by the Syrian government has recognized the importance of
making internal reforms while maintaining national unity in an extremely diverse
country that has historic differences in religion, tribes and regions and now
contains almost 2 million refugees.

The diverse nationalities, religions and cultural groupings in Syria have every
right to be part of this process. But what they need most is an end to constant,
unrelenting U.S. intervention.

U.S. hands off!

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

When the "People of the Book" turn to banning ideas
By Louis Frankenthaler
Sunday, May 8 2011
http://972mag.com/when-the-%E2%80%9Cpeople-of-the-book%E2%80%9D-turn-to-banning-\
ideas-thoughts-and-dissent/


Ok, lets be blunt about it. I want to live in a normal state where political
fighting with the Netanyahu government would be over his regressive social
policies, his failures at introducing humanistic education and his abject
indifference gender oppression to racism and to blatant discrimination against
all minority groups in Israel. I would like to be able to spar with Bibi over
the failure to disentangle Israel from the cancerous weavings of religious
policy within its civil structure. I would like to point out that a society that
favors a wealthy oligarchy over investing in primary, secondary and higher
education should not expect to be civilly and socially sustainable.

But, alas, the Occupation has managed to cast all these normal arguments into
the political trash bin and with them the intellectual and moral significance
and standards that Jews throughout the world have always thought that they
represent. In short, we (the Jewish people), have gone from being a people of
the book to banning ideas, thought, dissent and the people behind them.

If it is not enough to struggle over democratic regression in Israel, because of
the Occupation, because of racism and the creeping de-democratic proto-fascist
tendencies in the Israeli Parliament we have to wage this struggle overseas. In
Israel there is a highly trained, obedient and voracious cadre of self anointed
Guardians of Zion. They monitor the human rights NGOs, watch, listen and report
on "anti-Israel" academics and have quite literally infiltrated the
policy-making mechanisms of Israel.   These forces have been omnipresent in the
US as well for some time and in comparing them it would be hard pressed to
answer the riddle of what came first – the Campus Watch egg or the NGO Monitor
chicken. But both have snaked their way (no offense to snakes intended) beyond
their normal territory.

Recent efforts to attack the incoming head of  Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi
Richard Jacobs and thwarted CUNY honorary doctoral degree candidate, the
playwright Tony Kushner are infused with the venom of these organizations. While
these organizations are not directly involved in these instances, the stale wind
of their efforts has certainly filled the sails of the off-course ships of
virulent pro-Israel-is-pro-Occupation-and-nothing-else activism.

What is most interesting is that the criticism and attacks on both of these
personalities is centered in their identification with and or speaking out
against the ever politically and morally deteriorating mantra of the Israel and
Occupation narrative.

Rabbi Richard Jacobs has been attacked for his belonging to the JStreet Rabbinic
Cabinet, his association with the New Israel Fund and his having dared to join a
protest at Sheikh Jarrah – and Kushner for his association with the Jewish Voice
for Peace (JVP) and statements made that do not comport with the rightist
narrative of Israel. To put it simply, and this is a good thing, I suppose, but
the nominations of both these men have riled the feathers of some of the most
extreme hawkish positions in the overseas Jewish community as expressed in this
JOA press release about Rabbi Jacobs.

It seems that in the end, the right wing extremists have been or will be put in
their places. The massive and progressive reaction against the CUNY trustees and
their attempt to derail the Kushner honorary doctorate has been widely reported
upon in the mainstream press, particularly the New York Times, which recently
reported on a possible resolution to the conflict, thanks largely to the wide
scale opposition to the attempted highjack of academia and the large number of 
protests, particularly from past CUNY honorary doctorate recipients.

Yet the Rabbi Jacobs affair has remained primarily embedded in the Jewish Press,
The Forward, The Jewish Week, etc. To this I can only say: Reform Judaism must
decide its place in the Jewish world. The forces that attack Women of the Wall
or continue to embroil Israeli society in Ortho-normative Judaism are the same
that continue the Occupation. Those that support settlement building in Sheikh
Jarrah are the same or of the same ilk as the worst opponents of Jewish
Pluralism.

Debate in the URJ is good but it seems that debate has again been high jacked by
the MONITORS and are now trying to make sure that progressive Jews do not get
progressive about Israel too.


Louis Frankenthaler moved to Israel in 1995 and lives with his family in West
Jerusalem. He is a doctoral student and human rights worker.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Dead Empire Walking: On Playing into Al Qaida's Hands
by John Feffer
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/03-11


We have, once again, played right into Osama bin Laden's hands. This might seem
like an odd assertion, since the al-Qaeda mastermind is finally dead at the
hands of U.S. Special Forces, most heads of state have voiced their
congratulations, and practically the entire U.S. citizenry is unified in
celebration.

But Osama bin Laden always understood that the weak use the weapons of the
powerful against them, such as U.S. airplanes against U.S. skyscrapers. The weak
also lull their opponents into thinking that they have won the war when in fact
they have only triumphed in a skirmish.

Martyrdom is the preeminent weapon of the weak, and bin Laden has long courted a
martyr's death. He didn't want to end up like Saddam Hussein, who looked like a
hunted animal when U.S. soldiers extracted him from his hiding hole. Bin Laden
didn't want to go on trial and be executed like a common criminal. He wanted to
go out in a blaze of gunfire, the jihadi version of Butch Cassidy.

The U.S. government reports that bin Laden resisted arrest. No doubt it would
have been extremely difficult to thwart his desire for martyrdom, bring him back
alive, and pump him for information. Still, the value of subjecting bin Laden to
the rule of law would have been incalculable. Instead, bin Laden will enter
history as a legend not as a man. His quick burial at sea may well generate a
wave of conspiracy theories, a "Deather" movement to parallel the Birthers.
Prepare for three more decades of Osama sightings in the Muslim world that rival
the once-strong U.S. tabloid obsession with Elvis.

There might also be blowback from the killing. "Al-Qaeda affiliates may speed up
operations that were in the pipeline," writes Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker.
The Taliban is reportedly preparing a new set of attacks. Fresh from its recent
reconciliation with the Palestinian Authority, Hamas condemned the killing of an
"Arab holy warrior" but hasn't vowed anything in the way of retaliation.

But the real blowback will be much more subtle than a military tit for tat. The
weak can't afford direct confrontation. There will be legal, religious, and
economic ramifications, and they will again follow bin Laden's script, not out
own. On the legal side, bin Laden's strategy has been to corrode the machinery
of the nation-state. A fervent believer in a global caliphate, bin Laden viewed
sovereignty and the rule of law as obstacles in the path of establishing one
world under his version of Islam. His assassination calls into question the
adherence of the West to its vaunted principles of justice, much as the support
for Hosni Mubarak and other Arab dictators called into question the West's
commitment to democracy.

Bin Laden's death sends a particular message about the abuses of state authority
— why is the United States in the business of targeted assassination? — that may
resonate in the Islamic world. Likewise, with former Pakistani president Pervez
Musharraf condemning the attack as an infringement on his nation's sovereignty,
bin Laden in death has been able to drive a further wedge between Washington and
Islamabad.

The religious wedge is larger still. Bin Laden, an unabashed partisan of holy
war, divided the world into believers and infidels, with the latter category
including many Muslims that he considered apostates. In his speech announcing
the death of bin Laden, President Barack Obama was careful to "reaffirm that the
United States is not — and never will be — at war with Islam. I've made clear,
just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against
Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims.
Indeed, al-Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including
our own."

Obama is correct, at least in terms of bin Laden's actions and U.S. intentions.
But the perceptions of the last decade's wars are another matter entirely.
Washington has waged conflict in predominantly Muslim countries. And these
battles have been accompanied by a wave of Islamophobia that have swept through
the United States and Europe (not to mention South Asia, Africa, and other parts
of the world).

Obama ended his address with what has become a customary presidential sign-off:
"May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America." If the wars
we pursue aren't crusades strictly speaking, they nevertheless approach the
level of holy war when the commander-in-chief invokes God and large sections of
the military view their mission as God-given.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, bin Laden understood quite well the
economic implications of the battle he launched. He had witnessed the Soviet
Union's collapse, and he wanted to repeat the trick with the last empire
standing. Nine years ago, in Osama bin Laden's Secret Strategy, I wrote that
al-Qaeda viewed bankruptcy as the path to ruin for the United States. "The
United States may look healthy enough at the moment, with the world's largest
economy and largest military," I wrote. "But we also shoulder nearly $6 trillion
in national debt, which current military spending and tax cuts are only
increasing. The war on terrorism, with no end in sight, may very well push us
over the economic edge."

Since that 2002 essay, the U.S. national debt has more than doubled. A good
chunk of that money went toward the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, alongside the
ballooning military budget. Many of the costs — in terms of lives ruined and
opportunities missed — are only starting to hit us now. We might be already over
the edge, like Wile E. Coyote spinning his legs and unaware that the ground has
dropped away beneath him. Dead empire walking.

The terrible irony is that, in terms of their influence in the Muslim world,
Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda have been a dead end for a long time. Most strands
of Islamism renounced the caliphate-through-violence strategy long ago. Modern
Islamists participate in elections, support nation-states, and embrace
modernity. The Arab Spring, as my colleague Phyllis Bennis points out, is only
the latest example of non-violent, political efforts to transform the Middle
East and North Africa. Osama bin Laden's greatest magic trick was to persuade
the United States and its allies to expend enormous sums of money to fight a
small, isolated, and anachronistic force that operated on the very margins of
the Muslim world.

Martyrdom, holy war, the lure of power and economic profligacy: with these
weapons of the weak, al-Qaeda has drawn the United States into a conflict that
has sapped our moral, political, and financial resources. We have persuaded
ourselves that we're in control, even in this last act of extrajudicial killing.
But even here, bin Laden has managed to glorify himself at our expense.

These are the tools of bin Laden. We are the tools of bin Laden.


John Feffer is the co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for
Policy Studies in Washington, DC. He is the author of North Korea, South Korea:
U.S. Policy at a Time of Crisis (Seven Stories, 2003) among other books.

===

66% Pakistanis believe person killed in US raid was not Osama
May 7, 2011
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-05-07/news/29520584_1_bin-surv\
ey-taliban


ISLAMABAD: A majority of urban Pakistanis believe that the person killed by US
special forces during a raid in the garrison city of Abbottabad on Monday was
not Osama bin Laden, according to a survey.

The online survey, conducted by global opinion pollster YouGov and Polis at
Cambridge University, revealed that a staggering 66 per cent of Pakistanis think
the person killed by US Navy SEALs in a compound about 80 km from Islamabad was
not bin Laden.

YouGov said the survey focussed on more educated respondents in the cities of
Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore.

"The fact that this survey excluded rural and less educated demographic groups
actually makes the results more striking," the organisers of the poll said.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

U.S. tries to assassinate U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki
By Glenn Greenwald
Saturday, May 7, 2011


That Barack Obama has continued the essence of the Bush/Cheney Terrorism
architecture was once a provocative proposition but is now so self-evident that
few dispute it (watch here as arch-neoconservative David Frum -- Richard Perle's
co-author for the supreme 2004 neocon treatise -- waxes admiringly about Obama's
Terrorism and foreign policies in the Muslim world and specifically its
"continuity" with Bush/Cheney).  But one policy where Obama has gone further
than Bush/Cheney in terms of unfettered executive authority and radical war
powers is the attempt to target American citizens for assassination without a
whiff of due process.  As The New York Times put it last April:

     It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved
for targeted killing, officials said.  A former senior legal official in the
administration of George W. Bush said he did not know of any American who was
approved for targeted killing under the former president. . . .

That Obama was compiling a hit list of American citizens was first revealed in
January of last year when The Washington Post's Dana Priest mentioned in passing
at the end of a long article that at least four American citizens had been
approved for assassinations; several months later, the Obama administration
anonymously confirmed to both the NYT and the Post that American-born, U.S.
citizen Anwar al-Awlaki was one of the Americans on the hit list.
Yesterday, riding a wave of adulation and military-reverence, the Obama
administration tried to end the life of this American citizen -- never charged
with, let alone convicted of, any crime -- with a drone strike in Yemen, but
missed and killed two other people instead:

     A missile strike from an American military drone in a remote region of Yemen
on Thursday was aimed at killing Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born
cleric believed to be hiding in the country, American officials said Friday.

     The attack does not appear to have killed Mr. Awlaki, the officials said,
but may have killed operatives of Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen.

The other people killed "may have" been Al Qaeda operatives.  Or they "may not
have" been.  Who cares?  They're mere collateral damage on the glorious road to
ending the life of this American citizen without due process (and pointing out
that the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution expressly guarantees that "no
person shall be deprived of life without due process of law" -- and provides no
exception for war -- is the sort of tedious legalism that shouldn't interfere
with the excitement of drone strikes).

There are certain civil liberties debates where, even though I hold strong
opinions, I can at least understand the reasoning and impulses of those who
disagree; the killing of bin Laden was one such instance.  But the notion that
the President has the power to order American citizens assassinated without an
iota of due process -- far from any battlefield, not during combat -- is an idea
so utterly foreign to me, so far beyond the bounds of what is reasonable, that
it's hard to convey in words or treat with civility.

How do you even engage someone in rational discussion who is willing to assume
that their fellow citizen is guilty of being a Terrorist without seeing evidence
for it, without having that evidence tested, without giving that citizen a
chance to defend himself -- all because the President declares it to be so?  "I
know Awlaki, my fellow citizen, is a Terrorist and he deserves to die.  Why? 
Because the President decreed that, and that's good enough for me.  Trials are
so pre-9/11."  If someone is willing to dutifully click their heels and spout
definitively authoritarian anthems like that, imagine how impervious to reason
they are on these issues.

And if someone is willing to vest in the President the power to assassinate
American citizens without a trial far from any battlefield -- if someone
believes that the President has that power:  the power of unilaterally imposing
the death penalty and literally acting as judge, jury and executioner -- what
possible limits would they ever impose on the President's power?  There cannot
be any.  Or if someone is willing to declare a citizen to be a "traitor" and
demand they be treated as such -- even though the Constitution expressly assigns
the power to declare treason to the Judicial Branch and requires what we call "a
trial" with stringent evidence requirements before someone is guilty of treason
-- how can any appeals to law or the Constitution be made to a person who
obviously believes in neither?

What's most striking about this is how it relates to the controversies during
the Bush years.  One of the most strident attacks from the Democrats on Bush was
that he wanted to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants.  One of the first
signs of Bush/Cheney radicalism was what they did to Jose Padilla:  assert the
power to imprison this American citizen without charges.  Yet here you have
Barack Obama asserting the power not to eavesdrop on Americans or detain them
without charges -- but to target them for killing without charges -- and that,
to many of his followers, is perfectly acceptable.  It's a "horrific shredding
of the Constitution" and an act of grave lawlessness for Bush to eavesdrop on or
detain Americans without any due process; but it's an act of great nobility when
Barack Obama ends their lives without any due process.

Not even Antonin Scalia was willing to approve of George Bush's mere attempt to
detain (let alone kill) an American citizen accused of Terrorism without a
trial.  In a dissenting opinion joined by the court's most liberal member, John
Paul Stevens, Scalia explained that not even the War on Terror allows the due
process clause to be ignored when the President acts against those he claims
have joined the Enemy -- and this was for a citizen found on an actual active
battlefield in a war zone (Afghanistan) (emphasis added):

     The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated
powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the
Executive.  Blackstone stated this principle clearly:  "Of great importance to
the public is the preservation of this personal liberty:  for if once it were
left in the power of any, the highest, magistrate to imprison arbitrarily
whomever he or his officers thought proper … there would soon be an end of all
other rights and immunities. … To bereave a man of life, or by violence to
confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and
notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny
throughout the whole kingdom." . . . .

     Subjects accused of levying war against the King were routinely prosecuted
for treason. . . . The Founders inherited the understanding that a citizen's
levying war against the Government was to be punished criminally. The
Constitution provides: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in
levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and
Comfort"; and establishes a heightened proof requirement (two witnesses) in
order to "convic[t]" of that offense. Art. III, §3, cl. 1.

There simply is no more basic liberty than the right to be free from
Presidential executions without being charged with -- and then convicted of -- a
crime:  whether it be treason, Terrorism, or anything else.  How can someone who
objected to Bush's attempt to eavesdrop on or detain citizens without judicial
oversight cheer for Obama's attempt to kill them without judicial oversight? Can
someone please reconcile those positions?

One cannot be certain that this attempted killing of Awlaki relates to the bin
Laden killing, but it certainly seems likely, and in any event, highlights the
dangers I wrote about this week.  From the start, it was inconceivable to me
that -- as some predicted -- the bin Laden killing would bring about a
ratcheting down of America's war posture.  The opposite seemed far more likely
to me for the reason I wrote on Monday:

     Whenever America uses violence in a way that makes its citizens cheer, beam
with nationalistic pride, and rally around their leader, more violence is
typically guaranteed. Futile decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may
temporarily dampen the nationalistic enthusiasm for war, but two shots to the
head of Osama bin Laden -- and the We are Great and Good proclamations it
engenders -- can easily rejuvenate that war love. . . . We're feeling good and
strong about ourselves again -- and righteous -- and that's often the fertile
ground for more, not less, aggression.

The killing of bin Laden got the testosterone pumping, the righteousness
pulsating, and faith in the American military and its Commander-in-Chief
skyrocketing to all-time highs.  It made America feel good about itself in a way
that no other event has since at least Obama's inauguration; we got to forget
about rampant unemployment, home foreclosures by the millions, a decade's worth
of militaristic futility and slaughter, and ever-growing Third-World levels of
wealth inequality.  This was a week for flag-waving, fist-pumping, and
nationalistic chanting:  even -- especially -- among liberals, who were able to
take the lead and show the world (and themselves) that they are no wilting,
delicate wimps; it's not merely swaggering right-wing Texans, but they, too, who
can put bullets in people's heads and dump corpses into the ocean and then joke
and cheer about it afterwards.  It's inconceivable that this wave of collective
pride, boosted self-esteem, vicarious strength, and renewed purpose won't
produce a desire to replicate itself.

Four days after bin Laden is killed, a missile rains down from the sky to try to
execute Awlaki without due process, and that'll be far from the last such
episode (indeed, also yesterday, the U.S. launched a drone attack in Pakistan,
ending the lives of 15 more people:  yawn).

Last night, in a post entitled "Reigniting the GWOT [Global War on Terrorism]"
-- Digby wrote about why the reaction to the killing of bin Laden is almost
certain to spur greater aggression in the "War on Terror," and specifically
observed:  "They're breathlessly going on about Al Qaeda in Yemen 'targeting the
homeland' right now on CNN.
Looks like we're back in business."

The killing of bin Laden isn't going to result in a reduction of America's
military adventurism because that's not how the country works: when we eradicate
one Enemy, we just quickly and seamlessly find a new one to replace him with --
look over there:  Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is the True Threat!!!! --
and the blood-spilling continues unabated (without my endorsing it all, read
this excellent Chris Floyd post for the non-euphemistic reality of what we've
really been doing in the world over the last couple years under the 2009 Nobel
Peace Prize Winner).

A civil liberties lawyer observed by email to me last night that now that Obama
has massive political capital and invulnerable Tough-on-Terror credentials
firmly in place, there are no more political excuses for what he does (i.e., he
didn't really want to do that, but he had to in order not to be vulnerable to
GOP political attacks that he's Weak).  In the wake of the bin Laden killing,
he's able to do whatever he wants now -- ratchet down the aggression or
accelerate it -- and his real face will be revealed by his choices (for those
with doubts about what that real face is).  Yesterday's attempt to exterminate
an American citizen who has long been on his hit list -- far from any
battlefield, not during combat, and without even a pretense of due process -- is
likely to be but a first step in that direction.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Exclusive: Boat trying to reach Lampedusa was left to drift in Mediterranean for
16 days, despite alarm being raised


Nato units left 61 African migrants to die of hunger and thirst
Jack Shenker in Lampedusa
Sunday 8 May 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/08/nato-ship-libyan-migrants


     Refugees from Libya reach Lampedusa. A Nato ship failed to rescue a boat in
trouble – leaving 63 people on board to die. Photograph: Francesco Malavolta/EPA


     Dozens of African migrants were left to die in the Mediterranean after a
number of European and Nato military units apparently ignored their cries for
help, the Guardian has learned.

     A boat carrying 72 passengers, including several women, young children and
political refugees, ran into trouble in late March after leaving Tripoli for the
Italian island of Lampedusa. Despite alarms being raised with the Italian
coastguard and the boat making contact with a military helicopter and a Nato
warship, no rescue effort was attempted.

     All but 11 of those on board died from thirst and hunger after their vessel
was left to drift in open waters for 16 days. "Every morning we would wake up
and find more bodies, which we would leave for 24 hours and then throw
overboard," said Abu Kurke, one of only nine survivors. "By the final days, we
didn't know ourselves … everyone was either praying, or dying."

     International maritime law compels all vessels, including military units, to
answer distress calls from nearby boats and to offer help where possible.
Refugee rights campaigners have demanded an investigation into the deaths, while
the UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency, has called for stricter co-operation among
commercial and military vessels in the Mediterranean in an effort to save human
lives.

     "The Mediterranean cannot become the wild west," said spokeswoman Laura
Boldrini. "Those who do not rescue people at sea cannot remain unpunished."

     Her words were echoed by Father Moses Zerai, an Eritrean priest in Rome who
runs the refugee rights organisation Habeshia, and who was one of the last
people to be in communication with the migrant boat before its satellite phone
ran out of battery.

     "There was an abdication of responsibility which led to the deaths of over
60 people, including children," he claimed. "That constitutes a crime, and that
crime cannot go unpunished just because the victims were African migrants and
not tourists on a cruise liner."

     This year's political turmoil and military conflict in north Africa have
fuelled a sharp rise in the number of people attempting to reach Europe by sea,
with up to 30,000 migrants believed to have made the journey across the
Mediterranean over the past four months.

Large numbers have died en route; last month more than 800 migrants of different
nationalities who left on boats from Libya never made it to European shores and
are presumed dead.

     Underlining the dangers, on Sunday more than 400 migrants were involved in a
dramatic rescue when their boat hit rocks on Lampedusa.

     The pope, meanwhile, in an address to more than 300,000 worshippers, called
on Italians to welcome immigrants fleeing to their shores.

     The Guardian's investigation into the case of the boat of 72 migrants which
set sail from Tripoli on 25 March established that it carried 47 Ethiopians,
seven Nigerians, seven Eritreans, six Ghanaians and five Sudanese migrants.
Twenty were women and two were small children, one of whom was just one year
old. The boat's Ghanaian captain was aiming for the Italian island of Lampedusa,
180 miles north-west of the Libyan capital, but after 18 hours at sea the small
vessel began running into trouble and losing fuel.

     Using witness testimony from survivors and other individuals who were in
contact with the passengers during its doomed voyage, the Guardian has pieced
together what happened next. The account paints a harrowing picture of a group
of desperate migrants condemned to death by a combination of bad luck,
bureaucracy and the apparent indifference of European military forces who had
the opportunity to attempt a rescue.

     The migrants used the boat's satellite phone to call Zerai in Rome, who in
turn contacted the Italian coastguard. The boat's location was narrowed down to
about 60 miles off Tripoli, and coastguard officials assured Zerai that the
alarm had been raised and all relevant authorities had been alerted to the
situation.

     Soon a military helicopter marked with the word "army" appeared above the
boat. The pilots, who were wearing military uniforms, lowered bottles of water
and packets of biscuits and gestured to passengers that they should hold their
position until a rescue boat came to help. The helicopter flew off, but no
rescue boat arrived.

     No country has yet admitted sending the helicopter that made contact with
the migrants. A spokesman for the Italian coastguard said: "We advised Malta
that the vessel was heading towards their search and rescue zone, and we issued
an alert telling vessels to look out for the boat, obliging them to attempt a
rescue." The Maltese authorities denied they had had any involvement with the
boat.

     After several hours of waiting, it became apparent to those on board that
help was not on the way. The vessel had only 20 litres of fuel left, but the
captain told passengers that Lampedusa was close enough for him to make it there
unaided. It was a fatal mistake. By 27 March, the boat had lost its way, run out
of fuel and was drifting with the currents.

     "We'd finished the oil, we'd finished the food and water, we'd finished
everything," said Kurke, a 24-year-old migrant who was fleeing ethnic conflict
in his homeland, the Oromia region of Ethiopia. "We were drifting in the sea,
and the weather was very dangerous."

At some point on 29 or 30 March the boat was carried near to a Nato aircraft
carrier – so close that it would have been impossible to be missed. According to
survivors, two jets took off from the ship and flew low over the boat while the
migrants stood on deck holding the two starving babies aloft. But from that
point on, no help was forthcoming. Unable to manoeuvre any closer to the
aircraft carrier, the migrants' boat drifted away. Shorn of supplies, fuel or
means of contacting the outside world, they began succumbing one by one to
thirst and starvation.

     The Guardian has made extensive inquiries to ascertain the identity of the
Nato aircraft carrier, and has concluded that it is likely to have been the
French ship Charles de Gaulle, which was operating in the Mediterranean on those
dates.

     French naval authorities initially denied the carrier was in the region at
that time. After being shown news reports which indicated this was untrue, a
spokesperson declined to comment.

     A spokesman for Nato, which is co-ordinating military action in Libya, said
it had not logged any distress signals from the boat and had no records of the
incident. "Nato units are fully aware of their responsibilities with regard to
the international maritime law regarding safety of life at sea," said an
official. "Nato ships will answer all distress calls at sea and always provide
help when necessary. Saving lives is a priority for any Nato ships."

     For most of the migrants, the failure of the Nato ship to mount any rescue
attempt proved fatal. Over the next 10 days, almost everyone on board died. "We
saved one bottle of water from the helicopter for the two babies, and kept
feeding them even after their parents had passed," said Kurke, who survived by
drinking his own urine and eating two tubes of toothpaste. "But after two days,
the babies passed too, because they were so small."

     On 10 April, the boat washed up on a beach near the Libyan town of Zlitan
near Misrata. Of the 72 migrants who had embarked at Tripoli, only 11 were still
alive, and one of those died almost immediately on reaching land. Another
survivor died shortly afterwards in prison, after Gaddafi's forces arrested the
migrants and detained them for four days.

     Despite the trauma of their last attempt, the migrants – who are hiding out
in the house of an Ethiopian in the Libyan capital – are willing to tackle the
Mediterranean again if it means reaching Europe and gaining asylum.

     "These are people living an unimaginable existence, fleeing political,
religious and ethnic persecution," said Zerai. "We must have justice for them,
for those that died alongside them, and for the families who have lost their
loved ones."


     Additional reporting by John Hooper and Tom Kington in Rome, and Kim
Willsher in Paris

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Lord Vader announced the killing of Obi-Wan Kenobi at the Imperial Palace on
Coruscant


Obi-Wan Kenobi Is Dead, Vader Says
Lobot/TheGalacticEmpireTimes
By DEN DHUR and HALLIS SAPER
May 9, 2011
http://www.galacticempiretimes.com/2011/05/09/galaxy/outer-rim/obi-wan-kenobi-is\
-killed.html


CORUSCANT — Obi-Wan Kenobi, the mastermind of some of the most devastating
attacks on the Galactic Empire and the most hunted man in the galaxy, was killed
in a firefight with Imperial forces near Alderaan, Darth Vader announced on
Sunday.


How Obi-Wan Kenobi Was Located and Killed
Interactive Feature and other related topics at above url.


In a late-night appearance in the East Room of the Imperial Palace, Lord Vader
declared that "justice has been done" as he disclosed that agents of the
Imperial Army and stormtroopers of the 501st Legion had finally cornered Kenobi,
one of the leaders of the Jedi rebellion, who had eluded the Empire for nearly
two decades. Imperial officials said Kenobi resisted and was cut down by Lord
Vader's own lightsaber. He was later dumped out of an airlock.

The news touched off an extraordinary outpouring of emotion as crowds gathered
in the Senate District and outside the Imperial Palace, waving imperial flags,
cheering, shouting, laughing and chanting, "Hail to the Emperor! Hail Lord
Vader!" In the alien protection zone, crowds sang "The Ten Thousand Year
Empire." Throughout the Sah'c district, airspeeder drivers honked horns deep
into the night.

"For over two decades, Kenobi has been the Jedi rebellion's leader and symbol,"
the Lord of the Sith said in a statement broadcast across the galaxy via
HoloNet. "The death of Kenobi marks the most significant achievement to date in
our empire's effort to defeat the rebel alliance. But his death does not mark
the end of our effort. There's no doubt that the rebellion will continue to
pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant at home and
abroad."

Obi-Wan Kenobi 's demise is a defining moment in the stormtrooper-led fight
against terrorism, a symbolic stroke affirming the relentlessness of the pursuit
of those who turned against the Empire at the end of the Clone Wars. What
remains to be seen, however, is whether it galvanizes Kenobi's followers by
turning him into a martyr or serves as a turning of the page in the war against
the Rebel Alliance and gives further impetus to Emperor Palpatine to step up
Stormtrooper recruitment.

In an earlier statement issued to the press, Kenobi boasted that striking him
down could make him "more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

How much his death will affect the rebel alliance itself remains unclear. For
years, as they failed to find him, Imperial leaders have said that he was more
symbolically important than operationally significant because he was on the run
and hindered in any meaningful leadership role. Yet he remained the most potent
face of terrorism in the Empire, and some of those who played down his role in
recent years nonetheless celebrated his death.

Given Kenobi's status among radicals, the Imperial Galactic government braced
for possible retaliation. A Grand Moff of the Imperial Starfleet said late
Sunday that military bases in the core worlds and around the galaxy were ordered
to a higher state of readiness. The Imperial Security Bureau issued a galactic
travel warning, urging citizens in volatile areas "to limit their travel outside
of their local star systems and avoid mass gatherings and demonstrations."

The strike could deepen tensions within the Outer Rim, which has periodically
bristled at Imperial counterterrorism efforts even as Kenobi evidently found
safe refuge it its territories for nearly two decades. Since taking over as
Supreme Commander of the Imperial Navy, Lord Vader has ordered significantly
more strikes on suspected terrorist targets in the Outer Rim, stirring public
anger there and leading to increased criminal activity.

When the end came for Kenobi, he was found not in the remote uncharted areas of
Wild Space and the Unknown Regions, where he has long been presumed to be
sheltered, but in a massive compound about an hour's drive west from the
Tatooine capital of Bestine. He had been living under the alias "Ben" Kenobi for
some time.

The compound, only about 50 miles from the base of operations for the Imperial
Storm Squadron, is at the end of a narrow dirt road and is roughly eight times
larger than other homes in the area, which were largely occupied by Tusken
Raiders. When Imperial operatives converged on the planet on Saturday, following
up on recent intelligence, two local moisture farmers "resisted the assault
force" and were killed in the middle of an intense gun battle, a senior
Stormtrooper said, but details were still sketchy early Monday morning.

A representative of the Imperial Starfleet said that military and intelligence
officials first learned last summer that a "high-value target" was hiding
somewhere on the desert world and began working on a plan for going in to get
him. Beginning in March, Lord Vader worked closely with a series of several
different Admirals serving onboard the Death Star to go over plans for the
operation, and on Friday morning gave the final order for members of the 501st
Legion (known commonly as "Vader's Fist") to strike.

Kenobi and a group of his followers were eventually captured while fleeing the
system, and taken aboard the Death Star, which was in the midst of surveying the
recent environmental disaster on Alderaan. Darth Vader called it a "targeted
operation," although officials said four tie fighters were lost because of
"mechanical failures" and had to be destroyed to keep them from falling into
hostile hands.

In addition to Kenobi, two men and one wookiee were killed, one believed to be
his young apprentice and the other two his couriers, according to an admiral who
briefed reporters under Imperial ground rules forbidding further identification.
A woman was killed when she was used as a shield by a male combatant, the
Admiral said. Two droids were also reported missing.

"No Stormtroopers were seriously harmed," Lord Vader said. "They took care to
avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, I defeated my former master and
took custody of his body." Jedi tradition requires burial within 24 hours, but
by doing it in deep space, Imperial authorities presumably were trying to avoid
creating a shrine for his followers.

Lord Vader has denied requests to present photographs of the body, describing
them as "too gruesome" for the general public.

Usama bin Laden

by shahid on May 2, 2011


Usama bin Laden, aka Emmanuel Goldstein has been officially "deaded" by the US
mainstream media, followed swiftly by a confirmation from the American
Commander-in-Chief, President Barack Hussein Obama.

Of course, Bin Laden could have died anytime in the last 10 years. We know he is
not alive. We know this because it would be very inconvenient if he resurfaced
alive after being declared dead by the US President. For those still wondering
about Benazir Bhutto's statement about him being murdered, well she clearly
referred to him being alive both before and after that legendary video, and the
person she was referring to was obviously Daniel Pearl, the journalist. That's
why nobody made a song and dance about it.

That we have not seen a single authentic video of him in around a decade means
that he has become an irrelevance to everyone bar the infantile Americans who
were celebrating last night. He just became a bogeyman. His life made no
difference in the last ten years, except to serve as some kind of humiliation to
those chasing him, in some kind of decade-long real-life running of the A-Team,
and to some people who saw him as the only man standing up to American
imperialism. His death will make little difference. There will always be a
reaction to American imperialism. That is the way of the world. And there was no
real Al-Qa'ida organisation either.

Any rag-tag bunch of terrorists, usually backed by Western agents in a
sting-operation or a false-flag operation could go around calling themselves Al
Qa'ida. To them, Bin Laden was an idea. The idea was simple – a figurehead of
opposition to the West.

Now this put many Muslims in an awkward position. For a decade, our loyalty has
been questioned. We have answered through our deeds and our actions, for the
most part, quietly, and in my case, vocally on the old Suspect Paki blog. My
angle was always that I had nothing to prove, that I resented having to prove
myself, or defend myself. Again. After years of racism and going through the
hatred of foreigners in the 70s and 80s, there was somewhat of a lull in the
90s. Then 9/11 happened and suddenly, Islamophobia became the acceptable face of
bigotry.

So the question we Muslims were asked by President Bush was "are you on our
side, or are you on the side of the terrorists?". Easy question for those
jingoistic, flag-waving, dumbstruck Americans to answer, who went on to spawn
the hateful likes of Malkin, Geller, Coulter et al, but as most of the smart
Americans (and that's about half the country, even if Murderoch's Fux News
sometimes makes you think otherwise) – and the rest of us, especially Muslims,
resented the false dichotomy.

We are neither on the side of the Muslim killers, the rapists of Muslim women,
the dismember-junkies of murdered Afghan children, the permanent despoilers of
lands through the use of depleted uranium, the holocausters of Fallujah in a
hellish haze of white (like the angel of death) phosphorous, nor were we on the
side of those who also kill civilians, but in smaller numbers and with less
sophisticated weaponry. We were on the side of peace. And we didn't appreciate
lies being told to support wars whose only beneficiary was, is and will continue
to be the Military Industrial Complex.

Muslims, as I am fond of telling friends, are not like the Borg. Although we
feel the pain of others in the Ummah, the family of Muslims, we do not all think
the same way. This should be no surprise. We should learn the lesson of early
20th century Europe and where such a mindset leads us. Muslims, like Jews, like
Christians, like those with no faith, or any faith, are as varied as the rainbow
in their thoughts and feelings. So when you read me, you should know that
although there will be others in the Ummah who share my view, many won't.

Usama Bin Laden (there is no `O' when you transliterate Arabic), whatever he did
right, whatever he did wrong, was a Muslim. When a Muslim dies, we say "inna
lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji`oon", which means "To God we belong and to God we
return". We don't pass judgment on his eventual destination, it is only God who
can do that, whatever the wishes of those crude jingoists on the Whitehouse lawn
last night.

When we hear some people talk of justice, we wonder about the million your
armies caused to die in Iraq, and that was after Albright said it was worth
killing half a million Iraqi children through the brutal application of
sanctions and a no-fly-zone. And that was after destroying the infrastructure of
the once-proud and advanced civilisation of Iraq in Desert Storm, a pretext for
establishing permanent bases in the Holy Land (near Mecca and Medina) and
keeping the balance of power tipped in the favour of the West. We hear of your
justice and wonder how many millions were internally displaced in Iraq, in
Pakistan, in Yemen, in Somalia, in Afghanistan. How many children killed. How
many drone strikes against families. How many bombed weddings. How many raped
girls. How many burned boys. How many women and children raped by your
sick-psycho-soldiers in Guantanamo that so upset Seymour Hersh and compelled
that lying, upwards-chin-pointing President of yours to hide the facts in case
your sick-psycho-soliders got some comeback. God forbid that any of this could
enrage young men with time on their hands and a recession to face and nothing to
do bar look at painful videos on YouTube or read harrowing accounts on blogs
whilst wondering why the bankrupt, paid-off mainstream media could stay so
disgustingly, cravenly silent.

I respect Bin Laden for two things. The man had more charisma than any American
leader of recent times bar Clinton and Obama. In other words, compared to the
Bushes and Reagan, Bin Laden seemed like a gentleman. I'm sorry if that offends
you, but that's just how he came across in his interview for Esquire magazine a
few years ago – that's not to say I agree with his views or his stance on
attacking civilians, but to ignore his message and his appeal to a minority is
to miss the wood for the trees. And I respect him for openly standing up to his
family's decision of allowing the Americans to settle in the Holy Land. If he
was genuinely guilty of 9/11, then that was indeed terrible, but has America not
committed a thousand 9/11s in return? Is that not enough blood? For every victim
of 9/11, America's blood lust has led to the creation of another 9/11, like some
sick, exponential, asymptotic death wish. And what will that beget? Bin Laden
becomes irrelevant in the face of so much blood, but indeed, the blood of
Muslims has become cheap. Too cheap.

Nearly all Muslims, myself included, disagree strongly with the targeting of
civilians, by Western Crusader forces (and yes, they are Crusades, Americans
roll with crosses on their tanks and give Pashtun Bibles to Afghans, whilst
screaming of the superiority of Christ in your gulags) and by
so-called-terrorists, many of whom work at the behest of sell-outs and handlers,
hell-bent on creating terror through the planting of a false-flag flower,
pregnant with savage destruction.

To us Muslims, all terrorists are the same. Anybody taking civilian life is a
terrorist. That makes America the biggest terrorist state the world has ever
known. Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an act of terror. Deforesting and
raping Vietnam was an act of terror. Sanctions on the whole Iraqi nation was an
act of terror. Killing a million civilians and fomenting the first Sunni-Shi`a
sectarian war in Iraq was an act of terror.Afghanistan, an act of terror.
Pakistan, an act of terror.

And what has the last decade done to our values? We have presidents who think
torture is OK. If that's what it has done to our presidents, what do you think
has happened to the people? It's created leaders like Sarkozy who ban a minority
dress item to pander to racists. Hitler would have been proud. It's created
leaders like Blair who casually drop "Evil Ideology" into a speech. And it has
created David Cameron, who panders to the worst excesses of the EDL. That's just
our leaders.

So we put things into perspective. We agree with you, if Bin Laden had done the
things you say he has done, we would have liked to have seen YOUR justice
applied to him. That is, he should have been brought to a court of law and the
evidence against him brought forth. Then he should have been tried by a jury.
Any jury. Even though it would have been a sham, even though it would have been
a Nuremberg, it would have been something.

Instead, we have an operation against a fancy home. No body. No video. Fake
photos. Burial at sea. All rather convenient. Why now? And if intelligence
accomplished this, why the need for all those wars? Buried according to Muslim
custom? I rather doubt that was the motive. And besides, his body wasn't buried.
Nobody knows what happened to his body, but the truth is, it doesn't much
matter.

I'll tell you what offends me and upsets many Muslims I know. You call us fifth
columnists because you know we feel pain when you murder our fellow Muslims and
rape them and press crucifixes into their tortured faces and chop bits off their
corpses to parade as trophies. That hurts. You taunt us with this, knowing full
well that you are complicit in mass murder and the vilest atrocities human
beings ever committed in the name of the tarnished idols of "freedom" and
"democracy". You took a word like "liberty" and another like "terrorism" and you
utterly stripped both of meaning. You used these wars of aggression, the ones
that conform to Brezizinki's Grand Chessboard to bolster the fear you created at
home, stripping us all, Muslim and non-Muslim alike of our civil liberties and
our dignity.

People just went along. They read the mainstream media, full of prostitutes
masquerading as journalists (with the notable exceptions of Pilger, Hass and
Fisk) pimping your lying bullshit and they lapped it all up. You saw the
impending train-wreck of the financial crisis looming and decided to use
Islamophobia to distract people. That's what you powermongers do. When times are
tough, divide and rule. Turn the poor against each other. And every time you
opened your mouths, Muslim cemeteries were trashed in the North, Muslim women
were beaten up by gangs, mosques were vandalised, we are demonised, daily,
weekly, monthly, yearly and now look, it's a decade and it gets worse every
year.

So when we see your people whooping and cheering and shouting "USA, USA", we
remember the girls you raped, the boys you raped, the countless hundreds of
thousands you brought to a savage, premature end, the countries you despoiled,
the lies you told, the hate you sowed, the lies you sold, the future you
blighted, a world left unsighted and punch-drunk to get to this comma of a day,
it's only a comma, it was never meant to be a full-stop, it's just a comma,
because your murder will go on and people will stay blind and drunk and Muslims
will continue to die so that the dollar can last just a little bit longer.

The enigma that was Usama bin Laden was not created in a vacuum. there was a
context and we need to reconsider that entire context. Usama bin Laden is dead.
But neither his living, nor his dying, was ever the point.

inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji`oon

Professor Hassan Diab: Unjustly Victimized
by Stephen Lendman
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/04/professor-hassan-diab-unjustly.html


Depending on how events unfold, the case of former University of Ottawa and
Carleton University Professor Hassan Diab is more disturbing and shocking. A
November 13, 2008 Ottawa Citizen article explained, headlining:

"Ottawa university instructor arrested in 1980 blast at Paris synagogue,"
saying:

The October 3, 1980 Union Liberale Israelite de France incident killed four,
injured dozens, and was followed by similar attacks in Vienna, Antwerp, Belgium,
and elsewhere.

On November 13, 2008, Diab "was arrested by the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted
Police) at Gatineau residence....as he was getting dressed, placed in custody at
the RCMP's A division," and for over four months, denied bail, his lawyer, Rene
Duval, said at the time. He now lives under virtual house arrest, wears a GPS
electronic ankle monitor, and can only leave home accompanied by one of five
sureties who posted his $250,000 + bond.

His apprehension followed an international arrest warrant issued by two French
judges earlier in November, "believed to be the first such (instance) for
(alleged) terrorism ever executed in Canada."

With no corroborating evidence, France's Le Figaro newspaper cited unnamed 2007
sources, saying Diab led "the small commando team responsible for the attack and
had asked Canada for assistance with their investigation."

In mid-November 2008, the French magazine L'Express said French police,
magistrates and intelligence officers were in Canada, "try(ing) to arrange Mr.
Diab's extradition to France. The French warrant....accuse(d) him of making and
planting the bomb, according to" a Reuters report.

At the time, Diab explained through his lawyer that he had no involvement in the
incident. "Most definitely he's innocent," he said. "He didn't even set foot in
France in 1980. At the time, he was studying sociology at the University of
Lebanon." A former Canadian Human Rights Commission senior litigator, Duval said
Diab is accused of "driv(ing) the motorbike that eventually exploded."

Moreover, he has no criminal record and was never involved with the accused
group or other militant organizations. In fact, he was unaware of the bombing
until a Le Figaro reporter told him at the University of Ottawa.

In October 2007, Diab told Le Figaro:

"I am a victim of mistaken identity not based on anything" but unjust
conjecture. "I have never belonged to a Palestinian organization, nor have I
been militant politically. Because of such mistaken identities, my travel in
Canada was often affected."

He also explained how often he's mistaken for others with the same name, adding:

"Since (9/11), we know that files are created on nothing, particularly if you
are a member of a minority, and that innocent people will admit to anything if
they are put under pressure."

After the news broke, he began noticing unidentified (RCMP) agents following
him, and once someone tried breaking into his home. Despite notifying Ottawa
police, intimidation and intrusive surveillance persisted. Nonetheless, at the
time, he continued his normal activities, including teaching, but not for long.

Ahead of his first court hearing, Duval explained:

"They're going to be multiplying security measures, which are absolutely
unwarranted and uncalled for. I suspect that will be the case. They like to make
it a big deal. The word terrorist (frightens) a lot of people. And governments
in Canada, France or (elsewhere), they like to show their muscle in those
matters," even with no evidence against innocent victims. Too often, in fact,
they're judged guilty by accusation.

Diab was Professor of Sociology at the University of Ottawa and Carleton
University in Ottawa, Ontario. A Lebanese national with dual citizenship, he
first taught at the American University of Beirut, later earning his doctorate
at Syracuse University, New York.

His Background and Case

The web site Justice for Hassan Diab.org can be accessed through the following
link for detailed information about him and his case:

http://www.justiceforhassandiab.org/about

Until October 2007, he "enjoyed and engaged in a productive public life,
including teaching, publishing research, and traveling internationally." Now
he's falsely accused of the 1980 Paris synagogue bombing. In fact, he's innocent
of all charges, is peace-loving, and not anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish, or against
any other religion or ethnicity.

On November 8, 2010, he released the following statement:

"I am innocent of the charges against me. I condemn all ethnically, racially,
and religiously motivated violence. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the presumption of
innocence and other core values of our legal system have eroded, especially for
people from particular minority backgrounds. I hope this extradition hearing
will end the witch-hunt atmosphere I have been living under for the past three
years, and that no one else will have to endure the burden of false, unfounded
accusations. I also wish to thank the many people and groups across Canada who
have signed a statement in my support."

Nonetheless, both the University of Ottawa and Carleton University terminated
him, violating his presumption of innocence unless proved guilty, and the
"responsibility of a university to protect its autonomy (and academic freedom)
from inappropriate political pressure." As a result, Diab is unemployed, and
delay in resolving his case adds "thousands of dollars to his legal expenses."

His web site also explains the following:

-- alleged evidence against him is "bald, unsourced and conclusory intelligence
information" that's inadmissible in Canadian criminal courts; and

-- its reliability is very suspect, yet his defense can't "confront or
cross-examine witnesses," so is unable to "demonstrate weaknesses or
inaccuracies" nor "argue against false claims."

As a result, he's "in a double-bind," unable to challenge his accusers because
an extradition case isn't a trial. Moreover, in France, he'll face
unsubstantiated charges based on secret intelligence, again severely restricting
his ability to refute it. In fact, any defense effort "to cross-examine
witnesses or (present) exonerating evidence will be looked upon unfavorably by
the court" because "neither Canadian nor French judges and prosecutors know the
sources of the intelligence information" so can't examine their credibility or
lack thereof.

In other words, he'll be hung out to dry under a rigged process to convict,
despite his innocence. As a result, human rights and other groups criticized
France "for violating internationally recognized due process standards and for
running unfair trials."

It's believed alleged evidence in his case comes from torture-extracted
confessions of suspects in Middle East custody, saying anything to stop pain and
help improve their own status. Various other wrongfully accused victims have
been targeted the same way, authorities knowing alleged evidence against them
was false but used it anyway.

Nonetheless, Canada's Crown Attorney seems willing to accept dubious secret
intelligence to extradite an innocent Canadian citizen. If so, a dangerous legal
precedent will be established based on unreliable, uncorroborated, and likely
spurious evidence manipulated to convict.

In December 2009, Amnesty International lawyer Paul Champ said:

"If the Canadian government and the French government are able to rely on this
kind of intelligence information to support an extradition, I think it's yet
another step in the erosion of civil liberties that we've been familiar with in
Canada and in other countries for a very long time."

In fact, far too long, so-called Western and other democracies, including
Canada, France, Israel and America, are de facto police states, regularly
convicting innocent victims by accusations, especially Muslims for their faith,
ethnicity, prominence, activism, and at times charitable giving because they
care.

As a result, Hassan Diab is one of many needing broad support to free him from
this unprincipled burden so he can resume a normal life.

Recent Ottawa Citizen Articles on His Case

On November 24, 2010, writer Andrew Seymour headlined, "Terrorism evidence
against former Ottawa professor 'unreliable,' court hears," saying:

University of Toronto Law Professor and anti-terrorism expert Kent Roach
testified it was "dangerous" to use alleged 30-year old intelligence, calling it
"unsourced, uncircumstanced," and/or manipulated to benefit prosecutorial
accusations. He added that aspects of this case set off "alarm bells" based on
suspect intelligence that Diab either used his own passport to enter France
through Spain or surreptitiously with a fake one, saying:

"It would suggest to me the intelligence record is unreliable because it is
malleable enough to fit any or both scenarios. Because it is not sourced,
because it is not circumstanced, it is very difficult to go behind their
suppositions and to challenge their intelligence," that may, in fact, be fake.
He added that:

"It is easy to assert someone is a member of a terrorist organization. It is an
entirely different matter to prove it through evidence....At first glance you
say, 'This is terrible, this is very, very specific,' but there's nothing there
to substantiate it."

Accusing French authorities of "boot-strapping," Roach said they've linked one
unreliable piece of intelligence to another, "cherry picking" what they want,
ignoring what can help Diab to construct a case basely solely from whole cloth,
not verifiable facts.

On January 5, 2011, Chris Cobb headlined, "Expert rips into handwriting
evidence," saying:

During Diab's January 4 extradition hearing, "(a) British handwriting expert
(Robert Radley) ripped into French evidence, saying its main conclusions are
'frankly absurd - totally misguided and totally incorrect.' I find this whole
(analysis) unacceptable and not what I would expect from a trained, competent
expert."

At the same, French expert Ann Bisotti called her analysis the case's "smoking
gun," claiming a false name on a Paris hotel registration card was in Diab's
handwriting by comparing it to his 15-year later immigration paper signatures.

Defense lawyer Donald Bayne used three experts to refute Bisotti's analysis,
calling it "fatally flawed," showing ignorance of international professional
standards. Radley's "blistering criticism" was especially damning, given his
over three decade European and other international experience and familiarity
with the European Network of Forensic Handwriting Experts (ENFHEX). He said
Bisotti's methodology contradicted its standards, thus invalidating her
conclusion, then added:

"In over 30 years dealing with casework and having to produce critiques on
literally hundreds of police laboratory reports, I have never had to express
criticism in such robust terms."

Hired by French authorities to prove the alleged authenticity of Diab's hotel
registry signature, Bisotti apparently concluded what her client wanted to hear,
no matter how unjustifiably false.

On February 19, Andrew Seymour headlined, "Diab loses evidence fight," saying:

Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger "decided to allow handwriting
evidence....against" him despite saying:

"When all is said and done, I find the evidence amounted to very strong
competing inferences which demonstrate some serious weaknesses in the Bisotti
report, but in truth fell short of a finding of manifest unreliability. While I
find (her) report very problematic, very confusing, with conclusions that are
suspect, I cannot say that it should be rejected out of hand based on the expert
evidence."

Clearly unidentified pressure on him was exerted, evidenced by his agreeing with
Diab's lawyer's "forceful and compelling" arguments (that) flawed methodology
results in manifestly unreliable conclusions."

Yet he allowed them anyway, dealing Diab a serious blow. Expressing muted
outrage, Donald Bayne noted special concern, saying France doesn't extradite its
nationals, "but Canada will (do it) on unreliable evidence because the test for
unreliability is so high no one can meet it." He added that if Diab is ordered
extradited, he'll appeal to Canada's Supreme Court, hoping there to get justice.

On March 8, Chris Cobb headlined, "Crown wraps up case against Diab," saying:

Prosecutor Claude LeFrancois alleged "Diab belonged to an international
anti-Semitic terrorist organization embroiled in a violent underworld of lies
and deception." He named the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP), a heroic resistance group opposing Israel's illegal occupation,
struggling for Palestinian liberation.

Of course, as explained above, Diab, maintains his innocence on all charges,
asserts his egalitarian views, and strongly denies membership or participation
in any resistance or militant group.

On March 9, Chris Cobb headlined, "No proven link to Diab, lawyer argues,"
saying:

Defense lawyer Bayne "launched a blistering attack (on) the French extradition
evidence against" Diab, urging Justice Maranger to dismiss all charges that
would be inadmissible in Canadian criminal proceedings.

In fact, the entire case against him is fabricated. No corroborating evidence
links him to the synagogue bombing or that he belonged to any anti-Israeli
group. However, unlike criminal proceeding requiring proof beyond a shadow of a
doubt, extradition hearings only need show possible alleged evidence to warrant
sending a Canadian citizen abroad to stand trial. In this case, though entirely
innocent, to France where he'll be hung out to dry unjustly.

On March 10, Chris Cobb headlined, "Judge to rule in June on Diab extradition,"
saying:

Justice Maranger said he'll issue his decision on or about June 8, suggesting
he'll "give relatively or no weight to supporting circumstantial evidence
offered by the French."

Supportive Organizations for Diab

Many have been outspoken on his behalf, including the Canadian Association of
University Teachers (CAUT), expressing grave concern about "the nature of the
information being presented on behalf of France to try to justify its request."

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) called alleged evidence against
Diab "manifestly unreliable," compromising his "section 7 Charter rights to
life, liberty and security...."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada (CAIR CAN) asked "all Canadians
to urge the Minister of Justice to intervene" on Diab's behalf to prevent likely
gross injustice against him otherwise.

On November 23, 2010, the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG)
wrote Canada's Minister of Justice and Attorney General Robert Nicholson calling
possible torture-extracted evidence against him unreliable. "As such, it should
not be admitted into nor relied upon in a Canadian extradition hearing," adding:

"We thus (urge an immediate) halt (to) extradition proceedings against Dr. Diab,
unless and until reliable evidence" supports France's request. "(U)njust and
oppressive extradition orders" must straightaway be denied.

Friends of Hassan Diab maintain a French and English language blog site on his
behalf, accessed through the following link:

http://friendsofhassandiab.blogspot.com/

It has information on fundraisers, appeals for justice, as well as articles and
other supportive information.

Numerous other groups signed a "Justice for Hassan Diab" statement, accessed
below:

http://www.justiceforhassandiab.org/

Anyone can join them by emailing diabsupport@..., saying you wish to sign.

Having exhausted his personal savings and unemployed, Diab also needs financial
help for his "very expensive legal defense," besides a $2,000 per month GPS
monitoring device cost. His Justice for Hassan Diab.org site has information on
how to contribute.

He's a "victim of wrongful accusation" who'll be doubly denied justice if Canada
extradites him to France to face proceedings rigged to convict and likely
imprison him for life.

A Final Comment

Amid daily bad news, April 26 brought renewed hope to Mumia Abu-Jamal, wrongly
sentenced to death for a 1981 murder he didn't commit.

Linn Washington Jr. explained, headlining "3rd Circuit Appeal Ruling Favoring
Abu-Jamal Smacks Down US Supreme Court," saying:

The court upheld its over two year ago ruling, "siding with a federal district
court judge who, back in 2001, had set aside Abu-Jamal's death penalty after
determining" 1982 trial irregularities. The court complied with a Supreme Court
ordered reexamination of its 2009 decision by affirming it a second time.

Mumia's lead attorney, Professor Judith Ritter, said:

"Each of the four federal judges (reviewing his case) found his death sentence
to be unconstitutional. The Third Circuit's most recent opinion reflects a
detailed analysis demonstrating that their unanimous decision is well-supported
by Supreme Court precedent. We believe this carefully reasoned analysis will
stand."

If so, it'll be a small victory amid a tsunami of social, economic and political
injustice. In fact, a scandalous amount is caused by America at home and abroad,
the self-proclaimed democratic values champion, failing dismally to back its
rhetoric with principled policies on virtually all major issues mattering most.
Increasingly, Canada hardly fares better.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@.... Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com

===

Ottawa professor fights extradition for 1980 bomb attack in France
By Matthew Behrens
http://rabble.ca/news/2010/11/ottawa-professor-fights-extradition-1980-bomb-atta\
ck-france


Like a number of Muslim men in Canada, Ottawa's Dr. Hassan Diab is forced to
wear the ultimate symbol of state control: a GPS monitoring unit.

This tracking device, for which the impoverished and currently unemployed
university professor was forced to pay $30,000 for the first year (and now
$1,500 monthly), is permanently affixed to his leg, tracking his every move
under strict house arrest.

Diab bears this burden because the French government, which is attempting to
have him forcibly removed from Canada, accuses him of involvement in a 1980
synagogue bombing on Paris's rue Copernic that killed four people. But in an
unprecedented move, his extradition is being sought on the basis of secret
"intelligence," the source of which even French officials are unaware, with the
possibility that it was extracted under torture.

Starting Monday, Nov. 8, Diab will appear in an Ottawa courtroom in an effort to
end a Kafkaesque nightmare that began with his arrest two years ago. Jailed
under Canada's notoriously weak extradition law, Diab endured over four months
of detention before being transferred to draconian house arrest, only allowed to
leave his residence with one of the five sureties who posted his $290,000 bail.

Because Hassan Diab is a common Middle Eastern name, Dr. Diab chose not to
respond with alarm when, while working in 2007 as a University of Ottawa
sociology professor, he was approached by a Le Figaro reporter asking him
whether he knew French authorities were claiming he had been involved in the
1980 bombing.

But what Diab could not so easily dismiss were the unidentified individuals and
vehicles that began following him, and the attempted break-in at his residence.
Although he filed numerous reports with Ottawa police, the intensive
surveillance (which he later found out was conducted by RCMP agents) continued,
culminating in his 2008 arrest.

Since then, Diab has been involved in protracted court proceedings challenging
weaknesses in the French case. It's been a frustrating process, in large measure
due to the low threshold French authorities are required to meet in order to
extradite him. Indeed, as Manitoba Judge Freda Steel wrote in a 1999 extradition
case, "evidence at an extradition hearing should be accepted even if the judge
feels it is manifestly unreliable, incomplete, false, misleading, contradictory
of other evidence or the judge feels the witness may have perjured themselves."
Advertising

Those subject to extradition under such maddening conditions are reassured that
they can work things out in the requesting country after they have been uprooted
from Canada and jailed overseas. But critics note such a process easily
undermines human rights protections, including the right to be free from
arbitrary arrest and persecution based on ethnicity or religion. "All too
often," writes University of Alberta law professor Joanna Harrington,
"extradition is seen as a matter of comity or respect for Canada's international
relations, but without recognition that this respect should also extend to
Canada's treaty engagements with the international community in the field of
human rights."

Diab's supporters point out that even when pieces of evidence alleged to be
"smoking guns" have been withdrawn from the case for what some experts have
deemed "appalling unreliability," the case remarkably goes on, with the French
cooking up new assertions that they try to mold in a manner that they fervently
hope will stick.

Indeed, a 94-page factum filed by Diab's lawyer, Donald Bayne, declares the case
is replete with "misrepresentations, overstatements, misstatements, omissions,
inaccuracies and editing that create a misleading, incomplete, unreliable and
unfair Record of the Case."

The Ontario Superior Court judge presiding over the extradition on Nov. 8 will
hear about a litany of problems, including the fact that Diab's finger and palm
prints do not match those offered by the French.

In addition, key pieces of evidence appear to have been tampered with, possibly
amounting to fraud, and information that would exonerate Diab has been buried in
the record, with lawyers representing the Canadian government having argued the
French are under no obligation to present information in their hands that would
cast a positive light on Dr. Diab.

Indeed, French documents cited by Bayne state Diab's only potential link to this
case is "incidental" because, in a remarkable leap of illogic, that common name
happened to be in the phone book of an individual who was interrogated, but
never charged, in a case completely unrelated to the 1980 bombing. They also
concede that Diab was "not known to be part of any" terrorist group.

Despite what would appear to be an open-and-shut case in Diab's favour, the
French have refused to correct any misrepresentations, contradictions, and
inaccuracies in their alleged case, despite having had 10 months to do so.

But why? Perhaps, given a war-on-terror climate that automatically assumes guilt
when a Muslim is suspect, bedrock rule-of-law details fall prey to fear and
profiling. That's certainly the case in the French context. Internationally
respected Human Rights Watch has produced two separate reports condemning the
French government's broadly defined and applied counterterrorism laws and
procedures for failing to live up to fair trial standards. Equally of concern is
the French judiciary's acceptance of evidence derived from torture.

Last month, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association wrote a letter to Justice
Minister Rob Nicholson outlining its concerns that the use of the unsourced,
secret French intelligence in the Diab case, possibly derived from torture,
"would put this country in breach of the universal prohibition against torture."

With his life in limbo, Diab will enter the Ottawa Courthouse Nov. 8 hoping the
rule of law prevails, and that, even with the low extradition standards, the
sheer weight of the facts will tilt the case in his favour. But he and
supporters are not resting easy. They are asking that individuals and groups
across Canada add their name to a statement calling for his extradition to be
stopped and for the process to be brought in line with Canada's human rights
obligations. That statement, and further background can be found here.


Matthew Behrens is an Ontario social justice advocate and freelance writer.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Bloody Sunday, the latest mass murder of peaceful refugees by Israeli army on
May 15, 2011 passed without raising hue and cry over blood shed. Hundreds of
Palestinians were killed and wounded along Israeli borders, in Golan, South
Lebanon, Gaza and Kalandia on the West Bank. They were unarmed, presented no
danger, and still they were met with lethal fire.

The mainstream media of the West hardly reported this occurrence;  ditto in
Russia. The Jewish lobby is strong these days; journalists and editors are
afraid to be listed as 'antisemites' and prefer to look other way, say, to
Syria. All their compassion to hapless refugees was wasted in Libya, none
remained for the Palestinians. The chief butcher, Netanyahu, is on his way to
receive standing ovations in the US Senate coming Tuesday. ICC is too busy
looking for Qaddafi; if they would but mention Israel, Israel would bomb The
Hague.
Our Malaysian friends went to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza; their vessel
called The Spirit of Rachel Corrie was attacked by Israeli Navy's heavy
machineguns in international waters. This act of piracy went practically
unnoticed.

The Egyptian border remained as calm as it was in Mubarak's days. Sinai was
sealed for the protesters. One does not see much difference between
pre-revolutionary and the new regime: it is now Mubarak 2.0, without Mubarak
personally. The Egyptians came to demonstrate to Israeli embassy in Cairo, and
were shot at by the police and security.
Some people advise the Palestinian refugees to come over the border as a huge
unarmed wave, hoping they will be able to get home and that the Jews would not
shoot. This is not an advise I'd give: who knows how many will die before
gaining ground? Here is an interesting article from the British weekly, The
Economist, summing up ideas of non-violence.

Israel Shamir

===

Israel and Palestine
Here comes your non-violent resistance
by M.S.
May 17th 2011
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/05/israel_and_palestine_0\
?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/herecomesyournonviolentresistance


FOR many years now, we've heard American commentators bemoan the violence of the
Palestinian national movement. If only Palestinians had learned the lessons of
Gandhi and Martin Luther King, we hear, they'd have had their state long ago.
Surely no Israeli government would have violently suppressed a non-violent
Palestinian movement of national liberation seeking only the universally
recognised right of self-determination.

Palestinian commentators and organisers, including Fadi Elsalameen and Moustafa
Barghouthi, have spent the last couple of years pointing out that these
complaints resolutely ignore the actual and growing Palestinian non-violent
resistance movement. For that matter, they elide the fact that the first
intifada, which broke out in 1987, was initially as close to non-violent as
could be reasonably expected. For the most part, it consisted of general strikes
and protest marches. In addition, there was a fair amount of kids throwing
rocks, as well as the continuing threat of low-level terrorism, mainly from
organisations based abroad; the Israelis conflated the autochthonous protest
movement with the terrorism and responded brutally, and the intifada quickly
lost its non-violent character. That's not that different from what has happened
over the past couple of months in Libya; it shows that it's very hard to keep a
non-violent movement non-violent when the government you're demonstrating
against subjects you to gunfire for a sustained period of time.

In any case, if you're among those who have made the argument that Israelis
would give Palestinians a state if only the Palestinians would learn to employ
Ghandhian tactics of non-violent protest, it appears your moment of truth has
arrived. As my colleague writes, what happened on Nakba Day was Israel's
"nightmare scenario: masses of Palestinians marching, unarmed, towards the
borders of the Jewish state, demanding the redress of their decades-old national
grievance." Peter Beinart writes that this represents "Israel's Palestinian Arab
Spring": the tactics of mass non-violent protest that brought down the
governments of Tunisia and Egypt, and are threatening to bring down those of
Libya, Yemen and Syria, are now being used in the Palestinian cause.

So now we have an opportunity to see how Americans will react. We've asked the
Palestinians to lay down their arms. We've told them their lack of a state is
their own fault; if only they would embrace non-violence, a reasonable and
unprejudiced world would see the merit of their claims. Over the weekend, tens
of thousands of them did just that, and it seems likely to continue. If crowds
of tens of thousands of non-violent Palestinian protestors continue to march,
and if Israel continues to shoot at them, what will we do? Will we make good on
our rhetoric, and press Israel to give them their state? Or will it turn out
that our paeans to non-violence were just cynical tactics in an amoral
international power contest staged by militaristic Israeli and American
right-wing groups whose elective affinities lead them to shape a common
narrative of the alien Arab/Muslim threat? Will we even bother to acknowledge
that the Palestinians are protesting non-violently? Or will we soldier on with
the same empty decades-old rhetoric, now drained of any truth or meaning,
because it protects established relationships of power? What will it take to
make Americans recognise that the real Martin Luther King-style non-violent
Palestinian protestors have arrived, and that Israeli soldiers are shooting them
with real bullets?


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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Deutsche Bahn pulls out of Israel rail project
By Tobias Buck in Jerusalem
Financial Times
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4b6b59fc-7a4b-11e0-bc74-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1LvIu7xM\
U


Deutsche Bahn, the German railway operator, has pulled out of an sraeli project
that cuts through the occupied Palestinian West Bank, after pressure from
activists and Berlin.

The move marks a victory for pro-Palestinian groups and their so-called boycott,
divestment and sanctions campaign, which tries to useeconomic pressure on Israel
to help the Palestinian cause.

Campaigners were angered by the activities of Deutsche Bahn's international
consulting arm, which provided advice on the electrification of the new track
linking Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The high-speed line, due to be completed by
2017, has attracted sharp criticism from Palestinian officials because a 6-km
stretch cuts through the West Bank.

Opponents said the project was illegal because it used occupied Palestinian
territory for a project that would be used primarily, or solely, by Israeli
citizens. They also argued that the new line could have easily been built on
Israeli territory alone, making land confiscations in the West Bank unnecessary.

Deutsche Bahn, which is state-owned, declined to comment on the reasons for the
pull-out but said: "We told Israel Railways in February that we would not
provide further services for this particular project."

The operator added that the involvement in the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem line had been
"modest" and that DB International, its consulting subsidiary, would continue to
provide services to the Israeli rail operator elsewhere.

According to a letter sent by Germany's ministry for transport to a member of
parliament, the operator faced criticism for its involvement from the government
itself: "The federal government pointed out [to Deutsche Bahn] that the project
of the Israeli state railway is problematic from a foreign policy point of view
and potentially breaches international law," it said. The letter added that the
German operator confirmed "in writing" that there would be no further
involvement of its international subsidiary in "this politically very sensitive
project".

The document, dated March 11, was published on Monday on the website of
Change.org, a campaign group.

Merav Emir, an activist with Who Profits, the campaign group that leads the
lobbying effort against the rail project, welcomed the decision. "I want to
congratulate the German government for making such a clear and bold statement
about the illegality of this train route under international law," she said. "We
call on other European governments to follow suit in making sure that companies
in their countries abide by international law."

The Israeli transport ministry did not return calls for comment.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Minimum Wage's Discriminatory Effects
by Walter E. Williams
http://www.lewrockwell.com/williams-w/w-williams81.1.html


As if more proof were needed about the minimum wage's devastating effects, yet
another study has reached the same conclusion. Last week, two labor economists,
Professors William Even (Miami University of Ohio) and David Macpherson (Trinity
University), released a study for the Washington, D.C.-based Employment Policies
Institute titled "Unequal Harm: Racial Disparities in the Employment
Consequences of Minimum Wage Increases."

During the peak of what has been dubbed the Great Recession, the unemployment
rate for young adults (16 to 24 years of age) as a whole rose to above 27
percent. The unemployment rate for black young adults was almost 50 percent, but
for young black males, it was 55 percent.

Even and Macpherson say that it would be easy to say this tragedy is an
unfortunate byproduct of the recession, but if you said so, you'd be wrong.
Their study demonstrates that increases in the minimum wage at both the state
and federal level are partially to blame for the crisis in employment for
minority young adults.

Their study focuses on 16-to-24-year-old male high school dropouts,
understandably a relatively inexperienced group of labor market participants.
Since minimum wage laws discriminate against the employment of the least-skilled
worker, it shouldn't be surprising to find 16-to-24-year-old male high school
dropouts its primary victims.

Among the white males, the authors find that "each 10 percent increase in a
state or federal minimum wage has decreased employment by 2.5 percent; for
Hispanic males, the figure is 1.2 percent.

"But among black males in this group, each 10 percent increase in the minimum
wage decreased employment by 6.5 percent."

The authors go on to say, "The effect is similar for hours worked: each 10
percent increase reduces hours worked by 3 percent among white males, 1.7
percent for Hispanic males, and 6.6 percent for black males."

Even and Macpherson compare the job loss caused by higher minimum wages with
that caused by the recession and find between 2007 and 2010, employment for
16-to-24-year-old black males fell by approximately 34,300 as a result of the
recession; over the same time period, approximately 26,400 lost their jobs as a
result of increases in the minimum wage across the 50 states and at the federal
level.

Why do young black males suffer unequal harm from minimum wage increases? Even
and Macpherson say that they're more likely to be employed in low-skilled jobs
in eating and drinking establishments.
These are businesses with narrow profit margins and are more adversely affected
by increases in minimum wage increases. For 16-to-24-year-old men without a high
school diploma, 25 percent of whites and 31 percent of blacks work at an eating
and drinking establishment. Compounding the discriminatory burden of minimum
wages, not discussed by the authors, are the significant educational achievement
differences between blacks and whites.

The best way to sabotage chances for upward mobility of a youngster from a
single-parent household, who resides in a violent slum and has attended
poor-quality schools is to make it unprofitable for any employer to hire him.
The way to accomplish that is to mandate an employer to pay such a person a wage
that exceeds his skill level.
Imagine that a worker's skill level is such that he can only contribute $5 worth
of value per hour to the employer's output, but the employer must pay him a
minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, plus mandated fringes such as Social Security,
unemployment compensation and health insurance. To hire such a worker would be a
losing economic proposition. If the employer could pay that low-skilled worker
the value of his skills, he would at least have a job and a chance to upgrade
his skill and earn more in the future.

Minimum wage laws have massive political support, including that of black
politicians. That means that many young black males will remain a part of
America's permanent underclass with crime, drugs and prison as their future.


Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at
George Mason University, and a nationally syndicated columnist. To find out more
about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate
columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

GORDON DUFF: YEARS OF DECEIT: US OPENLY ACCEPTS BIN LADEN LONG DEAD
Gordon Duff
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/12/05/years-of-deceit-us-openly-accepts-bin-la\
den-long-dead/


Conservative commentator, former Marine Colonel Bob Pappas has been saying for
years that bin Laden died at Tora Bora and that Senator Kerry's claim that bin
Laden escaped with Bush help was a lie.  Now we know that Pappas was correct. 
The embarrassment of having Secretary of State Clinton talk about bin Laden in
Pakistan was horrific.  He has been dead since December 13, 2001 and now,
finally, everyone, Obama, McChrystal, Cheney, everyone who isn't nuts is finally
saying what they have known for years.

However, since we lost a couple of hundred of our top special operations forces
hunting for bin Laden after we knew he was dead, is someone going to answer for
this with some jail time?  Since we spent 200 million dollars on "special ops"
looking for someone we knew was dead, who is going to jail for that?  Since
Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney continually talked about a man they knew was dead, now
known to be for reasons of POLITICAL nature, who is going to jail for that?  Why
were tapes brought out, now known to be forged, as legitimate intelligence to
sway the disputed 2004 election in the US?  This is a criminal act if there ever
was one.

In 66 pages, General Stanley McChrystal never mentions Osama bin Laden. 
Everything is "Mullah Omar"now.  In his talk at West Point, President Obama
never mentioned Osama bin Laden.  Col. Pappas makes it clear, Vice President
Cheney let it "out of the bag" long ago.  Bin Laden was killed by American
troops many many years ago.

America knew Osama bin Laden died December 13, 2001.  After that, his use was
hardly one to unite America but rather one to divide, scam and play games.  With
bin Laden gone, we could have started legitimate nation building in Afghanistan
instead of the eternal insurgency that we invented ourselves.

Without our ill informed policies, we could have had a brought diplomatic
solution in 2002 in Afghanistan, the one we are ignoring now, and spent money
rebuilding the country, 5 cents on the dollar compared to what we are spending
fighting a war against an enemy we ourselves recruited thru ignorance.

The bin Laden scam is one of the most shameful acts ever perpetrated against the
American people.  We don't even know if he really was an enemy, certainly he was
never the person that Bush and Cheney said.  In fact, the Bush and bin Laden
families were always close friends and had been for many years.

What kind of man was Osama bin Laden?  This one time American ally against
Russia, son of a wealthy Saudi family, went to Afghanistan to help them fight
for their freedom.  America saw him as a great hero then.  Transcripts of the
real bin Laden show him to be much more moderate than we claim, angry at Israel
and the US government but showing no anger toward Americans and never making the
kind of theats claimed.  All of this is public record for any with the will to
learn.

How much of America's tragedy is tied with these two children of the rich,
children of families long joined thru money and friendship, the Bush and bin
Laden clans.

One son died in remote mountains, another lives in a Dallas suburb hoping nobody
is sent after him.  One is a combat veteran, one never took a strong stand
unless done from safety and comfort.  Islam once saw bin Laden as a great
leader.  Now he is mostly forgotten.
What has America decided about Bush?

We know this:  Bin Laden always denied any ties to 9/11 and, in fact, has never
been charged in relation to 9/11.  He not only denied involvement, but had done
so, while alive, 4 times and had vigorously condemned those who were involved in
the attack.

This is on the public record, public in every free country except ours.  We,
instead, showed films made by paid actors, made up to look somewhat similar to
bin Laden, actors who contradicted bin Ladens very public statements, actors
pretending to be bin Laden long after bin Laden's death.

These were done to help justify spending, repressive laws, torture and simple
thievery.

For years, we attacked the government of Pakistan for not hunting down someone
everyone knew was dead.  Bin Laden's death hit the newspapers in Pakistan on
December 15, 2001.  How do you think our ally felt when they were continually
berated for failing to hunt down and turn over someone who didn't exist?

What do you think this did for American credibility in Pakistan and thru the
Islamic world?  Were we seen as criminals, liars or simply fools?  Which one is
best?

This is also treason.

How does the death of bin Laden and the defeat and dismemberment of Al Qaeda
impact the intelligence assessments, partially based on, not only bin Laden but
Al Qaeda activity in Iraq that,not only never happened but was now known to have
been unable to happen?

How many "Pentagon Pundits," the retired officers who sold their honor to send
us to war for what is now known to be domestic political dirty tricks and not
national security are culpable in these crimes?

I don't always agree with Col. Pappas on things.  I believe his politics
overrule his judgement at times.  However, we totally agree on bin Laden, simply
disagree with what it means.  To me lying and sending men to their deaths based
on lies is treason.

Falsifying military intelligence and spending billions on unnecessary military
operations for political reasons is an abomination.  Consider this, giving
billions in contracts to GOP friends who fill campaign coffers, and doing so
based on falsified intelligence is insane.  This was done for years.

We spent 8 years chasing a dead man, spending billions, sending FBI agents, the
CIA, Navy Seals, Marine Force Recon, Special Forces, many to their deaths, as
part of a political campaign to justify running American into debt, enriching a
pack of political cronies and war profiteers and to puff up a pack of Pentagon
peacocks and their White house draft dodging bosses.

How many laws were pushed thru because of a dead man?
How many hundreds were tortured to find a dead man?
How many hundreds died looking for a dead man?
How many billions were spent looking for a dead man?

Every time Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld stood before troops and talked about
hunting down the dead bin Laden, it was a dishonor.  Lying to men and women who
put their lives on the line is not a joke.

Who is going to answer to the families of those who died for the politics and
profit tied to the Hunt for Bin Laden?

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Syrian Dissidents Reject Government Amnesty Offer
VOA News
June 01, 2011
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/in-transition/HRW-Report-Possibl\
e-Crimes-Against-Humanity-in-Syria-122934528.html

								 Photo: AP

Dr. Mahmud El Said El Dahim, second from left, makes a statement after a meeting
of dissidents of the Syrian regime on Turkey's Mediterranean coastal city of
Antalya, June 1, 2011


Syrian opposition leaders meeting in Turkey have rejected their
government's offer of a general amnesty and say they will continue to
push for a regime change.

More than 300 dissidents are attending a conference in the Turkish town of
Antalya on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Syrian government freed hundreds of political prisoners on
Wednesday, a day after President Bashar al-Assad announced the amnesty.  The
releases are an apparent bid by Mr. Assad to appease opposition activists who
have been calling for his resignation.

However, a U.S. State Department spokesman ((Mark Toner)) said the president's
effort fell short and that all political prisoners need to be freed.

Also Wednesday, President Assad announced the formation of a committee that will
set the framework for holding a national dialogue. State-run media quote him as
saying the national talks will address issues related to Syria's social,
economic and political future.

In another development, Human Rights Watch said it has reports of recent
killings and torture by Syrian troops that may qualify as crimes against
humanity.

The New York-based group released a report Wednesday based on more than 50
interviews with victims and witnesses of the violence.

The report centers on the southern city of Daraa, where Syrian forces allegedly
carried out some of the worst violence against civilians since anti-government
protests began in March.

The rights group says witnesses told of beatings, torture using
electroshock devices, and detention of people seeking medical care. It called on
the Syrian government to take steps immediately to halt the use of excessive
force.

Witness reports in Syria, as well as official accounts, are difficult to verify
independently because the government barred most international journalists from
the country soon after the unrest began.

Syrian opposition activists have been protesting almost daily since March for
democratic reforms and an end to President Assad's 11-year autocratic rule.
Rights groups say Mr. Assad's security forces have killed more than 1,000 people
and arrested 10,000 in a campaign to crush the uprising.


Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Post-Osama strategy being thrashed out
By Amir Wasim
http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/08/post-osama-strategy-being-thrashed-out.html


Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani met with President Asif Ali
Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to discuss the country's security
situation following the killing of Osama bin Laden. —File photo by APP

ISLAMABAD: Amid mounting international and domestic pressure on the government
over the May 2 US special forces' "get Osama bin Laden" operation, the country's
top civilian and military leadership got their heads together on Saturday in an
effort to come up with a collective response.

President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Chief of the
Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani met for the second time at the Presidency
since the Abbottabad operation.

According to an official statement, they `comprehensively reviewed' the
situation in the "perspective of Pakistan's national security and foreign
policy".

The meeting decided that the prime minister would take the nation into
confidence through parliament and give a policy statement on Monday.

The Senate is in session and the National Assembly will resume its proceedings
on Monday afternoon after a nine-day recess.

A full debate on the issue would be conducted in parliament, the statement said.

The prime minister, who returned from a three-day official visit to France early
in the morning, also held consultations
with Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar and the Minister of State for
Foreign Affairs, Hina Rabbani Khar.

The meetings took place at a time when the government was under pressure from
the international community to shed light on Osama's hiding near the country's
premier military academy, besides demands from within the country for heads to
roll.

The demand for the resignations of the president, the prime minister and the
military leadership has come not only from Opposition Leader in the National
Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan of the PML-N, but also from former foreign
minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi of the Pakistan People's Party.

At a news conference in Lahore on Saturday, Mr Qureshi said that besides
resignations by President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani,
action should be taken against heads of the Army and the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) if they were held responsible by an official inquiry.

The US intrusion has heaped embarrassment on the political and military
leadership and the nation has been demanding answers to the disturbing questions
the operation has thrown up. Although the government has come up with different
statements through the Foreign Office over the past couple of days, still a
number of key questions remain unanswered.

Moreover, contradictory statements regarding the working of radars and
surveillance system and the technology used by US forces in the May 2 swoop has
also confounded the nation.

According to an official handout, the prime minister, in his consultative
meetings "emphasised that the sole criterion for formulating our stance is
safeguarding of Pakistan's supreme national interest by all means, by all state
institutions, in accordance with the aspirations of the people of Pakistan, who
above all value their dignity and honour".

Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan told a private news channel that the
government would make public details of its version about the Abbottabad
incident after an inquiry.

"We will definitely take the nation into confidence and make public the real
facts about the incident," she was quoted as saying.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

The Church of Silence
by Joseph Sobran
http://www.lewrockwell.com/sobran/sobran-j17.1.html


Unlike most spiritual leaders and moral teachers, Jesus of Nazareth offered no
formula for worldly happiness and social order. Just the opposite: he told his
disciples to take up their crosses (an image he used well before the
Crucifixion) and to expect suffering. He warned them that the world would hate
them as it hated him: it was their destiny as Christians.

After the conversion of the Roman world under the Emperor Constantine, a
Christian civilization arose and the age of martyrdom seemed to be over. Most
Western Christians still think of that period as a thing of the past, a
venerable but remote phase of their history.
But the most intense persecution of Christianity occurred not in the Roman
Empire, but in the twentieth century, especially in the Communist world. A large
part of this story, hidden and ignored, is told in a new book by Robert Royal,
The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century (Crossroad Publishing).

It is hard to tabulate or even estimate the number of Catholics and other
Christians murdered by modern tyrannies. The figure certainly runs into the tens
of millions, though it isn't always easy to distinguish between those killed
specifically for their religion and those killed for other reasons, ethnic and
social. But contrary to recent slanders, the Nazis as well as the Communists
regarded the Catholic Church as their mortal enemy.

After World War II, Communism's triumph in Catholic Central Europe – the bitter
fruit of the Anglo-American alliance with the Soviet Union – brought ferocious
assaults on Catholics. Yet, as Royal observes, surprisingly few renounced their
faith even in the face of torture and death.

The measure of these Catholics' courage is suggested by part of one Jesuit's
summary of the tortures they suffered in Albanian prison camps:

Most of them were beaten on their bare feet with wooden clubs; the fleshy part
of the legs and buttocks were cut open, rock salt inserted beneath the skin, and
then sewn up again; their feet, placed in boiling water until the flesh fell
off, were then rubbed with salt; their Achilles' tendons were pierced with hot
wires. Some were hung by their arms for three days without food; put in ice and
icy water until nearly frozen; had electrical wires placed in their ears, nose,
mouth, genitals, and anus; burning pine needles placed under fingernails; forced
to eat a kilo of salt and having water withheld for 24 hours; boiled eggs put in
their armpits; teeth pulled without anaesthetic; tied behind vans and dragged;
left in solitary confinement without food or water until almost dead; forced to
drink their own urine and eat their own excrement; put in pits of excrement up
to their necks; put on a bed of nails and covered with heavy material; put in
nail-studded cages which were then rotated rapidly....

As Royal, a Dante scholar, remarks: "The sorrowful litany shows an inventiveness
in torture surpassing the punishments that Dante, one of the great human
imaginations of all time, displayed in writing his Inferno." No less horrible
than the sheer conception of these torments is the fact that men were found who
could be paid to inflict them without fainting.

Yet the martyrs not only died willingly, but often died forgiving and blessing
their killers, in the very spirit of Christ. Royal recounts similar stories –
amazing, sickening, inspiring – from Russia, Ukraine, Mexico, Spain, Germany,
Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Latin America, China, Korea, Vietnam, Africa, and
elsewhere. Christ's warnings are still being borne out.

Why hasn't all this been told before? It's not surprising that the liberal
Western media should ignore it; what is very surprising is that American
Catholics have ignored the plight of their brethren. But prosperous American
Catholics are a self-absorbed lot, too obsessed with contraception and women
priests to spare much thought for those who are far worse off.

As the brave Romanian Bishop Iuliu Hirtea put it before his death in the 1970s:
"It is not we who keep silence here. It is not we who are the Church of Silence,
but the members of the Church in the free world who are the real Church of
Silence, for they do not speak on our behalf."

Sobran's Reactionary Utopian archives. Watch Sobran's last TV appearance on
YouTube. Learn how to get a tape of his last speech during the FGF Tribute to
Joe Sobran in December 2009. To subscribe to or renew the FGF E-Package, or
support the writings of Joe Sobran, please send a tax-deductible donation to
the: Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation, P.O. Box 1383, Vienna, VA 22183 or subscribe
online.


Joseph Sobran (1946–2010), conservative turned libertarian, was one of the most
significant American writers. See his website and his intellectual journey.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Write to the Forgotten Prisoners in Guantánamo (Summer 2011)
Andy Worthington
22.6.11
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2011/06/22/write-to-the-forgotten-prisoners-in-\
guantanamo-summer-2011/


A year ago, two Facebook friends, Shahrina J. Ahmed and Mahfuja Bint Ammu, drew
on my research about Guantánamo for a letter-writing campaign, in which they
asked their friends and others on Facebook to volunteer to write to each of the
remaining prisoners in Guantánamo. Shahrina announced the letter-writing
campaign via a Facebook note entitled, "What if YOU were tortured … and no one
knew about it??!" and I then publicized it via an article entitled, Write to the
Forgotten Prisoners in Guantánamo.

Mahfuja revived that campaign two weeks ago, with a new Facebook note entitled,
"Ramadhan and Eid spent tortured," and a fresh appeal for people to write to the
remaining 171 prisoners in Guantanamo — that's just ten less than a year ago,
and two of those ten left in coffins, having died at the prison.

This is how Mahfuja introduced the latest campaign:

     Ever been tortured? Ever been held in a detention camp with "secret"
evidence against you? Ever been kept away from your family for up to 9 years?
Ever felt what it is like to be innocent yet treated like a criminal?

     These brothers have — and one letter can bring them happiness beyond that
which you can ever comprehend. One letter can give them the hope they need. One,
just one letter can brighten their gloomy lives. All it will take from you is a
half an hour of your time. We have timed this campaign in correlation with
Ramadhan, so we can give them a lovely Ramadhan and Eid wish, insha'Allah, which
they will receive in time.

Visitors to the Facebook campaign page will see who has already signed up, and
can either add their names, or, if they wish, write independently. All the
letters will be sent together on July 24. Do please note that any messages that
can be construed as political should be avoided, as they may lead to the letters
not making it past the Pentagon's censors, but be aware that your messages may
not get through anyway — although please don't let that put you off! For further
information about this, see the note at the end of this article explaining how
one US activist wrote to every single prisoner at Guantanamo, and, inexplicably,
had 19 of those letters returned.

Please also note that for those still detained at Guantánamo, messages of
solidarity are more important now than ever, as President Obama has so throughly
failed to close the prison. Bisher al-Rawi, a British resident who was freed
from Guantánamo in March 2007, has explained how letters of support from people
who had written as part of Amnesty international's letter-writing campaigns
helped him:

     Amnesty, and what it stands for, is a torch of hope; that is how it was when
I was in Guantánamo, when I received letters of support through Amnesty. In that
lonely cell, with nothing but emptiness, to hold a photocopy of a letter or a
card and read the words on it meant so much. They opened up the walls and gave
me hope, and whispered to me: "You are not forgotten."

So please, go ahead and write. If you are an Arabic speaker, or speak any other
languages spoken by the prisoners besides English, feel free to write in those
languages, and if you want any more encouragement about the significance for
prisoners of receiving letters, then please visit this Amnesty International
page, which features a short film of former prisoner Omar Deghayes showing
letters he received in Guantánamo and explaining how much they meant to him —
and to his fellow prisoners. This was filmed as part of an interview with Omar
that is featured in the documentary film, "Outside the Law: Stories from
Guantánamo" (directed by Polly Nash and myself), and available on DVD here — or
here for the US. Also, please feel free to let me know if you have written a
letter, and also if you receive a reply.
Please write to the remaining 171 prisoners in Guantánamo

When writing to the prisoners please ensure you include their full name and ISN
(internment serial number) below (the numbers before their names, i.e. Shaker
Aamer ISN 239) and address to:

Camp Delta
P.O. Box 160
Washington D.C. 20053
USA

Also please note that the list includes one prisoner who has been released, but
who I have been unable to identify, because his name has not been publicly
disclosed. He is an Afghan released in Spain last July.

1. 004 Wasiq, Abdul-Haq (Afghanistan)
2. 006 Noori, Mullah Norullah (Afghanistan)
3. 007 Fazil, Mullah Mohammed (Afghanistan)
4. 026 Ghazi, Fahed (Yemen)
5. 027 Uthman, Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed (Yemen)
6. 028 Al Alawi, Muaz (Yemen)
7. 029 Al Ansi, Mohammed (Yemen)
8. 030 Al Hakimi, Ahmed (Yemen)
9. 031 Al Mujahid, Mahmoud (Yemen)
10. 033 Al Adahi, Mohammed (Yemen)
11. 034 Al Yafi, Abdullah (Yemen)
12. 035 Qader Idris, Idris (Yemen)
13. 036 Idris, Ibrahim (Sudan)
14. 037 Al Rahabi, Abdul Malik (Yemen)
15. 038 Al Yazidi, Ridah (Tunisia)
16. 039 Al Bahlul, Ali Hamza (Yemen)
17. 040 Al Mudafari, Abdel Qadir (Yemen)
18. 041 Ahmad, Majid (Yemen)
19. 042 Shalabi, Abdul Rahman (Saudi Arabia)
20. 043 Moqbel, Samir (Yemen)
21. 044 Ghanim, Mohammed (Yemen)
22. 045 Al Rezehi, Ali Ahmad (Yemen)
23. 054 Al Qosi, Ibrahim (Sudan)
24. 063 Al Qahtani, Mohammed (Saudi Arabia)
25. 088 Awad, Adham Ali (Yemen)
26. 091 Al Saleh, Abdul (Yemen)
27. 115 Naser, Abdul Rahman (Yemen)
28. 117 Al Warafi, Muktar (Yemen)
29. 128 Al Bihani, Ghaleb (Yemen)
30. 131 Ben Kend, Salem (Yemen)
31. 152 Al Khalaqi, Asim (Yemen)
32. 153 Suleiman, Fayiz (Yemen)
33. 156 Latif, Adnan Farhan Abdul (Yemen)
34. 163 Al Qadasi, Khalid (Yemen)
35. 165 Al Busayss, Said (Yemen)
36. 167 Al Raimi, Ali Yahya (Yemen)
37. 168 Hakimi, Adel (Tunisia)
38. 170 Masud, Sharaf (Yemen)
39. 171 Alahdal, Abu Bakr (Yemen)
40. 174 Sliti, Hisham (Tunisia)
41. 178 Baada, Tareq (Yemen)
42. 189 Gherebi, Salem (Libya)
43. 195 Al Shumrani, Mohammed (Saudi Arabia)
44. 197 Chekhouri, Younis (Morocco)
45. 200 Al Qahtani, Said (Saudi Arabia)
46. 202 Bin Atef, Mahmoud (Yemen)
47. 219 Razak, Abdul (China)
48. 223 Sulayman, Abdul Rahman (Yemen)
49. 224 Muhammad, Abdul Rahman (Yemen)
50. 232 Al Odah, Fawzi (Kuwait)
51. 233 Salih, Abdul (Yemen)
52. 235 Jarabh, Saeed (Yemen)
53. 238 Hadjarab, Nabil (Algeria-France)
54. 239 Aamer, Shaker (UK-Saudi Arabia)
55. 240 Al Shabli, Abdullah (Saudi Arabia)
56. 242 Qasim, Khaled (Yemen)
57. 244 Nassir, Abdul Latif (Morocco)
58. 249 Al Hamiri, Mohammed (Yemen)
59. 251 Bin Salem, Mohammed (Yemen)
60. 254 Khenaina, Mohammed (Yemen)
61. 255 Hatim, Said (Yemen)
62. 257 Abdulayev, Omar (Tajikistan)
63. 259 Hintif, Fadil (Yemen)
64. 263 Sultan, Ashraf (Libya)
65. 275 Abbas, Yusef (Abdusabar) (China)
66. 280 Khalik, Saidullah (Khalid) (China)
67. 282 Abdulghupur, Hajiakbar (China)
68. 288 Saib, Motai (Algeria)
69. 290 Belbacha, Ahmed (Algeria)
70. 309 Abdal Sattar, Muieen (UAE)
71. 310 Ameziane, Djamel (Algeria)
72. 321 Kuman, Ahmed Yaslam Said (Yemen)
73. 324 Al Sabri, Mashur (Yemen)
74. 326 Ajam, Ahmed (Syria)
75. 327 Shaaban, Ali Hussein (Syria)
76. 328 Mohamed, Ahmed (China)
77. 329 Al Hamawe, Abu Omar (Syria)
78. 434 Al Shamyri, Mustafa (Yemen)
79. 440 Bawazir, Mohammed (Yemen)
80. 441 Al Zahri, Abdul Rahman (Yemen)
81. 461 Al Qyati, Abdul Rahman (Yemen)
82. 498 Haidel, Mohammed (Yemen)
83. 502 Ourgy, Abdul (Tunisia)
84. 506 Al Dhuby, Khalid (Yemen)
85. 508 Al Rabie, Salman (Yemen)
86. 509 Khusruf, Mohammed (Yemen)
87. 511 Al Nahdi, Sulaiman (Yemen)
88. 522 Ismail, Yasin (Yemen)
89. 535 El Sawah, Tariq (Egypt)
90. 549 Al Dayi, Omar (Yemen)
91. 550 Zaid, Walid (Yemen)
92. 552 Al Kandari, Faiz (Kuwait)
93. 553 Al Baidhani, Abdul Khaliq (Saudi Arabia)
94. 554 Al Assani, Fehmi (Yemen)
95. 560 Mohammed, Haji Wali (Afghanistan)
96. 564 Bin Amer, Jalal (Yemen)
97. 566 Qattaa, Mansoor (Saudi Arabia)
98. 569 Al Shorabi, Zohair (Yemen)
99. 570 Al Qurashi, Sabri (Yemen)
100. 572 Al Zabe, Salah (Saudi Arabia)
101. 574 Al Wady, Hamoud (Yemen)
102. 575 Al Azani, Saad (Yemen)
103. 576 Bin Hamdoun, Zahir (Yemen)
104. 578 Al Suadi, Abdul Aziz (Yemen)
105. 579 Khairkhwa, Khairullah (Afghanistan)
106. 680 Hassan, Emad (Yemen)
107. 682 Al Sharbi, Ghassan (Saudi Arabia)
108. 684 Tahamuttan, Mohammed (Palestine)
109. 685 Ali, Abdelrazak (Algeria)
110. 686 Hakim, Abdel (Yemen)
111. 688 Ahmed, Fahmi (Yemen)
112. 689 Salam, Mohamed (Yemen)
113. 690 Qader, Ahmed Abdul (Yemen)
114. 691 Al Zarnuki, Mohammed (Yemen)
115. 694 Barhoumi, Sufyian (Algeria)
116. 695 Abu Bakr, Omar (Omar Mohammed Khalifh) (Libya)
117. 696 Al Qahtani, Jabran (Saudi Arabia)
118. 702 Mingazov, Ravil (Russia)
119. 707 Muhammed, Noor Uthman (Sudan)
120. 713 Al Zahrani, Mohammed (Saudi Arabia)
121. 722 Diyab, Jihad (Syria)
122. 728 Nassir, Jamil (Yemen)
123. 753 Zahir, Abdul (Afghanistan)
124. 757 Abdul Aziz, Ahmed Ould (Mauritania)
125. 760 Slahi, Mohamedou Ould (Salahi) (Mauritania)
126. 762 Obaidullah (Afghanistan)
127. 766 Khadr, Omar (Canada)
128. 768 Al Darbi, Ahmed Mohammed (Saudi Arabia)
129. 832 Omari, Mohammed Nabi (Afghanistan)
130. 836 Saleh, Ayoub Murshid Ali (Yemen)
131. 837 Al Marwalah, Bashir (Yemen)
132. 838 Balzuhair, Shawki Awad (Yemen)
133. 839 Al Mudwani, Musab (Musa'ab Al Madhwani) (Yemen)
134. 840 Al Maythali, Hail Aziz Ahmed (Yemen)
135. 841 Nashir, Said Salih Said (Yemen)
136. 893 Al Bihani, Tawfiq (Saudi Arabia)
137. 894 Abdul Rahman, Mohammed (Tunisia)
138. 899 Khan, Shawali (Afghanistan)
139. 928 Gul, Khi Ali (Afghanistan)
140. 934 Ghani, Abdul (Afghanistan)
141. 975 Karim, Bostan (Afghanistan)
142. 1008 Sohail, Mohammed Mustafa (Afghanistan)
143. 1015 Almerfedi, Hussein (Yemen)
144. 1017 Al Rammah, Omar (Zakaria al-Baidany) (Yemen)
145. 1045 Kamin, Mohammed (Afghanistan)
146. 1094 Paracha, Saifullah (Pakistan)
147. 1103 Zahir, Mohammed (Afghanistan)
148. 1119 Hamidullah, Haji (Afghanistan)
149. 1453 Al Kazimi, Sanad (Yemen)
150. 1456 Bin Attash, Hassan (Saudi Arabia)
151. 1457 Sharqawi, Abdu Ali (Yemen)
152. 1460 Rabbani, Abdul Rahim Ghulam (Pakistan)
153. 1461 Rabbani, Mohammed Ghulam (Pakistan)
154. 1463 Al Hela, Abdulsalam (Yemen)
155. 10001 Bensayah, Belkacem (Bosnia-Algeria)
156. 10011 Al Hawsawi, Mustafa (Saudi Arabia)
157. 10013 Bin Al Shibh, Ramzi (Yemen)
158. 10014 Bin Attash, Waleed (Saudi Arabia)
159. 10015 Al Nashiri, Abdul Rahim (Saudi Arabia)
160. 10016 Zubaydah, Abu (Palestine-Saudi Arabia)
161. 10017 Al Libi, Abu Faraj (Libya)
162. 10018 Al Baluchi, Ammar (Ali Abdul Aziz Ali) (Pakistan-Kuwait)
163. 10019 Isamuddin, Riduan (Hamlili) (Indonesia)
164. 10020 Khan, Majid (Pakistan)
165. 10021 Bin Amin, Modh Farik (Zubair) (Malaysia)
166. 10022 Bin Lep, Mohammed (Lillie) (Malaysia)
167. 10023 Dourad, Gouled Hassan (Somalia)
168. 10024 Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh (Pakistan-Kuwait)
169. 10025 Malik, Mohammed Abdul (Kenya)
170. 10026 Al Iraqi, Abdul Hadi (Iraq)
171. 3148 Al Afghani, Haroon (Afghanistan)
172. 10029 Rahim, Muhammad (Afghanistan)

Please also note that an additional prisoner, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani (ISN 10012,
Tanzania) was transferred to the US mainland from Guantánamo in May 2009 and
received a life sentence after a federal court trial in January this year. He is
being held in the Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, as the New York Times
reported two weeks ago. To send a letter, the address is as follows (the number
following his name is his unique prison number):

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani (02476-748)
USP Florence Admax
U.S. Penitentiary
PO Box 8500
Florence, Co. 81226

Also note that earlier this year, one of my correspondents, Elizabeth, gave me
some interesting feedback after writing to every single prisoner at Guantánamo.
In two emails in February, Elizabeth told me that the following letters were
returned, marked "not deliverable as addressed":

038 Al Yazidi, Ridah (Tunisia)
168 Hakimi, Adel (Tunisia)
280 Khalik, Saidullah (China)
282 Aldulghupur, Hajiakbar (China)
290 Belbacha, Ahmed (Algeria)
684 Tahamuttan, Mohammed (Palestine)
702 Mingazov, Ravil (Russia)
766 Khadr, Omar (Canada)
838 Balzuhair, Shawki Awad (Yemen)
1094 Paracha, Saifullah (Pakistan)
1460 Rabbani, Abdul Rahim Ghulam (Pakistan)
10019 Isamuddin, Riduan (Indonesia)
10022 Bin Lep, Mohammed (Malaysia)
10025 Malik, Mohammed Abdul (Kenya)

Elizabeth also let me know that the following letters were returned marked
"attempted — not known":

239 Aamer, Shaker (UK-Saudi Arabia)
549 Al Dayi, Omar (Yemen)
894 Adbul Rahman, Mohammed (Tunisia)
10024 Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh (Pakistan-Kuwait)
10026 Al Iraqi, Abdul Hadi (Iraq)

I publish this information to let people know that censorship and obstruction
are still taking place at Guantánamo, for no apparent reason, and also to find
out if any other people who have written to prisoners at Guantánamo have had
their letters returned (and if any of the same prisoners are involved). Do let
me know if you can shed any light on this.

Obviously, I find it alarming that letters were returned, marked "not
deliverable as addressed," even though they were sent to well-known prisoners
whose names are spelled correctly — such as the celebrated former child prisoner
Omar Khadr, and Ahmed Belbacha, a long-cleared Algerian with ties to the UK —
and also that other well-known prisoners — such as Shaker Aamer, the last
British resident, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged 9/11 mastermind — were
allegedly "not known." In some cases, I suspect that this is just incompetence,
or routine obstruction, but in others I wonder whether it is a targeted program
designed to reinforce certain prisoners' isolation. Your thoughts on this are
welcome.

And finally, for further information on the prisoners, see my four-part
definitive Guantánamo prisoner list (Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part
Four) and if you want to check alternative spellings of the prisoners' names,
see the New York Times` Guantánamo Docket, or WikiLeaks' Guantánamo Files (the
Detainee Assessment Briefs), released in April, which also contain previously
unknown information about the prisoners that I am gradually transcribing.

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774
Detainees in America's Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by
Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the
US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion
and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please
subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and
YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011,
details about the new documentary film, "Outside the Law: Stories from
Guantánamo" (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, on tour in the UK
throughout 2011, and available on DVD here — or here for the US), my definitive
Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if
you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Palestinian civil society leader Ameer Makhoul arrested one year ago
Adri Nieuwhof
The Electronic Intifada
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/maureen/palestinian-civil-society-leader-amee\
r-makhoul-arrested-one-year-ago-today


A year ago today, Palestinian civil society leader Ameer Makhoul, an Israeli
citizen, was arrested from his Haifa home after it was raided by Israeli forces.
Makhoul, the coordinator of Ittijah, the Union of Arab Community Associations
and an advocate of boycott, divestment and sanctions, warned The Electronic
Intifada in January of 2010 that Israel was increasingly persecuting the
Palestinian community in Israel, attempting to cut the community off from the
rest of the Palestinian national movement. "Israel uses its legal system and its
laws on citizenship and loyalty to the Jewish state to achieve this," Makhoul
said.

Two weeks prior to his arrest, Makhoul was prevented by the Israeli forces for
leaving the country. On the day he was arrested, The Electronic Intifada
published this op-ed by Makhoul, "Israel's repression of its Palestinian
citizens unites us in struggle," in which he writes:

     Last month, when I traveled from Haifa to the land border between Jordan and
Israel, the Israeli border police prevented me from leaving my country. The
police handed me an order issued by the Israeli Minister of the Interior Eli
Yishai prohibiting me to leave Israel for two months. The travel ban imposed on
me is part of an increased campaign to intimidate and to spread fear among
Palestinian civil society. The repression is meant to divide us, but it has had
the opposite effect. We Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and the
diaspora are only more determined and united to claim our rights and to build a
nation where we can live in freedom and have equal rights.

Shortly after Makhoul's arrest, a coalition of human rights organizations called
on Israel to unconditionally release Makhoul, and protested his incommunicado
detention and denial of access to a lawyer. "Makhoul's detention is arbitrary
and amounts to harassment that appears intended only to sanction his activities
as a human rights defender," the groups stated.

The Palestinian prisoner rights group Addameer also reported that after meeting
with Makhoul, "his attorneys reported that he appeared exhausted and had been
subjected to intensive, around-the-clock interrogations. He also complained of
pains and dizziness, and said that he had been visited by a prison doctor,"
raising concerns that Makhoul had been subjected to ill-treatment and torture in
detention at the Petach Tikva interrogation and detention center where he was
being held. As reported by The Electronic Intifada later that month, Makhoul's
lawyers later said that he had been tortured during detention and forced to make
a false confession.

Later that month, the Israeli government indicted Makhoul with "the most serious
security offensives on Israel's statute book, including espionage." While
vehemently denying the charges, after spending nearly six months in jail, in
late October of last year Makhoul signed a plea agreement with israeli state
prosecutors. The Electronic Intifada reported:

     The deal involves a reduced list of charges, including contact with a
foreign agent and spying for the Lebanese resistance movement Hizballah. The
charges carry a maximum prison sentence of seven to ten years. …

     According to Dr. Hatim Kanaaneh, Chairperson of the Committee for the
Defense of Ameer Makhoul, while the decision to plead guilty to reduced charges
was extremely difficult for Makhoul, his family and the defense team, the
reality of life for Palestinian citizens of Israel made it the only option.

     "Historically, the record of Israel's court system shows that nearly 100
percent — definitely over 95 percent — of cases where a person is accused or
arrested on the basis of security violations, are indicted and put in jail. The
court finds them guilty. Especially when the accused is a Palestinian, of
course," Kanaaneh explained.

Sentencing hearings for Makhoul are ongoing, and his plight continues, but he
has sent letters to the Palestinian and solidarity communities from prison,
published on EI:

"Remembering Palestinian prisoners, renewing our struggle," 27 April 2011
"The struggle for al-Araqib is the struggle for Palestine," 4 March 2011
"Letter from prison: I have a lot of energy to struggle," 29 November 2010
"Solidarity tastes different inside prison," 30 August 2010
"What solidarity means: a letter from Gilboa Prison," 21 June 2010
The Electronic Intifada will continue to cover Makhoul's case and the wider
issue of severe repression against the Palestinian community in Israel.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Turkish Actions Designed To Trigger NATO Confrontation With Syria?
by Rick Rozoff


Betrayed by NATO after Israel's high seas attack on the Mavi Marmara just over
one year ago, Turkey may be on its way to becoming a military launch pad for the
Alliance's operations against its erstwhile ally, Syria. Rick Rozoff fleshes out
Turkey's sinister role in the US-led counter revolutionary charge in the Middle
East.

Voltaire Network | Chicago (USA) | 21 June 2011
http://www.voltairenet.org/squelettes/elements/images/ligne-rouge.gif

+

JPEG - 39.5 kb

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gives Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu a high five at the start of their bilateral meeting at the Emirates
Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi on June 9.

(Reuters)

Last week, a feature by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton excoriating the
political leadership of Syria appeared in the London-based Arabic-language daily
Asharq Al-Awsat. Saudi-supported and printed in twelve locations, it is
considered to be among the most influential newspapers in the Arab world.

As such, her comments (in English and Arabic) were intended to signal to Arab
readers and the world at large that the American position toward Damascus is
becoming more stringent and confrontational, evoking Clinton's statements toward
the leadership of Ivory Coast and Libya earlier in the year.

Her characteristically imperious, contemptuous and inflammatory comments, indeed
threats, included:

"In his May 19 speech, President Obama echoed demonstrators' basic and
legitimate demands...President Assad, he said, could either lead that transition
or get out of the way.

"It is increasingly clear that President Assad has made his choice."

"...President Assad is showing his true colors by embracing the repressive
tactics of his ally Iran and putting Syria onto the path of a pariah state.

"By following Iran's lead, President Assad is placing himself and his regime on
the wrong side of history..."

"If President Assad believes he can act with impunity because the international
community hopes for his cooperation on other issues, he is wrong about this as
well. He and his regime are certainly not indispensable."

The Wall Street Journal reported on June 18 that the Washington administration
is preparing a case against Syrian President Bashar Assad and other government
officials at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. The same newspaper
feature added that "The U.S. is also exploring ways to more directly target
Syria's oil and gas revenue..."

On June 14 four members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, including the
military alliance's three European powerhouses - Britain, France, Germany and
Portugal - proposed a draft resolution in the United Nations Security Council
aimed at Syria. Three days later in Berlin German Chancellor Angela Merkel and
French President Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed their governments would push for a
new UN resolution targeting Syria. In Sarkozy's words: "France, hand in hand
with Germany, calls for tougher sanctions against Syrian authorities who are
conducting intolerable and unacceptable actions and repression against the
population."

The USS George H.W. Bush nuclear-powered supercarrier and its assigned carrier
strike group and carrier air wing - with 9,000 sailors, 70 aircraft and four
guided missile destroyers and cruisers - is in the Mediterranean Sea not far
from the Syrian coast. One of the destroyers, USS Truxtun, just left the Israeli
port city of Haifa after a two-day stopover.

The USS Monterey guided missile cruiser is docked off the Georgian Black Sea
city of Batumi currently and will re-enter the Mediterranean soon. Deployed as
the first warship assigned to the U.S.-NATO potential first-strike pan-European
interceptor missile system, it can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles as well as
Standard Missile-3 interceptor missiles.

The guided missile destroyer USS Barry left Gaeta, Italy where nine other US.
warships have been stationed, on June 17 after a five-day port visit. USS Barry
is part of the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group, headed by the amphibious assault
ship USS Bataan, used at the beginning of the U.S.-NATO Libyan campaign in March
and currently in the Mediterranean.

The Pentagon and its allies - every nation in the Mediterranean is now a NATO
member or partner except for Libya, Syria, Cyprus (under renewed and intensified
pressure to join the bloc's Partnership for Peace program) and Lebanon (whose
coastline has been blockaded by NATO states' military vessels since 2006) - have
the military hardware in place for a replication of the 95-day war against Libya
directed at Syria: Scores of warplanes on carriers and on bases in Italy,
Greece, Cyprus and Turkey and guided missile ships ready to launch Tomahawk
missiles.

On June 19 Ersat Hurmuzlu, senior adviser to Turkish President Abdullah Gul,
told the United Arab Emirates-based Al Arabiya television channel that Syria has
less than a week to respond to what Reuters described as "calls for change."
Hurmuzlu's exact words were:

"The demands in this field will be for a positive response to these issues
within a short period that does not exceed a week.

"The opposite of this, it would not be possible to offer any cover for the
leadership in Syria because there is the danger... that we had always been
afraid of, and that is foreign intervention."

Although the last sentence can be read as either warning or threat, it is in
fact the second. The statement as a whole is an ultimatum.

Since the war against Libya was launched by U.S. Africa Command under the
codename Operation Odyssey Dawn to the present NATO-run Operation Unified
Protector in place since March 31, air operations have been run from NATO's Air
Command Headquarters for Southern Europe in Izmir, Turkey.

In March Turkey supplied five ships and a submarine for the blockade of Libya's
coast and on March 28 Hurriyet Daily News announced that Turkey was "assuming
control of the Benghazi airport, and sending naval forces to patrol the corridor
between the rebel-held city and Crete," quoting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan:

"Turkey said 'yes' to three tasks within NATO: the takeover of Benghazi airport
for the delivery of humanitarian aid, the task about control of the air corridor
and the involvement of Turkish naval forces in the corridor between Benghazi and
Crete."

In 2003 the U.S. ambassador to NATO at the time, Nicholas Burns, stated in
testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

"NATO needs to pivot from its inward focus on Europe - which was necessary and
appropriate during the Cold War - to an outward focus on the arc of countries
where most of the threats are today - in Central and South Asia, and in the
Middle East.

"NATO's mandate is still to defend Europe and North America. But we don't
believe we can do that by sitting in Western Europe, or Central Europe, or North
America. We have to deploy our conceptual attention and our military forces east
and south. NATO's future, we believe, is east, and is south. It's in the Greater
Middle East."

Earlier this month Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul announced that Izmir
will also be the new home of the Alliance's Land Force Command, consolidating
and transferring ground forces currently stationed in Germany and Spain to the
Izmir Air Station.

On June 17 Turkey took over command of Standing NATO Maritime Group-2 which,
with Standing NATO Maritime Group-1, is part of the NATO Response Force and
centers its activities in the Mediterranean. Each group consists of between 4-8
warships - destroyers and frigates - and since 2005 has expanded its missions
through the Suez Canal to the Gulf of Aden and the Somalia coast,
circumnavigating the African continent in 2007 and traveling the length of the
Atlantic coast of the U.S., then entering the Caribbean Sea the same year, the
first time NATO had ever deployed to the Caribbean. The NATO naval groups have
also sailed to Africa's Gulf of Guinea, the Persian Gulf and the Baltic Sea
among other locations.

Turkey hosted a conference of Syrian opposition forces called "Change in Syria"
from May 1-June 2 in the city of Antalya. Although held under the sponsorship of
the Egyptian-based National Organisation of Human Rights, logistics and security
were provided by the host country.

Had Syria allowed a gathering of Turkish opposition groups whose express
intention was the overthrow of the government in Ankara, one can only imagine
the Turkish administration's reaction.

On June 13 Britain's The Guardian - since the Balkans crisis began in the early
1990s, never slow to fan the flames of moral panic over humanitarian crises,
with techniques ranging from hyperbole to hysterics, in order to alarm and
neutralize its readership into acquiescence to Western military action (while
claiming formally, if not convincingly, that it is not advocating the latter) -
ran an editorial titled "Syria: Butchery, while the world watches," which let
the cat out of the bag regarding the prospect of U.S. and NATO military
intervention in Syria by stating:

"Turkey, a member of Nato, could yet drag the west in, if it decides its own
interests require action to defend its borders from the [Syrian] refugees. The
world would then pay a high price indeed for having pretended that Assad was
somebody else's problem."

On June 19 the major Turkish daily newspaper Zaman quoted Veysel Ayhan of the
Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies harking back to the rationale for
NATO's first military actions 16 years ago:

"Remember when NATO was accused by the international media and public of not
being able to prevent 8,000 Muslim Bosnians from being murdered in front of the
world's eyes? As a member of NATO and a country whose border is about to witness
such a massacre by the Syrian army, Turkey will not allow such a thing to happen
again, especially before its own eyes."

Last week Turkey's President Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu were
reported to have toughened demands on Syria in a meeting with President Assad's
special envoy Hasan Turkmani in Ankara, and on January 18 Al Arabiya reported
that Ankara had dispatched an envoy to Damascus to demand that Assad's brother
Maher relinquish his command of the Republican Guard and the Fourth Armored
Division.

Zaman recently cited what was identified as a pro-government Syrian official
saying to the United Arab Emirates-based daily The National:

"The West wants to put the region under Turkish control like in the Ottoman
days. Turkey is a NATO member and embodies a safe kind of Islam for the West, so
they have done a deal to give everything to Ankara."

Should a conflict erupt between Turkey and Syria on their border, NATO will be
obligated under its Article 5 collective military assistance clause to enter the
fray on Turkey's side. Should NATO intend opening hostilities against Syria, no
better pretext could be devised than that scenario.

In February of 2003, on the eve of the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq, in
NATO's words "Turkey requested NATO assistance under Article 4 of the North
Atlantic Treaty."

"NATO's Integrated Air Defence System in Turkey was put on full alert and
augmented with equipment and personnel from other NATO commands and countries."

Four Alliance Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft were deployed
from their base in Germany to the Forward Operating Base in Konya, Turkey. Three
Dutch and two American Patriot missile batteries were deployed to the country in
March of that year, and "Preparations were made to augment Turkey's air defence
assets with additional aircraft from other NATO countries."

Article 4 of the 1949 Washington Treaty, NATO's founding document, states:

"The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the
territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties
is threatened."

Article 5 says:

"The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or
North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently
they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of
the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of
the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked
by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such
action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and
maintain the security of the North Atlantic area."

If Turkey opens armed hostilities with its neighbor, the conflict will not
remain a local one for long.

Rick Rozoff


Rick RozoffGraduate in European literature. Investigative journalist ; Manager
of the organization Stop NATO international

Secret US cables accessed by Dawn through WikiLeaks: Water issues could sweep
away Indo-Pak peace process, feared US
----------------------------------------------------------------
By Hasan Zaidi
KARACHI: American diplomats were not very hopeful about the long-term prospects
of Pakistan and India easily resolving their disagreements about the "emotional
issue" of water, especially given "Pakistani anxiety over access to water",
according to a number of previously unpublished secret US diplomatic cables
accessed by Dawn through WikiLeaks. They feared the water-related disputes would
cast a long shadow over the `Composite Dialogue' process, the latest round of
which begins in Islamabad on Thursday.

"Even if India and Pakistan could resolve the Baglihar and Kishanganga
projects," wrote US Ambassador to New Delhi David Mulford in a confidential
cable dated February 25, 2005, "there are several more hydroelectric dams
planned for Indian Kashmir that might be questioned under the IWT (Indus Water
Treaty)." Both Baglihar and Kishanganga projects are on the Chenab River, one of
the three `western rivers' to whose waters Pakistan has exclusive `consumptive'
rights under the IWT and which have been the source of long festering
disagreement between the two neighbours....

http://www.dawn.com/2011/06/22/secret-us-cables-accessed-by-dawn-through-wikilea\
ks-water-issues-could-sweep-away-indo-pak-peace-process-feared-us.html

Woman stoned, shot dead
----------------------------------------------------------------
By Our Correspondent
MARDAN, June 21: A woman was stoned and shot to death in the name of honour
allegedly by her husband and over a dozen other men in a village on Tuesday.

Police said they had found the body of Shazia in nearby hills....

http://www.dawn.com/2011/06/22/woman-stoned-shot-dead.html

Metal Allies: The new face of a faceless global war: drones and the CIA.:

In the next decade, our reliance on drones and the spies who support them may
increase for a different reason: We're losing friends.
http://www.slate.com/id/2297383/


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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Michigan Residents Sue Over Law on Emergency Management
of Struggling Cities
By MONICA DAVEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/us/23michigan.html?_r=1&ref=us


More than two dozen residents of Michigan filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against
top officials in the state, contending that a new law broadly expanding the
powers of emergency managers in the most financially troubled cities violates
Michigan's Constitution.
The lawsuit, filed in Ingham County Circuit Court, contends that the law
approved by Michigan lawmakers this year improperly allows the state to place
new costs on municipalities without paying for them and, in essence, bars local
residents from picking their own elected representatives.

In March, leaders in Michigan — whose legislative chambers and governor's office
have been controlled by Republicans since last fall's election — approved the
measure granting more control to those sent into local governments and school
districts by the state to avoid allowing such places to go bankrupt or fail
entirely.

Leaders of labor unions, in particular, were outraged by the provision because
it allows such state-appointed emergency managers to, in some cases, undo
provisions of the contracts that towns and cities had already agreed to. Some
appeared for rallies in opposition in Lansing, the capital, this spring. But
others had broader complaints; how, they asked, can a state-assigned official
simply step into the role of an elected local leader and do whatever he or she
wishes?

"What you're saying is that an emergency manager now controls all, including the
right to enact or repeal local ordinances," said John Philo, the legal director
of the Sugar Law Center in Detroit, one of several groups, including the Center
for Constitutional Rights in New York, that is representing the plaintiffs in
the suit. "What you're saying is that one individual now without any sort of
legislative process gets to enact a law."

Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican who is named as a defendant in the suit, along
with the state's treasurer, has strongly defended elements of the law in the
past. The point is not to take over cities, Mr. Snyder said in an interview this
spring, but to spare the state more financial distress and gauge fiscal distress
in cities before they wind up in need of an emergency manager.

The increased control by an appointed manager would make rehabilitation of the
most miserable places possible, without the crushing, ratings-lowering
possibility of bankruptcy.

"It's not an assault on collective bargaining, the way I viewed it," Mr. Snyder
said in the interview. "It's about helping communities and municipalities do the
best they can to survive during difficult economic times."

The notion of an emergency manager is not uncommon. States have tried a variety
of approaches, including appointed receivers, to step in to spare cities from
default, and the results have been mixed.

Only four places in Michigan — including Detroit's public school system — are
now considered in such grave financial shape as to require oversight by
emergency managers. But those numbers are expected to grow, as local budgets
shrink further.

Detroit's pension funds had already filed suit challenging the measure, which
they say presents emergency managers with "czarlike powers," and more suits have
been threatened.

In the suit filed on Wednesday, 28 Michigan residents, including some community
activists, expressed dismay, even astonishment, over the reach of the new law.

"We have the right to vote and elect people and hold them accountable," said
Edith Lee-Payne, a plaintiff who is 59 and an activist who has grandchildren in
Detroit's public school system. "We don't have that right with an emergency
manager."


A version of this article appeared in print on June 23, 2011, on page A15 of the
New York edition with the headline: Michigan Residents Sue Over Law on Emergency
Management of Struggling Cities.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Reps. Paul, Frank to Unveil Bill to Decriminalize Marijuana
http://www.cnbc.com/id/43499917


In an unlikely alliance, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Barney Frank (D-MA) plan to
introduce a bill on Thursday that would end the federal prohibition on
marijuana.

The bill by the conservative Paul and liberal Frank would allow states to
determine their own marijuana laws —including medical marijuana laws - without
federal interference.

see video at link above.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Birthday
by YASSIN MUHIDDIN AREF (12778052)
Marion, IL


What privileges are better than being human and born healthy?  For parents, what
joy is equal to the joy of having children?  What feeling is stronger then the
human feeling of having a successor who can inherit?  Yet poverty and an
unstable situation cause many people to stay single and many couples to avoid
having children.  Kurds#150;#150;as a nation, despite their horrible situation
and uncertain future#150;#150;have always liked children and want to have as
many children as they can. When Kurds would learn that their sons were killed in
an army attack or were disappeared by security forces, I have heard from many
people that their response was to proudly read the Kurdish proverb, BARKHI NER
BO SARBRINA, which means, "The lamb is for sacrifice, to be slaughtered."  It
was never a surprise that our youths died and disappeared; the amazing miracle
for them was to survive.

For many of us who survived, life was not really a life, and for sure it was not
fun.  As children, we grew up in fear and poverty, and as teenagers we were
always targets of the army and the government's intelligence#150;#150;not
because we committed any crime or broke any law, but rather that we were born
into a Kurdish family.  I think this is one of the reasons we Kurds never
celebrated our birthdays, and until the end of the 20th century
#147;birthday#148; was not part of our culture. In fact, tens of thousands of us
don#146;t know our exact birthdays.  When we were young we used joke about our
birthdays, and whenever someone asked us about them, our answer was always, "I
don't know, I wish that my dad had missed that night."  Tyranny, injustice,
terror, poverty, joblessness, and hopelessness turned our lives into pain,
suffering, hardship, and meaninglessness; there was no >trust< or beauty in life
for us, and no one ever felt his existence enough to celebrate his birthday.

These are some reasons why many Kurds like me don't know their exact day of
birth:

1- Until the First World War and the birth of many new states in the Middle
East, many people, especially in villages and remote mountain areas, never had
any identification.  They simply belonged to their families and tribes.  Their
language and culture were their identities, and their experience and knowledge
were their honor and respect.

2- From World War 1 until World War 2, many Kurds who lived in the villages and
high mountains and depended on their farm and cattle for all their life's needs
never received any government help or support. There were no services in their
areas, like roads, schools, clinics, or government offices, because they lived
outside of the state's boundaries. Even the government's forces and security
were not able to reach and control their areas. They belonged to their mountains
and did not carry any other identification.

3- From World War 2 until 1991, there were always conflicts between Kurdish
revolutionaries and the states that occupied Kurdish lands. Some Kurds simply
did not acknowledge those states, and refused to register or carry any
identification that they belonged to such states. Instead, they dreamed and
struggled for their own state, Kurdistan.

4- Because of continual fighting between Kurds and the states they lived in,
many Kurdish, especially in the mountain areas, did not register their children,
so they could avoid government harassment. And they didn#146;t want security
forces to follow their children. Others documented their sons under their
daughters#146; names so the sons could avoid mandatory army service when they
grew up. That#146;s why there was never a correct count of Kurdish citizens.
Sometimes the difference between our numbers and the government#146;s numbers
was in the millions!

Because all the states where Kurds lived (Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria) ignored the
Kurdish areas, many of these areas were poor and the people were uneducated;
therefore they were not able to document and register the birth of their
children.  My parents were an example: both were illiterate, and none of us
children know our exact birthdays.

5- Based on Iraqi law, for those whose birthdays were unknown, the government
registered their birthdays as July 1 (the middle of the year). That#146;s why I,
all my brothers and sisters, and millions of Iraqis in my generation and
previous generations have the same birthday, July 1!

My children are always amazed at the fact that my wife and I have the same
birthday. But I have not told them that all their uncles and aunts and many of
their relatives all have the same birthday too (they were too young before my
arrest to understand, and there was no chance after my arrest to tell them).

Based on what I heard from my mother, and compared to a cousin#146;s birthday
(which I know is accurate), I have no doubt that my year of birth, 1970, is
correct. But I am not sure about the month (July), and I am certain that the
first of July is not correct.  Most likely my real birth date is in the middle
of May, 1970.

However, I am still not sure whether I should celebrate my birthday, or whether
I should repeat what we used to say as teenagers back in my country: "I wish my
dad had missed that night." I left the Middle East entirely and traveled 15,000
miles to have a real life and live free, but I ended up in prison.  Not because
I committed any crime or broke any law, but because of who I am.

So, not for myself, but for all the Iraqis who have July 1 birthdays, I say:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU ALL.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Man sentenced to death for blasphemy
By Nabeel Anwar Dhakku
http://www.dawn.com/2011/06/22/man-sentenced-to-death-for-blasphemy.html


Investigating police official said Sattar had confessed to have committed the
crime. "The accused behaved quite normally when arrested," the SP added. – File
Photo


CHAKWAL: An additional district and sessions judge in Talagang sentenced a man
to death on Tuesday for committing blasphemy.

Judge Rana Zahoor Ahmad also imposed a fine of Rs50,000 on 29-year-old Abdul
Sattar, a resident of Larkana, who was sent to prison in Jhelum.

Mohammad Saeed, of Talagang town, had filed a complaint with the city police
station on Feb 5 last year. He said he had been receiving derogatory text
messages and calls from a wrong number for several days. He told police that
contents of the messages and conversation of the caller blasphemed Holy Quran,
Prophet (PBUH) and Sahabas (companions of the Prophet).

A case was registered and District Police Officer Syed Ali Mohsin set up a
special inquiry committee, headed by then Superintendent of Police
(Investigation) Malik Matloob.

The committee collected data of calls and text messages sent by a cell number
belonging to Abdul Sattar.

"We took permission from the home department for a raid in Larkana and arrested
the accused," SP Matloob told Dawn on phone from Rawalpindi.

He said Sattar had confessed to have committed the crime. "The accused behaved
quite normally when arrested," the SP added.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Drugs and Medicines in Historical Context
By Karin Friedemann
The Muslim Observer
http://muslimmedianetwork.com/mmn/?p=8519


medical_marijuanaDid you know that George Washington used to grow marijuana on
the White House lawn? America's first president often spoke fondly of "female
plants," pointing obviously to marijuana's medicinal uses. Benjamin Franklin,
who avoided alcohol, was an ardent marijuana smoker. Did you know that up until
World War II, American farmers could pay their taxes with hemp? Hemp, the mother
of marijuana, is a native plant of every continent, and has been used during all
periods of history to create rope, paper, cloth, oil, fuel, fiber, and medicine.
Avicenna, the medieval Arab author of medicinal textbooks recommended marijuana,
the hemp flower, for stomach ailments and many other health problems.

American, European, Asian and Arab-Islamic civilizations combined efforts during
the 19th century to upgrade the standard of using drugs. The American Indians
introduced the idea of smoking tobacco in a pipe to the world. Until then,
Muslims had been using medicinal plants including hashish and opium by cooking
them in food. The Arabs were so inspired by the New World to invent the water
pipe. Using American tobacco, the Orient supplied the herbs, and a new world
culture, a new economy began.

What does Islam say about drugs? According to hadith, if a person is ill, there
is no sin on him whether he takes medicine to feel better, or if he chooses not
to do so. During the 4th Caliphate, Muslims were introduced to drugs in the far
regions of the expanding Islamic empire. But because of the deep fear of the sin
of misinterpreting or over-interpreting scripture, there was no punishment for
any medicinal plant other than fermented alcoholic beverages. Muslim governments
never even destroyed vineyards. Even while wine is haram, grapes are not haram.
Plants are protected by God.

Obviously, we have to give the Muslims credit for this. The use of the syrup
from the poppy flower could kill a person's pain making an amputation without
huge physical trauma possible. Smoking marijuana could give a person dying from
cancer the strength to write a book about his life. There is nothing more
precious in this world than the ability to physically kill pain or nausea. God
gave these things to us. Sometimes we can copy these medicinal effects in pill
form. But the fact is, human beings want and require medicine. God gave us
plants to reduce suffering. It is a crime against God to make a plant illegal.
These plants save lives. These plants save the quality of people's lives as
well.

During World War II, the US used hemp fuel for their airplanes and tanks. Henry
Ford actually created a car that was made entirely of cellulite from the hemp
plant as well as ran on hemp fuel. It is an amazing idea, that American farmers
could actually attain financial security growing the fuel that runs our cars!
However, after the oil companies won the war, plant-based fuel became obsolete.
The reason was because of Lobbyists.

Around the world today, you will still find many countries such as Canada,
Indonesia and Malaysia growing hemp for industrial purposes such as oil or
textiles. And it is an unspoken fact that marijuana is the top cash crop in the
United States, year after year. People might pay up to $90 for 1/8 of an ounce
of these flower buds. That is way more than any farmer could ever hope to get
from parsley or chives.

When the Roman Emperor offered Maria and her sister to the Prophet Mohammed (s)
as gifts, also included in the gift was some medicine. The hadith does not say
what kind of medicine but it was probably opium or hashish given the time
period. The Prophet Mohammed (s) returned the drugs and kept the girls. He freed
from slavery and married Maria the Copt, who became his youngest wife, and he
married her sister to one of his companions. This is the only hadith translated
into English that specifically mentions drugs. In this hadith, the Prophet (s)
said, "My Sunna is the best medicine."
In a true Islamic society based on historical norms, drugs would not be illegal.
They would be used for positive purposes. We would not distinguish between
herbal vs. chemical versions of a medicine. People should be allowed to have
access to whatever drugs make them feel better. This is a human right. Modern
laws making all drugs illegal are neither halal nor beneficial to society. God
gave us so many plants to help alleviate our suffering. It would be a rejection
of His Mercy not to fully explore the medicinal properties of all the plants we
have on earth.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

Torture "Does Not Work, And Is Wrong":
Former CIA Interrogator Glenn Carle Speaks Out
5.July.11
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2011/07/05/torture-does-not-work-and-is-wrong-f\
ormer-cia-interrogator-glenn-carle-speaks-out/


In the US media, there's a little bit of a buzz right now about the use of
torture by the Bush administration, and much of it is the right sort of buzz —
openly involving reminders that torture is a crime, and that, in addition, using
torture is worthless if the aim is to produce reliable information. Also
mentioned, though not, in general, with the prominence it truly deserves, is the
fact that those who authorized the use of torture still walk free, and are
allowed to publish books and appear on chat shows, even if their opportunities
for foreign travel are severely curtailed, as with George W. Bush, because the
world is full of countries in which the appropriate respect is given to the UN
Convention Against Torture — to which, of course, the US, under Ronald Reagan,
became a signatory.

The buzz about torture has been created because of the publication of a book
entitled, The Interrogator: An Education by Glenn L. Carle, a former CIA
operative and Arabic speaker who was sent to an undisclosed country, to a "black
site" known as Hotel California, to interrogate a suspected senior al-Qaeda
operative.

Carle's book s important for two reasons: firstly, because it is the first
example of a US interrogator's first-hand account of a "black site," and
secondly, and crucially, because Carle refused to engage in the torture
techniques that the Bush administration arranged for lawyers in the Justice
Department to authorize, preferring instead to interrogate the prisoner using
rapport-buiiding methods and psychological insight, and also because he is
openly critical of those methods.

While I can recommend reviews of the book by former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan
in the Wall Street Journal, and Laura Miller on Salon.com, as well as Carle's
appearance on Democracy Now!, I'm cross-posting below Carle's interview with
Spencer Ackerman of Wired, which succinctly captures all the key points. Carle
describes how the objectives of the techniques he was supposed to use were to
"dislocate psychologically" a prisoner, explaining how "noise, temperature,
one's sense of time, sleep, diet, light, darkness, physical freedom — the normal
reference points for one's senses are all distorted. Reality disappears, and so
do one's reference points." He adds, "It is shockingly easy to disorient
someone" but also explains how "that is not the same as making someone more
willing to cooperate," adding, "The opposite is true — as the CIA's KUBARK
interrogation manual cautions will occur, as I predicted and forewarned and as
occurred in my and other officers' experiences."

Refusing to use these methods, Carle explains how, instead, he used traditional
rapport building techniques and psychological insight: "The methods that worked
were the same ones that work in classic intelligence operations: establishing a
rapport with the individual, understanding his fears, hopes, interests, quirks.
It is a psychological task, very similar to what one should do when establishing
any human relationship."

His conclusions about the techniques favoured by the Bush administration are
stark. At first, he explains, he accepted that "psychological dislocation
induced cooperation, and would not be lasting or severe, [and] therefore could
be acceptable in certain circumstances." He adds, however, "I came quickly to
conclude that this was founded on erroneous conclusions — nonsense, actually —
about human psyche and motivation. [It] did not work, was counterproductive and
was, simply, wrong in every way. So, I came to oppose it."

The mention of "erroneous conclusions — nonsense, actually — about human psyche
and motivation" reminded me of the apologists for the torture program who did so
much to justify the use of torture — James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, the former
instructors in the SERE program (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) taught
in US military schools to help US personnel to resist torture if captured, who
perversely recommended that their program could be reverse-engineered for real
world interrogations in the "War on Terror." I have discussed their terrible
contribution to the Bush administration's torture program in my articles, Abu
Zubaydah and the Case Against Torture Architect James Mitchell, The Torture of
Abu Zubaydah: The Complaint Filed Against James Mitchell for Ethical Violations
and The Dark Desires of Bruce Jessen, the Architect of Bush's Torture Program,
As Revealed by His Former Friend and Colleague.

However, beyond the role of Mitchell and Jessen, the object of Carle's disdain
are even more significant individuals: essentially, John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee,
the lawyers in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel who cynically
attempted to redefine torture so that it could be used by the CIA (and who were
excused in a whitewash last year that followed a damning internal
investigation), and those at the very top of government: George W. Bush, Dick
Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, and the lawyers who clustered around Cheney in
particular, including David Addington, Alberto Gonzales and William J. Haynes
II.
"Some Will Call Me a Torturer": CIA Man Reveals Secret Jail
By Spencer Ackerman, Wired, July 1, 2011

Admitting that "some will call me a torturer" is a surefire way to cut yourself
off from anyone's sympathy. But Glenn Carle, a former CIA operative, isn't sure
whether he's the hero or the villain of his own story.

Distilled, that story, told in Carle's new memoir The Interrogator, is this: In
the months after 9/11, the CIA kidnaps a suspected senior member of al-Qaida and
takes him to a Mideast country for interrogation. It assigns Carle — like nearly
all his colleagues then, an inexperienced interrogator — to pry information out
of him. Uneasy with the CIA's new, relaxed rules for questioning, which allow
him to torture, Carle instead tries to build a rapport with the man he calls
CAPTUS.

But CAPTUS doesn't divulge the al-Qaida plans the CIA suspects him of knowing.
So the agency sends him to "Hotel California" — an unacknowledged prison, beyond
the reach of the Red Cross or international law.

Carle goes with him. Though heavily censored by the CIA, Carle provides the
first detailed description of a so-called "black site." At an isolated
"discretely guarded, unremarkable" facility in an undisclosed foreign country
(though one where the Soviets once operated), hidden CIA interrogators work
endless hours while heavy metal blasts captives' eardrums and disrupts their
sleep schedules.

Afterward, the operatives drive to a fortified compound to munch Oreos and drink
somberly to Grand Funk Railroad at the "Jihadi Bar." Any visitor to Guantanamo
Bay's Irish pub — O'Kellys, home of the fried pickle — will recognize the
surreality.

But Carle — codename: REDEMPTOR — comes to believe CAPTUS is innocent.

"We had destroyed the man's life based on an error," he writes. But the black
site is a bureaucratic hell: CAPTUS' reluctance to tell CIA what it wants to
hear makes the far-off agency headquarters more determined to torture him.
Carle's resistance, shared by some at Hotel California, makes him suspect. He
leaves CAPTUS in the black site after 10 intense days, questioning whether his
psychological manipulation of CAPTUS made him, ultimately, a torturer himself.

Eight years later, the CIA unceremoniously released CAPTUS. (The agency declined
to comment for this story.) Whether that means CAPTUS was innocent or merely no
longer useful as a source of information, we may never know. Carle spoke to
Danger Room about what it's like to interrogate a man in a place too dark for
the law to find.

Wired.com: Do you consider yourself a torturer? At the end of the book, you
wrestle with the question.

Glenn Carle: According to Justice Department lawyer John Yoo's August 2002 memo
on interrogation, the answer is no. As one can see from the entire book, I
opposed all these practices and this approach. I was involved in it, although I
tried to stop what I considered wrong. I feel I acted honorably throughout my
involvement in the CAPTUS operation, and tried to have him treated properly, but
much of it was disturbing and wrong.

Wired.com: You're maybe the only CIA officer to publicly describe a "black site"
prison, your Hotel California. What was it like to be inside a place completely
off the books from any legal accountability? Did it make you feel like you could
act with impunity? How did you restrain yourself?

Glenn Carle: No, I never, never felt like I could or should act with impunity.
No one I know felt that way. We all felt we were involved in an extraordinary,
sensitive operation that required very careful behavior. What was acceptable was
often unclear, despite the formal guidance that eventually was developed.

"How did I restrain myself" implies perhaps that I was inclined to act in
unrestrained ways. I never, ever was; nor were, in my experience, my colleagues.
From literally the first second I was briefed on the operation, I was acutely
aware that I would have to weigh every step I took, and decide what was morally,
legally acceptable. There was never the slightest thought that I or anyone could
act with impunity. We were acting clandestinely; but never beyond obligations to
act correctly and honorably. The dilemma comes in identifying where those lines
are, in a situation in which much was murky.

Wired.com: You came to believe that the man you call CAPTUS "was not a jihadist
or a member of al-Qaida." Well, even so, was he still dangerous? Did you ever
feel he duped you? You write that he lied to you, after all.

Glenn Carle: CAPTUS himself was not a terrorist, or a dangerous man. He had been
involved in activities of legitimate concern to the CIA, because they did touch
upon al-Qaida activities. That's a fact. But he was not a willing member of,
believer in, or supporter of, al-Qaida. He was not a terrorist, had committed no
crimes, had not intentionally supported jihad or terrorist actions.

Did he dupe me? He evaded and lied on occasion, yes. And I always wrestled with
the question of whether he was duping me. In the end, I had to decide, though,
and I decided he was, fundamentally, straight with me. Never totally, but
fundamentally, yes. This is not a black and white-hat situation. I try to make
that as clear as can be in the book. Little was simple — thus, my descriptions
of the "gray world" in which knowledge is imperfect, motivations and actions are
sometimes contradictory — in which CAPTUS, perhaps, was truthful, innocent,
disingenuous, and complicit simultaneously.

Wired.com: Did you ever feel, at Hotel California or before, that interrogating
CAPTUS put you in legal jeopardy down the road?

Glenn Carle: I think everyone was concerned with this, at every level, and at
every second of one's involvement in interrogation operations. We all worked
very hard to act legally.The challenges are how to reconcile contradictory laws,
which are morally repugnant, perhaps, and which leave room for broad
interpretation and abuse.

No one consciously broke the law, ever, in my experience or knowledge. But what
should one do? How could one follow one's orders and accomplish one's mission,
when it was flawed, objectionable, and perhaps itself legally, albeit "legally"
ordered. That's the supreme dilemma I wrestled with, and others did, too.

Wired.com: When you first interrogate CAPTUS, you write that you tried to
establish a rapport with him — even as you kept him fearful that you controlled
his fate. When that didn't get the intelligence CIA HQ wanted, they shipped the
both of you to Hotel California. Did CIA consider the possibility that he wasn't
who they thought he was?

Glenn Carle: I had slow, partial, success during my time of involvement in
bringing colleagues and the institution to see him more as I did. But I failed,
ultimately. The view that he was a senior al-Qaida member or fellow-traveler
remained decisive for a long, long time. The agency or U.S. government didn't
change its views for eight years. Perhaps it never did.

Wired.com: Run me through how CAPTUS was treated at the Hotel.

Glenn Carle: The objectives are to "dislocate psychologically" a detainee. This
is done through psychological and physical measures, primarily intended to
disrupt Circadian rhythms and an individual's perceptions. So, noise,
temperature, one's sense of time, sleep, diet, light, darkness, physical freedom
— the normal reference points for one's senses are all distorted. Reality
disappears, and so do one's reference points. It is shockingly easy to disorient
someone.

But that is not the same as making someone more willing to cooperate. The
opposite is true — as the CIA's KUBARK interrogation manual cautions will occur,
as I predicted and forewarned and as occurred in my and other officers'
experiences.

Wired.com: In 2003, according to declassified documents, your old boss, George
Tenet approved the following "enhanced interrogation techniques" for use on
high-value detainees: "the attention grasp, walling, the facial hold, the facial
slap (insult slap), the abdominal slap, cramped confinement, wall standing,
stress positions, sleep deprivation beyond 72 hours, the use of diapers for
prolonged periods, the use of harmless insects, the water board." Were any of
these used on CAPTUS? Did you take part in any of their use?

Glenn Carle: No. These measures were formally set out, I believe, after my
involvement in interrogation. And in any event, from my first second of
involvement in the CAPTUS operation I simply would not allow or have anything to
do with any physical coercive measure. I would not do it. That point I was
certain of instantaneously. I also had literally never heard of waterboarding
until the story about it broke in the media.

Wired.com: Did you get any useful intelligence out of CAPTUS? If so, what
interrogation techniques "worked"?

Glenn Carle: Oh, yes, CAPTUS definitely provided useful intelligence. The
methods that worked were the same ones that work in classic intelligence
operations: establishing a rapport with the individual, understanding his fears,
hopes, interests, quirks. It is a psychological task, very similar to what one
should do when establishing any human relationship.

The plan was to be a perceptive, and sometimes manipulative, thoughtful,
knowledgeable, and purposeful individual who understood the man sitting opposite
him, and earn his trust.

Wired.com: You came to question whether even the mild psychological
disorientation you induced on CAPTUS was too severe an interrogation method.
Why? Did you sympathize with CAPTUS too much?

Glenn Carle: There is always a danger for a case officer to "fall in love" with
his "target." That's the term we use. Any good officer guards against that, and
always questions his own perceptions. Always. But I was the one who looked in
CAPTUS' eyes for hours and hours and days and days. It was I who knew the man,
literally. I'm confident in my assessment of him.

And yes, I at first accepted my training: that psychological dislocation induced
cooperation, and would not be lasting or severe, therefore could be acceptable
in certain circumstances. I came quickly to conclude that this was founded on
erroneous conclusions — nonsense, actually — about human psyche and motivation.
[It] did not work, was counterproductive and was, simply, wrong in every way.
So, I came to oppose it.

Wired.com: How did the CIA react to you publishing this book? Huge sections of
it are blacked out.

Glenn Carle: The agency redacted about 40 percent of the initial manuscript,
deleting entire chapters, almost none of which had anything to do with
protecting sources or methods. Much of it was so the agency could protect itself
from embarrassment, or from allowing any description of the interrogation
program to come out. One would infer, obviously, that large segments of the
agency would have preferred to leave CAPTUS' story in the dark, where it took
place.

Wired.com: David Petraeus, the incoming CIA director, suggested to Congress that
there might be circumstances where a return to "enhanced interrogation" is
appropriate. What would you say to him?

Glenn Carle: That there is almost no conceivable circumstance in which the
enhanced interrogation practices are acceptable or work. This belief is a red
herring, wrong, and undoes us a bit. We are better than that. Enhanced
interrogation does not work, and is wrong. End of story.

Wired.com: The Justice Department decided on June 30 to seek criminal inquiries
in two cases of detainee abuses — out of 101. Was that justice, a whitewash or
something in between?

Glenn Carle: It wasn't a whitewash. It's in general better not to seek
retribution, but to seek to inculcate correct values and behavior going forward.

Wired.com: Did you ever learn what happened to CAPTUS' treatment after you left
at Hotel California? Why was he was released? Have you tried to find him? What
would you tell him if you saw one another?

Glenn Carle: No. I left the case and knew nothing about him for years. I presume
he was released because the institution, at last, accepted what I had argued as
strongly as I had been able to do so. He was ultimately let go, I hope, because
the institution and U.S. government, at last, came to accept my view of CAPTUS.
His release validates — substantiates — everything I argued.

I came to respect CAPTUS. We are from such different worlds, and his and my
circumstances — he a detainee and I one of his interrogators — are so radically
different that conversation would be awkward if we ever met again. It is natural
that he feel resentment. And little was ever clear in the entire operation.
That's the nature of intelligence work. He is not a total innocent, I don't
think. But his rendition was not justified by the facts as I came to learn them,
which was at odds with the agency's assessment of him.

Wired.com: Finally, how many CAPTUSes — people you believe to be innocent men
swept up in the CIA "enhanced interrogation" system — are there?

Glenn Carle: I do not know.

Note: For more on secret prisons, see my articles transcribing the sections
dealing with US secret detention after 9/11, which were part of a UN report on
secret detention that was published last year: UN Secret Detention Report (Part
One): The CIA's "High-Value Detainee" Program and Secret Prisons, UN Secret
Detention Report (Part Two): CIA Prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq and UN Secret
Detention Report (Part Three): Proxy Detention, Other Countries' Complicity, and
Obama's Record.

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774
Detainees in America's Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by
Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the
US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion
and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please
subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and
YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011,
details about the new documentary film, "Outside the Law: Stories from
Guantánamo" (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, on tour in the UK
throughout 2011, and available on DVD here — or here for the US), my definitive
Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if
you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !

AFRICA/LIBYA-"I have the duty to say that bombings are immoral acts, " says the
Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli
Agenzia Fides
http://www.fides.org/aree/news/newsdet.php?idnews=28931&lan=eng


Tripoli (Agenzia Fides) - "I am surprised that statements were made on the fact
that I should deal only with spiritual matters and that the bombings have been
authorized by the UN. But this does not mean that the UN, NATO or the European
Union have the moral authority to decide to bomb " says Archbishop Giovanni
Innocenzo Martinelli, Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli to Fides. "I certainly do not
want to interfere with the political activity of anyone, but I have a duty to
declare that the bombings are immoral, " insists Bishop Martinelli.

"Let me stress - continues the Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli - that bombing is not
an act dictated by social and moral conscience of the West or humanity in
general. Bombing is always an immoral act. I respect the United Nations, I
respect NATO, but I must also declare that war is immoral. If there are
violations of human rights , I cannot use the same method to stop them. As a
Christian I have to use peaceful methods, first of all dialogue."

"I remember that Pope John Paul II established diplomatic relations with Libya,
while it was under embargo. This is to demonstrate that the method to solve the
problems are not even embargoes and wars, but diplomatic dialogue, " concluded
Bishop Martinelli, expressing full support regarding the comminication of the
Episcopal Mixed Commission Mediterranean-Maghreb-Europe, on the war in Libya and
on the issue of migrants.

Killing Gaddafi's Grandbabies
Glen Ford
Black Agenda Report
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/killing-gaddafis-grandbabies


When the U.S. and Europeans needed a way to get on the "right" side of the Arab
Awakening – and thereby crush it – they chose to re-demonize Libyan leader
Moammar Gaddafi as the evil from which the Euro-Americans would rescue North
Africa. "Gaddafi was perfect, having long existed in cartoon form for western
consumption." Killing Gaddafi's son and three grandchildren was no crime, since
"in American eyes they are no more than satanic versions of Daffy Duck's cartoon
nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie."

The ceremonial slaughter of Moammar Gaddafi and his family lurches forward like
some savage white cult ritual. Death to the demon and his seed! shout the
priests, banshees and ice-smile oracles of the U.S. corporate media. The
American (or "western") manifest mission must be sanctified in the blood of
caricatures. Like the Christ-crazed hordes that surged out of Europe's far
western dankness to annihilate whole cities of strangers – including tens of
thousands of fellow Christians that did not speak, eat or smell as the French
and English did – these modern Crusaders require ritual bloodletting before
expropriating the lands and goods of their victims.

When the Arab world awoke at the beginning of the year, the highly paid
presenters and rapid-vapid quippers of CNN and competing reality-creation
companies were caught pitifully mission-less. Absent direction from the official
scenario-producers at the White House and the State Department, there could be
no coherent newsreader script, no simple theme for quipping. But direction would
not be forthcoming from the Obama administration until a way could be found to
put the U.S. on the "right" side of the Arab Awakening.

"Where was the consummate Arab evil?"

In the first days of the Egyptian rebellion, CNN and its ilk were largely on
their own and visibly confused – reflecting the confusion and desperation in
Washington. Then, after the White House, having no other choice, pretended to
empathize with the young demonstrators at Tahrir Square, the corporate media
commenced its love affair with the "new" Arab. But where was the consummate Arab
evil, in the battle against which the corporate media could fulfill its role as
chronicler of America's glorious, civilizing saga in the world? Who is the
caricature, to be ritually tormented and slain?

Moammar Gaddafi became the foil for the Euro-American military response to the
Arab Awakening. Instantaneously, CNN got its mission back. Gaddafi was perfect,
having long existed in cartoon form for western consumption. With Gaddafi's
gradual accommodation with the West, in the early 2000s, Iraq's Saddam Hussein
became the Great Cartoon Satan, even appearing as the Devil in Comedy Central's
South Park cartoon show. Gaddafi, the vintage cartoon, inevitably became
conflated with Saddam (all Arab strongman cartoons look alike).

A general on CNN's retainer repeatedly named the long dead Saddam as the ghoul
to be obliterated by righteous American firepower. More than once, the general
apologized to the audience, but he needn't have since, to the mass of CNN's
viewers, Gaddafi has no more claim to his own life, history and death than did
Saddam Hussein. The are both little voodoo dolls to be stuck with needles and
burned and torn to pieces, along with their children.

"Vaunted American "compassion" does not extend to the grandbabies of evil Arab
cartoon-men."

Americans, who consume packaged lies like hot dogs, and then revere these items
of consumption as sacred culture (as "American" as hot dogs), have been ready to
kill Gaddafi's sons ever since Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay were gunned down in
2003. In American eyes, these Arab strongmen's sons are no more than satanic
versions of Daffy Duck's cartoon nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie. In Gaddafi's
case, two of his sons were named Saif. If Col. Gaddafi didn't distinguish
sufficiently between them, why should NATO bombers? As it turned out, the Saif
that died along with three of Gaddafi's grandchildren, Saif al-Arab, the
youngest of the brothers, was also the least political. The grandkids, ages 6
months to two years, were, of course, totally apolitical and, presumably, quite
cute. But vaunted American "compassion" does not extend to the grandbabies of
evil Arab cartoon-men. CNN and other U.S. corporate outlets, all of which have
reporters in Tripoli, chose to quote rebel leaders in Benghazi who cast doubt on
whether the children of Gaddifi sons Mohammed and Hannibal and daughter Aisha
were really dead. The rebels advised that it was likely a trick, and U.S.
corporate media treated the vile slander as simply another competing factoid.

The killer couple in the White House offered no condolences or apologies,
presumably on the assumption that the elder Gaddafi had invited his family to
his residence to act as human shields, and was therefore responsible for their
deaths.

It would not occur to most Americans that Gaddafi and his family were entitled
to feel safe under international law and American law, which bar assassinations
of heads of state, and that United Nations resolution 1973 does not authorize
NATO to hunt down the Libyan leader or kill those around him. But he's only a
cartoon, and cartoons have no rights. Neither do the countries these cartoons
come from, as every American knows.


BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at
Glen.Ford@....

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

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@... !