The Least You Could Do Is Tax Me for the War I Oppose. By Derrick Crowe

Via: Rethink Afghanistan.

I loathe the use of my tax dollars for any violence, but you know what I loathe even more? The use of debt taken out in my name to fund violence.

The latter includes the anti-Christian choice of using violence in conflict and it adds extreme, immoral irresponsibility to the original sin. Not only did the deficit-fueled war spending of the Bush years lead to massive human suffering, but it also contributed mightily to the economic crisis. Here’s Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes writing in The Three Trillion Dollar War just before the economic crisis fully materialized (p. 115, 125-126):

The question is not whether the economy has been weakened by the [Iraq] war. The question is only by how much. Where you can put a figure on them, the costs are immense. In our realistic-moderate scenario…they total moe than a trillion dollars.

…

The Federal Reserve sought…to offset the adverse effects of the war, including those discussed earlier in this chapter. It kept interest rates lower than they otherwise might have been and looked the other way as lending standards were lowered–thereby encouraging households to borrow more–and spend more. Even as interest rates were reaching record lows, Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, in effect invited households to pile on the risk as he encouraged them to take on variable rate mortgages. The low initial interest rates allowed households to borrow more against their houses, enabling America to consume well beyond its means.

Household savings rates soon went negative for the first time since the Great Depression. But it was only a matter of time before interest rates rose. When they did so, hundreds of thousands of Americans who had taken on variable interest mortgages saw their mortgage payments rise–beyond their ability to pay–and they lost their homes. This was all predictable–and predicted: after all, interest rates could not stay at these historically unprecidented low rates forever. As this book goes to press, the full ramifications of the “subprime” mortgage crisis are still unfolding. Growth is slowing, and the economy is again performing markedly below its potential.

Canada/Afghanistan: Investigate Canadian Responsibility for Detainee Abuse

Via: Human Rights Watch.

The Canadian government should carry out a full and public inquiry into the alleged torture of detainees whom Canadian forces transferred to Afghan government custody in 2006-07, Human Rights Watch said today.

Senior Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin, who was based in Afghanistan in 2006-07, told a House of Commons committee last week that persons taken prisoner by Canadian forces in Afghanistan and transferred to Afghan custody during that time period were likely tortured. Colvin testified that he made repeated warnings about detainee abuse.  He said that his warnings were at first ignored by senior Canadian government officials, but he was then later instructed to “be quiet and do what we were told.”

Under the Convention Against Torture, which Canada ratified in 1987, states are obligated to prevent, investigate, prosecute, and punish its nationals who are complicit or participate in acts of torture.  Knowingly transferring persons to a government where they are likely to be tortured may amount to complicity in torture.

“Canadians have a right to know whether their government handed people over to face torture,” said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch. “Richard Colvin’s credible and alarming allegations merit a serious investigation.”

Honduras, Colombia, Cuba: the United States are Sticking with the Monroe Doctrine Interview with Arnold August. By Karine Walsh

Via: Global Research.

Interview with Arnold August at Le monde cette semaine (The World this Week), a francophone radio program hosted by André Pesant, aired on CIBL Radio-Montréal on November 22, 2009

While the U.S. government is amplifying its hostile interventions in the south, André Pesant recalled the ideological origins of U.S. foreign policy in a radio episode entitled Honduras, Colombia, Cuba – the United States is Pursuing the Monroe Doctrine: All of America to the North-Americans. It is during a speech to Europeans delivered on December 2, 1823, that the Republican U.S. President James Monroe would set guidelines to be adopted by United States diplomacy in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

In the same vein, Pesant evoked the concept of an African proverb used by Roosevelt in 1901: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Roosevelt used this expression for the first time at the Minnesota State Fair, on September 2, 1901, twelve days before the assassination of President William McKinley which propelled him into the presidency of United States. This “big stick” policy led the United States to assume a role of international police, protecting its interests in Latin America, mainly in the Caribbean region, through the use of military reprisals if deemed necessary.

A Night Unto The Nations. By Gilad Atzmon

Via: Gilad Atzmon.
In his latest Haarertz commentary, the Israeli political analyst Yoel Marcus wonders “How Israel became a night unto the nations?” Marcus is obviously nostalgic about the days where the great powers “were not only sympathetic to Israel’s establishment, but admired its valor in repulsing the Arab states’ onslaught.”

Proudly he mentions the ‘renowned foreign journalists’ who came to Israel in 1948 and wrote “glowing reports about this war of David against Goliath”. Noticeably, Marcus fails to mention or to grasp that the expulsion of the indigenous Palestinians from their villages and cities wasn’t exactly a repetition of a ‘David against Goliath’ narrative. Quite the opposite, it was a story of a young organised Jewish army that ethnically cleansed a defenseless civilian  population consisting mainly of peasants.

As it happens, just three years after the liberation of Auschwitz the newly formed Jewish state ethnically cleansed the vast majority of Palestine’s indigenous population. Young IDF soldiers were following a racist doctrine that was categorically no different from the Nazi agenda. It was all about the establishment of a ‘Jew only’ state.

Philippines: slaughter of reporters.

Via: Index On Censorship.

The Ampatuan massacre has taken a heavy toll on community journalism, as authorities race against time and the elements in evidence gathering. Romel Regalado Bagares, Executive Director, Center for International Law (CenterLaw), reports

Koronadal City, South Cotabato, November 25, 2009 –— The weekly newspaper Periodico Ini (This Periodical) has reportedly lost all of its staff in what has now become known in Koranadal City as the Ampatuan massacre. News organisations in up to five nearby towns have each reported staff as missing following Monday’s horrific events. Police and military officials yesterday stated that total casualties had reached 57, following the discovery of the remains of ten more victims, including three journalists.

A list pieced together by CenterLaw from interviews with victims’ families and information provided by local journalists’ associations show that 27 journalists were among those confirmed dead or declared missing. Ten of the journalists came from General Santos City; another ten from Koronadal City; four from Tacurong City; two from Davao City, and one from Cotabato City. Other news reports however say up to 37 journalists were in the convoy.

The Iraq War ‘Inquiry’: ‘Revelations’? What revelations? by William Bowles

Via: Creative-i.

“We spent a long time at dinner on IRAQ. It is clear that Bush is grateful for your support and has registered that you are getting flak. I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than anything in the States. And you would not budge either in your insistence that, if we need pursued regime change, it must be very carefully done and produce the right result. Failure was not an option.” - David Manning (Blair’s policy advisor).[1]

I read with amazement the ‘revelations’ concerning war criminal Tony Blair’s visit to Camp Crawford in March 2002 where Bush/Blair decided that ‘regime change’ was the order of the day. But there’s nothing new about these ‘revelations’, indeed I and many others reported this meeting literally years ago.

“The start date for the military campaign was now pencilled in for 10 March [2003]. This was when the bombing would begin.” — George Bush

For example, see the following reports:

1. ‘British Foreign Secretary Straw Says Case For Iraq Is Weak’, Alleged Source: Foreign and Commonwealth Office 25, March 2002

2. ‘The Iraq Factor: Secret Memo to Tony Blair. Condi committed to regime change in early 2002’

3. ‘Iraq Options Paper’: Full text, Raw Story, dated March 8, 2002.

4. ‘British Advisers Foresaw Variety of Risks, Problems’ By Glenn Frankel

5. ‘LMSM, the Lying Mainstream Media’ By Robert Parry, June 17, 2005

These are just a few of the stories on Bush/Blair’s ‘regime change’ meeting at Camp Crawford in early 2002. So how come the mainstream media are reporting it as ‘news’?

Dubai: A morally bankrupt dictatorship built by slave labour. By Johann Hari

Via: The Independent.

Dubai is finally financially bankrupt – but it has been morally bankrupt all along. The idea that Dubai is an oasis of freedom on the Arabian peninsular is one of the great lies of our time.

Yes, it has Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts and the Gucci styles, but beneath these accoutrements, there is a dictatorship built by slaves.

If you go there with your eyes open – as I did earlier this year – the truth is hidden in plain view. The tour books and the bragging Emiratis will tell you the city was built by Sheikh Mohammed, the country’s hereditary ruler.

It is untrue. The people who really built the city can be seen in long chain-gangs by the side of the road, or toiling all day at the top of the tallest buildings in the world, in heat that Westerners are told not to stay in for more than 10 minutes. They were conned into coming, and trapped into staying.

In their home country – Bangladesh or the Philippines or India – these workers are told they can earn a fortune in Dubai if they pay a large upfront fee. When they arrive, their passports are taken from them, and they are told their wages are a tenth of the rate they were promised.

They end up working in extremely dangerous conditions for years, just to pay back their initial debt. They are ringed-off in filthy tent-cities outside Dubai, where they sleep in weeping heat, next to open sewage. They have no way to go home. And if they try to strike for better conditions, they are beaten by the police.

I met so many men in this position I stopped counting, just as the embassies were told to stop counting how many workers die in these conditions every year after they figured it topped more than 1,000 among the Indians alone.

Human Rights Watch calls this system “slavery.” Yet the Westerners who have flocked to Dubai brag that they “love” the city, because they don’t have to pay any taxes, and they have domestic slaves to do all the hard work. They train themselves not to see the pain.

But Dubai’s bankruptcy does not end there: it is ecologically bust. This is a city built in the burning desert, where everything shrivels up and blows away if it is not kept artificially cold all the time. That’s why it has the highest per capita carbon emissions on earth – some 250 percent higher even than America’s. The city has to ship in desalinated water – which is more costly than oil. When it runs out of cash, it will run out of water.

Today Dubai will be bailed out by the United Arab Emirates, the oil-rich country of which it is only one state. But the oil will not last forever. More importantly, there is no Bank of Morality that could provide a bailout for this sinister mirage in the desert.

Mourners gather to remember Chris Harman. By Chris Bambery

Via: Socialist Worker.

Hundreds of mourners from all corners of the globe gathered in the late winter sun today to say farewell to Chris Harman, the editor of International Socialism journal and before that Socialist Worker. Chris died unexpectedly earlier this month while in Cairo in Egypt to address a socialist conference.

His family, veterans of 1968 such as Tariq Ali and Alain Krivine, friends and generations of Socialist Workers Party members came to pay tribute to Chris. His brother Peter, son Seth and daughter Sinead spoke at the tribute at Golders Green Crematorium, along with his friends and comrades Alex Callinicos, Lindsey German, John Rose, Martin Smith, Pat Stack and Panos Garganos of the Greek SEK socialist organisation.

Mourners filled the hall and followed the tribute via an outdoor screening. Afterwards people joined together to remember Chris over refreshments and food.

To read Alex Callinicos’s obituary of Chris Harman go to » Obituary: Chris Harman 1942-2009

Zionism’s un-Christian Bible. By Maidhc Ó Cathail

Via: Uruknet.net.

For a nation to commit the sin of anti-Semitism brings inevitable judgement.

-The New Scofield Study Bible

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign should widen its scope to target non-Israeli companies who contribute significantly to the oppression of Palestinians. As part of this broader strategy, priority should be given to one of the most egregious offenders, the prestigious British publisher, Oxford University Press. As unlikely as it may seem, the world’s largest university press is responsible for one of the greatest obstacles to justice for Palestinians – The Scofield Bible.

Since it was first published in 1909, the Scofield Reference Bible has made uncompromising Zionists out of tens of millions of Americans. When John Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel, said that “50 million evangelical bible-believing Christians unite with five million American Jews standing together on behalf of Israel,” it was the Scofield Bible that he was talking about.

Although the Scofield Reference Bible contains the text of the King James Authorized Version, it is not the traditional Protestant bible but Cyrus I. Scofield’s annotated commentary that is the problem. More than any other factor, it is Scofield’s notes that induced generations of American evangelicals to believe that God demands their uncritical support for the modern State of Israel.

British documents detail US and UK plans for Iraq war. By Julie Hyland

Via: World Socialist Web Site.

Documents obtained by the Sunday Telegraph provide further proof of the criminal character of the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. They confirm that then-Prime Minister Tony Blair lied to the British public when he repeatedly denied that he and US President George W. Bush had agreed on war months before the invasion in order to effect “regime change.”

The Sunday Telegraph reported that it had received “hundreds of pages of secret Government reports,” some of which it has published on its website. The newspaper cited Blair’s statement to parliament on July 16, 2002, in response to speculation about British involvement in an attack on Iraq. Donald Anderson, chairman of the foreign affairs committee, asked the prime minister, “Are we then preparing for possible military action in Iraq?” To which Blair replied, “No. There are no decisions which have been taken about military action.”

In late September of that year, the government published the first of its spurious “intelligence” reports. Entitled Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government, the report claimed that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction” that could be deployed for attack “within 45 minutes.”

However, planning for a military invasion of Iraq, with the objective of toppling Saddam Hussein, had been underway for some months. The documents state, “formation-level planning for a [British] deployment [to Iraq] took place from February 2002.” It also cites Major General Graeme Lamb, director of special forces during the war, stating, “I had been working the war up since early 2002.”

‘The Geographic Gap’. By Juan Cole

Via: Informed Comment.

‘The Geographic Gap’ | HUMNews

Of 237 countries and territories in the world, the 4 largest newsgathering and distribution companies that supply the world with 90% of news do not cover 116 of them.

These 116 countries or territories contain 4 billion people over half the world.

63 of these media-ignored countries and territories are desperately poor.

All this has security implications for the United States. What do you want to bet that in the late 1990s, Afghanistan was in the 116? Hard to know an attack was being planned out there if you don’t know the place exists.

What HUM does not say is that the ignoring of the 116 comes from the news corporations’ profit motive, which is increasingly driving them to ignore most real news in favor of infotainment. Desperately poor 4th world countries? Not entertaining.

h/t Aljazeera.net’s blog. In fact, Aljazeera’s model, being backed by the Qatar Foundation, may be one of the few ways out of this information gap. Aljazeera English does a better job covering subsaharan Africa and Latin American than any other Anglophone news service, and they pay attention to the poor and working people.

Keep Islamophobia off campus. By François Laforge

Via: Socialist Worker.

PRINCETON, N.J.—A campaign by students at Princeton University forced the cancellation of a planned speech by the anti-Islam, pro-Israel conservative Nonie Darwish.

Darwish was due to speak at Princeton University on November 16, but after a campaign by a pro-Palestinian student group exposed her Islamophobia, the pro-Israel student group Tigers for Israel decided at the last minute to rescind her invitation.

Darwish is a supporter of the occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. She uses crass generalizations about Islam and Muslims to justify her extreme Islamophobia. For example, she writes in her book Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, “Even without conquering, [Muslims] can do a lot of long-term harm through immigration, high birth rates and proselytizing among vulnerable western citizens.”

There is no place on a university campus for hate speech like Darwish’s. Thus, members of the Princeton Committee on Palestine (PCP) decided to expose her as a hate-monger. PCP President Yoel Bitran wrote an article in the Daily Princetonian, and the group began posting flyers with Darwish’s racist quotes all over the campus.

After two days of campaigning and concerns voiced by the Center for Jewish Life’s director Rabbi Julie Roth and Muslim Chaplain Imam Sohaib Sultan, Tigers for Israel decided to cancel their invitation, with the dubious excuse of “not being aware” of Darwish’s Islamophobic views. The cancellation is a victory for supporters of Palestinian rights at the university.