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Obama-Aid: Psychologically Bad for Black Folk

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Originally Posted on Black Agenda Report on June 20, 2012

 

by Solomon Comissiong


Obama supporters appear to suffer from a condition known as selective amnesia.”


In 2009 this author wrote two pieces entitled, “Barack Obama is Bad for Black America” and “Obamanity the Religion of Complicity,” detailing the psychological phenomena looming over many supporters of United States President Barack Obama – especially those who are black/African. It seemed that no matter what Obama did (especially if it was negative), his supporters would contrive any and every excuse to justify “sticking with him” and, therefore, his policies. It mattered little to Obama supporters that within his first 72 hours as US president, he ordered multiple drone strikes in Afghanistan which took the lives of innocent civilians. It mattered little that on the campaign trail his rhetoric supported an expansion of the imperialist war in Afghanistan. He followed through on that campaign promise. And it mattered little then, as it does now, that Obama routinely ignores the plight of black/African people within the pilfered borders of America.

 

Obama supporters appear to suffer from a condition known as selective amnesia (in addition to delusion); forgetting that they demanded then President George W. Bush to end the wars and “bring the troops home.” However, with Obama wars are excusable. It matters little that Obama promised to only leave “non-combat troops” in Iraq (whatever the hell a non-combat troop is), while in the same disingenuous breath vowed to ramp up the offensive in Afghanistan. The only thing that can be assured is that countless people will continue to be subjected to hell, courtesy of the US government’s insatiable appetite for war, death and destruction. To this day the Afghans and Pakistanis, like their Iraqi counterparts, suffer tremendously because their nations are occupied and destroyed by Western Grim Reapers.

It seems to matter little to his cultish supporters how much other peoples suffer from Obama’s destructive policies. It certainly did not matter when Barack Obama was a presidential candidate and US senator. His supporters did not give a damn that he backed FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) or even that he justified the amoral verdict that acquitted the murderous police officers who took the life of Sean Bell. When Obama callously told black/African people protesting the reprehensible verdict, The judge has made his ruling, and we’re a nation of laws, so we respect the verdict that came down, it should have served as a stark warning that he would not respect their predicament in America. Nevertheless, countless blacks/Africans rewarded him with their blind support and even donned shirts with Obama’s face juxtaposed next to Dr. Martin Luther King’s. Those that have studied the life of Dr. King (especially his last few years), know better than to compare the MLK’s philosophy with that of the brown faced war monger – Barack Obama. (Allowing white people to continue to rewrite our history facilitates an atmosphere where these kinds of ahistorical scams occur.)

MLK would never have asked black/African people not to peacefully protest a grave injustice such as the verdict that set Sean Bell’s killers free. This is not and never has been a nation of “just laws.” Obama can respect those unjust laws all he wants, however, social justice practitioners must never accept laws that routinely allow police officers to murder unarmed people of color and get away with it. If we accept these injustices, we don’t give a damn about social injustice. We must revamp this system as well as the color coded laws that operate within it.

 

Obama supporters appear to be more interested in “show and tell” games than actual social change. Obama supporters enjoyed “protesting” and complaining about the Bush Administration’s right wing Patriot Act, but they don’t say a damn thing when it comes to Obama’s signing of the NDAA (Nation Defense Authorization Act). NDAA is a ramped up and even more aggressive version of the Patriot Act.

 

Most black/African folks that continue to support Obama are merely wedded to the idea of having a brown face in the White House – no matter how filthy that house continues to be. They continue to allow their minds to be co-opted by a Euro-Centric value system. This is the only way to explain why they would continually support someone (just because he looks like them), regardless of his destructive policies. Without being fully conscious of it, many black/African people are allowing their politics to mimic that of people who could not give a damn about social justice and/or black/African people’s need to determine their own destinies.

American born Africans, of all people, should understand the value and importance of social justice and what it means to be principled in that regard. We should understand what it means to stand consistent when it comes to the necessary struggle for self-determination, for all people. Self-determination is something American born Africans have been struggling for since being kidnapped from our African homeland and brought to a land stolen and plundered by Europeans. Self-determination is something that black/African communities in America continue to struggle for, to this day. Mass incarceration (modern day slavery), police brutality/terrorism, and separate and unequal educational polices are just a few of the issues African/black communities are plagued with in 2012. These issues fall under the rubric of institutional racism – a system riddled throughout American society. Neither the Republican nor the Democratic parties are committed to seeing an end to these destructive apartheid-like policies. Their non-actions speak volumes. However, American born Africans remain devoted to a two-party dictatorship, largely because of our collective ignorance. This is why these frauds are able to send someone like Barack Obama our way and so many of us foolishly support him without ever knowing the destructive nature of many of his polices. In essence, people of color in America have allowed their collective conscience to be neutered. And not only has our morality been neutered, it has gobbled up by a Euro-American value system that has never represented our collective interests, or those of people outside US borders who we should be unflinchingly in solidarity with.

Obama, like his Euro-American predecessors, has waged war and taken untold lives in places like Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. During the Bush years American born Africans found the Bush Administration’s wars unacceptable. Those same people are now silent with Obama at the helm. They have become Obama’s sheep-like “army” of supporters. And in doing so, they have accepted the imposition of Euro-American imperialism throughout the globe. These wars do not benefit us as African/black people in any way, shape, or form. We have been sold a disgusting bag of goods, simply because have accepted our political training from an oppressive system – the same system that built an empire upon African slave labor and on stolen land.

Those whose land was stolen by the ancestors of Euro-Americans are now deemed “illegal aliens.” Most are commonly mislabeled as “Latinos” or “Hispanics”. They are actually Spanish speaking Indigenous people. Many Indigenous nations such as the Lakota, now find themselves on reservations within a white settler state (America). Untold millions were exterminated by European mass murderers.

 

No matter how much Obama tries to curry favor with Spanish speaking Indigenous people by saying he will slow down or reduce the number of deportations, he cannot escape the fact that he has deported more “Latinos” that the simpleton George W. Bush ever did. His ploy to garner their votes in the upcoming 2012 election is just that – a ploy. Every single one of these so-called “Latinos” deserves amnesty for they hold much more legitimate claim land in places like Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and California (to name a few states). The rest of the land belongs to other indigenous people who were terrorized by non-Spanish speaking Europeans. Obama wants to see many more young Latinos to serve in his imperialist military, which is a large reason he supports the Dream Act. He believes no more in justice for so-called Latinos than did Bush. Unfortunately, many “Latinos”, too, have been duped in to believing Obama has “their back.”

Obama supports the repressive Israeli government, just as his white predecessors did. Israel, like the US, is a country founded on the theft of indigenous people’s land. Palestinians, to this day, are treated like animals. Their situation is not unlike that of black Azanians (native South Africans) during the long period of Apartheid. Obama’s administration continues to fund Israel’s destructive military to the tune of more than 3 billion dollars a year; meanwhile, inner city American schools remain vastly underfunded. American born Africans, as a matter of principle, need to be in solidarity with other oppressed peoples, such as the Palestinians. Instead, we allow the white corporate media, along with the US government, to dictate what we think and how we think, while we mindlessly cheerlead for oppressors. By default, we champion the demise of those who have been historically oppressed. Our social values are slowly being more and more domesticated, just like farm animals.

A brown face in the White House – is that all it takes? A brown face representing the same ole oppressive system – is that all it takes? Are American born Africans (and people of color in general) that easily duped? Is that all it takes for us to abandon our long-held place as champions of social justice issues?


The brown faced Democrat in the White House has effectively mollified millions of people of color. Instead of supporting or starting political organizations that truly represent our communities’ interests, we have put aside our own interests for the sake of an arch imperialist.


President Barack Obama represents corporate interests, the US military industry complex and, in general, the pernicious status quo. We need to wake up and cease making excuses for Obama, or any other “lesser of two evils” (Democrat or Republican). When we do this, we are ultimately voting for evil, lesser or otherwise. If we are only presented with options that are antithetical to our collective interests – and our very humanity – then we must create other options. We must create a culture that develops truly revolutionary minded leaders, who will serve as the faces of our organizations/political parties. The alternative is to remain in a state of perpetual oppression.


We don’t realize that we are still oppressed because we have bought in to the manufactured lie of a post-racist America. It does not exist. Wake up black/African America. Wake up America of color. Wake up oppressed people within the bowels of the United States. Put down the highly intoxicating bottle of Obama-Aid and pick up a cup of detoxifying “Revolutionary Juice.” Drink up, let it run through your system and share it with your community – one neighborhood at a time. This liberationist drink is more commonly called organizing. Let’s hope we can all drink to that…


Solomon Comissiong is an educator, community activist, author, public speaker and the host of the Your World News media collective (www.yourworldnews.org). Solomon is the author of A Hip Hop Activist Speaks Out on Social Issues. He can be reached at: solo@yourworldnews.org

Hey Ozzie 50 Years Is Too Damn Long

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Hey Ozzie 50 Years Is Too Damn Long

By Obi Egbuna, Jr

For those Africans at home and abroad who feel obligated to safeguard and elevate the tradition of uncompromising front-line struggle, our worst nightmare is that genuine freedom fighters will one day become extinct like dinosaurs or volcanoes. The only other thought equally as horrific is if they are replaced by critics, bought and paid for by
our former colonial and slave masters, whose sole purpose is to spread confusion and voice baseless opinions that only expose how truly out of touch they are with the everyday African woman, child and man. It is truly liberating to know that even during our most vulnerable moments the most oppressive forces on earth are having even more difficulty convincing their children that they must carry the torch of genocide, exploitation and fascism to the finish line.

When the commissioner of Major League Baseball, Bud Selig, slapped the manager of the Miami Marlins, Ozzie Guillen with a five-game suspension for expressing during a Time Magazine interview his admiration for Fidel Castro, this reaction exposed that the racist and terrorist Cuban network in Miami is on the verge of complete collapse. At the peak of their political strength and influence in the early 1980s, this network had the muscle to turn a boxing match between Alexis Arguello and Aaron Pryor at the Orange Bowl in 1982 into a huge anti-Cuba, anti-Sandinista event, hoping to garner sentiment for their mission to dispose of Socialism in the Americas. They had a willing partner in Arguello, who not only betrayed the revolution in Nicaragua, but physically fought on the side with the Contras and US Imperialism. In comparison, Joe DiMaggio’s trip to South Vietnam to give the middle finger to Ho Chi Minh or Jackie Robinson’s denunciation of Paul Robeson before the House of Un-American Activities Committee and his condemnation of Muhammad Ali for not fighting in the Vietnam War, seem like small potatoes.

Guillen was born in Venezuela, whose current President, Hugo Chavez, deeply admires Commandante Fidel Castro. Guillen, like Arguello, who when the Sandinistas first overthrew the ruthless Somoza family in Nicaragua used to wear his flag to the boxing ring, was a target for the Gusanos. After leading the Chicago White Sox to a World Series in 2005, Guillen returned to Venezuela with the trophy and visited President Chavez, only to turn around and say he would never vote for Chavez in a million years. These remarks came shortly after Guillen received US citizenship, proving green cards come with a much bigger price—your heart, mind and soul. Since Guillen in 2010 condemned the treatment of so-called immigrants by the state of Arizona, the question must be raised why Africans in the US, who are also protesting the rights of so-called immigrants, are not demanding that they be able to express their own political point of view, as protected by Freedom of Speech, without fear of deportation or any other form of persecution.

We are nearly 60 years removed from the deportation of our Trinidad-born, sister, warrior, Claudia Jones, who was shown the door by US Imperialism for her membership in the Communist Party and her condemnation of US Foreign Policy. Who knows, Guillen may have been briefed by INS about her life story when they learned of his interview with Time Magazine.

Another political milestone in their heyday was when the slimy Gusanos (worms in Spanish) in Miami used the big screen in Hollywood to rewrite the script of the 1932 gangster movie Scarface, produced by Billionaire Howard Hughes. The film was originally centered around the rise of the Mafia in Chicago, but was re-written to highlight how Fidel Castro tricked the Carter administration into granting political asylum to 125,000 Cubans, many of whom had come from prison and mental health facilities. This film has become a cult classic, mainly because of its excessive violence and the film’s main character Tony Montana, portrayed by Al Pacino, who escaped poverty courtesy of the lucrative drug trade. However, what has been forgotten is the purpose of this film—to show depict President Reagan as a hero trying rescue a country 90 miles off the coast of Florida from an evil dictator. The Gusanos in Miami decided to use Guillen’s remarks to rebound from a decade of political embarrassment and to show their benefactors in Washington that they are far from being at the end of the road, even though all evidence at our disposal says otherwise.

Recently, before the Pope visited Cuba, he met with the Gusanos out of courtesy mainly because the Vatican was an ally of the Reagan administration at the height of the Cold War. After listening to the Gusanos’ demands, the Pope still called for the lifting of the US blockade on Cuba, echoing the sentiments of his late predecessor, Pope John Paul II, who in spite of his role in the dismantling of socialism in Poland and Hungary, while rubbing shoulders with billionaire George Soros, openly condemned the US blockade on Cuba. The irony of this is that the Gusanos, who are from the Marielsta generation, never thought
they would live to see the Peter Pan generation, the first group of Cubans to defect after the triumph of the revolution, sit in their backyard and not only call for the lifting of the blockade, but openly criticize the Bush administration for imposing inflexible measures
that limited the ability of the Cubans in Miami to travel to Cuba and see their own relatives. The condemnation of this policy led to the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) having to publish an article in April 2009 lifting US restrictions on Cuba, it is amusing to watch terrorists pretend to show compassion, when everyone who understands US-CUBA relations understand the diplomatic and military posture can be best described with two words seek and destroy.

Since the Gusanos seem to be such fans of Hollywood they should remember Al Pacino’s character Michael Corleone in Godfather III portrayed by a real life Gusano terrorist sympathizer, Andy Garcia, tell his nephew, “Never hate your enemy. It affects your judgment.” This would help them understand and appreciate Ozzie Guillen’s
statement about Fidel. The governments of Cuba and Venezuela have a medical project called Operation Miracle, which has helped thousands of Venezuelans who were on the verge of going permanently blind regain their eyesight. Did Gusanos apologists, such as ESPN analyst Dan LeBetard, ever consider for a second that one of those Venezuelans could be a relative or life-long friend of Guillen? What if Guillen made those remarks about Fidel after learning he lifted the pro-US Batista regime that placed a ban on Nicholas Guillen, the African revolutionary poet born in Cuba that prevented him from re-entering the country? It is a well known fact that Nicolas Guillen was appointed President of the National Cuban Writers Union and was declared by Fidel the Poet of the Revolution.

During the kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez by the Gusanos in 2000, Commandante Fidel Castro stated while addressing the Organization of Caribbean and Latin American Youth, that “In the four months Elian was being held in the US against his will, the average
US citizen learned more about Cuba than they had in 41 years, which proves our neighbors to the North will lose the War of Ideas in the 21st century.” Because Guillen has a reputation as a loose cannon, the Gusanos feared he would challenge the very foundation of their existence and the world would see they no longer have the political clout to do anything meaningful about it. While Guillen’s five-game suspension helped the Gusanos gain 15 minutes of fame, the fast track approach to propaganda by the US Imperialist media apparatus will make this issue a distant memory by the beginning of June. With all the political muscle the Gusanos claim to have here in Washington, Guillen’s punishment is the equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan putting a cross on your yard without setting it on fire.

By claiming his admiration for Fidel stems from his ability to survive for nearly 60 years, Guillen accidentally brought attention to the Gusanos terrorist cells that still exist in Miami during an election year and the role they played in the 638 assassination attempts on Fidel’s life since 1959. At the present moment, CANF is still adjusting to their attempted political makeover, which has them trying to distance themselves from their associations with naked terrorists like Luis Posada Carrilles and Orlando Bosch, whose main purpose in life was to put Commandante Fidel Castro in a pine box and be hailed as heroes by US Imperialism for their efforts. The Gusanos in Miami, who repudiated Guillen for his remarks, would have preferred if he followed the example of Carrilles, a Venezuelan-born Cuban who was directly involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion then and received training at the School of Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, between 1963 and 1964. The Cuban American National Foundation now claims in their mission statement that change should be non-violent and meaningful, reflecting the natural and inalienable rights of the Cuban
people. It also states that change must come from within the island, not forcibly imported from abroad. This had to anger the terrorists in Miami who view Posada Carrilles and Bosch almost in the identical manner that Christians and Muslims see their prophets in the Holy Bible and Holy Quran.

The posturing by CANF illustrates how eager they are to sweep under the rug that this year marks the 20th anniversary of their decision to develop a paramilitary wing to compliment the work of the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), which was run by Bosch when the leadership of CANF arrived at the conclusion that lobbying the US Congress in order to bring about a regime change in Cuba was not enough and more militant action had to be taken. The political highlights of Bosch’s career as a terrorist were pardoned by President Bush in 1990, including his role in the bombing of a Cuban airliner that claimed the lives of 73 people and in 1976 when Bush headed the CIA and refused a request by Costa Rica to have Bosch extradited for his role in masterminding that cowardly act of aggression.

We as Africans must understand how the efforts by US Imperialism to shield Bosch and Posada Carrilles from the appropriate form of punishment for their sadistic crimes are inextricably linked to Mumia Abu Jamal sitting on death row and the threats to have Assata Shakur extradited from safety in Cuba to return to her old prison cell in the US. The Congressional Black Caucus members who supported the Bush administration’s call to have sister Shakur extradited gave the lame excuse of not knowing Assata Shakur and Joanne Chesimard is the same person. What this reveals is that any statements they make concerning normalizing relations with Cuba are lip service at best or a chance to be in front of a camera.

For the pro-terrorist Gusanos in Miami the year 2011 will generate bitter sweet emotions for many years to come. While Carrilles was acquitted on all charges of terrorism and aggression in the beginning of April 2011, their beloved assassin Bosch was not only laid to rest, but from the looks of things, these events marks the end of an era for Miami as a haven for Cuban terrorists. The decision by the Gusanos to bash Guillen like a piñata at a birthday party was aimed at diverting attention from the case of the Cuban 5, whose international support is an extension of the world’s diplomatic corp. that have repeatedly and uncompromisingly called for the lifting of the US blockade on Cuba. The courage and patriotism of the Cuban 5 comes shining through as a beacon of light at a moment in history when US Imperialism is using the banner of Homeland Security to deny people their basic civil liberties and maintain their tradition of bombing countries that incur their wrath. Their courage also puts a rather intense microscope on a terrorist network in Miami that has direct ties to the White House, Congress and the Military Industrial Intelligence Police Complex. The Cuban 5 issue also spells disaster for the US government’s public
relations apparatus as it pertains to the immigration question. It is clear for everyone to finally see why citizens of Cuba have for all intents and purposes been exempt from the standard immigration procedures to which citizens are subject to from other nations of the world. There should be a slogan posted on the wall of INS headquarters that states “All Cubans ready to engage in countless acts of terrorism against Cuba are welcome,” with pictures of Carrilles and Bosch right next to these words. This would accurately reflect Cubans who live by the slogan coined by the founder of CANF Jose Mascanosa,“From
Proletarians to Profiterians.”

Guillen’s revelation about his admiration for Fidel frightened the Gusanos because the next words out of his mouth could be that maintaining the blockade against Cuba was absolutely racist and ridiculous. These words would create a platform to fight the blockade right in the Gusano’s backyard, making their worst political nightmare come true, protests and teach-ins about the blockade in the same place that the bulk of the assassination attempts of Fidel’s life were planned. This would have been even more humiliating than when Elian Gonzalez was snatched from the Gusano’s clutches as a result of President Clinton yielding to international pressure when he instructed Janet Reno to arrange the child’s departure from the landof the Gusanos.

The African community in the US must collectively acknowledge that our efforts to fight for the lifting of the US blockade on Cuba have been both casual and inconsistent. What makes this extremely troubling is the special and unique ties we have to Cuba that predate Fidel, Che Guevara and the July 26th movement overthrowing the Batista regime in 1959. As we are almost six months into the 50th anniversary of the US blockade on Cuba, a question that can be posed to our most visible organizations and spokes people is this: In 50 years have there been at least 50 protests, demonstrations, or press conferences to voice our displeasure with this policy? If the answer is no, then the main reason must be our reluctance to yank out the sweet tooth we have for JFK, who imposed the blockade in 1962 or to condemn those white liberals who convinced our people that political salvation lies in the bosom of the democratic party. Another crucial reason is our failure to realize that the blockade represents diplomatic terrorism of the highest order in that it has cost a country with a 60% African population, a country committed to free health and education, over $96 billion dollars that would have been invested in expanding on the already high-quality programs that are the staple of their revolution.

While many of us have defied the travel ban on Cuba, unfortunately having the monstrous blockade lifted is not a priority item on national agenda. This implies that for many of us a photo-op with Fidel was more of a motivation for taking the trip, as opposed to serious planning to return to the heart of Babylon with a new found commitment to defend Cuba’s integrity and sovereignty. Undoubtedly, because the US is in the middle of a presidential election, we can expect President Obama to put on an academy award-winning performance for the Gusanos that exceeds the showboating he did four years ago when he stated that in his lifetime “Cubans have not experienced Democracy or Human Rights.” This erroneous statement received a response from none other than Fidel himself.

The most valuable lesson Obama learned is that Fidel has maintained the tenacity that first gained international attention when he and his comrades were waging war on the Batista regime from the Sierra Maestra, and that making baseless comments when trying to score points with terrorists in Miami will not be tolerated. Whenever the bitter and vindictive reactionary Carlos Moore resurfaces and launches self serving attacks on the Cuban revolution, under the guise of representing Spanish speaking Africans born in Cuba, we only Africans in the US do their homework and refuse to allow themselves to be used as pawns in a game they obviously do not understand. There is no country in the Western
Hemisphere where Africans and Europeans co-exist that racism does not exist, the real issue is what genuine steps are being taken to eradicate racism, any Africans in the US who would are willing to get in the foxhole with Mr. Moore concerning this matter are not capable of identifying a nation more committed to this task than Cuba. The 60 individuals who were coerced and manipulated into signing their name to the ridiculous statement entitled “Acting On Our Conscience A Declaration Of African American Support For The Civil Rights In Cuba in 11/30/09,exposed one thing for the African community, they have lost the will to stand with the world majority and fight for the lifting of the blockade, therefore instead of appearing as outright agents of US Imperialism help create a masquerade and smoke screen that you are still fighting the good fight.

The African community should shower Ozzie Guillen with high praises for his apology to the Gusanos because if he didn’t mean what he said, he should have never made the comments in the first place. Those of us who consider Fidel the modern day John Brown or our favorite American President (when we use the true definition of America, which is the Western hemisphere, instead of what Democrats and Republicans believe) feel Guillen should have stuck to his guns. When he left Venezuela for what he was told is the land of milk and honey, he should have called INS and asked what the hell happen to his freedom of speech? If Guillen gets the urge to honestly express himself about the blockade but get cold feet when confronted by the Gusanos, we have a simple message for him HEY OZZIE 50 YEARS IS TOO DAMN LONG!

Obi Egbuna, Jr., is a US-based member of the Zimbabwe-Cuba Friendship
Association and the US Correspondent to the Herald (Zimbabwe’s National
Newspaper). Mr. Egbuna is also a frequent contributor to Your World News.
His email address is obiegbuna15@gmail.com.

PENTAGON PRODUCES SATELLITE PHOTOS OF 1994 RWANDA GENOCIDE

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PENTAGON PRODUCES SATELLITE PHOTOS OF 1994 RWANDA GENOCIDE

Commemorating More Than 18 years of Terrorism in Central Africa

http://www.consciousbeingalliance.com/2012/04/pentagon-reveals-satelitte-photos-of-1994-rwanda-genocide/
April 6, 1994 – April 6, 2012

keith harmon snow
6 April 2012

Eighteen years after the historic ’100 days of genocide’ in Rwanda the United States Government has suddenly produced never-before-seen satellite images to support the genocide extradition trial of a former Rwandan now U.S. citizen in New Hampshire (USA). The existence of satellite imagery from 1994 would enable the ‘international community’ to further explore heretofore hidden facts about the double presidential assassinations of April 6 or massacres committed before, during and after 1994.  As the world commemorates the official Rwanda genocide story on the 18th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide the people of Central Africa continue to suffer under the brutal terrorism of the Kagame military regime.  Instead of celebrating, we should be asking: who are the real victims and who are the real criminals, and what really happened in Rwanda?

In his opening statements in a Concord, New Hampshire

(USA) courthouse on February 23, 2012, federal prosecutor John Capin launched the U.S. government’s trial against a 41 year-old Rwandan ‘genocide fugitive’ by wielding satellite photographs purportedly showing the road blocks where she “commanded extremist Hutu militia and ordered the rapes and killings of Tutsi” in Rwanda in 1994.

In a remarkable development, this is the first time in the history of the ‘Rwanda genocide’ trials or related Rwanda asylum hearings where Pentagon satellite photographs have been produced as evidence, and the first time that the existence of satellite photographs taken over Rwanda during the so-called ’100 days of genocide’ has ever been revealed.

Later in the trial the U.S. prosecutors produced a ‘Pentagon analyst’ who testified about the satellite photographs.  The name of the Pentagon analyst and the satellite photographs have not been made public.

The existence of satellite reconnaissance and intelligence photographs newly implicates the U.S. government in the mass atrocities of 1994, and raises serious new questions about the coverup of the double presidential assassinations of April 6, 1994 and the atrocities committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) commanded by now President Paul Kagame.

The sudden and unexpected revelation of the existence of satellite imagery shot over Rwanda in 1994 also further corroborates claims and evidence that U.S. and Pentagon officials had plenty of satellite evidence of the numbers and whereabouts of hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees massacred by the Kagame war machine in Congo’s forests.

Eighteen years after the so-called ’1994 Rwanda genocide’, Rwanda is today everywhere peddled as an economic miracle of recovery and freedom, once again ‘the Switzerland of Africa’ and the model homeland for the Tutsi ‘Jews of Africa’ narrative.  All thanks to His Supreme Majesty President Paul Kagame, who is everywhere applauded for rescuing the Tutsis, stopping the genocide, and rebuilding Rwanda in His own image.

Meanwhile, the real situation for ordinary people in Central Africa is everywhere inhumane and unjust.  The average Ugandan citizen suffers under the brutal dictatorship of Yoweri Museveni.  The people in northern Uganda, already subject to genocide as policy under the Museveni government, now have a new threat: the hysterical KONY2012 movement.

The people of Congo continue to suffer under the terrorist government of Hyppolite Kanambe (alias Joseph Kabila), a Tutsi and the nephew of Rwandan Tutsi general James Kabarebe.  Since January 2012 more than 100,000 Congolese have been internally displaced by violence under the occupation of the Kagame regime in the Kivu provinces.

And, as it as been since 1994, both Hutus and Tutsis suffer massive repression under the Kagame regime inside Rwanda.

MILLION DOLLAR MUNYENYEZI TRIAL

On June 24, 2010, Beatrice Munyenyezi (MOON’-yen-yezi) was arrested in Manchester, New Hampshire (USA) and charged, according to U.S. prosecutors, with “procuring U.S. citizenship unlawfully by misrepresenting her activities during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.”

Munyenyezi is a U.S. citizen falsely accused of Rwanda genocide rape crimes in yet another case adding up to millions of U.S. taxpayers dollars being used to fund fabricated Rwanda genocide and asylum trials — and now genocide tourism expeditions in Rwanda.

The U.S. Department of Justice seeks to deport Beatrice Munyenyezi to face genocide charges in Rwanda.  But Ms. Munyenyezi’s will be a milestone case: this is the first ever international legal proceeding in the United States involving a woman accused of rape as a genocide and war crime.

According to the government of Rwanda, Beatrice Munyenyezi, 41, allegedly “participated in, committed, ordered, oversaw, conspired to, aided and abetted, assisted in and directed persecution, kidnapping, rape and murder during the Rwandan genocide of 1994.”

The Kagame regime makes general accusations that you can arrest and charge any Hutu with.  These are generic genocide charges used by the Rwandan military regime against all people of the Hutu ethnicity.

The fifteen-day trial of Beatrice Munyenyezi in February and March 2012 was concluded with four additional days of deliberations by an all-white jury.  On March 15 the jury delivered a deadlocked decision and the U.S. government declared a ‘mistrial’.  The re-trial is set to begin September 10, 2012.

Mark Howard, one of Beatrice Munyenyezi’s attorneys, revealed to the press the huge sums of money spent by the U.S Judiciary to try Rwandan genocide suspects.

Howard estimated that U.S. taxpayers paid between US$ 2.5 million and $US 3 million for Munyenyezi’s recent prosecution and trial in federal court.  Howard estimates that a retrial is likely to cost an additional US$1 million.

Howard’s estimated costs include attorney fees, agent salaries, the “extraordinary expense” of investigating in a foreign country, the costs of bringing some fifteen witnesses to New Hampshire, and the hiring of experts.

Several of the prosecution witnesses brought over from Rwanda in the latest charade staged by the Kagame military regime are described by the U.S. and Rwanda government as “extremist Hutu genocidaires” who were convicted of life in prison.  Others are witnesses from a women’s genocide survivor organization in Butare, paid by the U.S. government to travel to New Hampshire, whose profits from the traveling and testifying can be used to support their mission in Butare.  Such economic interests play a major role in the official choice and production of ‘genocide witnesses’ and ‘genocide survivors’.

Defense attorneys described the fifteen Rwandan witnesses flown over to the U.S. from Rwanda as “psychopathic killers who never mentioned Munyenyezi in nearly two decades of trials and investigations into the Rwanda genocide.”

The cost of bringing Kagame’s authorized ‘witnesses’ to the United States and putting them up — some under tight security and others at expensive hotels — for the duration of the trial represents additional massive costs to U.S. taxpayers for what amounts to fraud by the U.S. government.

The credibility of ‘witnesses’ incarcerated in Rwanda is highly suspect.  First there is the problem of coercion: many people in prison in Rwanda or accused by the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR) and Gacaca [people's] courts have been framed.  Other ‘confessed genocidaires‘ have been tortured, and some have been coerced by the RPA threat of retaliation against their families.

Often enough, ‘witnesses to killings’ and ‘genocide survivors’ are frauds, sometimes they are people who were not even in Rwanda during the 1994 cataclysm.  Other government plants and handlers have been coached.

In Munyenyezi’s case, the press apparently decided that the witnesses brought in to accuse Beatrice Munyenyezi were not credible.

First, the claim by the RPA that Munyenyezi commanded soldiers to rape Tutsi women in the basement of the hotel is presented as an absolute.  The rape occurred ‘in the context of genocide’ and so it is believable and believed.  However, no Rwandan woman in the context of Rwandan culture would ever oversee mass rape of other Rwandan women.  In fact, Beatrice Munyenyezi was also pregnant at the time — making the hypothesis of rape even less plausible.

Second, we can imagine that any credible testimony on a genocide rape charge against a woman would have provoked an endless barrage of news stories titled ‘Hutu genocidaire woman ordered rape of innocent Tutsis in hotel’s basement’, stories that would have made their way right up to CNN and the New York Times.  But the decision on the rape charges went unmentioned by the New Hampshire press because the credibility of dishonest government witnesses (coached to lie) was easily destroyed.

It is as implausible as the charge by Invisible Children founder Jason Russel that “Joseph Kony forced children to kill their parents and then eat them.”

Some so-called ‘genocidaires‘ may be guilty, but others are not, and the Kagame regime uses all kinds of bribery, subterfuge and threats to pull the wool over the eyes of tourists, researchers and other ‘guests’.  Many people in Rwanda are forced to spy, tattle and inform on others or else face personal persecution or threats to their families.

Anyone who challenges the officially sanctioned narrative in Rwanda is branded, arrested, exiled, disappeared or — in the case of pesky American academics, like Dr. Christian Davenport, Dr. Alan Stam or Dr. Susan Thomson, who all asked too many questions of the ‘wrong’ kind — barred from Rwanda forever.

INTERNATIONAL WARS OF AGGRESSION

In 1981, Yoweri Museveni and his newly formed National Resistance Army (NRA) launched an invasion of the sovereign country of Uganda.  From 1980 to 1986, the NRA perpetrated massive war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in the Lowero Triangle and other areas in central and northern Uganda.  These atrocities were universally attributed — and are so attributed to this day — to the government forces, the Uganda National Liberation Army, commanded by then President Milton Obote. (See for example: Notes On the Concealment of Genocide in Uganda, A. Milton Obote, April 1990.)

The massive atrocities committed by the NRA set the stage for the rise of Joseph Kony, the Ugandan bogey man used by Museveni, Washington, London and Israel to facilitate a permanent state of insecurity in northern Uganda.  Under permanent emergency, Museveni was able to justify the forcible displacement of millions of indigenous Acholi people and their internment into concentration camps.  Museveni also authored a document attesting to genocidal intent against the Acholis.

One of the 27 guerrillas who took up arms alongside Yoweri Museveni in the illegal NRA invasion of Uganda was Paul Kagame, the future leader of the Rwanda Patriotic Army/Front, the Ugandan guerrilla army that illegally invaded Rwanda on October 1, 1990.

Loyal to Museveni and his bloody guerrilla tactics, Kagame rose through the ranks to become Museveni’s director of military intelligence — a position for which his enemies now claim he was known as ‘the butcher’.

At the time of the October 1990 invasion of Rwanda, Paul Kagame was being trained at the Pentagon’s General Staff and Command College at Fort Leavenworth, in Kansas (USA).  Kagame returned and led the four year war that resulted in the deaths of perhaps several hundred thousand Hutu people between October 1990 and April 1994 alone.

A prima facie case can be made that each of the invasions of Uganda, Rwanda and Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) constitute the supreme crime against humanity, that being the illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.

The United States, Britain and Israel were the strongest backers behind backed Museveni and Kagame in all three of these illegal wars of aggression.

Involved at the highest level in the RPA/F invasion of Rwanda from 1990 to 1994 were United States intelligence agent Roger Winter and Israeli MOSSAD agent David Kimche.  U.S. defense attaché Lt. Colonel Thomas P. Odom and defense attaché Richard Skow are two more U.S. military intelligence agents who have deep inside knowledge of the Pentagon- and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)-backed invasions of both Rwanda and Congo-Zaire.

The U.S. House of Representative hearings by the Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on International Relations reveal that the United States knew that the Hutu refugees in Congo-Zaire were being massacred, and it makes clear some of who knew what, where it was happening, and when.

THE ‘OFFICIAL’ RWANDA GENOCIDE NARRATIVE

Just as Yoweri Museveni and his backers conferred victor status on Museveni after the NRA victory in Uganda, and then charged the NRA’s victims and the Obote government with genocide, so too did Museveni and Paul Kagame and their backers confer savior status on Paul Kagame and accuse the Hutu victims of genocide.

The multiparty coalition government of Juvenal Habyarimana was falsely accused of genocide as early as 1993; branded with ‘genocide’, the label stuck and the charge was then repeated over and over until it was considered fact.

Contrary to the official narrative that casts Hutus as killers and Tutsis as victims, the RPA/F plan included the sacrificing of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis.  Given opportunities to negotiate a ceasefire, and even the unconditional surrender by the national armed forces — Habyarimana’s Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR) — soon after the plane was shot down on 6 April 1994, the RPA/F chose to continue the war to achieve absolute military dominance and to eliminate as many ‘enemies’ as possible.  To Kagame and his elite thugs, the ‘enemies’ were Hutu and Tutsi people who lived in Rwanda.

The RPA/F leadership was comprised of elite English-speaking Tutsis from Uganda backed by Ugandan generals James Kazini and Salim Saleh, and by Yoweri Museveni himself.  The elite RPA/F Tutsis — Major General Paul Kagame, General James Kabarebe, etc. — did not trust French-speaking Tutsis who had stayed behind in Rwanda after the Tutsi guerrilla attacks against the Hutu governments of the 1960′s and early 1970′s provoked retaliatory pogroms against Tutsi.

As the RPA/F invasion continued — prior to April 6, 1994 — Tutsis were also killed, both in revenge killings and because of RPA/F attacks.  Claims that the Habyarimana government persecuted Tutsis are highly contested.  Evidence suggests that Kagame and Museveni needed to play the ‘homeless and persecuted Tutsi refugee’ card to justify invading Rwanda.

After April 6, 1994, the minority Twa population also suffered massive loss of life in what should also be recognized as acts of genocide, at the very least.

“The continuation of the genocide of the Tutsis was a key part of the [RPA] victory strategy,” writes former Rwandan Patriotic Front official Jean-Marie Ndagijimana, in How General Paul Kagame Sacrificed the Tutsis.  “[A] ceasefire and a halt to the genocide risked strengthening his adversaries [Forces Armées Rwandaises] by freeing them from their police duties.  Furthermore, a halt to the massacres would have taken from Kagame the sole pretext on which he based his legitimacy.  The government [FAR] army had to be made to appear like a genocidal force the defeat of which no one would regret… Why stop the massacres when they were working to legitimize Kagame and weaken his adversaries?”

Here is how the typical U.S. news agency reporting on the Munyenyezi story story describes the Rwanda genocide.  “The genocide in Rwanda began in April 1994,” reads the commentator, in an ominous tone, in a local New Hampshire TV station video clip.  “It lasted 100 days.  Up to 800,000 Tutsis were killed by Hutu militias and as many as 10,000 people were killed each day.  The Hutu were defeated three months later.”

However, the genocide against Tutsis during those 100 days of 1994 cannot be understood out of context, and the true context is never provided by the establishment media, by the U.S. or British governments, by Israel, or by the mercenaries working to clean the blood off the Kagame regime.

Former British prime Minister Tony Blair, Canadian academic Gerald Kaplan, New Yorker magazine writer Philip Gourevitch, former USAID agent Timothy Longman, Somalian mouthpiece Rakiya Omaar, and Rwandan mouthpiece Tom Ndahiro are some of the most prominent propagandists whitewashing the Kagame regime.

Timothy Longman, now director of African Studies at Boston University, is the Rwanda genocide ‘expert’ that was brought in to testify against Beatrice Munyenyezi.  Longman and Alison Des Forges co-authored the Human Rights Watch (HRW) book on Rwanda Leave None to Tell the Story, and both worked with USAID, the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon; the 790 page tome did not mention a word about Beatrice Munyenyezi.

Kagame has also hired the Racepoint Group, a U.S. lobbying and public relations firm to “build a strong and sustained image campaign communicating the successes of Rwanda with key stakeholders in the political and financial elite communities” and “[o]ffset the negative and factually incorrect information of those parties with vested interests in mis-portraying Rwanda’s advancements.”

Racepoint’s campaign themes include “Rwanda’s Visionary Leader…highlighting President Kagame” and “The Rwandan Miracle: Healing of a Nation.”  The company’s fees are listed as US$ 50,000 per month plus 2500 to 3500 pounds Sterling per month for “out of pocket expenses.”

On June 22, 2010 a Search and Seizure Warrant was approved by the U.S. District Court in New Hampshire for the purpose of invading the Manchester N.H. home of Beatrice Munyenyezi.  This warrant offers a perfect example of how the official narrative about genocide in Rwanda is maliciously used against innocent people.

The warrant is based on the affidavit of Thomas Brian Andersen, Jr., an ICE Special Agent assigned to the National Security Group of the Boston Office of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  In his affidavit, Andersen distilled the Hutu/Tutsi conflict in Rwanda down to a few essential details that helped to frame Beatrice Munyenyezi as a genocidaire.

The affidavit is extremely biased, and it offers a portrait of western arrogance and ignorance.  For example: “Just prior to Rwanda’s independence from Belgium in 1962,” wrote Thomas Brian Andersen Jr., summarily dismissing the entire history of the elite Tutsi monarchy’s brutal oppression and domination over the peasant Hutu masses, “the Hutu majority gained control of the government, and after independence, the Hutu majority engaged in acts, including discrimination and acts of violence against Tutsis.  As a result, numerous Tutsis fled Rwanda, and some formed a rebel guerrilla army, known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front (“RPF”).”

For Thomas Brian Andersen, Jr, it is not even incidental that the elite Tutsi rebels were attacking Rwanda, committing massive atrocities under cover of darkness, sneaking into Rwanda in targeted assassinations, committing bombings, spreading terrorism, and then sneaking back out of the country.  This is where the Kinyarwanda term ‘Inyenzi‘ came from: this is the infamous cockroach slur used in all Hollywood movies to cast the Hutus as the blood thirsty killers set on exterminating the Tutsis cockroaches.  But Inyenzi was a term the Tutsi guerrillas proudly assigned to themselves: they were proud of their capacity to come and go under cover of night, just like cockroaches.

When ICE Special Agent Thomas Brian Andersen, Jr. invaded the Munyenyezi home, he and the other officers were even searching for ‘weapons used by Munyenyezi’.  Special Agent Thomas Brian Andersen, Jr. had been deeply conditioned to believe the official narrative.  That is, Thomas Brian Andersen, Jr. was expecting he might even find a machete.  They asked asked the children of Beatrice Munyenyezi if there were machetes in the house or the garage.

The affidavit assumes and asserts Beatrice Munyenyezi’s guilt, and the Search and Seizure Warrant was approved by Judge Daniel J. Lynch.  It is an example of insufferable arrogance, insufferable ignorance, insufferable entitlement by Thomas Brian Andersen, Jr., and the abuse of power.

THE PENTAGON SACRIFICES MILLIONS OF AFRICANS

The double presidential assassination of April 6, 1994 is defined as the trigger for the massive backlash of Tutsi killings by Hutu people.  Since the war began in October 1990, more than 10 million people have died in Central Africa due to Pentagon backed insurgency, with the greatest numbers killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Jean-Marie Ndagijimana was the Rwandan Ambassador to Paris under the Habyarimana government from October 1990 to April 1994, before being removed from his post for speaking out against the mass killings of Tutsis and Hutus.

On 19 July 1994, Ndagajimana became Minister of Foreign Affairs in what was called the ‘Broad-Based National Unity Government’ led by Faustin Twagiramungu.  In September 1994, he resigned and went into exile after the report by UNHCR investigator Robert Gersony confirmed that scores of thousands of Hutus were killed by the Rwandan Patriotic Army between July and September 1994.

Robert Gersony was the UNHCR contractor whose report on RPA killings of Hutus was massively denounced at the time and later buried by the United Nations never to be seen again.  Gersony went on to work for the UNHCR in northern Uganda and other places.  Clearly, Gersony’s credentials stood the test, and his silence secured his future employment(s).  Indeed, Robert Gersony went on to work for the USAID mission to Kampala, Uganda, where he produced a report detailing the persecution of Acholi people in Northern Uganda.  (See, e.g.: The Anguish of Northern Uganda: Results of a Field-Based Assessment of the Civil Conflicts in Northern Uganda, Robert Gersony, USAID Mission to Kampala, 1997).

Jean-Marie Ndagajimana insists that the killings of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis between April 6 and July 1994 was organized, not spontaneous, but that there is no question that there was a double genocide.  He claims Tutsis were systematically killed by militias in areas controlled by the interim government of Jean Kambanda, and that the RPA/F systematically killed Hutus in zones under its control.

Based on research for which they were eventually thrown out of Rwanda, U.S. academics Christian Davenport and Alan Stam insist that the numbers of Tutsis killed in Rwanda during the so-called 100 days could not have been as high as the official narrative claims, and that hundreds of thousands of Hutus were killed during this period and these comprise the difference between the official count of 800,000 to 1.2 million Tutsis and the actual count of hundreds of thousands less Tutsis.

Defense attorneys from the ICTR are adamant that the record shows that there was no systematic planification of genocide by the government of Juvenal Habyarimana or its immediate successors, the interim coalition government of Jean Kambanda formed on April 7, 1994.

The official Rwanda genocide narrative is founded upon the false claim that the Habyarimana government was an extremist Hutu government — which is what extremist purveyors of the official narrative like Paul Kagame and his elite Tutsi collaborators would like people to believe.

From April 1992 to the middle of July 1993 there was a coalition government led by Prime Minister Dr. Dismas Nsengiyaremye.  Members of the coalition represented a diverse political spectrum, including opposition party members from the Mouvement Démocratique Républicain (MDR), Parti Liberal (PL), Parti Social Démocrate (PSD) and Parti Démocratique Chrêtien (PDC).  There were also members from Habyarimana’s ruling party Mouvement Républicain National Pour la Démocratie et le Développement (MRND).  Opposition parties had ten ministers in addition to the Prime Minister and the MRND had 10 ministers in addition to President Habyarimana. The one prominent Tutsi in this government was Landoald Ndasingwa from the Parti Liberal, but at least three of the opposition parties were pro-RPF.

From the middle of July 1993 to April 6, 1994, there was a coalition government led by Prime Minister Madam Agathe Uwilingiyimana.  The members of the coalition government were from the MDR, PSD, PDC and MRND parties. The MDR party split into two factions after Agathe Uwilingiyimana was appointed Prime Minister by Juvenal Habyariama.  PSD, PDC, PL split up later.  Some factions were pro-RPF, others were pro-MRND.  The pro-MRND factions were later labeled ‘Hutu Power’.  The label came from a speech made by Froduald Karamira, vice-president of the MDR during a public meeting called to condemn the October 1993 assassination of President Melchior Ndadaye of Burundi, the first Hutu elected president of Burundi.  (From Karamira’s perspective power belonged to the winners of elections.)

In other words there was no ‘Hutu government of Juvenal Habyarimana’.  Habyarimana had been forced by the international community to accept a coalition government, and if there were any extremists in the government, these were the opposition people — like Faustin Twagiramunga — who believed that the Rwandan Patriotic Front was bringing equality to Rwanda and was genuinely interested in either peace and/or good faith negotiations.  Nothing could have been further from the truth.  Fautsin Twagiramungu became Prime Minister under the Kagame government at the time of massive atrocities against Hutus inside Rwanda.  In the end, Twagiramungu fled for his life (and lives in exile).

The ICTR acquitted the so-called ‘genocide masterminds’ of all conspiracy to commit genocide charges, but some were found guilty of ‘acts of genocide’ and other crimes against humanity.  However, every ICTR trial should be declared a mistrial.  These trials have been politically motivated, one-sided productions, and not one Rwandan Patriotic Army/Front official or soldier has even been indicted.  Controlled and manhandled by the United States, the ICTR is merely dispensing ‘victor’s justice’.

The ICTR conviction of Jean Kambanda, the former interim prime minister during the 1994 genocide, on the charge of conspiracy to commit genocide was a complete sham: even proponents of the official Rwanda genocide narrative have confirmed that Kambanda was not afforded proper legal representation or anything close to a fair trial.  (See, e.g., The Sacrifice of Jean Kambanda: A Comparative Analysis of the Right to Counsel in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the United States, with emphasis on Prosecutor v. Jean Kambanda, Kelly Xi Huei Lalith Ranasing, California Western School of Law, Summer 2004.)

The ICTR trials have persecuted and further dehumanized Hutu people, and they have dismissed and ignored every chance to explore the role of Paul Kagame and the RPA/F in provoking, prolonging and supporting the Tutsi genocide during the 100 days of 1994.

Meanwhile, in 2008 the high court in Spain issued indictments and international arrest warrants against the top 40 Rwandan Patriotic Army/Front officials for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire).  The court included Paul Kagame in its consideration of egregious crimes, but is prevented from indicting a sitting head of state.

Business is business: directors of Royal/Dutch Shell Corporation with President Paul Kagame in Kigali.

THE RPA GENOCIDE AGAINST THE HUTU PEOPLE

Beatrice Munyenyezi survived the invasion of Rwanda’s Byumba prefecture by the Ugandan troops calling themselves the Rwanda Patriotic Army in 1990.  Munyenyezi then survived the next four years of RPA/F persecution and genocide that saw entire Hutu villages in Byumba razed, massacres of scores of thousands of mostly (but not only) Hutu people, and the internal displacement of some two million Hutus.

Forced into a life-and-death refugee existence inside Rwanda between October 1990 and April 1994, the displaced Hutu people fought back after the plane carrying the Hutu presidents of both Rwanda and Burundi, and other Rwandan high officials, was shot down over Kigali airport on April 6, 1994.

Beatrice Munyenyezi then survived the so-called ’100 days of genocide’ in Rwanda from April 6 to July 15, 1994.  She fled Rwanda with family members on July 18, 1994, part of the massive exodus of millions of Rwandans, mostly innocent Hutu women and children to eastern Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo).

In Congo-Zaire, Munyenyezi survived the most ruthless and cold-blooded slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Hutu civilians by the RPA, Ugandan People’s Defense Forces and some lesser numbers of Ethiopian, Eritrean, and South African troops.  The RPA-led genocide in Congo-Zaire began in August 1996 when the RPA shelled refugee camps in violation of international law.

In Goma, DRC, at this time, a western war correspondent photographed U.S. Special Forces machine-gunning unarmed refugee men, women and children in what he described as “one of the most horrible examples of mass atrocities I have ever seen.”

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) had been stockpiling World Food Program provisions — that were denied to starving Hutu refugees — and these provisions were used to feed the invading RPA troops.

 

After the refugee camps were attacked, Beatrice Munyenyezi fled from Congo to Kenya at the advice of her brother, Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro, another U.S. citizen also being hunted by the Kagame regime and its political, military and economic partners.

In Tanzania and Kenya, Beatrice Munyenyezi survived RPF agents hunting refugees and assassinating dissidents, including former RPF official Seth Sendashonga, who was minister of the interior in Rwanda from 1994 to 1998.

Jean Marie Vianney Higiro is the real target of the Kagame regime’s persecution of Beatrice Munyenyezi: the regime has held a vendetta against Higiro since his refusal to accept a post in the Kagame terrorist government in July 1994.  Higiro was evacuated from Rwanda by U.S. marines around April 8, 1994.

The security apparatus of the Kagame regime has been hunting refugees in Europe and in North America since 1994, and Rwandan dissidents have been assassinated in Europe and Africa.  The hunting down of Rwandan dissidents is backed by the U.S. Government, Britain and Israel to prop up their client regime: the dictatorship of Paul Kagame.

Rwanda provides a major base for the U.S. Department of Defense military occupation of Africa and for U.S. and allied intelligence and defense operations.  While allied operations involve many NATO countries, Britain and Israel are the main intelligence and defense partners for the U.S. in Central Africa; Germany and Belgium are not far behind them.

There is no freedom of speech in Rwanda today.  There is no freedom of press.  There is no freedom to organize.  There is no freedom of assembly.  The Kagame regime continues to assassinate and disappear critics, journalists, former business associates, former military and former government officials.

On March 31, 2012, Kagame’s former Chief of Staff Theogene Rudasingwa, a Tutsi in exile, announced that Paul Kagame was the instigator of the January 2001 assassination of Congolese President Laurent Desire Kabila. Theogene Rudasingwa is also the former RPA/F Secretary General and former ambassador to Washington under the Kagame regime.

The most recent assassinations include several Rwandan journalists killed in Uganda earlier this year.  Opposition candidate Victoire Ingabire remains imprisoned and subject to a political charade trial because she returned to Rwanda from Belgium and courageously proclaimed the heretical obvious: There was a genocide against Hutus as well as Tutsis.

In July 2010, the body of the deputy leader of the Democratic Green Party was found dumped by a river near the southern town of Butare.  Opposition politician Andre Kagwa Rwisereka, a Tutsi politician, was decapitated for his opposition to the Kagame regime.

The RPA/F government routinely rounds up numerous supposed supporters of opposition parties, and people have routinely been disappeared merely for showing some allegiance to the opposition Green Party or the PS-Imberakuri party.

“So many Tutsis are also suffering political repression,” says ‘Ignace’, a high level Rwandan dissident who fears retaliation from the U.S. government for speaking out.  “Tutsis who live in Rwanda are silent because they fear repression.  Tutsis who live abroad in exile, like Theogene Rudasingwa and Gerald Gahima and General Kayumba Nyamwasa are also living in fear of assassination.”

Paul Kagame and former RPA General Kayumba Nyamwasa.

Hutus throughout the country are subject to slavery conditions and millions of people — Hutus, Tutsis, Twa — outside the cliques of power are suffering extreme poverty.  Most egregious, the RPA/F genocide against Hutu people continues: there is at present a campaign in Rwanda to forcibly sterilize Hutu males.

“The RPF’s reconstruction and reconciliation policies do not represent a sincere attempt to unify and reconcile Rwandans,” writes Dr. Susan Thomson.  “Instead, it is a mechanism of state power that presents a self-serving version of history and manipulates the language of ethnicity to justify and maintain policies of exclusion and oppression of ethnic Hutu in maintaining the appearance of peace and security…  In practice, the government approaches post-genocide justice through the maximal prosecution of all Hutu.”

A U.S. academic who worked in Rwanda and experienced the indoctrination camps run by the Kagame regime, Dr. Susan Thomson is persona non grata in Rwanda today.  (And so is this correspondent.)

THE RWANDA GENOCIDE TOURISM INDUSTRY

After the arrest of Beatrice Munyenyezi in 2010, agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) traveled to Rwanda to gather evidence to support the charges against her.

It is unknown which, if any, of the U.S. prosecutors also traveled to Rwanda, but there were two investigative missions sent there for the Munyenyezi ‘discovery’.  Because Beatrice Munyenyezi was indigent, both of her defense attorneys traveled to Rwanda all expenses paid by U.S. taxpayers; it is likely that the two primary U.S. prosecutors also traveled there.

While prosecutors John Capin and Aloke Chakravarthy may or may not have traveled to Rwanda, independent investigations in Rwanda are impossible.  The U.S. government does not send unbiased investigators to Rwanda: it sends agents intent on collecting the information and documentation provided by their client regime to protect their client regime.

It is especially easy to manipulate tourists or students or researchers who arrive in Rwanda for their first visit to Africa.  White people are taken to the genocide memorials and the shock of these staged-managed productions — all these Hutu and Tutsi skeletons piled up and labeled ‘Tutsi victims of genocide’ — strikes deep into the psyche of the spectator.  People don’t arrive with clean slates: the mass media has deeply conditioned western news and entertainment consumers to see Africa through a racist and exploitative lens.

The viewing of skeletons and skulls in Rwanda has become a lucrative spectator sport and the conditioning by the white systems of power in western countries has created naive and racially conditioned spectators who are easily fooled.  Once they have seen the ‘horrors’ of the genocide memorials the average white and even non-white western spectators (e.g. African Americans) are often horrified into a subconscious shock and disbelief where reason and common sense are no longer accessible.

Foreigners take the skeletons and skulls as the unassailable truth — it does not cross their minds that there might be some other interpretation of the art project they see before them.  It doesn’t occur to people that the truth has been distilled down — essentialized — into piles of skeletons, or shoes, or scattered clothing, or machetes that no longer appropriately re-present the original circumstances and context..

Victims of mass atrocities in Bogoro, DRC. c. keith harmon snow, DRC, 2007.

However, the fact is that virtually everyone in Rwanda owns a machete.  Ditto in Burundi, Congo and rural Tanzania.  They are as common a personal item as a wallet or purse or ball point pen is to a western consumer.  The entire machete narrative — Hutus butchering Tutsis in 100 days, blah, blah, blah — is deeply problematic, since the RPA routinely killed people with machetes both to disguise (normalize) the means of death such that the perpetrators and the victims could not be distinguished and so that the RPA narrative of ‘bloodthirsty Hutus killing Tutsis with machetes’ could easily be advanced.  The RPA also wanted to save on bullets.

There is a genocide economy in Rwanda that serves foreign visitors who spend millions of dollars annually to travel to Rwanda, stay in fancy hotels, eat at restaurants, visit the mountain gorillas in Rwanda’s national parks, hire cars, and drivers, and interpreters, and purchase souvenirs — or ‘free trade’ coffee produced on lands stolen from the Hutu masses.  There is a whole industry that revolves around the production and maintenance of the official Rwanda genocide story about Hutus killing Tutsis in 100 days of horror.

The U.S. government pays all the travel and per diem expenses of genocide ‘investigators’, and everything is covered at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.  Rwandan ‘victims’ and ‘survivors’ who are brought to the United States are also fully paid.

“This is genocide tourism,” says ‘Ignace’.  “They are not investigative.  They stay at fancy hotels, they visit some locations, they see the skeletons and skulls at ‘genocide memorials’, they meet President Kagame, and they are assigned government handlers who make sure they get what Kagame and people in Washington want.  They drink a lot of wine and swim in the swimming pools.  They don’t know anything about Rwanda and everything looks very romantic.  Then they come back and accuse innocent people of genocide.”

PENTAGON SATELLITE PHOTOS EXPOSED

The existence of satellite reconnaissance photographs has not been revealed even during the 18 years of very high profile genocide trials held at the ICTR.

During his entire three-plus years in Rwanda from 1990 to November 1993, former U.S. Ambassador to Rwanda Robert Flatten’s requests for Pentagon-DIA spy satellite photographs showing the progress of the war in the Rwandan countryside were turned down — because of “clouds over Rwanda” they told him.

The authenticity of the satellite images has not been established and there is good reason to assume that the satellite images may be completely fraudulent.

Alternately, the satellite photos may have been produced during a different time period than is claimed by the prosecutors.

There is also substantial reason to believe that the satellite photographs may be exactly what the Pentagon described them as.

If Washington had the capability to monitor events from a satellite platform they certainly were doing so.  And Washington had that capacity indeed.

In 1994, the U.S. intelligence and defense establishment was flying two older versions of the LANDSAT remote sensing satellite platforms in outer orbit.  LANDSAT-4 and LANDSAT-5 had both exceeded their design lifetimes but were operational and had the capability to capture accurate and detailed imagery of what was happening in Rwanda during the 100 days of genocide.

There was also the NASA Space Shuttle.

One direct witness to events in Rwanda leading up the 1994 genocide was a researcher connected to a foreign NGO who knows something about NASA space shuttle images collected over Rwanda but who has never gone public.  Witness GOR-2 (not connected to the Munyenyezi case) worked closely with the Juvenal Habyarimana regime prior to April 1994 and again closely with the new Kagame government after 1994.

Witness GOR-2 had regular contact with the Rwandan Ministry of Defense, the office of President Kagame, and with former RPA Secretary General Theogene Rudasingwa.  According to GOR-2, there were NASA space shuttle flights over Zaire and Rwanda in April and September of 1994, on U.S. government-sponsored research under contract NAS7-1260.

The prosecutors in the Munyenyezi case are claiming that Beatrice Munyenyezi was present at a road block just outside the Hotel Ihuriro in Butare.  This hotel was probably destroyed by the RPA towards the end of June.  It seems that the RPF took Butare after June coming from Burundi. Hotel Ihuriro was still standing on May 25, 1994, when Munyenyezi is accused of commanding Hutu extremists to kill Hutu men and rape Hutu women.

According to sources present at the Munyenyezi trial, the satellite pictures are taken over a time period and show clear changes from day to day.  For example, the photos showed people and cars moving towards Burundi.  “When they zoom in on a given location you can see the buildings, you can see people and cars.  It’s not a video, it’s a snapshot.”

“They first showed the hotel, which doesn’t exist any more.  They tried to show that somehow there was a road block that [Beatrice Munyenyezi] was at.  The pictures were also supposed to show a mass grave a few feet from the hotel and another mass grave near the Episcopal church nearby  The defense attorney was able to prove that there was no road block shown in the pictures, and there were no mass graves.”

While reputed to be photo-shopped photo, Congolese experts insist that this photo is authentic: Hyppolite Kanambe alias Joseph Kabila was a military officer attached to Paul Kagame during the 1996-1997 invasion and conquest of Congo-Zaire.


THE GREAT LAKES GENOCIDE COVER-UP

The existence of satellite images raises questions about what the Pentagon knows and what they are hiding.  For example, satellite imagery would clearly show the wreckage of the presidential plane crash site, and photos would show who was in control of the crash site immediately after the April 6 assassinations, and who controlled the site over the next weeks and months.  But they would also show military hardware being shipped in by the U.S., and U.S. military involvement.

“The U.S. was directly involved in the April-July 1994 events,” says ICTR defense attorney Christopher Black.  “U. N. investigator Michael Hourigan implicates the CIA in the attack on the plane.  There is the presence of U.S. defense attaché Lt. Col. Charles Vuckovic in Kigali just days before the shoot down.  After April 6th, the U.S. was supplying the RPF forces using C-130 Hercules aircraft.  General Ndindiliyimana testified [at the ICTR] that the U.S. Air Force was airdropping men and weapons to the RPF and he was not challenged on this testimony.  Also, the U.N. Rwanda Emegency Office was in reality completely staffed by U.S. army officers and acted as the operational headquarters for the RPF.  Further, U.S. allies like Canada also assisted the RPF: General Romeo Dallaire was in breach of his required U.N. neutrality and Belgian forces also are deeply implicated.”

The United States has blocked every bonafide investigation into the double presidential assassinations since 1994. The Kagame regime has produced several reports (e.g. Mucyo Report), but these self-interested productions are easily discredited.

Former RPA/F official Theogene Rudasingwa claims that Paul Kagame and an elite RPA hit squad are behind the shooting down of the presidential plane, and thus the RPA sparked the genocide of Tutsis, knowing Tutsis would be massacred everywhere, and these claims are backed up by other former RPA/F soldiers.

Satellite imagery would also show the locations, strengths and activities of RPA troops, government (FAR) troops and militias.  It is well known that the RPA infiltrated the Interahamwe militias, and therefore RPA are believed to have controlled some road blocks, and it is very curious that no satellite photos have previously been produced to show where road blocks and bridges were occupied, and who occupied them.

Probably this is because the RPA was in control of areas like the Kagera National Park, and RPA were dumping dead Hutus and (French-speaking) Tutsis in the Kagera RIver.  The infamous mythology about Tutsi bodies floating down the Kagera River is completely contradicted by the declassified memo from Mark Prutsalis of the NGO Refugees International.

In a May 17, 1994 situation report (SITREP #10: Rwandan Refugees in Tanzania) to Refugees International headquarters in Washington D.C., Mark Prutsalis described documented RPA atrocities on the Tanzania-Rwanda border.  The document details gruesome and egregious war crimes, crimes against humanity and the indiscriminate killing of both Hutus and Tutsi civilians by RPA soldiers — atrocities witnessed and documented by foreigners working for UNHCR and UNICEF, and for the international NGOs Refugees International, Red Cross, CARE, International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

For example:

“The following are excerpts from a UNHCR-Ngara protection report on border crossing points from an assessment made on 14 and 15 May:”

“At RUSUMO commune, sector KIGARAMA, the RPF came and called for a ‘peace meeting’.  Those, who did not participate voluntarily, were forced to the meeting.  At the school people were tied together, three by three — men/women/children – and stabbed.  The bodies were put on trucks and thrown into the Kagera River, north of Rusumo Bridge…”

“At RUSUMO commune, sectors NYAMUGARI, GISENYI, NYARUBUJE, the RPF comes at 05h00 waiting for villagers to open their doors.  The villagers are caught and taken away to the river by trucks.  No one has returned.  Refugees from the area have seen people being tied together and thrown into the river.  It seems as if guns are used only if somebody tries to escape…”

At RUSUMO commune, sector MUZAZA, village GASARABWAYI (4 kms from the river), the RPF launched several attacks on the village and its population.  On the 13.05 [May 13] 40 RPF soldiers came at 07h00.  They surrounded the village.  Villagers were gathered in houses, which were burned down.  An eyewitness saw 20 people being killed this way.  8 villagers were thrown into a latrine, and the latrine was filled with soil.  Asked by UNHCR field officer refugees said that the RPF did not care whether victims were Hutu or Tutsi villagers.”

“An IRC staff person wrote top their office,” the Refugees International SITREP concluded.  “Things are getting very bad at the border here… Someone really needs to do something about all of the [RPA] killing and torture on the other [Rwanda] side.  Each day there are more and more bodies in the river and most of them without their heads; the count is between 20 and 30 each 30 minutes.”

“The people of Rwanda have nowhere else to go and we cannot expect them to stay and be slaughtered in their homes,” Mark Prutsalis wrote.  “This remote inaccessible part of Tanzania cannot continue to receive thousands of refugees per day.  We will soon be overwhelmed here unless someone takes action to end the bloodshed, the atrocities, the massacres in Rwanda.”

The genocide against Tutsis and Hutus continued after 1994 and there has never been a U.S. investigation into the roles of the Pentagon, CIA and DIA in the cataclysms in Rwanda and Congo-Zaire.

Soldiers of the first FARDC integrated brigade. c. keith harmon snow, South Kivu, DRC, 2006.

Witness GOR-2 described how the RPA/F used the Volcanoes National Park as a military base to launch Congo-Zaire operations after 1994.

GOR-2 said that white soldiers driving tanks were seen inside the park heading to Zaire in September 1996.  GOR-2 said that the United Nation’s IRIN report described this as U.S. soldiers going into Goma but that the IRIN report was quickly removed from the Internet.  GOR-2 explained how the RPA?F would close the Volcanoes National Park for days at a time while involved in military operations and ‘clean-ups’: “The Rwandan Patriotic Army would just close the park for days at a time and we didn’t know what was going on in there.”

GOR-2 explained how the Volcanoes National Park was flooded with thousands of Rwandan refugees returning from Zaire after the U.S.-backed invasion by Kagame and Museveni forces in 1996, and that the park became an RPA ‘killing zone’.

“We had a massive clean-up operation to remove bodies in 1999,” GOR-2 said, “trying to get out all the dead bodies, and all the rags and pots and pans.”

GOR-2 was always in close personal contact with Major Richard Skow, the U.S. military attache’ from the U.S. Embassy in Kigali, and Robert E. Gribbon, the U.S. Ambassador to Rwanda at the time.

GOR-2 described airborne remote sensing flyovers using a new state-of-the-art technology involving hyper-spectral analysis where flights were made over Rwanda and eastern Congo.  GOR-2 claims that some 22 CDs of raw data were delivered by Claire Richardson, the head of the USA-based Dian Fossey Gorrilla Fund (DFGF), to Theogene Rudasingwa at the Rwandan Ministry of Defense.  GOR-2 said the flyovers were coordinated by the National Geographic Society and DFGF and were supposedly for gorilla conservation — habitat mapping — but were actually meant to locate mineral resources that the RPA could exploit.

Satellite imagery was almost certainly collected over the four years of warfare in Rwanda by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), one of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.  The NRO designs, builds and operates U.S. government spy satellites and coordinates the analysis of aerial surveillance and satellite imagery from several intelligence and military agencies, including the Defense Investigative Agency (DIA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  All NRO operations are highly classified.

Before April 6, 1994 the RPF occupied the large portions of the prefectures of Byumba and Ruhengeri: American satellite pictures would shed light on the destruction caused by the RPF offensive from 1990 to the 1993 ceasefire.

“I spent 3 months in the demilitarized zone resettling internally displaced people,” says another unnamed Rwandan genocide survivor. “Based on what I saw, the RPF policy was to kill people, destroy buildings, destroy houses, destroy archives,” says witness GOR-3 (not connected to the Munyenyezi trial). “Doors, iron sheets and corrugated metal covering the roofs of houses, furniture, toilets — everything had been removed and taken to Uganda to be sold. We need the pictures taken by the Pentagon to show the brutality of the RPA invasion and occupation.”

Hordes of NGO workers and humanitarian relief workers involved in millions of dollars of private profit come and go from Rwanda, always advertising their effectiveness in “peace” and “reconciliation” programs.

Tutsis and Hutus alike inside and outside Rwanda are increasingly speaking about military confrontation as more and more people become alienated and disaffected by the elite Tutsis in the Kagame regime.

RWANDA’S ONGOING PLUNDER OF CONGO

The U.S. Department of Defense also oversees and supports plunder and depopulation in the Eastern Congo, where Rwanda and Uganda maintain economic, political and military control.

Under the cover of military operations to capture and kill supposed Rwandan “genocidaires” in Congo (Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda) and supposed Ugandan terrorists (including Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army) western mining companies have been stripping and shipping Congolese minerals without oversight or regulation since the Pentagon-backed invasion of September 1996.

Canadian Banro Corporation is one of the most secretive corporations operating in Congo, and they have established and maintained their control through very tight relations with the Kagame regime. Banro has taken over thousands of hectares of South Kivu province by manipulating the local mwamis (chiefs), by bribing officials and by infiltrating officials onto power who are friendly to Banro and Kagame’s interests.

Banro describes its operations as ‘stable’ and ‘community-aligned’ but local human rights groups paint a very different picture, one of terrorism all over the region.  Banro’s secutrity manager is from the private military company Erinys International, a British mercenary firm ‘registered’ in the British Virgin Islands.  Banro works exclusively with Erinys International, a firm that also operates in Iraq.

The areas around Banro concessions (e.g. Shabunda, Fizi, Walungu) have seen some of the worst bloodshed in all of the Congo, often perpetrated by Rwandan forces conected to Paul Kagame and then blamed on Congolese Mai Mai or the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

The Banro concessions can be seen in the map below, where total territory under Banro exploration is almost as big as the entire countries of Rwanda or Burundi.  This would not be possible without a close military and intelligence alliance between Banro and the Kagame government.

Abdulhadi Alkhawaja: Dying for Justice

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Abdulhadi Alkhawaja: Dying for Justice

 

by Stephen Lendman

 

Bahrain’s Al-Khalifa monarchy is one of the world’s most ruthless despotic regimes. It’s also a valued US ally.

 

It’s one of many other regional ones, notably Saudi Arabia, the worst of the lot.

 

In summer 2010, sporadic protests began. Last February, major ones erupted. Daily, Bahrainis brave security force violence, arrests, disappearances, torture, and cold-blooded murder, as well as show trial prosecutions, convictions, and imprisonments.

 

Human rights activist Abdulhadi Abdulla Alkhawaja was out in front for democratic change. His courage cost him dearly.

 

On April 9, 2011, around 20 Bahraini police stormed his apartment pre-dawn. Brutally beaten unconscious and arrested, he required surgery to implant metal plates to hold his shattered jaw together. He spent days hospitalized, but remains permanently impaired.

 

Still weak and recovering, he was imprisoned, isolated, tortured, prosecuted, and imprisoned for life on spurious charges of “organizing and managing a terrorist organization, attempting to overthrow the Government by force, and in liaison with a terrorist organization working for a foreign country.”

 

Other charges were also piled on, including “collecting money for a terrorist organization.” During trial, no evidence whatever was presented. Throughout the proceedings, prosecutorial irregularities were flagrant.

 

Abdulhadi was guilty by accusation. On September 28, 2011, Bahrain’s National Safety Court of Appeal upheld his life sentence. Justice was nowhere in sight. Police states afford none. Bahrain’s one of the worst.

 

Abdulhadi’s Background

 

For years, he’s been a courageous human rights activist. From 2008 – 2011, he served as Front Line Defenders’ Middle East and North Africa Protection Coordinator. In that capacity, his work involved supporting and protecting regional human rights activists.

 

He also co-founded the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and served as its first president. He worked as a member of the International Advisory Network of the Business and Human Rights Resource Center, headed by former Irish President Mary Robinson.

 

Previously, he worked for Amnesty International (AI). In 2005, the Arab Program for Human Rights Activists named him “Activist of the Year.”

 

In addition, he was a Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies Advisory Board member. In a similar capacity, he served with The Arab Group for Monitoring Media Performance.

 

His activism began while attending school in Britain in the late 1970s. As a result, his passport renewal was denied. In summer 1980, he and fellow students were arrested, detained, interrogated, and tortured.

 

In 1820, Britain was the dominant regional power. Its treaty with the Al Khalifa tribe gave it monarchal rule. Subsequent 19th century agreements established Bahrain as a UK protectorate.

 

Despite uprisings and rocky relations, Britain maintained close ties, especially after oil was discovered in 1932. Post-WW II, America became the dominant regional power. Nonetheless, close US/UK ties makes Britain an influential Middle East player.

 

In 1981, UK authorities targeted alleged Bahraini dissidents. Hundreds, mainly students, were arrested and tortured. Until 1989, Abdulhadi served actively with the exiled Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain.

 

Britain called it an illegal organization. Accused members were severely treated, including Abdulhadi. The group still operates as The Islamic Action Society (AMAL).

 

Abdulhadi served prominently with the Committee to Defend Political Prisoners in Bahrain (CDPPB). It was also active in London, Paris, Geneva, and Damascus. Its issues included arbitrary arrests, detentions, torture, sham trials, nationality revocations, and forced deportations.

 

For his activism, Denmark granted him political asylum in 1991. In exile, he established the Bahrain Human Rights Organization (BHRO). From 1992 – 2001, BHRO gained recognition for its significant, professional, non-partisan activities internationally.

 

In 2001, after a general amnesty, he returned to Bahrain and co-founded the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR). In June 2002, it was officially registered.

 

Ever since, he’s been targeted, arrested, beaten, tortured, and detained. So have other BCHR members.

 

Abdulhadi’s Close to Death

 

In early February, he began hunger striking for justice. It’s now two months and counting. He’s severely deteriorated, hospitalized, and close to death. BCHR, other human rights organizations, family, and supporters hold the Bahrain monarchy responsible.

 

Protests across the country demand his release. Police thugs attacks them. So do Saudi forces. In March 2011, they entered Bahrain guns blazing. They’re still there. They and police commit daily atrocities. Western media scoundrels are silent. So isn’t the Obama administration.

 

On the one hand, it rails against Assad’s obligation to confront Western supported insurgents responsibly. On the other, it ignores daily Al Khalifa regime atrocities. The hypocrisy’s stark, duplicitous, abhorrent, and typical of what passes for US-style governance.

 

BCHR said Abdulhadi’s family lawyer, Mohamed AlJishi, confirmed that his daughter, Zainab, was arrested in front of the prison hospital. She refused to leave, called out her father’s name, and demanded he be released. Other protesters with her were also arrested.

 

They’re currently detained at Alhoora police station, and denied legal counsel and family visits.

 

On April 4, AlJishi visited Abdulhadi. He described his condition as “emaciated.” His pulse is so weak, he risks imminent cardiac arrest and/or coma. He’s so frail, he can’t move. Even if he survives, he faces possible organ failure. Blood studies indicate kidney damage.

 

April 8 marks his 60th hunger striking day. On April 2, Bahrain’s Court of Cassation refused to release him on health grounds. If he survives, another hearing’s scheduled for April 23. It’s doubtful he can hang on that long.

 

BCHR “call(s) on the international community and the United Nations, and all related international and regional human rights mechanisms, to stand up to their responsibility of protecting human rights and freedoms in Bahrain and ensure the immediate release of human rights defender Al Khawaja as recommended by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry and Sir Nigel Rodley.”

 

“We recommend that he be immediately released to the Danish Authorities on humanitarian grounds, as requested by the Danish Foreign Minister.”

 

A Final Comment

 

Abdulhadi’s daughter Maryam serves as BCHR’s Head of Foreign Relations. On April 5, she wrote the following:

 

“My Father is Dying. This is the thought constantly running through my head.”

 

“As a human rights defender I have learned to numb my emotions and continue working. I have been working on covering human rights violations in Bahrain for more than two years now, documenting all the arbitrary arrests, systematic torture, rapes, kidnappings, extra-judicial killings; the list goes on.”

 

“The so-called Arab spring proved, once again, that we are still living in an age where the UN Human Rights Council has little agency to act on its own accord. It, like all other agencies must bow to the powers that be.”

 

The so-called “Arab Spring” is more winter than rebirth throughout the region, especially in Bahrain, Egypt, post-Gaddafi Libya, Saudi Arabia, other Gulf States, Yemen, and Palestine. Syria’s another issue altogether.

 

“I constantly fear the phone call bearing the message that I will never see my father again. I cannot imagine a life without my father, and I cannot come to terms with a world that would allow my father to die.”

 

“Today, April 5th, is my father’s birthday.” Born in 1962, he turned 50. “Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, the man who dedicated himself to fighting for human rights, who trained tens of other activists, is known as the Godfather of human rights in Bahrain.”

 

“My father, who was beaten unconscious in front of his family, arrested, then severely tortured for months. My father, sentenced to life imprisonment in a military court. My father, on his 57th day of hunger strike as his only way of protesting the daily human rights violations of the Bahraini regime against the people of Bahrain.”

 

“My father, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja is dying to live. Literally.”

 

“This is what propels my activism. This is why I will continue to fight.”

 

Throughout the Middle East, Western world, and elsewhere, many thousands are wrongfully imprisoned and brutalized under gulag conditions.

 

US prisons notoriously commit torture and other abuses. They include beatings, dog attacks, cattle prod shocking, tasering, toxic chemical use, painful shackling, middle of the night forced cell and strip searches, rapes, and numerous other types of gratuitous viciousness.

 

Serious injuries, trauma, and deaths result. Welcome to Guantanamo mainland. America’s gulag is the world’s largest by far. Again, major media scoundrel say nothing.

 

International law in Bahrain a dead letter. So are human rights. It’s no different in America and Occupied Palestine. Cruel and unusual punishment is policy. Out of sight behind bars, anything goes.

 

Prisoners like Abdulhadi react the only way they can. They’re willing to die for justice. What greater sacrifice than that! What better reason to support them!

 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

 

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Terrorizing Palestinian Youths

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Terrorizing Palestinian Youths

 

by Stephen Lendman

 

Based on spurious charges or others too minor to matter, Israel arrests, tortures, traumatizes, convicts, and detains hundreds of Palestinian youths lawlessly. Many suffer lasting effects.

 

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) discussed one case. It reflects virtually all others. To protect the youth’s identity, he’s called “Minor A,” or simply “A.”

 

Arrested on suspicion of stone-throwing, his ordeal included cruel and usual treatment. In the middle of the night on January 23, 2011, 14-year old “A” was arrested at home in Nabi Saleh village near Ramallah. It followed a week earlier raid. At the time, no arrests were made.

 

“Massive numbers of armed security forces” were involved. He was detained many hours under harsh conditions before transfer to police custody for interrogation. During the time, he was terrorized, unable to sleep, given no food or water, or allowed bathroom privileges.

 

Tired without sleep, interrogation began. “A’s” basic rights applicable to minors and all detainees were denied. They include due process, presence of a parent or relative, as well as counsel, the right to remain silent, and not forced to confess.

 

After interrogation, he was detained another four days, eight more at the military prosecutor’s request, then extended because his family couldn’t meet terms to release him under house arrest.

 

On January 30, he was indicted for stone-throwing, as well as organizing and participating in an illegal demonstration without permit permission. He was detained two months until granted house arrest with restrictions.

 

“A’s” lawyer, Gaby Lasky, petitioned the military court to disqualify his forced confession. He was denied. The military judge ruled that confessions given police are admissible, even when rights are severely violated and interrogation practices flawed. More on that below.

 

ACRI said the ruling “provides an unconventional interpretation of many violations of the rights of minors in criminal proceedings, both on the level of policy and legislation as well as on a practical level, and at all stages of the process – from the arrest and detention through the interrogation to the legal procedures in the military courts.”

 

Background

 

“A” participated regularly in nonviolent weekly Nabi Saleh demonstrations. At issue is encroachment by Halamish the settlement on village land, as well as harsh restrictions denying Palestinians access to their agricultural property and al-Qus spring water rightfully theirs. It supplied the village until lawlessly seized in 2006 for settlement use.

 

Flawed Interrogation and Trial Proceedings

 

Attorney Gaby Lasky called “A’s” interrogation violent, intimidating, demeaning, and illegal. It violated his basic rights and dignity. It also forced him to confess involuntarily to alleged offenses he didn’t commit.

 

Under harsh conditions, he was denied food, water, and sleep. Afterwards, he was interrogated abusively for long hours, isolated from counsel and family, and not advised of his right to remain silent.

 

Despite her ruling, Judge Sharon Rivlin Ahai began her discussion of his detention as follows:

 

“There is no dispute that in certain circumstances, the use of violence, threats, or inappropriate treatment of the detainee immediately before his interrogation could influence the free admission of his guilt.”

 

She then criticized the military prosecutor for “regularly refraining from bringing witnesses to counter the minor’s claims related to how the detention was handled.”

 

Nonetheless, she refuted claims “that the manner in which (“A”) was detained affected his statement to the police.” As a result, Lasky’s arguments were rejected.

 

Unlike Israeli civil law, Palestinian youths aren’t explicitly given access to counsel and family members. Yet Ahai considered the “spirit” of Israel’s Youth Law with regard to Palestinian defendants, saying:

 

It’s impossible to ignore it “or the principles underlying the protection of a minor’s rights, even if he is suspected of committing offenses, and dominance must be given to the supreme principle of the best interest of the minor, as stated in the proposed law.”

 

“Ultimately, a minor is a minor whether he lives in a place where Israeli law applies in its entirely or in another place, where although Israeli law does not fully apply, it is subject to the influence of the Israeli court system.”

 

She continued, saying:

 

“The police should try to uphold the obligation of allowing parents to be present in the interrogation, even for a Palestinian minor who lives in the region, as long as the conditions in the region permit it.”

 

At the same time, she dismissed counsel’s claim that “A’s” interrogation was flawed and lawless. She also claimed despite his ordeal, his physical state wasn’t reason for not proceeding with a substantive interrogation.

 

In weighing his rights v. police practices, she sided with authorities no matter how abusive their procedures. She decided “not to render (“A’s”) statement inadmissible. She merely “requested” flawed methods be “pass(ed) on” to the appropriate authorities “so they will learn from (them), draw lessons, and correct what should be repaired.”

 

In other words, she ruled military interrogators and prosecutors violating basic rights should remain self-regulating free from judicial oversight.

 

Even though “A’s” interrogation defects were “serious,” she held they didn’t “have a substantive effect on the manner in which (he) gave his confession.” As a result, she ruled it admissible.

 

Lessons Drawn from Her Ruling

 

Civil laws govern Israelis. Palestinians face military tribunal injustice based on guilt by accusation. Virtually everyone charged is convicted at trial or by plea bargains.

 

In 2009, a Military Youth Court was established. It raised the juvenile age from 16 to 18. Military laws still harm minors. They lack provisions protecting them in violation of international law.

 

As a result, youths are substantively harmed in criminal proceedings. They have virtually no rights. They’re treated like adults.

 

ACRI witnessed “many serious violation of the rights of Palestinian minors at every stage of the criminal process stemming from improper and unconstitutional practices of the security forces in how they treat minors – the use of physical and verbal violence during arrests, intimidation and threats, handcuffing and blindfolding of minors, and many other practices that ‘A’s’ arrest only partially illustrates.”

 

Not only are abusive practices unconscionable “from a moral perspective,” they also patently violate fundamental international law, notably with regard to the rights of the child.

 

Israeli children get entirely different treatment. Civil law prohibits imprisoning minors under age 14. In contrast, Palestinian youths young as six are detained, terrorized, tortured and humiliated.

 

Only Jews have due process. Palestinian rights are entirely denied. “A’s” case alone demonstrates abusive treatment no legitimate judicial process would allow.

 

Moreover, he and most other Palestinian children aren’t charged with robbery, assault, rape or murder. They’re accused of allegedly throwing stones. At worst, they’re misdemeanors too minor to matter. Most often they’re innocent, but once accused, guilt is automatic. Intimidation, torture and other abuse follow to force confessions.

 

ACRI also said “A’s” case represents a flagrant violation of the right of free expression and peaceful protest against repressive Israeli occupation. In addition, it shows how Palestinians are abused under “unconstitutional legal norms and improper tools and mechanisms for detention, interrogation, and trial” proceedings. As a result, their fundamental rights are denied.

 

Moreover, Judge Ahai could have made a precedent-setting ruling based on her own conclusion of cruel and abusive interrogation practices. Instead, she held “A’s” forced confession admissible, no matter how illegally obtained.

 

As a result, she effectively green-lighted continued interrogation and prosecutorial abuses no legitimate court would allow.

 

They’re especially egregious when children are harmed, and, in many cases, left permanently scared. That’s a system no one should tolerate.

 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

 

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Wrongheaded UN Vote on Syria

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Wrongheaded UN Vote on Syria

 

by Stephen Lendman

 

On February 4, Russia and China vetoed the Arab League’s one-sided Syria resolution (SC/10536). It illegitimately called for Assad to step down.

 

Under international law, no nation or combination thereof, may interfere in the internal affairs of others, except in self-defense if attacked.

 

SC/10536 also called for “further measures” for noncompliance. It resembled SC/1973 on Libya. Aggressive war followed, ravaging the country lawlessly.

 

Russia and China want replicating Libya avoided. Passing SC/10536 risked giving Washington, NATO partners, and rogue Arab League allies responsibility to protect authority to intervene.

 

As a result, this unholy alliance circumvented SC authority for General Assembly passage of essentially the same text. It’s non-binding but sends a message.

 

Syrian UN ambassador Bashar Jaafari denounced the resolution. Calling it politically motivated, he said Western nations and others want “to settle accounts with Syria.”

 

It authorizes “violence and deliberate sabotage.” It’ll cause “more chaos and more crisis….The Arab (League) Trojan horse has been unmasked today. (It’s) broken both politically and morally.”

 

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov called the measure “unbalanced. It directs all the demands at the government, and says nothing about the opposition.” Moreover, it excluded constructive Russian amendments.

 

Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said one called on “all sections of the Syrian opposition to dissociate themselves from armed groups engaged in acts of violence,” and urged all countries act to prevent it.

 

Another rejected amendment called for withdrawing Syrian forces from conflict areas “in conjunction with the end of attacks by armed groups against state institutions and quarters of cities and towns.”

 

China’s deputy envoy Wang Min affirmed Beijing’s opposition to “armed intervention or forcing a so-called regime change in Syria.”

 

Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, and other countries condemned it. Venezuela said it violated Syrian sovereignty and “promote(s) civil war on a large scale.”

 

On December 19, 2011, the General Assembly “strongly condemn(ed) the continued grave and systematic human rights violations by the Syrian authorities.” Pointing fingers the wrong way, it cited forced disappearances, torture of detainees, and the persecution of protesters and human rights defenders.

 

It also called on Syrian authorities to implement Arab League proposals “in (their) entirety.” It included letting observers monitor conditions and resolving months of crisis.

 

It passed 133 in favor, 11 against, 43 abstentions, and 6 no votes. It also called on Syria to cooperate with the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) international commission of inquiry.

 

On December 3, UNHRC in emergency session condemned the violence in Syria, blaming Assad, not Western-backed insurgents. Its measure passed 37 to 4 with with 6 abstentions. Russia and China voted against its one-sided resolution, pointing fingers the wrong way.

 

General Assembly Passes One-Sided Syrian Resolution

 

On February 16, GA/11207 was adopted by 137 in favor, 12 against, 17 abstentions, and 27 no votes.

 

Its text “welcome(d) the engagement of the Secretary-General and all diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the crisis.

 

1. Reaffirm(ed) its strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria and stresses the need to resolve the current political crisis in Syria peacefully;

 

2. Strongly condemn(ed) the continued widespread and systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities, such as the use of force against civilians, arbitrary executions, killing and persecution of protestors, human rights defenders, and journalists, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, interference with access to medical treatment, torture, sexual violence, and ill-treatment, including against children;

 

3. Call(ed) upon the Syrian government to immediately put an end to all human rights violations and attacks against civilians, protect its population, fully comply with its obligations under applicable international law and fully implement Human Rights Council resolutions S-16/1, S-17/1, S-18/1 and its resolution 66/176, including by cooperating fully with the independent international commission of inquiry;

 

4. Condemn(ed) all violence, irrespective of where it comes from, and call(ed) upon all parties in Syria, including armed groups, to immediately stop all violence or reprisals in accordance with the League of Arab States’ initiative;

 

5. Stress(ed) again the importance to ensure accountability and the need to end impunity and hold to account those responsible for human rights violations, including those that may amount to crimes against humanity,

 

6. Demand(ed) that the Syrian government, in accordance with the Plan of Action of the League of Arab States of 2 November 2011 and its decisions of 22 January and 12 February 2012, without delay:

 

(a) cease all violence and protect its population;

 

(b) release all persons detained arbitrarily due to the recent incidents;

 

(c) withdraw all Syrian military and armed forces from cities and towns, and return them to their original home barracks;

 

(d) guarantee the freedom of peaceful demonstrations;

 

(e) allow full and unhindered access and movement for all relevant League of Arab States’ institutions and Arab and international media in all parts of Syria to determine the truth about the situation on the ground and monitor the incidents taking place;

 

7. Call(ed) for an inclusive Syria-led political process conducted in an environment free from violence, fear, intimidation and extremism, and aimed at effectively addressing the legitimate aspirations and concerns of Syria’s people, without prejudging the outcome;

 

8. Fully support(ed) the League of Arab States’ 22 January 2012 decision to facilitate a Syrian-led political transition to a democratic, plural political system, in which citizens are equal regardless of their affiliations or ethnicities or beliefs, including through commencing a serious political dialogue between the Syrian government and the whole spectrum of the Syrian opposition under the League of Arab States’ auspices, in accordance with the timetable set out by the League of Arab States;

 

9. Call(ed) upon all Member States to provide support to the Arab League initiative, as requested;

 

10. Call(ed) upon the Syrian authorities to allow safe and unhindered access for humanitarian assistance in order to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid to persons in need of assistance;

 

11. Request(ed) in this context the Secretary-General and all relevant UN bodies to provide support to the efforts of the League of Arab States both through good offices aimed at promoting a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis, including through the appointment of a Special Envoy, as well as through technical and material assistance, in consultation with the League of the Arab States; (and)

 

12. Request(ed) the Secretary-General to report on the implementation of this resolution, in consultation with the League of Arab States, within 15 days of its adoption.”

 

Blaming the Victim

 

In league with Washington and rogue NATO partners, the Arab League resolution lawlessly violates Syrian sovereignty. It disregarded majority Assad support based on a December Qatar Foundation poll.

 

It ignored Western-backed externally generated insurgents responsible for most violence and deaths. It said nothing about confirmed UK/CIA/MI6 operatives training them. It turned a blind eye to foreign funding and heavy weapons, as well as active participation of UK and Qatari special forces.

 

GA/11207 violates international law and UN Charter provisions. They recognize sovereign states rights, equality among all states, non-interference in their internal affairs, and responsibility to settle disputes peacefully by refraining from threats or use of force.

 

Article 2(7) states:

 

“Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll.”

 

They exclude “the use of armed force….” Under Article 51, it’s permitted only in self-defense against externally generated aggression.

 

Moreover, the UN Charter explains under what conditions intervention, violence and coercion (by one state against another) are justified. Article 2(3) and Article 33(1) require peaceful settlement of international disputes. Article 2(4) prohibits force or its threatened use, including no-fly zone acts of war.

 

In addition, Articles 2(3), 2(4), and 33 absolutely prohibit any unilateral or other external threat or use of force not specifically allowed under Article 51 or otherwise authorized by the Security Council in accordance with UN Charter provisions.

 

Three General Assembly resolutions also prohibit non-consensual belligerent intervention, including:

  • the 1965 Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of Their Independence and Sovereignty;

 

  • the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations; and

 

  • the 1974 Definition of Aggression.

 

Under no circumstances may one nation, or combination thereof, intervene against another without lawful Security Council authorization. Doing so is illegal aggression, a lawless act of war.

 

Article 8 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention of Rights and Duties says “No state has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another.”

 

Under Article 10, differences between states “should be settled by recognized pacific methods.”

 

Article 11 calls sovereign state territory “inviolable….”

 

Non-intervention is also included in the following charters:

  • the Organization of American States;

 

  • Organization of African Unity; and

 

  • League of Arab States.

 

It was also affirmed at It was also affirmed at conferences in:

  • Montevideo;

 

  • Buenos Aires;

 

  • Chapultepec; and

 

  • Bogot, as well as in decisions of the following:

 

  • the Bandung Asian-African Conference;

 

  • the First Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries in Belgrade;

 

  • the Programme for Peace and International Cooperation adopted at the end of the Second Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries in Cairo; and

 

  • the declaration on subversion adopted at Accra by the Heads of State and Government of the African States.

 

Nonetheless, Western pressure often gets nations to violate international law and their own non-intervention pledges. When they don’t, Washington, rogue NATO partners, and complicit allies wage aggressive war on their own.

 

In 1999, without Security Council authorization, nonbelligerent Yugoslavia was lawlessly attacked and ravaged. Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya followed. Perhaps Syria’s next, then Iran, no matter the threat to humanity.

 

Given America’s imperial ambitions and permanent war agenda, attacking them risks WW III.

 

Yet political hawks and supportive media scoundrels promote what’s crucial to condemn.

 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

 

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Kristallnacht in Palestine

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Kristallnacht in Palestine – by Stephen Lendman

 

Virtually daily, Israeli security forces attack, kill, or injure Palestinian civilians with impunity. They also destroy their property by bombing, shelling, bulldozing and uprooting it.

 

At the same time, Israeli authorities wink and nod, occasionally decry, yet do nothing to deter extremist settler crimes against Palestinian civilians.

 

Most often, they’re given license to terrorize, vandalize and commit physical violence with impunity. Rarely ever is anyone held accountable. The same holds for its own security forces, no matter how outrageous their crimes.

 

So imagine Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s hypocrisy. In response to days of settler attacks against Palestinian property, he shamelessly called them “Jewish terrorists.”

 

B’Tselem responded, saying “this is an illegitimate way to deal with the phenomenon of violence by Israeli citizens in the Occupied Territories. Instead, this phenomenon must be dealt with through the criminal justice system.”

 

Netanyahu disagreed, stopping well short of condemning settler attacks and ordering arrests. Instead, he described them as a “small group that does not represent the public that lives in Judea and Samaria.”

 

For years, radical settlers terrorized Palestinians with impunity. In the past two years alone, six mosques in Palestine and Israel (belonging to peace and other activist groups) were burned or otherwise vandalized.

 

More recently in early October, settlers torched a Galilee mosque in Toba Zanghriyya village, then wrote “Price Tag” and “Revenge” on its walls. Despite efforts by residents to extinguish the blaze, destruction was extensive, including holy books consumed.

 

Northern Branch on the Islamic Movement deputy head, Sheikh Kamal Khatib, said “racism is controlling the Jewish sector in Israel.” He also held Netanyahu’s government responsible for “encourag(ing) hatred toward Muslims.”

 

In June, another mosque was targeted, and “(u)nder the Price Tag campaign, Israeli settlers….attacked and torched several others, in addition to setting Palestinian orchards and farmlands” ablaze.

 

Each time, Israeli police say they’ll investigate. Arrests and prosecutions rarely follow. Settlers have virtual impunity to terrorize Palestinian civilians as do Israeli security forces. They take full advantage.

 

On December 14, settlers overnight torched the historic Jerusalem Okasha mosque. They also defaced walls with Star of David images and graffiti, saying “Muhammad is a pig” and “A good Arab is a dead Arab” in Hebrew.

 

In addition, they spray-painted their “Price Tag” identity on exterior surfaces, knowing they can act with virtual impunity.

 

The Al Aqsa Foundation denounced the attack, saying:

 

“We condemn the torching of the mosque and hold Israel fully responsible for this terrible crime and all its aggressions against our holy sites and that it is enacting racist laws and not doing anything against those who commit these crimes.”

 

On the same day, northern West Bank settlers torched cars and a water tanker in Nablus and Salfit districts. They tried, but failed, to set a bus ablaze.

 

In 1948, West Jerusalem’s Okasha mosque was closed when Israel was established. It’s remained a historic site, though Israel denied Al Aqsa Foundation requests to renovate it.

 

Similar incidents happen regularly. Targets include mosques, homes, cars, olive trees, farmland, and civilians, including women and children.

 

Authorities say they’ll investigate. Occasionally settlers are interrogated and at times briefly detained. However, prosecutions rarely follow. At most, Israel decries the acts, but does nothing to deter them.

 

On December 15, a Burqa village West Bank mosque near Ramallah was torched and defaced. An eyewitness said armed settlers entered before dawn, set it ablaze, and caused considerable damage.

 

After the Jerusalem mosque attack, MK Mohammed Barake condemned extremist parliamentarians for drafting and enacting racist and other anti-democratic laws, saying:

 

“Responsibility for the mosque burning does not only lie with the gang of fascists who carried it out, but also with some of the scumbags among the (MKs) and ministers. (They) should not pretend they are shocked when the draft laws they back become a raging fire that devours mosques” and other Palestinian property.

 

Other moderate MKs, analysts and activists also condemned racist legislation and policies. They’re causing Palestinians, human rights groups and others great harm.

 

Supportively, Emek Shaveh, an archeological and community activist organization, also denounced the Jerusalem mosque attack, saying:

 

“The destruction of the antiquities, in this case probably by Israelis, is part of the process of erasure of ‘the other” – of everything that doesn’t suit the extremist and one-dimentional ideology of certain Israeli groups.”

 

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) condemned racist settler attacks, including houses south of Nablus.

 

Windows were smashed and Molotov cocktails thrown. Women and children especially were terrorized. One house was set ablaze. Israel security forces provide no security for Palestinians and did nothing against those responsible.

 

On December 15, Haaretz writer Ari Shavit headlined, “Israel has never been so ugly,” saying:

 

Natanyahu wants to silence Muslim calls to prayer, shut down the Palestinian/Israeli peace radio station, and effectively support settler vandalism by doing nothing to stop it.

 

Moreover, “Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman is trying to turn the Supreme Court into another one of his subsidiaries. Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein is working to prevent the media from reporting on investigations against public figures. Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litziman excludes women from participation in an official award ceremony.”

 

“Coalition chairman Zeev Elkin undermines and neuters civil society. Religious fanatics exclude women, tryannize secular citizens and spit at priests. Jewish terrorists burn Muslim houses of worship, invade Israeli Defense Force bases and attack soldiers.”

 

“We see what we would never believe with our own eyes. Darkness at noon, a dark Israel snuffing out” a once more enlightened society, though never one treating Arabs like Jews.

 

Under Netanyahu and MK hard-liners, extremism and moral cowardice rose to unprecedented levels. Anything now goes, including police state laws and failing to stop increasing numbers of violent attacks on Palestinians for being Arabs, not Jews.

 

A Historic Analog – Nazi 1930s Violence Against Jews

 

Nazis institutionalized violence to solidify power and establish despotic rule. The Gestapo and SS enforced it against declared enemies of the state, including communists, social democrats, gypsies, homosexuals, and, of course, Jews.

 

After the March 1933 elections, Nazis institutionalized violence. Riots in the Ruhr spread nationally. Jewish businesses, enterprises and stores were picketed. Handbills said: “Germans, don’t buy at Jewish shops.” SA stormtroopers broke into Jewish homes, mistreating and arresting occupants.

 

Hitler launched a nationwide boycott against Jewish enterprises, doctors and lawyers. Entrances to their establishments and offices were blocked. Anti-semitic graffiti was displayed and windows smashed. Racist propaganda institutionalized public anger against Jews as enemies of the Third Reich.

 

By 1935, they were publicly humiliated, banned from certain towns, and party activists assaulted the orthodox. Their beards were cut off and heads shaved to humiliate them and Judaism.

 

Racist legislation followed, including the infamous “Nuremberg Laws.” More on them below. Landlords were forced to break leases with Jewish tenants. By 1936, harming Jews physically and using legal measures destructively against their businesses and livelihoods were commonplace.

 

By 1938, violence escalated. It intensified with the March Austrian Anschluss. A wave of anti-Jewish measures followed, aimed at Austrian Jews. Nazi policy enforced “Aryanizations,” confiscations, arrests, and physical violence.

 

In November, the infamous Kristallnacht pogrom occurred. Hitler and Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda, incited it.

 

They exploited the November 7 attempted assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath in Paris. Violent riots followed. The entire party apparatus was involved.

 

In most German cities and towns, enterprises and Jewish homes were looted. Over 200 synagogues and 7,500 Jewish enterprises were attacked, burned and destroyed, and, when it ended, 680 Jews were dead and nearly 30,000 interned in concentration camps.

 

In addition, the ministerial bureaucracy and Gestapo intensified enforcement of Jewish emigration and keeping Jews and Aryans apart. German law exempted violent anti-Jewish acts.

 

Many occurred, including murders, rapes, other sexual assaults, organized pogroms, public humiliations, vandalism, anti-semitic graffiti, boycotts, confiscations, looting and other forms of theft. Virtually anything was permitted to vilify and remove German Jewry.

 

On WW II’s eve, German society was accustomed to anti-semitic violence. It was the genesis of the 1941-45 holocaust, facilitated by the 1935 “Nuremberg Laws” that:”

  • protected “German Blood and German Honour”;

 

  • prevented marriage or sexual relations between Jews and Aryans;

 

  • declared persons with any Jewish blood no longer citizens and denied all rights;

 

  • banned Jews from holding professional jobs to exclude them from education, politics and industry;

 

  • segregated Jews from Aryans;

 

  • punished them financially, effectively bankrupting Jewish enterprises;

 

  • prohibited Aryan doctors from treating them;

 

  • prevented Jews from becoming doctors;

 

  • excluded Jewish children from state-run schools; and

 

  • effectively denied Jews all rights afforded Aryans.

 

Nazi genocide followed. For decades, Palestinians have endured similar abuses from racist laws, persecution, land theft, lost homes, dispossessions, exclusion, isolation, mass imprisonments, torture, targeted assassinations, violence, wartime slaughter, and Gazans suffocating under siege.

 

Nazi Germany’s historic analog shows how extreme racist persecution can become. Unless checked, genocide may annihilate a population entirely.

 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

 

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Police Brutality, Black America, and the US Occupy Movement

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Police Brutality, Black America, and the US Occupy Movement

By Solomon Comissiong

The US “Occupy Movement” continues to raise Americans consciousness regarding a number of critical social issues and inequities, including the vast wealth disparity within the so-called “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave”. The US version of the movement began on Wall Street and has now spread throughout numerous cities and towns, gaining momentum with each new participant. Many Americans, young and older, are beginning to shed some of their apathetic clothing, in hopes of tailoring a new garment riddled with threads of social and economic justice. People are indeed seeking a new, more progressive society within a nation (America) drenched in injustice, and inequality. And as these movements begin to foment so does the state sponsored apparatus of repression—the police. Many seasoned and fledgling activists are beginning to get their first unhealthy taste of police brutality and abuse of power. Even privileged college students, such as those at Berkley, are encountering some of the inhumane treatment that is sometimes doled out from the hands of rogue police officers. Experiencing police brutality and terror is horrifying for anyone, especially those unaccustomed to it. Much of “mainstream” America has expressed distress, disgust, and displeasure with the unsettling images of activists, many of which are white, being sprayed with pepper spray, beat with batons, and bloodied. However, this treatment of human-beings, as barbaric as it is, is merely a sampling of what is done in black and brown communities, day in and day out—year by year!

In order to create a better, more egalitarian, and justice oriented society, solidarity will be crucial; however the disproportionate suffering that various demographics endure must be recognized. Without this recognition we can expect to see a continuation, in some form, of race-based social injustices such as institutional racism. The police terror that many black and brown communities experience, on a daily basis, is directly associated to institutional racism. America, unofficially, continues to function much like an apartheid state. Disproportionate unemployment, poverty, living standards, and wealth distribution, are even more pronounced when comparing black communities to white ones. And when it comes to policing, black and brown communities are under constant surveillance, harassment, and brutality. Unarmed black people are routinely brutalized, and killed, by racist and corrupt “law” enforcement. As bad as these various rogue police officers are, it is the institution of law enforcement in America that protects their actions, thus serving as the lifeblood to keep it going—-in perpetuity. These issues are not isolated, nor are they novel—they happen all the time in communities of color, throughout the United States.

Black and brown communities have been fighting police brutality, in one way or another, for generations, however much of “mainstream” America (white America), have either ignored this human rights issue or not taken it as seriously as they would if this was effecting white communities in the same manner. For instance, if Aiyana Stanley-Jones was a seven year old white girl who had been shot and killed by a police officer, while sleeping in her family’s living room, there would be national outrage broadcasted throughout America’s corporate media airwaves. This would be mainstream news for weeks, if not months and years. However, this tragedy and crime remains unknown to the vast majority of Americans. The brutal truth remains, much of white America (especially the media outlets it controls) could not give a damn about the impact of police brutality on communities of color, even when its victims are seven year old black girls.

These issues must be mentioned at every “Occupy” demonstration, as much as humanly possible. This author knows from attending a few different “Occupy” demonstrations that some people are working hard to make this issue prominent, however others are not. The issue of police brutality within communities of color must be raised, addressed, and combated. It is one of numerous human rights issues that plague black and brown communities. Police brutality, among other issues (e.g., mass incarceration, unemployment, gentrification, etc), must be completely eradicated. Until they are addressed on a mass scale, by those outside communities of color, the “Occupy Movement” is nowhere close to achieving its full social potential.

When those who claim to represent “the 99%” reject as “divisive” the grievances of the Black, red and brown minority, they are claiming a false mandate. “Until more so-called white liberals, progressives and activists take Black issues seriously enough to give them more than lip service; many black people will continue to see themselves as marginalized, even within the broader Occupy Movement.” There can be no just society in “an apartheid state.” Since its illegitimate founding, America is, and has always been, a white settler state.

The perception of marginalization from the “Occupy Movement” that some black activists have is a very real one and should be validated before anyone emotionally rebuffs it as if those black activists are just “making unnecessary waves that divide”. I have heard this from time to time and from time to time I have vehemently rejected that knee-jerk reaction from some “activists” who do not understand the social dynamics of the black community. First and foremost it should be understood that America is an institutionally racist country built on a despicable legacy of brutality towards people of color. This history and its present day legacy, has yet to be reconciled by much of white America and its mainstream institutions (schools, media, government). People of color have no choice but to deal with America’s structural racism and white supremacist overtones, each and every day. These injustices follow us, no matter where we go. Ignoring it will never make it go away.

Recognizing and comprehending that institutional racism is a social disease is a significant first step toward combating its deleterious impact on people of color. America has never recognized this irrefutable fact. As a matter of fact, America has black president that, like his predecessor, has refused to send a US delegation to the United Nations’ World Conference against Racism. This should make it rather clear as to the level of commitment the US has towards ending institutional racism. America’s continuous denial of their homegrown brand of institutional racism is a telltale indication that it is a nation in desperate need of serious social rehabilitation.

Understanding that America is infected with this social disease is a critical second step. This is an honest diagnose which can lead towards practical treatments (solutions). However, without this recognition on some mass public scale, social convalescence becomes even more of an uphill battle. Those who claim to be social justice oriented activists must be willing to place institutional racism and white supremacy within their collection of “causes” to unwaveringly battle. Those white liberals who are turned off by language like “white supremacy” and “institutional racism” are a major part of the overall problem. They are the disingenuous frauds that prescribe to myths like, “American Exceptionalism”. Disillusionment and suppression of the root causes of rampant and disproportionate police brutality, in communities of color, only add to the unabated social malady. This is a sickness that black activists have routinely struggled and fought against, as well as persistently tried to publicize on a broad level. Despite these important ongoing efforts, the so-called white liberal media routinely marginalizes the voices of most of these black activists.

This author has had the opportunity to visit, participate, and report on what I saw at some occupations. When interviewing black activists, who had been there much longer than I, most shared an understandable level of frustration regarding their voices being marginalized, especially by the so-called liberal media. Some of those interviews can be heard by clicking here. The liberal white media wanted nothing to do with them, and therefore nothing to do with the social issues they were trying to shed a bright light upon. This marginalization is not rare in America and it is not solely practiced by the white media. This is a practice of marginalization that is riddled throughout mainstream America, which is why harmful social injustices continue to run rampant in black and brown communities. This is, in essence, why this author refers to America as an apartheid state—one based on “separateness”. And that separateness is broken down upon racial isolation and the disproportionate allocation of everything from human rights to resources. Those who are of color are typically the people who catch the most hell, by way of this unwritten American policy of separate and unequal. Instead of having pepper spray showered on them, people of color subsisting in governmentally neglected communities routinely have police officers’ bullets sprayed upon them. If the majority of people in the “Occupy Movement” were black the backlash from the police would be devastatingly violent, and most likely deadly.

If solidarity is the mantra of the US “Occupy Movement” then more and more demonstrations need to incorporate serious dialogue and organization as how to combat institutional racism and white supremacy. People of color in America do not have the “political power” to accompany prejudice, which is why it is currently impossible for people of color to practice institutional racism towards Euro-Americans, even if they wanted to. Racism is prejudice plus political power. More and more white people who define themselves as social justice advocates and/or progressives must be willing to go into predominately white communities and challenge the longstanding “power” structures, deep-seated racial/cultural hate, as well as ignorance that are connected to the larger overarching problems of institutional racism and white supremacy. These white activists must also be willing to demand an end to white people’s monopoly of political, social and economic power, especially since that monopoly has illegal roots of theft of Native American land and the enslavement of African people. People of color need to have the ability to determine their own destinies, without interference. Many people of color are fighting for these things. And some white people are fighting for these human rights—however many more are needed. American institutional racism is a white problem that has destroyed countless lives of color, thus making it a social epidemic.

The Occupy Movement in the US is an important step towards a more socially and economically just world. As a social justice activist I am wholeheartedly in favor of that kind of world. I am also in solidarity with those who are fighting on behalf of those radical paradigm shifts. However, until things like police brutality and police terror are universal issues within the “mainstream”, we have a long way to go. And until white supremacy and institutional racism are fought against by a critical mass of Euro-Americans, the US will continue on as the apartheid state it is. Until these things are radically changed, police brutality will linger on like an untreated festering sore. When seven year old black girls are indiscriminately murdered by police, it is a blatant indication of a society with a deadly disease. That disease is called institutional racism and it disease kills people of color on a regular basis. It is time for the “Occupation Movement” to metastasize (in a good way), eviscerate institutional racism, and destroy the apartheid-like policies throughout the US. This cannot happen without more activists of color, and their communities’ issues, universally, being brought into all arenas. It is time to occupy the consciousness of America.

Solomon Comissiong is an educator, community activist, author, public speaker and the host of the Your World News media collective (www.yourworldnews.org). He can be reached at: solo@yourworldnews.org

Russia Bashing

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Russia Bashing – by Stephen Lendman

 

On December 4, parliamentary elections were held to fill 450 State Duma seats, Russia’s Federal Assembly lower house.

 

With nearly all votes counted, RIA Novosti said Medvedev/Putin’s United Russia party won 238 seats, falling slightly below a majority with 49.67% of the vote.

 

It added that it’s “a far cry from the commanding two-thirds constitutional majority the party held in the State Duma for the past four years” based on tabulated results so far.

 

United Russia is the nation’s dominant party. In December 2001, it was founded by merging the Unity and Fatherland-All Russia parties.

 

Vladimir Putin served as acting President after Boris Yeltsin resigned on December 31, 1999. From May 7, 2000 – May 7, 2008, he was President. Dmitry Medvedev succeeded him. Putin now serves as Prime Minister. He’s United Russia 2012 presidential candidate. On March 4, presidential elections will be held.

 

After a decade in power, it’s common for incumbent parties to lose strength. Nonetheless, despite likely coalition agreements on some issues, United Russia remains dominant. Moreover, Putin’s heavily favored to win in 2012.

 

With near final Duma votes counted, results were:

  • United Russia – 49.67%

 

  • the Communist Party – 19.15%

 

  • Just Russia – 13.16%

 

  • the Liberal Democratic Party – 11.67%

 

  • Yabloko – 3.21%, and

 

  • two small parties getting under 1% each.

 

Under Russian electoral laws, Duma seats are proportionally distributed to parties getting at least 7% of the vote.

 

Because several didn’t qualify, United Russia maintains a ruling majority. Nonetheless, President Medvedev expressed willingness to have coalition partners, saying:

 

“We will have to take into account the more complex configuration of the Duma and for some issues we will have to join coalition bloc agreements.”

 

Ballots were cast in 94,000 domestic polling stations across Russia and about 370 overseas locations in over 140 foreign countries.

 

CEC officials said irregularities disqualified 1% of electoral ballots.

 

Major Media Bashing

 

On December 4, New York Times writers David Herszenhorn and Ellen Barry headlined, “Majority for Putin’s Party Narrows in Rebuke From Voters,” saying:

 

United Russia “suffered surprisingly steep losses in parliamentary elections on Sunday….The three minority parties….all made strong gains….”

 

“Critics of the government have said for weeks that they expected widespread campaign abuses, and reports of electoral violations streamed into online social networks during the early morning hours….”

 

On December 5, Russia Today (RT.com) reported that on election day, a Russian Internet site claimed an alleged United Russia scheme “to conduct an illegal throw-in of ballots at one of the polling stations in Moscow.”

 

It said “some obscure political specialists had gathered a group of about 40 people, described as ‘drunks and low-lifes,’ and handed them special secret pockets and packs of filled ballots, marked United Russia.”</blockquote>

 

In fact, three of the 40 were undercover reporters. When the alleged group arrived, they claimed fraud. Other reports about throw-in ballots also surfaced. A top Central Election Commission (CEC) official admitted some violations occurred.

 

CEC’s Leonid Ivlev mentioned “invisible ink, illegal propaganda, and the so-called ‘merry-go-round’ false voting” by specially prepared people.

 

However, the invisible ink scheme was uncovered and stopped. “Merry-go-round” fraud was grossly exaggerated. Minor violations only occurred. They’re common everywhere in contrast to major US electoral fraud.

 

Notably in 2000 and 2004, Democrats Gore and Kerry won popular and electoral college victories, but George Bush became president for eight years illegitimately.

 

In addition, key Senate and House elections were also tainted. No wonder under a system where corporate-controlled machines vote, not citizens.

 

Ivlev said “many reports (about alleged Russian electoral fraud) simply showed a lack of understanding of the election procedure.”

 

Moreover, Deputy Interior Minister Aleksander Gorovoi said police registered 2050 violations all day. However, none compromised final results. Most “concerned illegal propaganda and the police had started administrative cases into these matters.”

 

Independent (CEC-invited) international monitors checked voting in over 30 Russian regions. They concluded the process was calm and orderly. Polish monitor Mateus Piskorski said, “All complaints are about technical issues and not about violations of election law.”

 

Institute for Democracy and Cooperation director of studies John Laughland called electoral procedures “absolutely excellent.” He added that polling station workers were “extremely competent.”

 

Nonetheless, The Times said cellphone video footage showed “heavy-handed politicking, including attempts at bribery, campaign law violations and other manipulation.”

 

It added that throughout the day, scattered reports cited “voting irregularities, a smattering of protests and some arrests.”

 

Times and other major media writers, commentators and editorials notoriously bash electoral results in non-US client states.

 

In contrast, when the Supreme Court reversed America’s 2000 popular vote (and electoral one learned months late) to install its own favorite, a Times editorial supported Bush’s illegitimacy and “unusual” post-election “gracious(ness).”

 

Electoral fraud wasn’t mentioned nor was cheating John Kerry in 2004. Moreover, America’s corrupted duopoly power gets no coverage whatever.

 

Instead, reports claim model US democratic governance when, in fact, it’s not tolerated, never was, and on December 1 lost all legitimacy.

 

Following last May’s House vote, the Senate followed suit. They authorized detaining uncharged US citizens indefinitely in military dungeons, based on spurious allegations of supporting terrorism.

 

Media scoundrels don’t object, including Washington Post writers, commentators, and editorial writers.

 

On December 3, its editorial headlined, “The farce of Russian elections,” saying:

 

“Russia’s hermetic political system – a parody of democracy that begrudges dissent and bristles at independent voices – is growing even less tolerant.”

 

“Vladimir Putin has turned from glowering at the country’s only independent elections watchdog to outright intimidation. In the process, he has reverted to Cold War rhetoric and cemented the Kremlin’s reputation for thuggery in high places.”

 

Fact check

 

Money power in private hands controls America’s media. They’re a platform for managed and junk food news. Dissent in America is an endangered species. On US television, it’s entirely absent, and little appears in corporate controlled print.

 

In contrast, Iran’s Press TV, Russia Today and Voice of Russia air diverse discussions and opinions on major global issues. US viewers can access them online to stay current and well-informed, free of Western propaganda America’s media feature.

 

Putin is one of the few world leaders with backbone enough to challenge US lawlessness. As a result, America’s media pillory him instead of explaining destructive US policies threatening humanity’s survival.

 

Russian officials “turn(ed) up the heat on Golos (Russian for ‘voice’), an independent group of election monitors largely funded by US and other Western groups.”

 

Fact check

 

Golos gets National Endowment for Democracy funding. It supports regime change in Venezuela, Syria, Iran and other non-US client states. It backs opposition groups, conducts propaganda campaigns, and does openly what CIA operative do covertly to destabilize sitting governments.

 

Its mission is subverting, not promoting democracy. It operates with State Department funding and direction. It serves US imperial interests destructively against targeted countries.

 

So do USAID and the National Democratic Institute (NDI). They meddle internally against sitting governments. One way is by funding Golos. It calls itself a Russian NGO established in 2000 to defend democratic rights and civil liberties. It’s Russia’s only allegedly “independent” electoral watchdog.

 

The UK Telegraph calls it “one of the few organizations able to catalogue and publicize (Kremlin) attempts at fraud and intimidation.”

 

In fact, Russian electoral authorities found it violated election laws by publishing polls during a prohibited “quiet period” preceding voting. Of course, taking US funding with strings corrupts its independence entirely and violates Russian law.

 

Under the 1907 Tillman Act, “foreign national” funding of US elections is illegal. Similar legislation followed. In 1971, the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) instituted more stringent disclosure requirements for federal candidates, political parties, and political action committees (PACs). Foreign funding in America in all forms is prohibited.

 

In contrast, Washington meddles regularly in elections abroad to influence their outcomes. America’s media suppress what they should headline. Instead, they endorse illegal foreign funding and other illegal practices.

 

The Washington Post claimed Golos NED, NDI, and USAID funding lets them “be impartial.” It also said Putin’s likely reelection next year means “growing number(s) of Russians (will) chafe (under) a system that takes his commands and uses the niceties of democracy, including elections, as window dressing.”

 

It added that he’s “never been one to settle for simple victory when unchallenged supremacy can be gained by use of threat, political manipulation and bullying.”

 

His “loyal lieutenant (Medvedev) warned that Russia may aim missiles at US anti-missile installations in Europe, which are intended mainly as a shield against Iran, unless the Obama administration agrees to a set of Russian demands. He also threatened a Russian withdrawal from (the START) nuclear arms reduction treaty.”

 

Fact check

 

America has well over 1,000 global military bases. Many encircle Russia and China. No nation threatens America. Yet it spends more on “defense” than the rest of the world combined.

 

To achieve unchallenged global dominance, perpetual wars are waged. Alleged missile defense weapons and tracking radar are for offense. Russia and China are targeted, not Iran or other Middle East countries.

 

Nuclear-armed Aegis class warships patrol the Eastern Mediterranean, equipped with SM-3 ballistic missiles and anti-satellite interceptors. Upgraded versions are being developed.

 

Instead of abandoning Bush’s scheme, Obama plans more extensive, sophisticated, flexible, mobile systems to be developed through 2020. Doubling the number of Aegis class warships to 38 will be completed by 2015. They’ll be equipped with state-of-the art missile interceptors for offensive first-strike capability.

 

Russia’s justifiably furious. During the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, nuclear war was narrowly averted when cooler heads on both sides comprised.

 

Obama’s no Jack Kennedy. He’s an imperial tool, ravaging the world one country at a time and challenging Russia menacingly with encroachment.

 

A Final Comment

 

Under Putin, Russia’s back, proud and re-assertive. It’s not about to roll over for America, especially in Eurasia. Washington’s gone back to the future with a new Cold War. This time it’s for much greater stakes and far larger threats to world peace.

 

Instead of reporting it, America’s media cheerlead supportively. They blames victims, not Washington’s rogue policies threatening humanity.

 

In the 1930s, Roosevelt wanted war with Germany and Japan to end America’s Great Depression and achieve US global dominance. During today’s hard times, will Obama follow suit, no matter the potential catastrophe no legitimate leader would risk.

 

A possibility this frightening and real may be happening in real time as America lurches from one war to another and enacts police state laws quashing dissent.

 

Nonetheless, the Washington Post accuses Russia of Soviet era saber-rattling when it should be sounding the alarm.

 

Responsible major media journalism was never America’s long suit. At a time of grave global dangers, they’re pointing fingers the wrong way.

 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

 

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Target Syria

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Target Syria - by Stephen Lendman

 

Washington’s Greater Middle East project involves waring against the region one country at a time to replace independent regimes with client ones.

 

Softer targets were attacked first. Tougher ones remain, notably Iran and Syria. Subduing them may involve turning the entire region into an uncontrollable cauldron, not least because China and Russia have interests to defend.

 

Russia maintains a strategic naval base at Tartus, Syria, its only Mediterranean location. It considers it vital protection for its Black Sea Fleet. It’s being modernized to accommodate heavy warships after 2012. Russia came to stay.

 

Three Russian warships now patrol Syrian waters. Unofficial sources confirm it, saying Russia’s there to protect strategic and national security interests, as well as prevent war.

 

About 120,000 Russian citizens are in Syria. Moscow’s obligated to protect them the way they aided South Ossetian Russians after Georgia attacked the province in August 2008.

 

Provocatively, America’s nuclear carrier USS George HW Bush anchored off Syria. Its Strike Group and additional vessels are conducting maritime security and support operations nearby. The US 6th Fleet patrols the area.

 

Meanwhile, Washington and Turkey urged their citizens to leave Syria. A November 23 US statement said “depart immediately while commercial transportation is available.” Whether something’s brewing isn’t known. Tough talk alone doesn’t suggest it. Nonetheless, it’s worrisome.

 

Syria’s being assaulted like Libya. Heavily armed insurgents are involved. Washington orchestrated everything. Neighboring countries are involved, including Israel. Syria’s blamed for defending itself. Libya redux looks possible. Continued violence and escalating tensions suggest it.

 

An anonymous Russian intelligence official said America “is playing a very dangerous game here. One that may result in Russia taking defensive actions to protect itself, its military installation and Russian citizens.”

 

A Russian military expert called US carriers “expensive floating targets that are vulnerable to attacks by aircraft, missiles and torpedos. They were designed for Cold War scenarios, and are less useful in establishing control of areas close to shore.”

 

According to Pravda.ru, Center for Military Forecasts analyst Anatoly Tsyganok said Washington no longer will inform Russia about planned troop deployments.

 

“Apparently, it is connected with the situation in the Mediterranean Sea,” he said. “One may assume that NATO will create a military group near Russia’s southern borders to strike Syria.”

 

“They will most likely raise this issue at the NATO summit in December. They will try to analyze Syria’s actions in case NATO conducts a military operation against the country, like (earlier) in Libya.”

 

Itar-Tass contributor Anatoly Lazarev accused Washington of “initia(ting) the campaign for strangling Damascus.” Russia stresses dialogue for conflict resolution. “Washington obviously does not like the stand assumed by Moscow. By all appearances, it wishes to play first the Libyan and now the Syrian card” to ensure its regional interests “at all costs.” Then on to new targets to control the entire region.

 

International Crisis Group (ICG) Comments on Syria

 

Founded in 1995 by World Bank vice president Mark Malloch Brown and former US diplomat Morton Abramowitz, ICG supports power, not popular interests. Comments on its Middle East Project Director Peter Harling’s analysis follows below.

 

Titled, “Uncharted Waters: Thinking Through Syria’s Dynamics,” he assessed where things now stand, saying:

 

“The Syrian crisis may or may not have entered its final phase, but it undoubtedly has entered its most dangerous one to date. The current stage is defined by an explosive mix of heightened strategic stakes tying into a regional and wider international competition on the one hand and emotionally charged attitudes, communal polarisation and political wishful thinking on the other.”

 

Based in Damascus, Harling’s observing events firsthand. Entirely missing from current considerations, he believes, “is a sober assessment of the challenges provoked by (balance of power) shifts and the very real risk that they could derail or even foreclose the possibility of a successful transition.”

 

Of course, it’s for Syrians, not outside powers, to decide. Intervening in other nations’ internal affairs is illegal. For Washington, its NATO partners, and Israel it’s standard practice. Harding’s analysis omitted international law issues, focusing on imperial ones instead.

 

Five key issues are excluded from Syria’s debate, he believes, including:

  • the dominant Alawite community’s fate;

 

  • Syrian and Lebanese ties;

 

  • implications of international intervention;

 

  • impact of the protest movement’s militarization; and

 

  • “creeping social, economic and institutional decay.”

 

Assad linked the Alawite community’s fate to his own to assure loyalty among people who’ve gained little from the regime. Crisis conditions bonded them to Assad’s government. The same holds for Syrian Christians.

 

Critically, the regime controls Damascus and Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. It secured them because protests there remain peaceful. Its “divide-and-rule tactics have kept most Alawites, many Christians, as well as some Druze and Sunnis on its side.”

 

Nonetheless, civil society segments support insurgents. The longer conflict persists, the greater the incentive for affected business, middle class, and other elements to seek ways to end it. At issue is protecting their own self-interest. They want calm to get back to business as soon as possible.

 

At the same time, Assad won’t step down or be deposed internally. Regime officials need him. He’s been instrumental in keeping support among BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and other countries. He’s also popular so why remove a regime prop.

 

As for sanctions, civilians are mostly harmed much like everywhere they’re imposed. Assad said parliamentary elections will be held next February or March. Constitutional review will follow. So will presidential elections if new provisions in it say so.

 

If Syrians agree to test him, violence might subside but won’t end as long as criminal insurgents are encouraged by Washington, Turkey and other regional states to maintain pressure.

 

Nonetheless, without a political solution, violence will continue. Civilians will suffer horrifically. Military intervention may follow. For now, Assad’s holding firm. Violence hasn’t reached critical mass to topple him. Regime change isn’t imminent. Syria’s military supports him. Turkey’s pressure is limited, he believes.

 

Arab League states have no credibility whatever. They condoned Libya’s ravaging, say nothing about NATO’s plans to colonize another Arab state, ignore Bahraini and other regional atrocities, and brutalize their own people protesting against political, economic and social injustice.

 

On November 27, DEBKAfile said Syria’s neighbors are preparing for potential retaliation after League members imposed sanctions. Israel moved armored brigades to its Lebanese and Syrian borders. Turkey’s military is on alert. Lebanon and Jordan also responded defensively.

 

“Military sources in the Gulf report that 150 Iranian Revolutionary Guards specialists had landed at a military airport south of Damascus on their way to Lebanon to join Hizbollah which began bringing its rockets out of their hideouts.”

 

Russia’s supplying Syria super-advanced S-300 anti-missile systems, as well as advanced Pantsir-1 (SA-22 Greyhound) anti-air missiles and supersonic Yakhont (SS-26) missiles for targeting vessels blockading Syria’s coast.

 

Resolution’s nowhere in sight. Conditions remain fluid. War winds are blowing. Redrawing the region is planned. Arab Spring talk belies strategies to do it. Perhaps destroying it comes first.

 

A Final Comment

 

On November 27, Arab League states approved stiff anti-Syrian economic sanctions. Their 14-point plan includes travel bans on regime officials, asset freezes, blocking sale of “nonessential” commodities, halting transactions with Syria’s central bank, and ending financing for Arab-funded projects in the country.

 

Sanctions are effective immediately. Ordinary people will be hurt most. At issue is weakening popular support for Assad to facilitate regime change more easily. In fact, people under duress usually rally behind sitting governments for support. It remains to be seen if Syrians follow suit.

 

On November 28, Mathaba.net reported that Kuwait’s al Rai daily learned from unnamed senior European sources that Arab states, with US logistical support, will impose a no-fly zone over Syria once an authorizing Arab League charter decree is issued, calling for the protection of Syrian civilians.

 

With or without one, attacking a nonbelligerent state is illegal. Nations may only respond against others defensively. Intervening militarily in their internal affairs is prohibited. Nonetheless, doing it for humanitarian reasons will be invoked. It doesn’t wash but may work, with or without a Security Council resolution.

 

America and NATO partners aren’t deterred by international or statute laws. As a result, Syria is increasingly vulnerable.

 

According to al Rai, a no-fly ban will target Syrian artillery and military vehicles, including tanks and armored personnel carriers. They’ll be prohibited from moving freely. European sources say they’d be crippled “in less than 24 hours.”

 

War winds are blowing stronger.

 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

 

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

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