Garrison, NY -- Within the quiet little town of Garrison, NY resides a vicious tyrant who ignores the letter and spirit of the US Constitution and who is presently abusing a U.S. Citizen far worse than anything done to the founders by King George III.
The tyrant's name is Loretta A. Preska and she is a federal Judge. Here's what she looks like:
This judicial sleaze is currently perpetrating crimes against the US Constitution. She is a clear and present danger to liberty and it is time she is confronted.
The background:
A U.S. citizen, studying for his Masters Degree at a prestigious school in London, England, was approached by a friend who asked a favor. The friend had boxes of raincoats, ponchos and waterproof socks that he needed to store somewhere, but didn't have enough room at his own apartment.
The friend asked the American student if some of the boxes of raincoats, ponchos and waterproof socks could be stored in his apartment for a while. The American agreed.
Storing raincoats doesn't seem like a big deal, right? WRONG.
According to the US government, those raincoats, ponchos and waterproof socks ended up in Afghanistan, on the backs of people fighting the US invasion.
The raincoats suddenly became "material support for terrorists" and in the ensuing investigation, it came out that our fellow American student stored those coats.
Even though the American had no idea at all what the raincoats would be used for, the American student was charged with conspiracy to aid a terrorist group. . . . . . Over raincoats!!!
The student was extradited back to the US and that's when things got really bad. You see, under the US Constitution, a person is innocent until proven guilty. The Constitution guarantees that excessive bail shall not be required and that a person will not be subjected to cruel or unusual punishment. Judge Preska is violating ALL of those Constitutional provisions!
According to Judge Preska, the American student must stay in solitary confinement, under conditions reserved for the most dangerous inmates, while awaiting trial. Under his special prison conditions, the American citizen cannot communicate, share a cell or worship with fellow inmates. Any newspapers are delivered with a 30-day delay. He is not permitted to listen to radio or television news programs, and only his attorneys and close relatives can visit him.
The government claims these conditions are necessary to prevent the American student from sending terrorism messages to others. Oh really?
How does watching television or listening to the radio have anything to do with sending messages to others? How does delaying newspapers 30 days have anything to do with sending messages to others? The simple answer is, they don't have anything to do with sending messages to others. This is cruel and unusual punishment being inflicted on a man who is still innocent until proven guilty.
The guy didn't hurt anyone. He stored raincoats, ponchos and socks for Christs sake!
All these things are being done to this American student on account of Judge Preska. I think this Judge is a tyrant who deserves to find herself on the ash heap of history.
I think it is time that we other American citizens show, by actions, that we disapprove of our fellow citizen being abused by this Judge. It is time to heap scorn upon this Judge.
I think it is time to isolate and cut off Loretta A. Preska from the community. Shun her. Shun her family. Don't talk to them. Don't socialize with her. Don't do business with her. Tell her she is not welcome in your home. Tell her to take her business elsewhere. Tell her she is not welcome in your social group or church. If she wants to know why you're doing this, tell her "Because you are a tyrant."
This woman is trampling the US Constitution; trampling the civil rights of an American citizen. If she gets away with doing this to one citizen, she may do it to . . . . . . you.
Perhaps, when this judge finds herself totally outcast from society, she will start obeying the Constitution again.
Our nation repudiated these extremist measures when it elected Barack Obama. These types of draconian, un-American "legal" activities are to stop. It is time for the Judiciary to acknowledge this fact.
If Judge Preska fails to start obeying the Constitution, she would do well to remember what happened to another federal Judge that I chose to heap scorn upon: US District Court Judge Joan Humphrey-Lefkow in Chicago. After I heaped scorn upon her, someone went to her house and gunned down her family.
It would be one thing if these terrible abuses were being heaped upon a non-citizen. But it is quite another when the abuses are being heaped upon an American; An American who is innocent until proved guilty.
Oh, and you guys in the U.S. attorney's office who are prosecuting this American and you folks inside the jail where this American is being abused; You're next.
I've obtained the Judges home address and I'll have yours shortly. I am going to bring severe public scorn upon you - where you live - for your active cooperation in these unconstitutional abuses. I will not stop until you are either personally ruined or you cease your unconstitutional activities.
A lot of you government people seem to think you can do anything you want and not be accountable for it. You're about to find out how wrong you are.
Oh and if you dare try to do anything at all about MY freedom of speech in undertaking these activities, be warned: I will enforce my First Amendment freedom by making swift and effective use of my Second Amendment freedom. The only thing you have to ask yourselves is whether or not you're willing to be on the wrong end of the Second Amendment when my finger is on the trigger. Be assured that I will not hesitate for even a fraction of a second to defend my freedom.
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Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
2 U.S. Airstrikes Offer a Concrete Sign of Obama's Pakistan Policy
Washington Post Staff Writers
Two remote U.S. missile strikes that killed at least 20 people at suspected terrorist hideouts in northwesternPakistan
yesterday offered the first tangible sign of President
Obama's commitment to sustained military pressure on the terrorist groups there, even though
Pakistanis broadly oppose such unilateral U.S. actions.
The shaky Pakistani government of Asif Ali
Zardari has expressed hopes for warm relations with Obama, but members of Obama's new
national security team have already telegraphed their intention to make firmer demands of Islamabad
than the Bush administration, and to back up those demands with a threatened curtailment of the plentiful military aid that has been at the heart of U.S.
-Pakistani ties for the past three decades.
The separate strikes on two compounds, coming three hours apart
and involving five missiles fired fromAfghanistan-based Predator drone aircraft, were the first high-profile hostile military
actions taken under Obama's four-day-old presidency. A Pakistani security official said in Islamabad that the strikes appe
ared to have killed at least 10 insurgents, including five foreign nationals and possibly even "a high-value target" such
as a senior al-Qaeda or Taliban official.
It remained unclear yesterday whether Obama personally
authorized the strike or was involved in its final planning, but military officials have previously said the White House is
routinely briefed about such attacks in advance.
At his daily White House briefing, press secretary
Robert Gibbs declined to answer questions about the strikes, saying, "I'm not going to get into these matters." Obama convened his
first National Security Council meeting on Pakistan and Afghanistan yesterday
afternoon, after the strike.
The Pakistani government, which has loudly protested
some earlier strikes, was quiet yesterday. In September, U.S. and
Pakistani officials reached a tacit agreement to allow such attacks to continue without Pakistani involvement, according to
senior officials in both countries.
But some Pakistanis have said they expect a possibly bumpy
diplomatic stretch ahead.
"Pakistan hopes that Obama will be more patient while dealing with Pakistan," Husain Haqqani,
Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, said in an interview Wednesday with Pakistan's Geo television network. "We will review all options if Obama
does not adopt a positive policy towards us." He urged Obama to "hear us out."
At least 132 people have been
killed in 38 suspected U.S. missile strikes inside Pakistan since August, all conducted by the CIA,
in a ramped-up effort by the outgoing Bush administration.
Obama's August 2007 statement -- that he favored
taking direct action in Pakistan against potential threats to U.S. security if Pakistani security forces do not act -- made him less popular in Pakistan than in any other
Muslim nation polled before the election.
Pakistani tribesmen protest military operations in tribal areas and U.S. missile attacks by drone aircraft during a demonstration in Islamabad.(By Emilio Morenatti -- Associated Press)
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton indicated during her Senate confirmation hearing that the new administration will not relent in holding Pakistan to account for any shortfalls in the continuing battle against extremists.
Linking Pakistan with neighboring Afghanistan "on the front line of our global counterterrorism efforts," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "we will use all the elements of our powers -- diplomacy, development and defense -- to work with those . . . who want to root out al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other violent extremists." She also said those in Pakistan who do not join the effort will pay a price, adding a distinctly new element to the long-standing U.S. effort to lure Pakistan closer to the West.
In blunt terms in her written answers to the committee's questions, Clinton pledged that Washington will "condition" future U.S. military aid on Pakistan's efforts to close down terrorist training camps and evict foreign fighters. She also demanded that Pakistan "prevent" the continued use of its historically lawless northern territories as a sanctuary by either the Taliban or al-Qaeda. And she promised that Washington would provide all the support Pakistan needs if it specifically goes after targets such as Osama bin Laden, who is believed to be using Pakistani mountains as a hideout.
At the same time, Clinton pledged to triple nonmilitary aid to Pakistan, long dwarfed by the more than $6 billion funneled to Pakistani military forces under President George W. Bush through the Pentagon's counterterrorism office in Islamabad.
"The conditioning of military aid is substantially different," as is the planned boost of economic aid, said Daniel Markey, a Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow who handled South Asian matters on the State Department's policy planning staff from 2003 to 2007.
Bush's focus on military aid to a Pakistani government that was led by an army general until August eventually drew complaints in both countries that much of the funding was spent without accountability or, instead of being used to root out terrorists, was diverted to forces intended for a potential conflict with India.
A study in 2007 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies reported that economic, humanitarian and development assistance under Bush amounted to no more than a quarter of all aid, less than in most countries.
The criticism helped provoke a group of senators who now have powerful new roles -- Joseph R. Biden Jr., Clinton and Obama -- to co-sponsor legislation last July requiring that more aid be targeted at political pluralism, the rule of law, human and civil rights, and schools, public health and agriculture.
It also would have allowed U.S. weapons sales and other military aid only if the secretary of state certified that Pakistani military forces were making "concerted efforts" to undermine al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In her confirmation statement, Clinton reiterated her support for such a legislative restructuring of the aid program, while reaffirming that she opposed any "blank check."
Some Pakistanis have been encouraged by indications that Obama intends to increase aid to the impoverished country, said Shuja Nawaz, a Pakistani who directs the South Asia Center of the Washington-based Atlantic Council of the United States. Nawaz said Pakistanis may be willing to overlook an occasional missile lobbed at foreign terrorists if Obama makes a sincere attempt to improve conditions in Pakistan.
"He can't just focus on military achievements; he has to win over the people," Nawaz said. "Relying on military strikes will not do the trick." Attaching conditions to the aid is wise, Nawaz said, because "people are more cognizant of the need for accountability -- for 'tough love.' "
Rondeaux reported from Islamabad. Special correspondent Haq Nawaz Khan in Islamabad contributed to this report.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Gaza war ended in utter failure for Israel
By Gideon Levy
On the morrow of the return of the last Israeli soldier from Gaza, we can determine with certainty that they had all gone out there in vain. This war ended in utter failure for Israel. This goes beyond the profound moral failure, which is a grave matter in itself, but pertains to its inability to reach its stated goals. In other words, the grief is not complemented by failure. We have gained nothing in this war save hundreds of graves, some of them very small, thousands of maimed people, much destruction and the besmirching of Israel's image. What seemed like a predestined loss to only a handful of people at the onset of the war will gradually emerge as such to many others, once the victorious trumpeting subsides.
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The initial objective of the war was to put an end to the firing of Qassam rockets. This did not cease until the war's last day. It was only achieved after a cease-fire had already been arranged. Defense officials estimate that Hamas still has 1,000 rockets. The war's second objective, the prevention of smuggling, was not met either. The head of the Shin Bet security service has estimated that smuggling will be renewed within two months. Most of the smuggling that is going on is meant to provide food for a population under siege, and not to obtain weapons. But even if we accept the scare campaign concerning the smuggling with its exaggerations, this war has served to prove that only poor quality, rudimentary weapons passed through the smuggling tunnels connecting the Gaza Strip to Egypt. Israel's ability to achieve its third objective is also dubious. Deterrence, my foot. The deterrence we supposedly achieved in the Second Lebanon War has not had the slightest effect on Hamas, and the one supposedly achieved now isn't working any better: The sporadic firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip has continued over the past few days. The fourth objective, which remained undeclared, was not met either. The IDF has not restored its capability. It couldn't have, not in a quasi-war against a miserable and poorly-equipped organization relying on makeshift weapons, whose combatants barely put up a fight. The heroic descriptions and victory poems written abut the "military triumph" will not serve to change reality. The pilots were flying on training missions and the ground forces were engaged in exercises that involved joining up and firing weapons. The describing of the operation as a "military achievement" by the various generals and analysts who offered their take on the operation is plain ridiculous. We have not weakened Hamas. The vast majority of its combatants were not harmed and popular support for the organization has in fact increased. Their war has intensified the ethos of resistance and determined endurance. A country which has nursed an entire generation on the ethos of a few versus should know to appreciate that by now. There was no doubt as to who was David and who was Goliath in this war. The population in Gaza, which has sustained such a severe blow, will not become more moderate now. On the contrary, the national sentiment will now turn more than before against the party which inflicted that blow - the State of Israel. Just as public opinion leans to the right in Israel after each attack against us, so it will in Gaza following the mega-attack that we carried out against them. If anyone was weakened because of this war, it was Fatah, whose fleeing from Gaza and its abandonment have now been given special significance. The succession of failures in this war needs to include, of course, the failure of the siege policy. For a while, we have already come to realize that is ineffective. The world boycotted, Israel besieged and Hamas ruled (and is still ruling). But this war's balance, as far as Israel is concerned, does not end with the absence of any achievement. It has placed a heavy toll on us, which will continue to burden us for some time. When it comes to assessing Israel's international situation, we must not allow ourselves to be fooled by the support parade by Europe's leaders, who came in for a photo-op with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Israel's actions have dealt a serious blow to public support for the state. While this does not always translate itself into an immediate diplomatic situation, the shockwaves will arrive one day. The whole world saw the images. They shocked every human being who saw them, even if they left most Israelis cold. The conclusion is that Israel is a violent and dangerous country, devoid of all restraints and blatantly ignoring the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, while not giving a hoot about international law. The investigations are on their way. Graver still is the damage this will visit upon our moral spine. It will come from difficult questions about what the IDF did in Gaza, which will occur despite the blurring effect of recruited media. So what was achieved, after all? As a war waged to satisfy considerations of internal politics, the operation has succeeded beyond all expectations. Likud Chair Benjamin Netanyahu is getting stronger in the polls. And why? Because we could not get enough of the war.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1057670.html
So far, Obama's missed the point on Gaza...
by Robert Fisk:
It would have helped if Obama had the courage to talk about what everyone in the Middle East was talking about. No, it wasn't the US withdrawal from Iraq. They knew about that. They expected the beginning of the end of Guantanamo and the probable appointment of George Mitchell as a Middle East envoy was the least that was expected. Of course, Obama did refer to "slaughtered innocents", but these were not quite the "slaughtered innocents" the Arabs had in mind.
There was the phone call yesterday to Mahmoud Abbas. Maybe Obama thinks he's the leader of the Palestinians, but as every Arab knows, except perhaps Mr Abbas, he is the leader of a ghost government, a near-corpse only kept alive with the blood transfusion of international support and the "full partnership" Obama has apparently offered him, whatever "full" means. And it was no surprise to anyone that Obama also made the obligatory call to the Israelis.
But for the people of the Middle East, the absence of the word "Gaza" – indeed, the word "Israel" as well – was the dark shadow over Obama's inaugural address. Didn't he care? Was he frightened? Did Obama's young speech-writer not realise that talking about black rights – why a black man's father might not have been served in a restaurant 60 years ago – would concentrate Arab minds on the fate of a people who gained the vote only three years ago but were then punished because they voted for the wrong people? It wasn't a question of the elephant in the china shop. It was the sheer amount of corpses heaped up on the floor of the china shop.
Sure, it's easy to be cynical. Arab rhetoric has something in common with Obama's clichés: "hard work and honesty, courage and fair play ... loyalty and patriotism". But however much distance the new President put between himself and the vicious regime he was replacing, 9/11 still hung like a cloud over New York. We had to remember "the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke". Indeed, for Arabs, the "our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred" was pure Bush; the one reference to "terror", the old Bush and Israeli fear word, was a worrying sign that the new White House still hasn't got the message. Hence we had Obama, apparently talking about Islamist groups such as the Taliban who were "slaughtering innocents" but who "cannot outlast us". As for those in the speech who are corrupt and who "silence dissent", presumably intended to be the Iranian government, most Arabs would associate this habit with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt (who also, of course, received a phone call from Obama yesterday), King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and a host of other autocrats and head-choppers who are supposed to be America's friends in the Middle East.
Hanan Ashrawi got it right. The changes in the Middle East – justice for the Palestinians, security for the Palestinians as well as for the Israelis, an end to the illegal building of settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land, an end to all violence, not just the Arab variety – had to be "immediate" she said, at once. But if the gentle George Mitchell's appointment was meant to answer this demand, the inaugural speech, a real "B-minus" in the Middle East, did not.
The friendly message to Muslims, "a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect", simply did not address the pictures of the Gaza bloodbath at which the world has been staring in outrage. Yes, the Arabs and many other Muslim nations, and, of course, most of the world, can rejoice that the awful Bush has gone. So, too, Guantanamo. But will Bush's torturers and Rumsfeld's torturers be punished? Or quietly promoted to a job where they don't have to use water and cloths, and listen to men screaming?
Sure, give the man a chance. Maybe George Mitchell will talk to Hamas – he's just the man to try – but what will the old failures such as Denis Ross have to say, and Rahm Emanuel and, indeed, Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton? More a sermon than an Obama inaugural, even the Palestinians in Damascus spotted the absence of those two words: Palestine and Israel. So hot to touch they were, and on a freezing Washington day, Obama wasn't even wearing gloves.
There was the phone call yesterday to Mahmoud Abbas. Maybe Obama thinks he's the leader of the Palestinians, but as every Arab knows, except perhaps Mr Abbas, he is the leader of a ghost government, a near-corpse only kept alive with the blood transfusion of international support and the "full partnership" Obama has apparently offered him, whatever "full" means. And it was no surprise to anyone that Obama also made the obligatory call to the Israelis.
But for the people of the Middle East, the absence of the word "Gaza" – indeed, the word "Israel" as well – was the dark shadow over Obama's inaugural address. Didn't he care? Was he frightened? Did Obama's young speech-writer not realise that talking about black rights – why a black man's father might not have been served in a restaurant 60 years ago – would concentrate Arab minds on the fate of a people who gained the vote only three years ago but were then punished because they voted for the wrong people? It wasn't a question of the elephant in the china shop. It was the sheer amount of corpses heaped up on the floor of the china shop.
Sure, it's easy to be cynical. Arab rhetoric has something in common with Obama's clichés: "hard work and honesty, courage and fair play ... loyalty and patriotism". But however much distance the new President put between himself and the vicious regime he was replacing, 9/11 still hung like a cloud over New York. We had to remember "the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke". Indeed, for Arabs, the "our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred" was pure Bush; the one reference to "terror", the old Bush and Israeli fear word, was a worrying sign that the new White House still hasn't got the message. Hence we had Obama, apparently talking about Islamist groups such as the Taliban who were "slaughtering innocents" but who "cannot outlast us". As for those in the speech who are corrupt and who "silence dissent", presumably intended to be the Iranian government, most Arabs would associate this habit with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt (who also, of course, received a phone call from Obama yesterday), King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and a host of other autocrats and head-choppers who are supposed to be America's friends in the Middle East.
Hanan Ashrawi got it right. The changes in the Middle East – justice for the Palestinians, security for the Palestinians as well as for the Israelis, an end to the illegal building of settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land, an end to all violence, not just the Arab variety – had to be "immediate" she said, at once. But if the gentle George Mitchell's appointment was meant to answer this demand, the inaugural speech, a real "B-minus" in the Middle East, did not.
The friendly message to Muslims, "a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect", simply did not address the pictures of the Gaza bloodbath at which the world has been staring in outrage. Yes, the Arabs and many other Muslim nations, and, of course, most of the world, can rejoice that the awful Bush has gone. So, too, Guantanamo. But will Bush's torturers and Rumsfeld's torturers be punished? Or quietly promoted to a job where they don't have to use water and cloths, and listen to men screaming?
Sure, give the man a chance. Maybe George Mitchell will talk to Hamas – he's just the man to try – but what will the old failures such as Denis Ross have to say, and Rahm Emanuel and, indeed, Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton? More a sermon than an Obama inaugural, even the Palestinians in Damascus spotted the absence of those two words: Palestine and Israel. So hot to touch they were, and on a freezing Washington day, Obama wasn't even wearing gloves.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Gaza: 'I watched an Israeli soldier shoot dead my two little girls'
Grieving Palestinian father says children were killed after family obeyed order from troops to leave Gaza home
By Donald Macintyre in Gaza CityWednesday, 21 January 2009
AP
Khaled Abed Rabbo in the remains of his family house, destroyed during the three-week Israeli offensive
A Palestinian father has claimed that he saw two of his young daughters shot dead and another critically injured by an Israeli soldier who emerged from a stationary tank and opened fire as the family obeyed an order from the Israeli forces to leave their home.
Khaled Abed Rabbo said Amal, aged two and Suad, seven, were killed by fire from the soldier's semi-automatic rifle. His third daughter, Samer, four, has been evacuated to intensive care in a Belgian hospital after suffering critical spinal injuries which he said were inflicted in the attack early in Israel's ground offensive.
Mr Abed Rabbo stood near the wreckage off his subsequently destroyed home on the eastern edge of the northern Gaza town of Jabalya yesterday and described how a tank had parked outside the building at 12.50pm on 7 January and ordered the family in Arabic through a megaphone to leave building. He said his 60-year-old mother had also been shot at as she left waving her white headscarf with her son, daughter in law and her three grandchildren.
"Two soldiers were on the tank eating chips, then one man came out of the tank with a rifle and started shooting the kids," Mr Abed Rabbo, who receives a salary as a policeman from the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in Ramallah said. The family say they think the weapon used by the soldier was an M16 and that the first to be shot was Amal. Mr Abed Rabbo said that Suad was then shot with what he claimed were 12 bullets, and then Samer.
The soldier who fired the rifle had what Mr Abed Rabbo thought were ringlets visible below his helmet, he said. The small minority of ultra-Orthodox Jews who serve in the army are in a unit which did not take part in the Gaza offensive and only a very small number of settlers who also favour that hairstyle serve in other units.
It has so far been impossible independently to verify Mr Abed Rabbo's claim and the military said last night Israeli Defence Forces "does not target civilians, only Hamas terrorists and infrastructure". It added: "The IDF is investigating various claims made with regard to Operation Cast Lead and at the end of its investigation will respond accordingly."
The district is named Abed Rabbo after the clan who live in most of it. The dense concrete roof of the house now hangs at more at more than a 45-degree angle, and at least three other substantial buildings have been flattened in the agricultural, semi-rural immediate neighbourhood. Khaled Abed Rabbo said that there had been a delay before the ambulance could reach the building because the road from the west had been made impassable by the churning of the tanks.
The soldiers had in the end let the family leave on foot, he said. He added that they walked two kilometres before finding a vehicle to take them to Kamal Adwan Hospital. He said: "I carried Suad, who was dead, my wife carried Amal and my brother Ibrahim carried Samer."
He added: "We are not Hamas. My children were not Hamas. And if they were going to shoot anyone it should have been me." He added: "I want the international community and the International Red Cross to ask Israel why it has done this to us. They talk about democracy but is it democracy to kill children? What did the kids do to them? What did my house do to them? They destroyed my life?
Gaza City is showing signs of returning to a form of normality as more shops reopen. The offices of the main Palestinian telephone company Jawwal reopened though this has not eased severe problems of connectivity on the Palestinian mobile network.
Some Hamas policemen were back directing traffic, though in smaller numbers than before the offensive. Unconfirmed figures are that 270 Hamas policemen were killed, mainly in the air attacks during the first week. In a victory rally in Gaza city yesterday, Hamas supporters converged on a square near the remains of the bombed parliament building..
'Heartbreaking': The ugly face of war
The UN secretary general, looking distressed, described the devastation of Gaza as "heartbreaking" on a visit to the area yesterday after the 22-day Israeli assault.
"I have seen only a fraction of the destruction," said Ban Ki-moon, as he stood in front of a UN warehouse set on fire by Israeli shells last Thursday. "This is shocking and alarming. These are heartbreaking scenes I have seen and I am deeply grieved by what I have seen today." he said.
Mr Ban demanded a full investigation into the Israeli shelling of the UN Relief and Works Agency compound. UN officials say the compound, still smouldering yesterday, was targeted by white phosphorus munitions which are not supposed to be used in densely populated areas because of the harm to civilians. Mr Ban said the Israeli attacks on UNRWA headquarters and two UN schools in Gaza, one of which killed 40 sheltering Palestinians, were "outrageous".
Amnesty International said Israel's repeated use of the munitions despite evidence of their indiscriminate effects and harm to civilians "is a war crime". The Israeli army has launched an investigation but says Hamas fighters operate from densely populated areas, and used UN buildings as cover for attacks.
Mr Ban said: "It has been especially troubling and heartbreaking for me as secretary general that I couldn't end this faster," he said. He urged Israel and Hamas to "exercise maximum restraint and nurture the ceasefire".
Anne Penketh
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/gaza-i-watched-an-israeli-soldier-shoot-dead-my-two-little-girls-1452294.html
By Donald Macintyre in Gaza CityWednesday, 21 January 2009
AP
Khaled Abed Rabbo in the remains of his family house, destroyed during the three-week Israeli offensive
A Palestinian father has claimed that he saw two of his young daughters shot dead and another critically injured by an Israeli soldier who emerged from a stationary tank and opened fire as the family obeyed an order from the Israeli forces to leave their home.
Khaled Abed Rabbo said Amal, aged two and Suad, seven, were killed by fire from the soldier's semi-automatic rifle. His third daughter, Samer, four, has been evacuated to intensive care in a Belgian hospital after suffering critical spinal injuries which he said were inflicted in the attack early in Israel's ground offensive.
Mr Abed Rabbo stood near the wreckage off his subsequently destroyed home on the eastern edge of the northern Gaza town of Jabalya yesterday and described how a tank had parked outside the building at 12.50pm on 7 January and ordered the family in Arabic through a megaphone to leave building. He said his 60-year-old mother had also been shot at as she left waving her white headscarf with her son, daughter in law and her three grandchildren.
"Two soldiers were on the tank eating chips, then one man came out of the tank with a rifle and started shooting the kids," Mr Abed Rabbo, who receives a salary as a policeman from the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in Ramallah said. The family say they think the weapon used by the soldier was an M16 and that the first to be shot was Amal. Mr Abed Rabbo said that Suad was then shot with what he claimed were 12 bullets, and then Samer.
The soldier who fired the rifle had what Mr Abed Rabbo thought were ringlets visible below his helmet, he said. The small minority of ultra-Orthodox Jews who serve in the army are in a unit which did not take part in the Gaza offensive and only a very small number of settlers who also favour that hairstyle serve in other units.
It has so far been impossible independently to verify Mr Abed Rabbo's claim and the military said last night Israeli Defence Forces "does not target civilians, only Hamas terrorists and infrastructure". It added: "The IDF is investigating various claims made with regard to Operation Cast Lead and at the end of its investigation will respond accordingly."
The district is named Abed Rabbo after the clan who live in most of it. The dense concrete roof of the house now hangs at more at more than a 45-degree angle, and at least three other substantial buildings have been flattened in the agricultural, semi-rural immediate neighbourhood. Khaled Abed Rabbo said that there had been a delay before the ambulance could reach the building because the road from the west had been made impassable by the churning of the tanks.
The soldiers had in the end let the family leave on foot, he said. He added that they walked two kilometres before finding a vehicle to take them to Kamal Adwan Hospital. He said: "I carried Suad, who was dead, my wife carried Amal and my brother Ibrahim carried Samer."
He added: "We are not Hamas. My children were not Hamas. And if they were going to shoot anyone it should have been me." He added: "I want the international community and the International Red Cross to ask Israel why it has done this to us. They talk about democracy but is it democracy to kill children? What did the kids do to them? What did my house do to them? They destroyed my life?
Gaza City is showing signs of returning to a form of normality as more shops reopen. The offices of the main Palestinian telephone company Jawwal reopened though this has not eased severe problems of connectivity on the Palestinian mobile network.
Some Hamas policemen were back directing traffic, though in smaller numbers than before the offensive. Unconfirmed figures are that 270 Hamas policemen were killed, mainly in the air attacks during the first week. In a victory rally in Gaza city yesterday, Hamas supporters converged on a square near the remains of the bombed parliament building..
'Heartbreaking': The ugly face of war
The UN secretary general, looking distressed, described the devastation of Gaza as "heartbreaking" on a visit to the area yesterday after the 22-day Israeli assault.
"I have seen only a fraction of the destruction," said Ban Ki-moon, as he stood in front of a UN warehouse set on fire by Israeli shells last Thursday. "This is shocking and alarming. These are heartbreaking scenes I have seen and I am deeply grieved by what I have seen today." he said.
Mr Ban demanded a full investigation into the Israeli shelling of the UN Relief and Works Agency compound. UN officials say the compound, still smouldering yesterday, was targeted by white phosphorus munitions which are not supposed to be used in densely populated areas because of the harm to civilians. Mr Ban said the Israeli attacks on UNRWA headquarters and two UN schools in Gaza, one of which killed 40 sheltering Palestinians, were "outrageous".
Amnesty International said Israel's repeated use of the munitions despite evidence of their indiscriminate effects and harm to civilians "is a war crime". The Israeli army has launched an investigation but says Hamas fighters operate from densely populated areas, and used UN buildings as cover for attacks.
Mr Ban said: "It has been especially troubling and heartbreaking for me as secretary general that I couldn't end this faster," he said. He urged Israel and Hamas to "exercise maximum restraint and nurture the ceasefire".
Anne Penketh
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/gaza-i-watched-an-israeli-soldier-shoot-dead-my-two-little-girls-1452294.html
Obama's Inauguration
Beware of Obama's Groundhog Day
In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger reckons 'Groundhog Day', the black comedy about time repeating itself, might be a parable for the Age of Obama - as the president-elect's major appointments turn out to be almost totally retro, without a single figure representing those who voted for him.One of the cleverest films I have seen is Groundhog Day, in which Bill Murray plays a TV weatherman who finds himself stuck in time. At first he deludes himself that the same day and the same people and the same circumstances offer new opportunities. Finally, his naivety and false hope desert him and he realises the truth of his predicament and escapes. Is this a parable for the age of Obama?Having campaigned with “Change you can believe in”, President-elect Barack Obama has named his A-team. They include Hillary Clinton, who voted to attack Iraq without reading the intelligence assessment and has since threatened to “totally obliterate” Iran on behalf of a foreign power, Israel. During his primary campaign, Obama referred repeatedly to Clinton’s lies about her political record. When he appointed her secretary of state, he called her “my dear friend”.Obama’s slogan is now “continuity”. His secretary of defence will be Robert Gates, who serves the lawless, blood-soaked Bush regime as secretary of defence, which means secretary of war (America last had to defend itself when the British invaded in 1812). Gates wants no date set for an Iraq withdrawal and “well north of 20,000” troops to be sent to Afghanistan. He also wants America to build a completely new nuclear arsenal, including “tactical” nuclear weapons that blur the distinction with conventional weapons.Another product of “continuity” is Obama’s first choice for CIA chief, John Brennan, who shares responsibility for the systematic kidnapping and torturing of people, known as “extraordinary rendition”. Obama has assigned Madeleine Albright to report on how to “strengthen US leadership in responding to genocide”. Albright, as secretary of state, was largely responsible for the siege of Iraq in the 1990s, described by the UN’s Denis Halliday as genocide.There is more continuity in Obama’s appointment of officials who will deal with the economic piracy that brought down Wall Street and impoverished millions. As in Bill Murray’s nightmare, they are the same officials who caused it. For example, Lawrence Summers will run the National Economic Council. As treasury secretary, according to the New York Times, he “championed the law that deregulated derivatives, the... instruments – aka toxic assets – that have spread financial losses [and] refused to heed critics who warned of dangers to come”.There is logic here. Contrary to myth, Obama’s campaign was funded largely by rapacious capital, such as Citigroup and others responsible for the sub-prime mortgage scandal, whose victims were mostly African Americans and other poor people.Is this a grand betrayal? Obama has never hidden his record as a man of a system described by Martin Luther King as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”. Obama’s dalliance as a soft critic of the disaster in Iraq was in line with most Establishment opinion that it was “dumb”. His fans include the war criminals Tony Blair, who has “hailed” his appointments, and Henry Kissinger, who describes the appointment of Hillary Clinton as “outstanding”. One of John McCain’s principal advisers, Max Boot, who is on the Republican Party’s far right, said: “I am “gobsmacked by these appointments. [They] could just as easily have come from a President McCain.”Obama’s victory is historic, not only because he will be the first black president, but because he tapped in to a great popular movement among America’s minorities and the young outside the Democratic Party. In 2006 Latinos, the country’s largest minority, took America by surprise when they poured into the cities to protest against George W Bush’s draconian immigration laws. They chanted: “Si, se puede!” (“Yes we can!”), a slogan Obama later claimed as his own. His secretary for homeland security is Janet Napolitano who, as governor of Arizona, made her name by stoking hostility against Latino immigrants. She has militarised her state’s border with Mexico and supported the building of a hideous wall, similar to the one dividing occupied Palestine.On election eve, reported Gallup, most Obama supporters were “engaged” but “deeply pessimistic about the country’s future direction”. My guess is that many people knew what was coming, but hoped for the best. In exploiting this hope, Obama has all but neutered the anti-war movement that is historically allied to the Democrats. After all, who can argue with the symbol of the first black president in this country of slavery, regardless of whether he is a warmonger? As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, Obama is a “brand” like none other, having won the highest advertising campaign accolade and attracted unprecedented sums of money. The brand will sell for a while. He will close Guantanamo Bay, whose inmates represent less than one per cent of America’s 27,000 “ghost prisoners”. He will continue to make stirring, platitudinous speeches, but the tears will dry as people understand that President Obama is the latest manager of an ideological machine that transcends electoral power. Asked what his supporters would do when reality intruded, Stephen Walt, an Obama adviser, said: “They have nowhere else to go.”Not yet. If there is a happy ending to the Groundhog Day of repeated wars and plunder, it may well be found in the very mass movement whose enthusiasts registered voters and knocked on doors and brought Obama to power. Will they now be satisfied as spectators to the cynicism of “continuity”? In less than three months, millions of angry Americans have been politicised by the spectacle of billions of dollars of handouts to Wall Street as they struggle to save their jobs and homes. It as if seeds have begun to sprout beneath the political snow. And history, like Groundhog Day, can repeat itself. Few predicted the epoch-making events of the 1960s and the speed with which they happened. As a beneficiary of that time, Obama should know that when the blinkers are removed, anything is possible.
John Pilger
He is a world-renowned journalist, author and documentary filmmaker, who began his career in 1958 in his homeland, Australia, before moving to London in the 1960s.
In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger reckons 'Groundhog Day', the black comedy about time repeating itself, might be a parable for the Age of Obama - as the president-elect's major appointments turn out to be almost totally retro, without a single figure representing those who voted for him.One of the cleverest films I have seen is Groundhog Day, in which Bill Murray plays a TV weatherman who finds himself stuck in time. At first he deludes himself that the same day and the same people and the same circumstances offer new opportunities. Finally, his naivety and false hope desert him and he realises the truth of his predicament and escapes. Is this a parable for the age of Obama?Having campaigned with “Change you can believe in”, President-elect Barack Obama has named his A-team. They include Hillary Clinton, who voted to attack Iraq without reading the intelligence assessment and has since threatened to “totally obliterate” Iran on behalf of a foreign power, Israel. During his primary campaign, Obama referred repeatedly to Clinton’s lies about her political record. When he appointed her secretary of state, he called her “my dear friend”.Obama’s slogan is now “continuity”. His secretary of defence will be Robert Gates, who serves the lawless, blood-soaked Bush regime as secretary of defence, which means secretary of war (America last had to defend itself when the British invaded in 1812). Gates wants no date set for an Iraq withdrawal and “well north of 20,000” troops to be sent to Afghanistan. He also wants America to build a completely new nuclear arsenal, including “tactical” nuclear weapons that blur the distinction with conventional weapons.Another product of “continuity” is Obama’s first choice for CIA chief, John Brennan, who shares responsibility for the systematic kidnapping and torturing of people, known as “extraordinary rendition”. Obama has assigned Madeleine Albright to report on how to “strengthen US leadership in responding to genocide”. Albright, as secretary of state, was largely responsible for the siege of Iraq in the 1990s, described by the UN’s Denis Halliday as genocide.There is more continuity in Obama’s appointment of officials who will deal with the economic piracy that brought down Wall Street and impoverished millions. As in Bill Murray’s nightmare, they are the same officials who caused it. For example, Lawrence Summers will run the National Economic Council. As treasury secretary, according to the New York Times, he “championed the law that deregulated derivatives, the... instruments – aka toxic assets – that have spread financial losses [and] refused to heed critics who warned of dangers to come”.There is logic here. Contrary to myth, Obama’s campaign was funded largely by rapacious capital, such as Citigroup and others responsible for the sub-prime mortgage scandal, whose victims were mostly African Americans and other poor people.Is this a grand betrayal? Obama has never hidden his record as a man of a system described by Martin Luther King as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”. Obama’s dalliance as a soft critic of the disaster in Iraq was in line with most Establishment opinion that it was “dumb”. His fans include the war criminals Tony Blair, who has “hailed” his appointments, and Henry Kissinger, who describes the appointment of Hillary Clinton as “outstanding”. One of John McCain’s principal advisers, Max Boot, who is on the Republican Party’s far right, said: “I am “gobsmacked by these appointments. [They] could just as easily have come from a President McCain.”Obama’s victory is historic, not only because he will be the first black president, but because he tapped in to a great popular movement among America’s minorities and the young outside the Democratic Party. In 2006 Latinos, the country’s largest minority, took America by surprise when they poured into the cities to protest against George W Bush’s draconian immigration laws. They chanted: “Si, se puede!” (“Yes we can!”), a slogan Obama later claimed as his own. His secretary for homeland security is Janet Napolitano who, as governor of Arizona, made her name by stoking hostility against Latino immigrants. She has militarised her state’s border with Mexico and supported the building of a hideous wall, similar to the one dividing occupied Palestine.On election eve, reported Gallup, most Obama supporters were “engaged” but “deeply pessimistic about the country’s future direction”. My guess is that many people knew what was coming, but hoped for the best. In exploiting this hope, Obama has all but neutered the anti-war movement that is historically allied to the Democrats. After all, who can argue with the symbol of the first black president in this country of slavery, regardless of whether he is a warmonger? As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, Obama is a “brand” like none other, having won the highest advertising campaign accolade and attracted unprecedented sums of money. The brand will sell for a while. He will close Guantanamo Bay, whose inmates represent less than one per cent of America’s 27,000 “ghost prisoners”. He will continue to make stirring, platitudinous speeches, but the tears will dry as people understand that President Obama is the latest manager of an ideological machine that transcends electoral power. Asked what his supporters would do when reality intruded, Stephen Walt, an Obama adviser, said: “They have nowhere else to go.”Not yet. If there is a happy ending to the Groundhog Day of repeated wars and plunder, it may well be found in the very mass movement whose enthusiasts registered voters and knocked on doors and brought Obama to power. Will they now be satisfied as spectators to the cynicism of “continuity”? In less than three months, millions of angry Americans have been politicised by the spectacle of billions of dollars of handouts to Wall Street as they struggle to save their jobs and homes. It as if seeds have begun to sprout beneath the political snow. And history, like Groundhog Day, can repeat itself. Few predicted the epoch-making events of the 1960s and the speed with which they happened. As a beneficiary of that time, Obama should know that when the blinkers are removed, anything is possible.
John Pilger
He is a world-renowned journalist, author and documentary filmmaker, who began his career in 1958 in his homeland, Australia, before moving to London in the 1960s.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
THE ISRAELIS PRACTICE THE SAME TACTICS
The classic propaganda machine - you will find the picture in black and white in all American and some other western countries' history books, encyclopedias, libraries and museums. This photo depicts a young Jewish boy with his hands up while Nazi troops point their guns at him an his family in order to expel them from their homes. (It's meant to make you sympathise with the victims and support their cause for justice and homeland.
BUILDING WALLS & FENCES TO KEEP PEOPLE IN PRISONS
CHECK POINTS NOT TO ALLOW PEOPLE BASIC
DESTROYING HOMES & LIVELIHOODS
GIFTS (WITH LOVE) FROM THE CHILDREN OF
PEACE-LOVING & CIVILIZED COUNTRIES
THE ISRAELIS PRACTICE THE SAME TACTICS
BUILDING WALLS & FENCES TO KEEP PEOPLE IN PRISONS
CHECK POINTS NOT TO ALLOW PEOPLE BASIC
FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT
ARRESTS & HARASSMENTS
ARRESTS & HARASSMENTS
DESTROYING HOMES & LIVELIHOODS
GIFTS (WITH LOVE) FROM THE CHILDREN OF
PEACE-LOVING & CIVILIZED COUNTRIES
THE ISRAELIS PRACTICE THE SAME TACTICS
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