Articles

NATO Strikes Kill 32 Afghan Civilians and 20 Police
May 30, 2011
Pakistan & Kashmir
NOVANEWS     antiwar.com NATO air strikes have killed at least 52 Afghans over the past 24 hours, including 32 ...Read more
Arab League to seek full UN membership for Palestinian state
May 30, 2011
Middle East
NOVANEWS   At General Assembly meeting in New York in September, Arab League will request that UN recognize a Palestinian ...Read more
Zio-Nazi ministers slam Rafah reopening
May 30, 2011
Gaza | Palestine Affairs | ZIO-NAZI
NOVANEWS     Zio-Nazi ministers on Sunday slammed Egypt’s decision to reopen its Rafah border crossing with Egypt, warning that ...Read more
Nazi's Forced Palestinian To Demolish His Own Home In Jerusalem
May 30, 2011
Human Rights
NOVANEWS   Zio-Nazi Gestapo  forced Mahmoud Aramin to demolish his house in East Jerusalem Sunday, or risk having it destroyed ...Read more
Sa'adat: The Palestinian people will lead forward our struggle for liberation and return
May 30, 2011
Human Rights
NOVANEWS   (Reported by Ali Samoudi, Jenin - Photos of May 28 prisoner support rally) May 28, 2011 - Ahmad ...Read more
PALESTINIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ZIO-NAZI CAMP'S
May 30, 2011
Human Rights
NOVANEWS   THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM WHO ARE ThE PALESTINIAN PRISONERS? There are, today, approximately 5,600 Palestinian political prisoners. Palestinians, ...Read more
Sa'adat salutes popular leadership in the Palestinian Movement
May 30, 2011
Human Rights
NOVANEWS Sa'adat salutes popular leadership in the Palestinian Movement + New Flyer for use by organizers!   The Campaign to ...Read more
Reflection: Healing the Trees
May 30, 2011
Human Rights
NOVANEWS   by Carol Tyx We start slowly, our delegation members, several men, a handful of women, a sprinkling of ...Read more
Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki: the US is a tyrant, and tyrants across history have all had terrible ends
May 30, 2011
Politics
NOVANEWS   Publication time: 16 April 2010,   The US has accused the US-born Yemen-based religious scholar Anwar al-Awlaki of ...Read more
The United Nations is an international terrorist organization
May 30, 2011
Politics
NOVANEWS   The United Nations flag with the grid over the globe is an important clue for those who monitor ...Read more
Obama snatches defeat from jaws of victory
May 30, 2011
USA
NOVANEWS   As the news of Osama bin Laden's death filtered out onto the streets of America it triggered unsightly ...Read more
U.S., Pakistan near open war; Chinese firmly warn Washington
May 30, 2011
Pakistan & Kashmir
NOVANEWS   China has officially put the United States on notice that Washington's planned attack on Pakistan will be interpreted ...Read more

NATO Strikes Kill 32 Afghan Civilians and 20 Police

NOVANEWS
 

 
antiwar.com

NATO air strikes have killed at least 52 Afghans over the past 24 hours, including 32 civilians and 20 members of the police. The deaths came in two strikes, one in the Helmand Province and another in Nuristan.

The Helmand strike, late Saturday, saw NATO attack helicopters destroy a pair of homes, killing 2 women and 12 children. The strikes also wounded six other civilians. Helmand’s governor’s office said the attack came after a nearby US Marine base was struck by insurgents.

The other strike came on Sunday, in the Nuristan Province. Here, US warplanes responded to reports of a battle between insurgents and security forces by opening fire on a group of people they assumed were insurgents. The people turned out to be a group of 18 civilians and 20 police.

The deaths, which Nuristan Governor Jamaluddin Badr termed “friendly fire,” came after the Taliban reportedly ran out of ammunition and fled the clashes in the district. NATO has promised to investigate both series killings.

Arab League to seek full UN membership for Palestinian state

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At General Assembly meeting in New York in September, Arab League will request that UN recognize a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Reuters

An Arab League committee decided on Saturday to seek full UN membership for a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital, it said in a statement.

The Arab League’s peace process follow-up committee said it would request membership for the state of Palestine at the UN General Assembly’s meeting in New York in September.

Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani speaks as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (L) listens on during the opening of the Arab League Monitoring Committee in Doha on May 28, 2011.

“The committee decided to go to the United Nations to request full membership for Palestine on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital,” it said in a statement.

Earlier on Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said there were “no shared foundations” for peace talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and seeking UN recognition of Palestinian statehood was his only option.

Abbas expressed concern that taking the diplomatic step opposed by the United States and Israel could result in financial sanctions and urged Arab states to fill any gap.

While he left room for a compromise, saying a resumption of peace talks on terms acceptable to the Palestinians would avoid the UN move, the remarks were some of Abbas’s bleakest yet on the likelihood of more negotiations.

Palestinian leaders have said Netanyahu’s ideas for peace with the Palestinians, outlined in a speech to the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, put more obstacles in the path of an already moribund peace process.

“We see from the conditions that Netanyahu laid out that there are no shared foundations … for negotiations. Our fundamental option is to go to the United Nations,” Abbas said in his opening remarks.

“This is no secret, we have said it to the Americans and the Europeans and the Israelis, our only option is to go to the United Nations,” he said.

Zio-Nazi ministers slam Rafah reopening

NOVANEWS
 

 
Zio-Nazi ministers on Sunday slammed Egypt’s decision to reopen its Rafah border crossing with Egypt, warning that terror groups would be able to move weapons and people freely through the crossing.
Zio-Nazi regime has warned that reopening the crossing, which Egypt closed to almost all traffic in 2007, would boost Hamas, the Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip and is designated a’ terror’ group by IsraHell, the United States and Europe.
”The free movement of people and cargo that will take place is simply going to be used in a more intensive manner to bring in ammunition and military equipment and moreover the free movement of terrorists,” Zio-Nazi Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau told reporters.
Cairo first announced in April that it planned to reopen the border, after Hamas signed a deal with rival Palestinian movement Fatah, ending a four-year rift that led to Egypt’s closure of the Rafah crossing.
The closure came despite a 2005 agreement between Zionist and the Palestinian Puppet’s that saw the European Union agree to place monitors at the border crossing.
Although Cairo was not a signatory to the accord, Zio-Nazi ministers on Sunday accused Egypt of violating the deal by reopening the border.
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said Egypt’s decision to reopen the crossing over Zionist’s objections showed that the Zio-Nazi Jewish state could not rely on other nations to protect its borders.
”This is very strong proof of why it is so important for Israel to guard our borders by ourselves to prevent the infiltration of terrorists and weapons,” he said at the beginning of a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem
He said the border reopening was also proof that Zionist needed to maintain control over the Jordan Valley under any peace agreement with the Palestinians, describing the 2005 border deal as “not worth the paper its written on.”
Landau called the reopening a “very regrettable development.”
”Agreements signed have to be respected and I wish to see the entire international community saying very clearly this abrogation of the agreement by Egypt cannot be accepted,” he added.
Though Egypt was not party to the 2005 deal, Zionist Hosni Mu-Barak and his foreign minister insisted they were obliged to comply with it.
The accord put Rafah under Egyptian and Palestinian control, with the EU observers taking up their positions at the crossing in November 2005 in a bid to prevent the free passage of weapons or personnel into the enclave.
But, seven months later, their mission was abruptly suspended following the capture of Zio-Nazi soldier Gilad Shalit, prompting the Zio-Nazi to impose a tight blockade on the territory.
The crossing remained largely closed from June 2006 to June 2010, when Egypt partially opened it in the wake of a botched Nazi raid on a aid flotilla that was trying to reach Gaza, which killed nine Turkish activists.

 

Nazi's Forced Palestinian To Demolish His Own Home In Jerusalem

NOVANEWS
 
Zio-Nazi Gestapo  forced Mahmoud Aramin to demolish his house in East Jerusalem Sunday, or risk having it destroyed by an Nazi bulldozer, which would have resulted in an exorbitant fine.
Aramin had already paid thousands of dollars in fines to the Jerusalem municipality in monthly installments, for having built an ‘unlicensed’ house in East Jerusalem. Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem have not been granted building permits since 1967, and face  demolitions of their homes by Zio-Nazi Gestapo.
The forced demolition comes just days after the Zio-Nazi Gestapo  authorized the construction of a 50-unit Nazi settlement in the Ras al-Amoud neighborhood of East Jerusalem, not far from the home of Mahmoud Aramin.
According to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, “Since 1967, around 2,000 homes have been demolished in East Jerusalem. According to official statistics, from 2000 – 2008 the Zio-Nazi regime demolished more than 670 East Jerusalem homes. The number of outstanding demolition orders is estimated at up to 20,000.”
The Committee also stated that even though Palestinians represent about 30% of Jerusalem’s population they are currently confined to reside in just 7% of the city’s area, in mostly inadequate housing. The master plan for Jerusalem follows Zio-Nazi regime and Jerusalem Municipality policy of demographic and ethnic control, aimed at preserving demographics in the city at 70% Jewish to 30% Arab. This policy is clearly stated on the Jerusalem Municipality’s website.

 

Sa'adat: The Palestinian people will lead forward our struggle for liberation and return

NOVANEWS


 

(Reported by Ali Samoudi, Jenin – Photos of May 28 prisoner support rally)

May 28, 2011 – Ahmad Sa’adat, imprisoned Palestinian leader, member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, issued a statement from his isolation cell in Nafha prison on May 24, 2011. Sa’adat’s letter marked the anniversary of the Nakba and sent condolences to the entire Palestinian people, and particularly the Palestinian community in exile and diaspora, for the “martyrs of Return” who gave their lives in Jerusalem, the occupied Syrian Golan, Lebanon and Gaza on May 15, 2011, when they were killed by Israeli occupation forces as they protested in mass actions commemorating the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba and demanding the implementation of Palestinian refugees’ right of return.

Sa’adat presented his statement to attorney Buthaina Duqmaq, President of the Mandela Foundation for Prisoners and Detainees, who visited him at Nafha. In his comments, he urged the entire Palestinian people to struggle to establish unity in order to move forward in the collective Palestinian national struggle to achieve common goals – return, liberation and self-determination.

Ahmad Sa’adat has been held in Israeli occupation prisons since March 14, 2006, when he was abducted by force from the Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho, where he had been held for four years under U.S. and British guard, charged with no crime. He has been held in isolation since March 2009.

Sa’adat spoke to the May 15 marches for return, saying that “the popular energy of May 15 can lead our nation in a new direction, through national unity and rebuilding the Palestinian house – particularly the PLO and its political and social unions that are the common property of our entire people, everywhere they are – and by the Palestinian leadership rising to the level set by our people, to struggle and break free of reliance or betting on the United States or other forms of authority.”

He emphasized the need to end the “negotiations” and so-called “peace process” and to prioritize instead the aspirations and goals of the Palestinian people, saying that the negotiations stem from a clear imbalance of power that is heavily weighted in favor of the interests of the occupation and its allies, the imperialist countries. He said that the Palestinian people could benefit greatly from the new Arab spring that has enlivened the energies and imagination of the Arab nation, which presents a better future for the Arab nation and Arab people, leaving aside dependence and servility and recovering Arab sovereignty, freedom, independence and unity and paving the way for democratic development and collective economic and social prosperity.

Buthaina Duqmaq reported that Sa’adat had high morale despite the conditions of isolation; she noted that he had been deprived of all rights, including family visits and communication with fellow prisoners, yet showed a high level of optimism in light of the news of change and revolution in the Arab world and its potential to support the Palestinian people and their struggle.

Sa’adat commented that “Current circumstances are reshaping our region, and we believe it will be in a direction that serves our cause and our people. These circumstances also lead us to raise our level of confrontation with the occupier and its aggression and rejection of our rights – a commonality shared by all Zionist parties at all levels.”

Sa’adat said that he has great faith in the ability of the Palestinian people to lead where the leadership has failed, saying that these “failed leaders must step aside and recognize that the way forward is the movement of the people,” calling for “action and struggle without restrictions or barriers by any authority, to confront the occupation, on a program of popular resistance and mass mobilization that responds to the diverse interests of our people at every moment and at every time in our cause.”

He also spoke about his own isolation, saying that it is part of an attempt to break the morale and steadfastness of Palestinian prisoners, and that his isolation is a tactic of revenge and has nothing to do with “security reasons.” He described the isolation of prisoners from their fellow prisoners and their environment as an attempt at “slow execution,” killing prisoners “socially if not biologically,” noting that this was the motivation of the Israeli prison administration.

Despite this, Sa’adat said, “We continue to live. We know the reasons for their actions, and our very presence – even in their prisons – continues to defy and confront occupation. We will not allow the occupiers to achieve their goals. This is a battle of wills, and it is part of the great battle of wills in which our people are engaged, to obtain national and historical rights and defeat the ccupation. As will our people, we will win this battle by our stronger will, but also because the movement of history and society is in favor of justice and liberation, despite the occupier’s force of arms.” Sa’adat concluded by saying he is satisfied that the occupier cannot kill the Palestinian movement, either in prisons or outside, in Palestine or in exile. “They will reap the failure of all their efforts; they do not weaken us,” he said, “but they will only give us greater strength.”

Protests will be held May 28, 2011 in Ramallah and Gaza, calling for the release of all Palestinian prisoners and, in particular, the freedom of Ahmad Sa’adat. Photos below and above from May 28 protests:

PALESTINIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ZIO-NAZI CAMP'S

NOVANEWS

 

THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM WHO ARE ThE PALESTINIAN PRISONERS?

There are, today, approximately 5,600 Palestinian political prisoners. Palestinians, living under occupation and oppression for over 63 years, have been targetedrelentlessly for imprisonment and detention by the Israeli occupation. Nearly every Palestinian family has been touched by political imprisonment. Since the extension of the occupation of Palestine to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, over 650,000 Palestinians have been taken prisoner – one out of every four Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza.

Forty percent of male Palestinians in the West Bank and Gazahave spent time in occupation jails. Palestinians’ arrest and detention are covered by Israeli military regulations; there are over 1500 of these regulations, which can be altered at any timeby the regional Israeli military commander, creating new regulations to which Palestinians must adhere under threat of arrest and imprisonment. At least half of these prisoners have never been tried. Those who have been tried face a military trial, in which three military judges – two of which are not required to be trained in law – pass judgment on Palestinians’ right to live, to organize and to resist military occupation.

PALESTINIAN CHILD PRISONERS:

At the age of 12, Palestinian children may appear before military courts, and at the age of 16, may be tried fully as adults. (In Israeli courts, adulthood begins at 18 for Israelis charged with criminal offenses.) There are no juvenile prisons, and Palestinian children often serve their sentences in the same cells as adults. Over 6000 Palestinian children have been detained since 2000, and there are 217 imprisoned Palestinians under 18 at the present time. They share the same treatment – torture and abuse – as their adult fellow prisoners, in contravention of international law concerning the rights of children.AdmINISTRATIVE dETENTION:

ARBITRARY DETENTION WITH OUT CHARGE OR TRIAL:

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli military commanders can detain an individual for up to six months without charge or trial. On or just before the expiry date, the detention order is frequently renewed. This process can be continued indefinitely. Administrative detention is often used against Palestinian writers, advocates, or community organizers who are difficult to charge in military court. Administrative detention orders are issued either at the time of arrest or at some later date and are often based on secret evidence. Neither the detainee, nor the detainee’s lawyers are given access to the secret evidence.There are 221 Palestinians in administrative detention currently, including those who have been held for up to 4 years with no charge under repeated secret detention orders, and 9 elected parliamentarians of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

ABUSE AND TORTURE :

A Palestinian may be detained and interrogated constantly for up to twelve days without being brought before a judge or even informed why s/he is held. Following this period, the prisoner may be brought before a military judge and charged, sent to administrative detention or released. A Palestinian detainee may go through an initial 180-day period of interrogation; for the first 60 days of that period, he or she may not be seen by an attorney. The use of “moderate physical pressure” in Israeli interrogations is accepted, legal and common. Legalized torture in Israeli jails includes the use of shortshackling, “stress position,” beatings and squeezing of handcuffs, as well as sleep deprivation, humiliation and threats, and many other documented tactics of abuse Ahmad Sa’adat is a Palestinian political leader, an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the THE CASE OF AHMAD SA’ADATGeneral Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Palestinian leftist political party and the secondlargest organization in the Palestine Liberation Organization.

He is currently serving a 30-year life sentence in an Israeli prison, convicted on political charges related to his public advocacy and political activity – and has been, since March 2009, held in the isolation/solitary confinement cells of Israeli prisons since that time, denied family visits, reading materials and access to his fellow prisoners. Sa’adat was abducted with four of his comrades in an Israeli military raid on the Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho on March 14, 2006. Born in 1953, Sa’adat is the child of refugees expelled from their home in the village of Deir Tarif, near Ramleh, in 1948.

A math teacher by training, he is married to Abla Sa’adat, herself a noted activist, and is the father of four children. Abla Sa’adat was herself arrested and detained for four months, and prevented from leaving Palestine to speak about Palestinian rights at an international conference. He has been involved in the Palestinian national movement since 1967, when he became active in the student movement. Prior to his abduction from Jericho in 2006, he had been held at various times as a political prisoner in Israeli jails, for a total of ten years.

Sa’adat was elected General Secretary of the PFLP in 2001, following the Israeli assassination of thenGeneral Secretary Abu Ali Mustafa in his office in Ramallah on August 27, 2001. He was kidnapped by the Palestinian Authority in February 2002. For the entire period of Sa’adat’s imprisonment in the PA jails, he had been convicted of no crime; his sentencing- in an illegitimate military court of occupation – came nearly seven years into his detention, after a trial that began after five years of PA/US/British, then Israeli, imprisonment.Sa’adat has become a national Palestinian symbol of prisoner steadfastness, through his rejection of Israeli military courts and leadership in the prisoners’ movement.On March 18, 2009, Ahmad Sa’adat was suddenly transferred from Hadarim prison and to Asqelan prison, into solitary confinement, following his widely distributed public statements saluting the resilience of Palestinians in Gaza in the face of Operation Cast Lead.

A severe set of sanctions has been directed at Sa’adat, including denial of family visits, denial of visits to the prison canteen, and fines. These punishments come in addition to an earlier set of draconian sanctions directed at Sa’adat as a result of his leadership in the prisoners’ movement.His isolation has been extended repeatedly, most recently on May 3, 2011. He has now spent over 775 days in isolation. Sa’adat met this news with a call for urgent and systematic action in Palestine and internationally to demand freedom for Palestinian prisoners, and particularly, to confront the “living death” of isolation and solitary confinement. Isolation is well-known to have severe psychological effects. As Sa’adat said, isolation kills prisoners “socially if not physically.” ISOLATION: “SLOW DEATH”The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat info@freeahmadsaadat.orgLearn More & Take Action:

www.freeahmadsaadat.org

 

Sa'adat salutes popular leadership in the Palestinian Movement

NOVANEWS

Sa’adat salutes popular leadership in the Palestinian Movement +
New Flyer for use by organizers!

 

The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat has released a new flyer and factsheet for use by advocates and organizers in solidarity with Sa’adat and Palestinian political prisoners.  (Download PDF)

The 2-sided flyer discusses the Palestinian prisoners, the situation of child prisoners, torture and abuse, and administrative detention, as well as the case of Ahmad Sa’adat, the use of isolation, and a quote from Sa’adat. Download the flyer for use in your own protests, meetings, events and activities!

Following his continued isolation on May 3, 2011, Sa’adat has continued to be denied family visits and other basic rights. He met with attorney Buthaina Duqmaq on May 23, 2011, and sent a statement through her to the Palestinian people and their supporters around the world, saluting the “martyrs of return” who were killed in Jerusalem, the occupied Syrian Golan, Lebanon, and Gaza on Nakba Day by Israeli military forces as they engaged in mass protests for the implementation of Palestinian refugees’ right of return.

Sa’adat discussed the May 15 marches for return, saying that “the popular energy of May 15 can lead our nation in a new direction, through national unity…and by the Palestinian leadership rising to the level set by our people, to struggle and break free of reliance or betting on the United States or other forms of authority.” He said that the Palestinian people could benefit greatly from the new Arab spring that has enlivened the energies and imagination of the Arab nation, which presents a better future for the Arab nation and Arab people, leaving aside dependence and servility and recovering Arab sovereignty, freedom, independence and unity and paving the way for democratic development and collective economic and social prosperity.

Sa’adat said that he has great faith in the ability of the Palestinian people to lead where the leadership has failed, saying that these “failed leaders must step aside and recognize that the way forward is the movement of the people,” calling for “action and struggle without restrictions or barriers by any authority, to confront the occupation, on a program of popular resistance and mass mobilization…”

He also spoke about his own isolation, saying that it is part of an attempt to break the morale and steadfastness of Palestinian prisoners, and that his isolation is a tactic of revenge and has nothing to do with “security reasons.” He described the isolation of prisoners from their fellow prisoners and their environment as an attempt at “slow execution,” killing prisoners “socially if not biologically,” noting that this was the motivation of the Israeli prison administration.

Sa’adat concluded by saying he is satisfied that the occupier cannot kill the Palestinian movement, either in prisons or outside, in Palestine or in exile. “They will reap the failure of all their efforts; they do not weaken us,” he said, “but they will only give us greater strength.”

CLICK HERE to read the full article about Sa’adat’s comments.

For over two years, Ahmad Sa’adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been held in isolation in the occupation prisons. He has been regularly regularly denied family visits, denied access to books or reading mateial, and denied basic exercise and medical care. Sa’adat was kidnapped by the Israeli occupation army on March 14, 2006 from where he and his comrades, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Majdi Rimawi, Basil al-Asmar, and Hamdi Qur’an, were imprisoned in the Palestinian Authority’s Jericho Prison under U.S. and British guards. The U.S. and British guards removed themselves immediately prior to the Israeli attack, making clear that the U.S. and the U.K. were directly complicit in the attack on Jericho. Sa’adat, the leader of a major Palestinian political party and an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, had been h eld in Israeli prisons for nearly six years at various times, held repeatedly in “administrative detention,” where Palestinians are held without charge or trial under secret evidence. He was held in PA prisons for four years before his kidnapping and has now been held in the occupation’s prisons for five years.

CLICK HERE to download the new flyer for use in your advocacy.

Ahmad Sa’adat is not only a national leader of the Palestinian people, he is a recognized leader and symbol of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement – a symbol of steadfastness and commitment to Palestine and its people in the face of all forms of abuse and violation. However, neither Ahmad Sa’adat, nor the Palestinian prisoners, nor the Palestinian people, have been compelled into silence or submission by isolation and torture. Rather, their voice is heard, more clearly than ever, calling for justice, freedom, and liberation.

Please write us at info@freeahmadsaadat.org to inform us about actions or events in support of Palestinian political prisoners. We encourage you to hold educational events, demonstrations and activities in support of Palestinian prisoners and distribute information about Ahmad Sa’adat, Palestinian prisoners, and the Palestinian cause.

The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org/
info@freeahmadsaadat.org
Twitter:http://twitter.com/freeahmadsaadat

Reflection: Healing the Trees

NOVANEWS

 

by Carol Tyx

We start slowly, our delegation members, several men, a handful of women, a sprinkling of children. As we walk out of the Palestinian village of At-Tuwani the procession grows, women cutting across fields, children scrambling down hillsides.  Some of the boys carry hoes; the women swing buckets; a young child waves a Palestinian flag.  We are on our way to a small olive orchard in the valley to take part in a healing ritual, but the conversation, in Arabic, sounds chatty, neighbors exchanging the tidbits that make up daily life.  A few of the children try to bring us into the loop with their schoolroom English; we try a few Arabic phrases.

When we reach the orchard, we pause.  I know in my head that Israeli settlers who live across the valley from At-Tuwani sometimes sneak down at night and chop down the villagers’ olive trees.  But seeing the wounded trees myself cuts more deeply. The breaks are jagged, branches twisting off the trunk, the silver-green leaves curling in the dust.  Ten trees have been hacked off, an attempt to chop down Palestinian life in the South Hebron Hills.

The settlements in the West Bank, built on Palestinian land, are largely populated by Israelis who believe all of this land should be part of Israel.  They are squatters, protected by the Israeli military.  We witness this as we approach the orchard; two, then three, then four military jeeps appear; soldiers carrying automatic weapons hop out.  One person on the CPT team on alert for potential violence, positions himself between the villagers and the soldiers; a youthful Palestinian shoots video, part of a recent campaign to document the occupation.

We work together to stack the severed limbs.  With the hoes, people etch trenches around the wounded stumps.  A woman opens a nearby cistern and pulls up a bucket of water.  The water flows into the trenches, nourishing the trees. Even though it will be at least five years before the trees can bear fruit again, I feel the healing beginning, in the trees and in the villagers.  I am honored to be walking with this community on a hot May morning, a community with deep roots in this land, roots that sustain them in the daily struggle to maintain their homes and livelihoods.

Photos of the action at: http://cpt.org/index.php?q=gallery&g2_itemId=23220

CPT-Palestine in At-Tuwani,
South Hebron Hills
Twitter @cptpalestine

 

Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki: the US is a tyrant, and tyrants across history have all had terrible ends

NOVANEWS

 

Publication time: 16 April 2010,
 

The US has accused the US-born Yemen-based religious scholar Anwar al-Awlaki of being linked to an attack on a military base in Texas and the alleged attempt to blow up a passenger plane over Detroit on Christmas Day.

US officials accuse al-Awlaki of either inciting or ideologically influencing Major Nidal Hasan, a US army psychiatrist who shot dead 13 people at the Fort Hood military base in November, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian suspect in the attempted bombing of a US-bound plane.

In this interview with Al Jazeera Arabic, al-Awlaki says he supports the failed bombing of the plane but did not encourage the attack.

Al Jazeera: The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have quoted CIA investigators as talking about the possibility of targeting you in a drone attack. Why do you think the Americans want to kill you?

Awlaki: Because I am a Muslim and I promote Islam. The charge is “incitement”; my relationships with Nidal Hasan, Umar Farouk and some 9/11 attackers, and now I am accused of being linked to 14 cases. All this comes as part of the attempt to liquidate the voices that call for defending the rights of the Umma [Muslim nation].

They reject the principle of pride and demanding justice, they want to promote the principle of humiliation and compliance. They want to market the democratic and peaceful US Islam that calls for obeying the superiors even if they were traitors and collaborators, they want an Islam that recognises the occupation and deals with it, they want an Islam that has no sharia ruling, no jihad and no Islamic caliphate.

We call for the Islam that was sent by Allah to Prophet Muhammad, the Islam of jihad and sharia ruling. Any voice that calls for this Islam, they either kill the person or the character; they kill the person by murdering or jailing them, or they kill the character by distorting their image in the media.

Al Jazeera: Have you met Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and did you issue a fatwa [a religious edict] allowing him to carry out the operation?

Awlaki: My fellow mujahid [a Muslim engaged in jihad] Umar Farouk, may Allah free him, is one of my students, and yes there was some contact between me and him, but I did not issue a fatwa allowing him to carry out this operation.

Al Jazeera: Does describing him as a “mujahid” mean you support what he did?

Awlaki: Yes, I support what Umar Farouk has done after I have been seeing my brothers being killed in Palestine for more than 60 years, and others being killed in Iraq and in Afghanistan. And in my tribe too, US missiles have killed 17 women and 23 children, so do not ask me if al-Qaeda has killed or blown up a US civil jet after all this. The 300 Americans are nothing comparing to the thousands of Muslims who have been killed.

Al Jazeera: You have supported Nidal Malik Hasan and justified his act by saying that his target was a military not a civilian one. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s plane was a civilian one, which means the target was the US public?

Awlaki: It would have been better if the plane was a military one or if it was a US military target. Al-Qaeda organisation has its options, and the American people live [in] a democratic system and that is why they are held responsible for their policies.

The American people are the ones who have voted twice for Bush the criminal and elected Obama who is not different from Bush as his first remarks stated that he would not abandon Israel, despite the fact that there were other anti-war candidates in the US elections, but they won very few votes. The American people take part in all its government’s crimes.

If they oppose that, let them change their government. They pay the taxes which are spent on the army and they send their sons to the military, and that is why they bear responsibility.

Al Jazeera: Do you think Yemen’s government would facilitate your assassination?

Awlaki: The Yemeni government sells its citizens to the United States, to earn the ill-gotten funds it begs the West for in return for their blood. The Yemeni officials tell the Americans to strike whatever they want and ask them not to announce responsibility for the attacks to avoid people’s rage, and then the Yemeni government shamelessly adopt these attacks.

For example, the people of Shabwa, Abyan and Arhab have seen the Cruz missiles, and some people saw cluster bombs that did not explode. The state lies when it claims responsibility, and it does so to deny collaboration. US drones continuously fly over Yemen. What state is that which allows its enemy to spy on its people and then considers it as “accepted cooperation”.

Al Jazeera: You accuse the Yemeni government of lying while it publicly rejects any direct intervention. Does this mean the country is occupied?

Awlaki: Undoubtedly. The sea is occupied; the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, Suqatra island, and the air is occupied by the drones.

There is also [a] US presence on the land, violating the state sovereignty under the pretext of the embassy’s practices. There is also [a] military presence training the interior forces to fight Muslims and kill the sons of Yemen. The Americans were training Yemeni forces to kill the sons of Yemen. This is occupation, Yemen is occupied.

Some people and governments are distinguished by certain qualities; as you may say this person is tall, and that is stubborn. The Yemeni government’s special quality is lying, the Yemeni government is a lying government, it lies internally and externally, it lies to its people, to its neighbours and to America, it lies to everyone. The government has claimed it killed this and that, and then it turned out to be lying. The Yemeni government only wants to offer presents to the United States, and you can see how low it has gone.

Al Jazeera: Some Yemeni scholars, who have issued fatwas of jihad in case of direct intervention by the US or the West in Yemen, disagree with your opinion that there is currently direct intervention in the country.

Awlaki: It is a good fatwa, but it is incomplete and conditioned. The United States has entered [Yemen] by all means, even if it has not sent its army like what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, it does not dare to [send troops] because the Yemeni people will “swallow” them and will make them forget the terrors they have seen in Iraq and still face in Afghanistan.

I want to draw these scholars’ attention to the fact that there are US officers, whether intelligence or army officers, now in Sanaa and other areas, and this is US intervention. Why do not these scholars issue fatwas to kill these officers? They are spying, killing and training Yemeni soldiers to kill.

Al Jazeera: The Western media says that you are ‘inspiring’ Muslims in the US and the West. Is this an exaggeration?

Awlaki: I have said in an earlier interview with Al Jazeera’s Yusri Fouda that the United States is a tyrant, and tyrants across history have all had terrible ends. I believe the West does not want to realize this universal fact. Muslims in Europe and America are watching what is happening to Muslims in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, and they will take revenge for all Muslims across the globe.

Source: Al Jazeera English

The United Nations is an international terrorist organization

NOVANEWS

 

The United Nations flag with the grid over the globe is an important clue for those who monitor world affairs. They are tightening their grip on the earth and laying out their control grid piece by piece. The previous Earth Summit in 1993 produced an insidious action plan entitled Agenda 21. This plan was carried out and allowed the United Nations to acquire and control resources from around the globe and coerce local, state and federal governments to do their bidding for the sake of the earth.

In 2012, they meet again in Rio but the media campaign has already kicked off. Initial recommendations have been released by participating working groups and they are comprehensive enough to give Eco-Zealots wet dreams.

“We are currently transitioning from a world of plenty into one in which the planet’s resources have been compromised in their ability to sustain our routines. We are also in a world of global economic and social multi-level governance.”

“What is a Green Economy?

A green economy ensures fair use of ecological resources and sinks at re-generational and bio-assimilation rates. Building such an economy entails the following components:

1. Full-cost pricing: Incorporate ecological degradation into the cost of goods and services (with compensation for the poor).

2. Waste = Food: Design production to reuse all pre- and post-consumer waste as industrial or biological inputs.

3. Sustainable ethic: Foster cultures that recognize ecological scarcity and inspire consumers and producers to desire only what is most necessary and ecologically sustainable.

4. Progressive green taxes: Tax resource and sink use instead of income.

5. Wealth = Environmental Health: Create measures of value that preserve the intrinsic worth of nature” –Beyond Rio+20: Governance For A Green Economy

This so-called ‘green economy’ is a nightmare and it has been for any nation who has tried to implement it. They intend to apply a progressive tax to carbon emissions and raise the cost of food so the consumer knows exactly the ecological damage done according to their own flawed data. This will cripple economies and leave the people with barely enough food to eat and money in their pockets. The idea that the United Nations decide how much food and necessities are produced so we can stay in line with Malthusian scarcity models is madness and something we cannot allow to happen anywhere!!

“There is a need, instead, for what some participants called a strategy of “radical incrementalism”-recognizing and strengthening those elements within the existing institutional architecture that work, identifying the strategic direction of change, and implementing measured and pragmatic shifts that can begin moving the system in that direction. Progressively evaluating the implementation and progress of such measures and carefully adding to them to bring about the desired shifts is an important component of this process.” –Beyond Rio+20: Governance For A Green Economy

“An International Environmental Court (ICE) would provide a mechanism by which Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) could be enforced. An ICE would become the principal court dealing with international environmental law, addressing two main issues – Access to Justice, and Scientific Understanding. An ICE would provide legal standing not just to states but also to civil society, corporations and individuals. ICE judges would be recruited on the basis of specific experience and have access to scientific advisors ” –A Pocket Guide To Sustainable Development Governance

The United Nations is not satisfied with their current influence and control over governmental affairs. They have big plans, plans such as the creation of a World Environment Organization (WEO), International Environment Court (ICE) and Global Parliament for the Environment (GPE). These organizations would wield as much power as the IMF and the WTO and bring about punishment for victimless crimes. Imagine having to go to court because you don’t recycle. The green police infrastructure will be created piecemeal and under the radar. Being a ‘global warming denier’ could have real repercussions. The really sad fact is that they are using our taxpayer money to create a weapon against us.

“The United States initiated the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933 as a work relief program wherein unemployed youth were enlisted to implement a natural resource conservation program. Participants planted three billion trees, constructed more than 800 state parks, and built infrastructure to make public lands accessible. The program also built awareness and appreciation of America’s natural beauty and resources among the population.
A similar program in which youth serve for a year as stewards of the land could arise within countries around the world. Citizens would work as public servants at water treatment plants, waste disposal sites, farms, environmental remediation areas, and urban transportation centers. This would give youths a sense of contemporary ecological challenges and enlist them in helping countries meet their provisioning needs in a sustainable fashion…While civilian corps systems have historically been national in scope, there is reason to expand them beyond national boundaries. A transnational, regional, or even global service in which people serve in the world’s ecological hotspots would provide a steady stream of sustainability workers, expand global consciousness about environmental interconnections, and help build a global community-all of which are crucial to increasing civil society pressure on the world economy.” –Beyond Rio+20: Governance For A Green Economy

The new green austerity beast doesn’t provide many jobs as the goal is to scale down economies but they have a purpose for those who are enjoying their unemployment or welfare benefits. This is something that Obama proposed when he ran for president. In order for the new green economy to appear legit they must find Eco-Zealots to spread the gospel and they want your children. You can’t find a school in this country that is not talking about global warming and the environment. This lays the foundation for the new religion and so you don’t have any misgivings while living in a sustainable shanty town.
I’ve never seen any document that came out of the Club of Rome, UN or any non-governmental organization that clearly defines what sustainable living is. Our local government officials doesn’t know what it really means either but they will remove 30% of your towns parking space and eventually try to force you on to ‘sustainable’ public transportation.

As the gas prices go up and the economy slides down you are not able to own a car, let alone able to drive it. The EU wants to ban all motor vehicles that run on gas. As electric and gas prices spike, our wallets get thinner and thinner, our options are becoming fewer. Our freedoms are vanishing before our eyes. Most people don’t have time to notice the changes as people are busy surviving. Sustainability means barely living, barely able to sustain life. That gap between first world nations and third is narrowing faster than you’ll ever know. So much money goes into the appearance of improving the third world but instead of helping them up, they are pushing us down so we meet at the bottom.

“The absence of global solidarity among sovereign states undermines the possibility of a strong, global environmental ethic and thus efforts toward creating a global green economy. States pursue their national interest often devoid of global concern. A country’s flag-its patriotic symbol-thus serves as a powerful instrument for cultivating global consciousness and building momentum for a green world economy. By sewing a small image of the globe in the corner of their existing flags, countries could demonstrate their solidarity with the ecological imperative that national concerns dovetail with global ones.” –Beyond Rio+20: Governance For A Green Economy

The UN wants to govern your economy, your hopes, dreams, values and principles. Sustainable Development is a means to an end, the end of sovereignty and the end of independence. Their flag tells it all, they have laid down the grid upon the world and the wreath means that they declare themselves to be supreme rulers like Julius Caesar. There will be more information on the 2012 Earth Summit in the near future. We have no choice but to be out in front on this and shame them with their own words.

Source: Black Listed News

Obama snatches defeat from jaws of victory

NOVANEWS

 

As the news of Osama bin Laden’s death filtered out onto the streets of America it triggered unsightly scenes of undiluted hysteria, chest-thumping and back-slapping which has sadly become a trademark of the vengeful ‘hang’em high’ lobby that emerged from the rubble of 9/11.

And just like George W Bush did on that horrific day way back in 2001, US President Barack Obama unashamedly wallowed in a flag-waving, nationalistic wave of emotion, crowing about national unity and everyone pulling together as he revealed the manhunt for the world’s most wanted man had finally been concluded.

It mattered not the al-Qaida leader was unarmed – that detail was kept back as hugely distorted stories zoomed around the globe about how the evil Arab used his wife as a human shield while firing off rounds at the heroic soldiers who risked their all for Uncle Sam.

The naked display of uncontrollable gung-ho emotion was bad enough but then a smug-looking Obama began sounding like Glenn Ford in a scene from High Noon as he lectured the world about “justice being done”.

To quote my favourite journalist Gary Younge: “This was not justice, it was an extra-judicial execution. If you shoot a man twice in the head you do not find him guilty. You find him dead. This was revenge. And it was served very cold indeed.”

Mercifully, in this sea of madness another sane voice in America also drowned out the hate-filled chorus and it came from an unlikely source – 9/11 survivor Harry Waizer.

If anyone had a right to jump up and down like a lunatic at the show of a full moon it was him, but instead of adding to the hatefest he said: “I just can’t find it in me to be glad one more person is dead, even if it is Osama Bin Laden.”

I hope now that America’s Number One Bogeyman is no more the USA returns to some semblance of normality that has been absent from its landscape since the now discredited War on Terror began.

And I hope that the US Administration will stop using the politics of fear on its own people who have been ruthlessly hyped up in to a state of advanced paranoia at every opportunity. High days and holidays have been blighted by accelerated levels of terror alerts while the latest airport scares and the latest suspect parcels have brought major cities and their transport networks to a halt.

While it is always dangerous to generalize the American people appear to have been kept suspended in fear ever since 9/11 – the reality is ordinary citizens have more chance of being shot in their backyard than be killed by a terrorist.

30,000 innocents die every year in gun-related crime – that’s a 9/11 multiplied by ten – but the close relationship with deadly weapons shows no sign of abating in trigger-happy America.

In terms of a violent society and armed citizens, the US is in a league of its own and sadly the state of disregard for the law and justice filters all the way down from The White House.

That the most powerful man in the world can stare straight into the cameras and say: “Justice was done” over Bin Laden’s murder borders on absurdity; it’s almost Pythonesque.

Real justice would have involved an arrest, a trial by jury and a sentence in an international court should the thought of holding him on USA soil prove too frightening.

Real justice would not have involved shooting an unarmed man in front of his wife and children – there were no bodyguards in the house in Abbottabad in Pakistan.

Real justice would not have involved charging into someone else’s country with armed forces unannounced, if indeed that was really the case in Pakistan.

I’m surprised David Cameron, the British Prime Minister and other political leaders went into congratulatory mode in the House of Commons over the whole saga.

Had it not occurred to them that if OBL had chosen to hide out in Didsbury, Tooting or Chipping Norton then US Special Forces would have come into the UK all guns blazing?

I wonder would Cameron have gushed forth with undiluted praise then?

We don’t know who America’s next Bogeyman is going to be, but what if he does live in Britain or chooses to hide in the UK? What then? Do we sit back and allow America to breach our sovereignty in the name of US justice?

Are there any real guarantees that we won’t have US Navy Seals bursting into our neighbourhoods anytime soon?

OK, it’s highly unlikely but not impossible. This is what happens when there’s total disregard for international law, Vienna and Geneva conventions et al.

Distinguished QC Geoffrey Robertson is a man I’d like to lock in the Oval Office with the Commander in Chief for maybe 30 minutes. A renowned international human rights lawyer, he is not at all impressed by Obama’s interpretation of justice.

Writing about the OBL killing he said the law “permits criminals to be shot in self-defence. They should, if possible, be given the opportunity to surrender, but even if they do not come out with their hands up, they must be taken alive, if that can be achieved without risk. Exactly how Bin Laden came to be shot (especially if it was in the back of the head, execution-style) therefore requires explanation. Why the hasty “burial at sea” without a post-mortem, as the law requires?”

Why indeed? The trouble is various US Administrations have lied to the world – lied about the reasons for going to war in Iraq, lied about the existence of WMD, lied about Saddam being in league with al-Qaida.

And the problem with serial liars is that when they do tell the truth no one believes them.

Once again America has managed to shoot itself in the foot in the name of justice – a justice that has earned the admiration and praise of the chairman of the Israeli parliamentary Committee for Foreign Affairs and Security.

Shaul Mofaz of the right wing Kadima is now urging the Zionist Government to assassinate Palestinian leaders like the “US did with Osama bin Laden”.

He seems to have overlooked the fact that Israel has been “doing an Obama” for years as the leadership of Hamas can testify.

Nevertheless, it seems that even though international law prohibits the use of extra judicial assassination policies, various states of terror may now starting “Doing an Obama”.

After bringing an end to the biggest manhunt in US history, the US President has managed to snatch a defeat from the jaws of victory.

By Yvonne Ridley


 

U.S., Pakistan near open war; Chinese firmly warn Washington

NOVANEWS

 

China has officially put the United States on notice that Washington’s planned attack on Pakistan will be interpreted as an act of aggression against Beijing. This blunt warning represents the first known strategic ultimatum received by the United States in half a century, going back to Soviet warnings during the Berlin crisis of 1958-1961, and indicates the grave danger of general war growing out of the US-Pakistan confrontation.

“Any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China”

Responding to reports that China has asked the US to respect Pakistan’s sovereignty in the aftermath of the Bin Laden operation, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu used a May 19 press briefing to state Beijing’s categorical demand that the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan must be respected.” According to Pakistani diplomatic sources cited by the Times of India, China has “warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China.” This ultimatum was reportedly delivered at the May 9 China-US strategic dialogue and economic talks in Washington, where the Chinese delegation was led by Vice Prime Minister Wang Qishan and State Councilor Dai Bingguo.Chinese warnings are implicitly backed up by that nation’s nuclear missiles, including an estimated 66 ICBMs, some capable of striking the United States, plus 118 intermediate-range missiles, 36 submarine-launched missiles, and numerous shorter-range systems.

Support from China is seen by regional observers as critically important for Pakistan, which is otherwise caught in a pincers between the US and India: “If US and Indian pressure continues, Pakistan can say ‘China is behind us. Don’t think we are isolated, we have a potential superpower with us,'” Talat Masood, a political analyst and retired Pakistani general, told AFP.

The Chinese ultimatum came during the visit of Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani in Beijing, during which the host government announced the transfer of 50 state-of-the-art JF-17 fighter jets to Pakistan, immediately and without cost. Before his departure, Gilani had stressed the importance of the Pakistan-China alliance, proclaiming: “We are proud to have China as our best and most trusted friend. And China will always find Pakistan standing beside it at all times….When we speak of this friendship as being taller than the Himalayas and deeper than the oceans it truly captures the essence of our relationship”. These remarks were greeted by whining from US spokesmen, including Idaho Republican Senator Risch.

The simmering strategic crisis between the United States and Pakistan exploded with full force on May 1, with the unilateral and unauthorized US commando raid alleged to have killed the phantomatic Osama bin Laden in a compound at Abbottabad, a flagrant violation of Pakistan’s national sovereignty. The timing of this military stunt designed to inflame tensions between the two countries had nothing to do with any alleged Global War on Terror, and everything to do with the late March visit to Pakistan of Prince Bandar, the Saudi Arabian National Security Council chief. This visit had resulted in a de facto alliance between Islamabad and Riyadh, with Pakistan promising troops to put down any US-backed color revolution in the kingdom, while extending nuclear protection to the Saudis, thus making them less vulnerable to US extortion threats to abandon the oil-rich monarchy to the tender mercies of Tehran. A joint move by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to break out of the US empire, whatever one may think of these regimes, would represent a fatal blow for the fading US empire in South Asia.

As for the US claims concerning the supposed Bin Laden raid of May 1, they are a mass of hopeless contradictions which changes from day to day. An analysis of this story is best left to literary critics and writers of theatrical reviews. The only solid and uncontestable fact which emerges is that Pakistan is the leading US target – thus intensifying the anti-Pakistan US policy which has been in place since Obama’s infamous December 2009 West Point speech.

Gilani: Full force retaliation to defend Pakistan’s strategic assets

The Chinese warning to Washington came on the heels of Gilani’s statement to the Pakistan Parliament declaring: “Let no one draw any wrong conclusions. Any attack against Pakistan’s strategic assets, whether overt or covert, will find a matching response…. Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force. No one should underestimate the resolve and capability of our nation and armed forces to defend our sacred homeland”. A warning of full force retaliation from a nuclear power such as Pakistan needs to be taken seriously, even by the hardened aggressors of the Obama regime.

The strategic assets Gilani is talking about are the Pakistani nuclear forces, the key to the country’s deterrent strategy against possible aggression by India, egged on by Washington in the framework of the US-India nuclear cooperation accord. The US forces in Afghanistan have not been able to conceal their extensive planning for attempts to seize or destroy Pakistan’s nuclear bombs and warheads. According to a 2009 Fox News report, “The United States has a detailed plan for infiltrating Pakistan and securing its mobile arsenal of nuclear warheads if it appears the country is about to fall under the control of the Taliban, Al Qaeda or other Islamic extremists.” This plan was developed by General Stanley McChrystal when he headed the US Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. JSOC, the force reportedly involved in the Bin Laden operation. is composed of Army Delta Force, Navy SEALs and “a high-tech special intelligence unit known as Task Force Orange.” “Small units could seize [Pakistan’s nukes], disable them, and then centralize them in a secure location,” claimed a source quoted by Fox.

Obama has already approved sneak attack on Pakistan’s nukes

According to the London Sunday Express, Obama has already approved an aggressive move along these lines: “US troops will be deployed in Pakistan if the nation’s nuclear installations come under threat from terrorists out to avenge the killing of Osama Bin Laden… The plan, which would be activated without President Zardari’s consent, provoked an angry reaction from Pakistan officials… Barack Obama would order troops to parachute in to protect key nuclear missile sites. These include the air force’s central Sargodha HQ, home base for nuclear-capable F-16 combat aircraft and at least 80 ballistic missiles.” According to a US official, “The plan is green lit and the President has already shown he is willing to deploy troops in Pakistan if he feels it is important for national security”.

Extreme tension over this issue highlights the brinksmanship and incalculable folly of Obama’s May 1 unilateral raid, which might easily have been interpreted by the Pakistanis as the long-awaited attack on their nuclear forces. According to the New York Times, Obama knew very well he was courting immediate shooting war with Pakistan, and “insisted that the assault force hunting down Osama bin Laden last week be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if confronted by hostile local police officers and troops.”

The shooting has already started

The shooting between US and Pakistani forces escalated on Tuesday May 17, when a US NATO helicopter violated Pakistani airspace in Waziristan. Pakistani forces showed heightened alert status, and opened fire immediately, with the US helicopter shooting back. Two soldiers at a Pakistani check post on the border in the Datta Khel area were wounded, (Reuters).

Possible Pakistani retaliation for this border incursion came in Peshawar on Friday, May 20, when a car bomb apparently targeted a 2-car US consulate convoy, but caused no American deaths or injuries. One Pakistani bystander was killed, and several wounded. In other intelligence warfare, Ary One television reported the name of the CIA station chief in Islamabad, the second top US resident spook there to have his cover blown in six months.

U.S. envoy Grossman rejects Pakistani calls to stop border violations

US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman, the replacement for the late Richard Holbrooke, on May 19 arrogantlyrejected Pakistani calls for guarantees that no more Abbottabad-style unilateral operations would be mounted in Pakistan. In refusing to offer such assurances, Grossman claimed that Pakistani officials had never demanded respect for their border in recent years.

In the midst of this strategic crisis, India has gone ahead with inherently provocative scheduled military maneuvers targeting Pakistan. This is the “Vijayee Bhava” (Be Victorious) drill, held in the Thar desert of north Rajastan. This atomic-biological-chemical Blitzkrieg drill involves the Second Armored Corps, “considered to be the most crucial of the Indian Army’sthree principal strike formations tasked with virtually cutting Pakistan in two during a full-fledged war”.

The Nation: a CIA-RAW-Mossad pseudo-Taliban countergang

One way to provide the provocation needed to justify a US-Indian attack on Pakistan would be through an increase in terrorist actions attributable to the so-called Taliban. According to the mainstream Pakistani media, the CIA, the Israeli Mossad, and the Indian RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) have created their own version of the Taliban in the form of a terrorist countergang which they control and direct. According to one account, “Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives have infiltrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda networks, and have created their own Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) force in order to destabilize Pakistan.” The former Punjab Regional Commander of the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), retired Brigadier General Aslam Ghuman, commented: “During my visit to the US, I learned that the Israeli spy agency Mossad, in connivance with Indian agency RAW, under the direct supervision of CIA, planned to destabilize Pakistan at any cost”. Was this countergang responsible for last week’s double bombing in Waziristan, which killed 80 paramilitary police?

According to the same account, Russian intelligence “disclosed that CIA contractor Raymond Davis and his network had provided Al-Qaeda operatives with chemical, nuclear and biological weapons, so that US installations may be targeted and Pakistan be blamed….” Davis, a JSOC veteran himself, was arrested for the murder of two ISI agents, but then released by the Pakistani government after a suspicious hue and cry by the State Department.

CIA claims the new al Qaeda boss lives in Waziristan

If the US needs a further pretext for additional raids, it will also be easy to cite the alleged presence in Waziristan of Saif al-Adel, now touted by the CIA as bin Laden’s likely successor as boss of al Qaeda. It is doubtless convenient for Obama’s aggressive intentions that Saif al-Adel can be claimed to reside so close to what is now the hottest border in the world, and not in Finsbury or Flatbush.

In the wake of the unauthorized May 1 US raid, the Pakistani military chief General Kayani had issued his own warning that similar “misadventures” could not be repeated, while announcing that US personnel inside Pakistan would be sharply reduced. In the estimate of one ISI source, there are currently about 7,000 CIA operatives in country, many of them unknown to the Pakistani government. US-Pakistan intelligence sharing has reportedly been downgraded. In response to Kayani’s moves, the CIA limited hangout operation known as Wikileaks once again showed its real nature by attempting to discredit the Pakistan commander with dubious US cable reports that he had demanded more Predator drone attacks, not fewer, in recent years.

Especially since Obama’s West Point speech, the CIA has used Predator drone attacks to slaughter civilians with the goal of fomenting civil war inside Pakistan, leading to a breakup of the country along the ethnic lines of Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan, and Pushtunistan. The geopolitical goal is to destroy Pakistan’s potential to be the energy corridor between Iran and China. Selig Harrison has emerged as a top US advocate for Baluchistan succession.

Since May 1, six reported US Predator drones attacks have slain some 42 Pakistani civilians, goading public opinion into a frenzy of anti-US hatred. In response, a joint session of the Pakistani parliament voted unanimously on May 14 to demand an end to American missile strikes, calling on the government to cut NATO’s supply line to Afghanistan if the attacks should continue. Since the Karachi to Khyber Pass supply line carries as much as two thirds of the supplies needed by the Afghanistan invaders, such a cutoff would cause chaos among the NATO forces. All of this points to the inherent insanity of provoking war with the country your supply line runs through.

U.S. wants to use Taliban boss Mullah Omar against Pakistan

The State Department dropped all preconditions for negotiating with the Taliban back in February, and the US is now reported by the Washington Post to be talking with envoys of Mullah Omar, the legendary one-eyed leader of the Quetta Shura or Taliban ruling council. It is apparent that the US is offering the Taliban an alliance against Pakistan. US regional envoy Grossman is hostile to the Pakistanis, but when it comes to the Taliban he has been nicknamed “Mr. Reconciliation”. By contrast, the US is said to be determined to assassinate the head of the Haqqani network using a Bin Laden-type raid. The Pakistanis are equally determined to keep the Haqqani as an ally.

If China stands behind Pakistan, then Russia might be said to stand behind China. Looking forward to the upcoming June 15 meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Chinese President Hu praised Sino-Russian relations as being “at an unprecedented high point,” with an “obvious strategic ingredient.” In a press conference this week, Russian President Medvedev was obliged indirectly to acknowledge that the much-hyped Obama “reset” with Russia had amounted to very little, since the US ABM missile program in Romania and the rest of eastern Europe, so obviously directed against Russia, means that the START treaty is of dubious value, thus raising the specter of a “new Cold War.” Given the NATO assault on Libya, there would be no UN resolution against Syria, said Medvedev. Putin has been right all along, and Medvedev is trying to imitate Putin to salvage some chance of remaining in power.

Are we in July 1914?

The crisis leading to World War I began with the Sarajevo assassinations of June 28, 1914, but the first major declaration of war did not occur until August 1. In the interim month of July 1914, large parts of European public opinion retreated into a dreamlike trance, an idyllic la-la land of elegiac illusion, even as the deadly crisis gathered momentum. Something similar can be seen today. Many Americans fondly imagine that the alleged death of Bin Laden marks the end of the war on terror and the Afghan War. Instead, the Bin Laden operation has clearly ushered in a new strategic emergency. Forces which had opposed the Iraq war, from MSNBC to many left liberals of the peace movement, are variously supporting Obama’s bloody aggression in Libya, or even celebrating him as a more effective warmonger than Bush-Cheney because of his supposed success at the expense of Bin Laden. In reality, if there were ever a time to mobilize to stop a new and wider war, this is it.

By Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.

Source: TARPLEY.net