Casualty figures are still arriving in the wake of Israel’s Sunday night-Monday morning commando attack on an unarmed flotilla trying to bring relief supplies to the 1.5 million Palestinians crowded into Gaza. Already, at least nine civilian passengers are reported killed, and dozens wounded.

Seldom has an act of aggression been so well advertised in advance. Israel had made clear that it would use force to prevent the ships from reaching Gaza and heard no stern protest from President Obama, who apparently could not overcome his fear of Israel’s legendary political clout.

Earlier this year, Obama did criticize Israel’s continued settlement of Palestinian areas and Netanyahu’s resistance to holding meaningful peace talks, but the president has failed to follow up his words with firm action or resolve. Netanyahu concluded that Israel could do what it wished, including dropping commandos from helicopters onto crowded ships and, after alleging a clash with civilians, ordering the use of lethal force.

Then, Netanyahu could expect that America’s Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) – with leading figures like Wolf Blitzer, who built his journalistic career by working for the Jerusalem Post – would finesse the murderous assault into something reasonable and possibly even tilted sympathetically toward the Israeli troops.

Early on, CNN began repeating the Israeli “explanation” for its attack on the high seas, parroting the Jerusalem Post, which reported that “militants were killed” after they set upon Israeli naval commandos who boarded one of the six ships Monday morning at two o’clock.

The commandos “were met with strong resistance from men armed with bladed weapons and the situation degenerated into a massacre when one of them grabbed the weapon of a soldier and opened fire,” said the Jerusalem Post, quoting Israeli military sources.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that the relief convoy organizers had a “radical Islamic anti-Western orientation,” and that Israeli “naval forces were attacked with metal clubs and knives, as well as live fire,” though there were no reports of Israeli deaths. The IDF statement continued, “The demonstrators had clearly prepared their weapons in advance for this specific purpose,” adding that the Navy then used riot dispersal methods, which include live fire, according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency (JTA).

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak blamed the organizers of the convoy for the violent outcome, and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told a news conference why that was so: “The organizers’ intent was violent, their method was violent, and unfortunately, the results were violent.”

So, you see, the Israeli military resorted to violence only in self-defense. Right.

Quiet Conversation

On Monday, President Obama spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone about the incident. Afterward, the White House said Obama had expressed “deep regret” over the deaths, but declined further comment, citing “the importance of learning all the facts and circumstances” as quickly as possible.

Don’t hold your breath, though, waiting for the timid Obama or his Likud-leaning advisers – much less the FCM – to question the Israeli version.

We are likely to get an “explanation” worthy of the late Alexander Haig as to why the slaughter may well have been “justified.” Haig’s death in February brought to mind comments he made about a brutal incident on the night of Dec. 2, 1980, shortly after Ronald Reagan’s election victory.

In rightist-ruled El Salvador, government security forces stopped four American churchwomen in their mini-van and were ordered to kill them. The soldiers first raped the women and then executed them with high-powered rifles. Reagan’s foreign policy team decided to treat the rape-murder as a public relations problem, best handled by shifting blame onto the victims. And so, the women were deemed not nuns, but “political activists.” (Today, “militants”–whatever that means–is often the label of choice.)

After becoming Reagan’s first secretary of state, Haig told Congress that “the nuns may have run through a roadblock or may have accidentally been perceived to have been doing so, and there may have been an exchange of fire.”

In just a few weeks, the American women had gone from being innocent victims to “political activists” to armed insurgents – although knowledgeable U.S. government officials conceded there was no evidence to support Haig’s shootout speculation. As an intelligence analyst at the time, I knew of Haig’s inclination to make up stuff.

Watch for something similar to happen with respect to the “militants” or “activists” who were killed or wounded in the incident off Gaza. I avoid tuning in to the FCM anymore (it’s just too much for my Irish temper), but I’m told that Israel-friendly pundits are already spinning faster than the famous centrifuges in Iran.

Uncle Remus’ Wisdom

“He Don’t Say Nothin’,” as Uncle Remus put it, with improper grammar but with an accurate understanding that by not saying anything you can often convey a powerful or dangerous message.

As a presidential candidate, Obama was careful to say nothing about the brutal Israeli blockade against the 1.5 million people in Gaza, about to enter its fourth year. As president-elect, he stayed mum as the Israelis attacked densely populated Gaza, killing some 1,400 Gazans.

As president, he has backed down at every significant moment when Netanyahu thumbed his nose at Obama or at Vice President Joe Biden.

Obama knew about the “Freedom Flotilla” and its plan to bring supplies to Gaza. And he had to be aware of Israel’s threats to attack the relief ships. But, like Uncle Remus’ Br’er Fox, Obama “don’t say nothin.’”

Quite the contrary, Obama’s pro-Zionist White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who recently vacationed in Israel and met with Netanyahu last Wednesday, extended an invitation for a working visit at the White House. Netanyahu was to visit Obama on Tuesday after a four-day visit to Canada.

On Monday morning, Netanyahu canceled out of a gala dinner to be held in his honor in Ottawa and nixed the visit to Washington. He said he hoped that both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Obama “understand that Israel has a great security problem.”

Getting Away With Murder

The fatal incident off the Gaza coast was not the first time Israel had used lethal force against a nearly defenseless ship at sea. The attack on the “Freedom Flotilla” was reminiscent of the attack on the USS Liberty during Israel’s Six-Day War against three of its Arab neighbors.

The war started on June 5, 1967, when Israel carried out an unprovoked blitzkrieg attack. What is my source for “unprovoked?” Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who 15 years later admitted publicly:

“In June 1967, we had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that [Egyptian President] Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.”

Three days into the war, Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats turned their firepower on the intelligence-collection ship USS Liberty in international waters after the Israelis had identified it as a U.S. Navy ship.

The Israelis later insisted that the strafing and torpedo attacks were accidents in the fog of war. However, U.S. intelligence intercepted Israeli conversations at the time showing the attacks were deliberate, and their nature and persistence showed clear intent to sink the Liberty and leave no survivors.

Israeli commandos clad in black were about to land from helicopters and finish off what remained of the Liberty crew when Seaman Terry Halbardier (later awarded the Silver Star) slid over the Liberty’s napalm-greased deck to jury-rig an antenna and get an SOS off to the Sixth Fleet.

Israeli forces intercepted the SOS and quickly broke off the attack. But 34 of theLiberty crew were killed and over 170 wounded.

To avoid exacerbating relations with Israel, the U.S. Navy was ordered to cover up the deliberate nature of the attack, and the surviving crew was threatened with imprisonment if they so much as told their wives. When some of the crew later called for an independent investigation, they were hit with charges of anti-Semitism.

One of the surviving crew of the USS Liberty, decorated Navy veteran Joe Meadors, was with the “Freedom Flotilla” when it was attacked on Sunday night. Meadors is past president of the USS Liberty Veterans Association. The State Department tells us that Joe Meadors survived this latest Israeli attack. At last word, he sits in an Israeli jail.

Rachel Corrie

Another American was murdered in cold blood on March 16, 2003. Twenty-three year-old Rachel Corrie, a volunteer serving in Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement was run over by an Israeli army bulldozer after a prolonged face-off in full view of several of her volunteer colleagues. Rachel had been trying to prevent the bulldozing of a Palestinian home where she had been staying.

The message the Israelis wanted to convey in killing Rachel Corrie was that international volunteers would no longer be exempt from the brutal treatment accorded young Israeli volunteers who tried to stand up, as Rachel did, for decent treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.

The FCM’s excitement over President George W. Bush’s eagerly anticipated “shock-and-awe” bombing of Iraq three days later pushed what limited coverage there was about Rachel’s murder to the back pages. The Israelis claimed the killing was an inadvertent mistake, like the shoot-up of the Liberty. The courageous Rachel was very much with the Freedom Flotilla in spirit. And a certain poetic justice is to be found in that one of the ships in the convoy bore the name “Rachel Corrie.”

Israel cannot hide behind “inadvertence” this time, although its spin-masters are already doing their best to smear the civilians on the ships with buzzwords, calling them “militants” and “terrorists” who “ambushed” and tried to “lynch” the Israeli commandos.

These P.R. tactics may work with the American FCM and neocons in Washington – and by extension the TV-watchers in the United States – but patience with Israel in the international community is wearing paper-thin.

Some Care About the Scandal of Gaza

Much of the world’s impatience has to do with Gaza, including the Israeli attack from Dec. 17, 2008, to Jan. 18, 2009, as well as the three-year blockade that began when Hamas won Palestinian elections and became the governing party in Gaza.

Israel and the U.S. government deem Hamas to be a terrorist organization, though some other countries regard it more as a resistance movement fighting against Israeli occupation.

Regardless of how one feels about Hamas, Israel’s harsh blockade of Gaza and last year’s military assault have inflicted a humanitarian disaster on the Palestinian people.

Has Netanyahu Gone Too Far?

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has reacted strongly to the Israeli attack on the relief ships, the largest of which sailed from Turkey. According to one report, Turkey has served warning that Turkish navy ships will escort future relief convoys to Gaza.

Erdogan has had it with Israeli mistreatment of Muslims in his eastern Mediterranean neighborhood. On Jan. 29, 2009, at the economic summit in Davos, he leveled harsh criticism to Israeli President Shimon Peres’  face, labeling Gaza “an open-air prison.”

Erdogan angrily cited “the sixth commandment – thou shalt not kill,” adding, “We are talking about killing” in Gaza. Erdogan’s one-and-a-half-minute tirade was capturedon camera by the BBC.

Five days before Erdogan’s outburst, the Brazilian government also condemned Israel’s bombing of Gaza and its effect on the civilian population as a “disproportionate response.”

It seems to have been the atrocity in Gaza – plus a common determination to prevent war from spreading to Iran – that galvanized the successful joint effort by Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to defy Israel. They persuaded Iran to agree to transfer half of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey for further processing, rendering it unusable for a nuclear weapon.

“Defy Israel?” you ask. Confused? If the Israeli leaders truly believe that low-enriched uranium comprises an essential part of an “existential threat” to Israel from eventual nuclear weapons in Iran, would they not be delighted at Iran’s agreement to send half of that uranium out of the country? Good question.

Truth be told, Israel cares a lot less about Iran’s uranium that it does about forcing “regime change” in Tehran. Netanyahu does not want any agreement with Iran; he wants sanctions against Iran, and eventually a military conflict, with the U.S. jumping in to help finish Iran off.

And this twin wish is shared by American neocons who remain influential in the Obama administration and in the FCM.

The pro-Israeli hardliners are the ones running U.S. policy on the Middle East, not Obama, who seems only nominally in charge. Unusually clear proof of this came when the Brazilians released a letter revealing that Obama had personally encouraged the Brazilian and Turkish leaders to pursue the kind of deal they were able to work out with the Iranians.

Small wonder, then, that the leaders of Brazil and Turkey were taken aback when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other administration spokespeople trashed the tripartite Iran-Turkey-Brazil deal and pressed ahead with a new round of sanctions.

And the president? Did he step up and acknowledge that he had encouraged Brazil and Turkey to seek the uranium deal? Well, he don’t say nothin’.

Israeli Influence

While Americans continue to be starved of real information from the FCM, better informed people around the world have come to view with disdain the degree to which Washington dogs are wagged by Israeli tails.

When I suggested five years ago before a Capitol Hill hearing chaired by Rep. John Conyers that Israel was right up there, together with oil and military bases, as comprising the real rationale for war on Iraq, I, too, was called anti-Semitic. But the evidence has always been as clear as it is abundant.

An inadvertent remark by a major player on Iraq, former British Prime Minister Blair, has provided insight – straight from the horse’s ass, I mean, mouth.

In early February 2010, the British press revealed that Blair, testifying to the Iraq war commission in the U.K., offered the following account of his discussions with Bush in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002. (That’s when Bush said war was the only way to deal with Saddam Hussein, and Blair acquiesced.) But Blair’s remarks revealed that Israeli concerns were a major part of the equation and that Israeli officials were involved in the discussions. Thus, Blair:

“As I recall that discussion, it was less to do with specifics about what we were going to do on Iraq or, indeed, the Middle East, because the Israel issue was a big, big issue at the time. I think, in fact, I remember, actually, there may have been conversations that we had even with Israelis, the two of us, whilst we were there. So that was a major part of all this.”

It is a safe bet that Hillary Clinton’s Likud-friendly lieutenants and their new junior partners in London are busy conferring with Tel Aviv right now about how to handle the P.R. challenge caused by the upstart leaders of Turkey and Brazil with the temerity to work out a deal with Tehran. (Never mind that Obama personally asked them to do it.)

How does one make into a bad thing Iran’s agreement to ship half its uranium out of the country, even if additional steps might still be needed to assure the world that Iran is telling the truth when it says it isn’t building a nuclear bomb?

More and more people around the globe are seeing Obama as subservient to the Likud Lobby, perhaps not as enthusiastically as Bush was, but still unwilling to put action behind his occasional words of dissatisfaction. Important players in the Middle East, as well as increasingly assertive countries like Turkey and Brazil, conclude that the policies and behavior of Tel Aviv and Washington are virtually identical.

And then there is the $3 billion or so that the United States gives Israel each year that enables the Israelis to arm themselves to the teeth. It is understandable, then, that many will blame Washington for what happened in the dark of night, on the eve of Memorial Day, on the high seas.

Hard Lessons

The likely results are three-fold:

1. On Memorial Day next year, there may well be hundreds more “fallen heroes” to honor, killed by Muslim and other “militants” who make no distinction between what the U.S. has done in Iraq and Afghanistan and what Israel does in Gaza and the occupied West Bank – and add Lebanon and Syria, for good measure.

As Gen. David Petraeus pointed out earlier this year, the unresolved Arab-Israeli “conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel” and thus puts U.S. troops at greater risk.

“Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the [region] and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world,” Petraeus said. “Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support.”

2. The linking of U.S. support with Israeli actions increases the incentive of terrorists to ply their dark arts in the United States.

While it is difficult to find a measure of objectivity in official U.S. government documents on this topic, every so often there is a slip between cup and lip. There was such a slip on Sept. 23, 2004, for example, when the Pentagon-sponsored U.S. Defense Science Board issued a formal report concluding:

“Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights.”

You will not be surprised to find out that the board’s report was generally suppressed in the FCM, as were the following, more specific, examples:

“By his own account, KSM’s [9/11 “mastermind” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's] animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experience there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.” (9/11 Commission Report, July 22, 2004, page 147)

And what motivated Dr. Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, the 32-year-old Jordanian physician of Palestinian origin, who on Dec. 30, 2009, detonated a suicide bomb at a CIA site in eastern Afghanistan, killing seven American CIA operatives? According to his brother, al-Balawi “changed” during the three-week-long Israeli offensive in Gaza, which killed some 1,400 Gazans.

When al-Balawi volunteered to treat injured Palestinians in Gaza, he was arrested by Jordanian authorities, his brother said. It was after that arrest that al-Balawi allowed himself to be “recruited” to spy on al-Qaeda for the CIA. Quickly, it became payback time for Americans and Jordanians whom he associated with Israel.

Christmas underpants bomber Abdulmutallab, also is reported to have been particularly outraged by Israel’s slaughter of Gazans at the turn of 2008-09 and Washington’s defense of Israel’s action.

That Israeli actions in Gaza acted as catalysts to al-Balawi’s and Abdulmutallab’s determination to exact revenge on the U.S. is hardly surprising – the more so in view of Washington’s efforts to suppress the findings of the UN-commissioned Gaza investigation by Justice Richard Goldstone. His report concluded that:

“The blockade policies implemented by Israel against the Gaza Strip, in particular the closure of or restrictions imposed on border crossings in the immediate period before the military operations, subjected the local population to extreme hardship and deprivations that amounted to a violation of Israel’s obligations as an Occupying Power under the Fourth Geneva Convention. …

“Israel has essentially violated its obligation to allow free passage of all consignments of medical and hospital objects, food, and clothing that were needed to meet the urgent humanitarian needs of the civilian population. …

“The Mission concludes that the conditions resulting from deliberate actions of the Israeli forces and the declared policies of the Government with regard to the Gaza Strip before, during, and after the military operation cumulatively indicate the intention to inflict collective punishment on the people of the Gaza Strip.

“The Mission, therefore, finds a violation of the provisions of Articles 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

3. Attacking Iran.

It is no secret that this goal enjoys high priority on Netanyahu’s agenda. It could be stopped in its tracks by a public warning from President Obama. But all signs point to his bending to neocon advice to shy away from a showdown and, rather, leave everything, including another war of aggression, “on the table.”

The fact that world leaders consider Netanyahu a clear and present danger to peace in the region is shown by the way the leaders of Turkey and Brazil moved at an accelerated pace to bend the Iranians to the kind of deal that Obama personally had advocated, before being overruled by Hillary Clinton and others in his misguided Team of Rivals.

The urgency of the Turkey-Brazil initiative came through in the words of Brazilian President Lula da Silva, who could hardly have been more explicit:

“We can’t allow to happen in Iran what happened in Iraq. Before any sanctions, we must undertake all possible efforts to try and build peace in the Middle East.”

Green Light?

Netanyahu listens only to Washington, when he listens at all. Following the bloody attack on the Freedom Flotilla, I imagine he will now get at most a mealy-mouthed “please-don’t-do-this-again” from the White House, together with acquiescence in an Al-Haig-type made-up excuse about an “exchange” of fire.

If that proves to be the case, Netanyahu is altogether likely to consider that Israel has a green light to provoke hostilities with Iran, with the full expectation that the United States will jump right in to help the non-ally ally finish the job.

Non-ally ally? Sorry, despite what you hear from Obama, Congress, and the whole Washington establishment, Israel is not an ally of the United States. Webster’s (and international law) define ally as “a state associated with another by treaty.”

There is no mutual defense treaty between the U.S. and Israel. (Washington has broached the idea to Israel from time to time, but Israel has said no thanks. Treaties, you see, require internationally recognized borders, and – for obvious reasons – Israeli leaders avoid that subject like the plague.)

NATO member Turkey, on the other hand, is a U.S. ally. This could make things very awkward if Turkey sends its warships to accompany the next convoy trying to lift the siege of Gaza. It is possible that Washington may have to choose between a real ally and a synthetic one, if shots are fired.

Israel’s Attack Illegal; What Now?

Craig Murray, a former British ambassador and Foreign Office specialist on maritime law (and VIPS member), has just weighed in with a helpful description of two clear legal possibilities, which take into account both international law and the Law of the Sea:

“Possibility one is that the Israeli commandos were acting on behalf of the government of Israel in killing the activists in international waters. The applicable law is that of the flag state of the ship on which the incident occurred.

“In legal terms, the Turkish ship was Turkish territory. So in this case Israel is in a position of war with Turkey, and the attack by Israeli commandos falls under international jurisdiction as a war crime.

“Possibility two is that, if the killings were not military actions authorized by Israel, they were then acts of murder and fall under Turkish jurisdiction. If Israel does not consider itself in a position of war with Turkey, it must hand over the commandos involved for trial in Turkey under Turkish law. It is for Turkey, not Israel, to carry out any inquiry or investigation and to initiate any prosecutions. Israel would be obliged by law to hand over indicted personnel for prosecution.”

Stay tuned.

Read more by Ray McGovern

• Memo to Congressman David Obey – May 27th, 2010
• Dirty Linen Gets Intel Chief Fired – May 21st, 2010
• US, Israel Challenged on Iran – May 19th, 2010
• Loose Lips on Iran Can Sink America – May 5th, 2010
• Iran a Threat? I Mean, Really? – April 26th, 2010

Israeli spokesman Mark Regev said he was confident that the aid workers opened fire first on the commandos. But the aid workers have noted that all the ships were searched at port by both the Turkish and the Cyprus governments and no weapons were found. Video of the siege shows some of the passengers armed with marbles and slingshots.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given his full support to the operation but has cut short a trip to Canada and canceled completely the meeting that was to take place on Tuesday with President Obama at the White House. Last June, Obama sent a note to the Israeli government officially protesting the blockade and demanding that the border crossings into Gaza be opened to facilitate reconstruction. The U.S. demanded that the Israelis allow more food and medicine into the territory, that cash transfers to banks in the Gaza Strip be permitted, and that construction materials such as cement and iron be allowed in.

. Read The Daily Beast’s complete coverage of the crisis in Israel.The names of the dead are not yet known, but passengers aboard the ships included retired U.S. diplomats Amb. Edward Peck and Col. Ann Wright, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, and former U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Denis Halliday, as well as humanitarian aid and human-rights workers, several MPs from Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Turkey, Malaysia, and Palestinian members of the Knesset.

This is not the first attempt by the group, known collectively as the , to break through Israel’s blockade. In the summer of 2008, the organization set sail from Cyprus on two small wooden fishing boats carrying 44 activists from 17 different countries. That mission successfully docked at Gaza–the first international ships to do so since 1957. Bolstered by their initial success, leaders of the Free Gaza Movement organized four more successful trips in 2008, transporting tons of aid and dozens of United Nations workers, international activists, and members of European parliaments to the Gaza Strip.

But circumstances changed after the devastating war in December of 2008 between Israel and Hamas (Operation Cast Lead, as the Israelis called it). When the Free Gaza Movement organized an emergency delegation to deliver three tons of medical supplies and a handful of doctors and surgeons to Gaza, they were intercepted by the Israeli Navy, which rammed their ship, almost sinking it. In January 2009, the group bought another ship and once again set sail to Gaza. Once again they were turned back by the Israeli navy. Last June, the organization tried a third time to break through the blockade, this time taking with them Nobel Peace Prize winner Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. The Israeli navy boarded that ship, confiscated the materials on board, arrested the passengers, including Maguire and McKinney, and detained them in an Israeli prison for a week. Although the ship was never returned, the Israeli government claimed to have delivered the medical supplies on board to Gaza, though all the other material, including the food, toys, and reconstruction material were seized and, presumably, destroyed.

The Israeli government has instructed the Free Gaza Movement to try to deliver its supplies through official channels. But considering that those channels are strictly controlled by the government itself, it is difficult to take the suggestion seriously. If such “official channels” were actually effective in delivering aid to the Gazans, then there would not be the massive starvation and malnutrition that we are seeing today in Gaza.

Then again, according to the Israeli government, everything is just fine in Gaza. No need to worry. Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak has made the extraordinary claim that there is absolutely no shortage in humanitarian aid to the Gazans and that food and supplies are regularly and freely transferred to the area.

That will come as a surprise not only to the hundreds of thousands of starving Gazans living on piles of rubble that used to be their homes, but to just about every single human-rights and international aid organization in the world, including the United Nations, all of which have repeatedly reported that the blockade is causing extreme hardship, severe malnutrition in children, and increased poverty in Gaza. The World Health Organization recently passed a resolution demanding that Israel end the blockade, claiming that it has caused a devastating shortage of medicines in the Gaza Strip. (Predictably, the United States opposed the WHO resolution, saying that it “stirred up tensions.” Heaven forbid!)

Amnesty International has written numerous reports about how the blockade has destroyed the livelihoods of Gaza’s farmers and fishermen and limited access to medical care. The U.N.’s Association for International Development Agencies has documented the disastrous impact of the blockade on Gaza’s health services. According to one report, long delays for those seeking medical treatment in Israel caused the deaths of 28 people last year alone. The Vatican has called Gaza “one big concentration camp.” The U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated that the blockade has imposed “unacceptable hardships” on innocent civilians while “empowering extremists.” Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who has called the blockade a “crime and an atrocity,” echoed Ban’s statement. “I think politically speaking [the blockade] has worked even to strengthen the popularity of Hamas and to the detriment of the popularity of Fatah,” Carter said.

Confronted with these statements and statistics, the response of the Israeli government has been as predictable as it is absurd. After all, all of these international aid and human-rights organizations are against Israel, didn’t you know? Amnesty International is “borderline anti-Semitic,” as Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League has declared. Human Rights Watch has an “anti-Israel bias,” according to AIPAC. And please don’t get Israeli politicians started on the United Nations! Whatever criticisms these organizations have against Israel are obviously biased and need not be taken seriously.

As to why continue the blockade in Gaza? Well that’s an easy question for the Israeli government to answer. “Hamas, which rules Gaza, is a terror organization supported by Iran,” said Defense Minister Barak. “It smuggles weapons and rockets with the sole purpose of harming Israelis, as it has done many times in the past.”

OK, fine. Hamas is bad. We get it. But what about the rest of the 1.5 million men, women, and children living in what has become the most densely packed region on earth? How can the cutting off of food, medical supplies, gas, and electricity to the entire population of Gaza be understood in any other way except as an act of collective punishment?

Despite the unprecedented humanitarian crisis facing Gazans, Israel’s blockade has gotten very little international attention. Despite a promise by the international community to pledge over $4 billion of aid to help rebuild Gaza in 2009, almost none of that money has reached Gazans. Most Americans, it seems, could not care less about what is taking place in Gaza. Ask the average pundit on TV about it and the response will inevitably be, “Hamas.”

End of conversation.

And yet, do we not all have a moral obligation to put politics aside and stand up for the suffering of our fellow human beings no matter where they are? Are we not obligated to work toward overturning the profoundly immoral policies that have made the situation in Gaza intolerable for its inhabitants? And if the world’s governments are not willing to take action to address this unprecedented crisis, then does it not fall on the citizens of the world to do something about it?

“When the tsunami hit Indonesia, the world came together to provide aid for those affected,” said Ramzi Kysia, a volunteer who has been with the Free Gaza Movement since 2006. “When the earthquake hit Haiti, again, the world came together to help those who were suffering. And yet what we have in Gaza is a man-made disaster, a man-made humanitarian crisis. But it is every bit as bad as any natural disaster.”

Responsibility Is With Hamas For Attack On Gaza Flotilla! Yochanan Plesener

Israeli forces assert they came under attack by the pro-Palestine civilian group, and video released by the IDF appears to show one soldier being tossed overboard amid a scuffle with unidentified individuals wielding melee weapons, like clubs and chairs.

However, in raw video captured by an Al Jazeera producer and published to YouTube late Monday, two journalists provide a play-by-play of the harrowing event as pops and cracks echo in the background. Even before the Israeli forces were aboard, one says, they were pelting the boat with tear gas and stun grenades, injuring numerous people.

Then he confirms the first death, saying the individual was killed by “munitions,” but not specifying whether it was a bullet or something else. Then he confirms that Israeli forces were boarding the ship.

Another of the reporters featured in the video works for the Iranian network Press TV. “We are being hit by tear gas, stun grenades, we have navy ships on either side, helicopters overhead,” he said. “We are being attacked from every single side. This is in international waters, not Israeli waters, not in the 68-mile exclusion zone. We are being attacked in international waters completely illegally.”

“The organizers are telling me now, they are raising a white flag — they are raising a white flag to the Israeli army,” the Al Jazeera reporter said. “This is after one person has been killed; a civilian has been killed by munition. That number could be more … Despite the white flag being raised, despite the white flag being raised, the Israeli army is still shooting, still firing live munitions.”

Early reports put the number of victims between nine and 19, with dozens injured. (Update: Figures from major wire services put the number at 10, but it may yet change.) The actual number has not yet been confirmed, as the IDF took all the Gaza aid flotilla participants into custody. Numerous victims were reported to be from Turkey. Palestinian leadership called the incident a “war crime.” Israeli ally Turkey also pledged their regional neighbor will “face the consequences” for the killings and reportedly planned to send military escort with a future Gaza aid flotilla.

“At least four Israeli soldiers were wounded in the operation, some from gunfire, according to the military,” The New York Times added.

“Our soldiers had to defend themselves, to defend their lives,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly said. Other Israeli officials have called the charity organization responsible a group of “extremist supporters of terror.” The IDF also alleged that weapons were found on board and that activists opened fire first, calling the the resulting violence a result of “provocation.”

However, if these reporters’ immediate accounting of the events proves accurate, the truth of Israel’s claim that they opened fire in self defense would seem to be in doubt.

Portions of the raw video were featured by Al Jazeera and AFP, although the beginning segment and the most clear allegations that Israel opened fire before boarding were not included in their entirety.

This video was published to YouTube by user WilliamTomg on May 31, 2010.

The action sparked protests around the world within hours.

In Turkey crowds took to the streets in several cities to vent fury after the storming of a Turkish passenger boat in the flotilla that left at least nine dead, most of them believed to be Turkish nationals.

“Damn Israel!”, “A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, revenge, revenge!” yelled protesters in Istanbul where about 10,000 people converged on the central Taksim square after marching from the Israeli consulate.

“Turkish soldiers to Gaza,” shouted some, as others torched Israeli flags.

“I call on the government to expel the Israeli consul… And if necessary, we are ready for war,” Seref Mangal, 40, told AFP. A banner carried by the crowd read: “Close down the Zionist embassy.”

In the capital Ankara about 1,000 people gathered outside the residence of Israeli ambassador Gabby Levy and shouted “Damn the Zionist murderers!” and “Israel will drown in the blood of the martyrs!”.

They threw eggs and plastic bottles into the garden of the residency. Reports said demonstrations were held in dozens of cities across the country.

In London more than 1,000 people — some of whom had friends on the ships carrying aid to blockaded Gaza — protested outside the residence of British Prime Minister David Cameron and the Israeli embassy.

Chanting “Free Palestine” and brandishing the Palestinian flag and banners condemning Israeli “war crimes”, activists blocked a major route through the capital. Hundreds of police stood guard outside the embassy.

“We have close friends on the boat on which people were killed and we are here waiting for news,” said Kate Hudson, the chairwoman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

In Paris about 500 people joined a noisy protest near the Israeli embassy, waving Palestinian flags and shouting “Palestine will survive, Palestine will conquer”.

Scuffles broke out when a dozen rival protestors waving Israeli flags approached, prompting police to fire tear gas, but calm was soon restored. Another 1,300 people rallied in the city of Lille.

Greek police used tear gas to force back around 1,500 protesters outside the Israeli embassy in Athens, while another 2,000 people rallied in the northern city of Thessaloniki.

In Lebanon thousands of Palestinian refugees and activists waving Palestinian flags and banners marched in the country’s 12 refugee camps.

“Where is the international community? Where are human rights?” they chanted in the Al-Bass camp in the southern coastal city of Tyre.

In Beirut hundreds gathered in the city centre called on Israeli embassies in the Arab world to be shut down and for Israeli ambassadors to be expelled.

At a demonstration of about 3,000 people at the Beddawi camp in the northern city of Tripoli, anger also turned on Israel’s traditional ally, the United States.

“God is great and America is the greatest evil,” they chanted. “Give us weapons, give us weapons and send us on to Gaza.”

There were even demonstrations inside Israel, where hundreds of protestors flooded the streets of the northern Arab city of Nazareth as Israeli police raised the level of alert across the country and deployed reinforcements.

More than 2,000 people in Amman protested what Jordan’s Information Minister Nabil Sharif dubbed a “heinous crime”.

Demonstrators included Islamist opposition leaders and carried banners that read “We Will not Surrender” and “Break Gaza Blockade.” They also demanded that Jordan shut down the Jewish state’s embassy and expel the Israeli ambassador.

In Iran’s capital Tehran, dozens of people pelted stones at the UN office chanting: “This savage regime of Israel must be wiped out.”

They burnt the Israeli flag and tore up pictures of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In Pakistan politicians, lawmakers and journalists staged a peaceful protest in Islamabad, denouncing the killings and calling on the United Nations and the United States to intervene.

Hundreds of Bosnians marched through Sarajevo, brandishing Palestinian flags. “We wanted to raise our voice to denounce a new attempt at genocide in modern times,” one of the organisers, Edvin Cudic, told Srna news agency.

Around 200 people demonstrated outside the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva demanding an inquiry into the raid, while in the Netherlands 400 rallied outside the Israeli embassy in The Hague.

There were also protests in Egypt while in Kuwait activists were planning rallies.

After Israeli PM Netanyahu canceled a planned meeting with President Obama, the White House stressed the importance of “learning all the facts” before jumping to conclusions.

Gaza TV News: Gaza TV’s phlog Flotilla has been attacked by Israeli forces. 3 dead, and 30 injured

http://www.ipadio.com/phlogs/Gaza_TVNews/2010/05/31/Gaza-TVs-phlog-3-Dead-30-Injured

(CNN) — Israeli soldiers boarded a Turkish boat carrying aid for the Palestinian territory of Gaza during a pre-dawn raid, the Free Gaza Movement said.

“At about 4:30 am, Israeli commandos dropped from helicopter onto deck of Turkish ship, immediately opened fire on unarmed civilians,” a post on the group’s Twitter page said.

Video aired on CNN sister network CNN Turk showed what appeared to be soldiers rappelling onto the deck of a ship.

Turkish media reported two dead and 50 injured in the alleged incident as a flotilla of six ships approached the Gaza coast.

“We did not attack any boat, we merely fulfill the Israeli government’s decision to prevent anyone from going into the Gaza strip without coordinating with Israel,” a statement from the Israeli military said. “The flotilla is a provocation made to de-legitimize Israel. Had they really wanted to deliver the cargo into Gaza they could have done so via Israel as it is done on a daily basis.”

The convoy of boats approached Gaza in defiance of an Israeli blockade and had been shadowed by three Israeli warships. Free Gaza had earlier reported that they had been contacted by the Israeli navy.

The only way to peace is through the people.

Camp OUT NOW is the boldest and bravest action ever envisioned by and for peace.

Camp OUT NOW’s stated objective is to: “Clog Washington, DC every week day through diffuse Civil Resistance (CR) actions to have the effect of tampering with ‘business as usual’ in the Capital of the United States of America.”

• Troops out of the Middle East, which includes drones, permanent bases, contractors and torture/detention facilities.
• Reparations for the peoples of these war torn regions and a fully funded VA system to reintegrate our soldiers healthfully into our society.

We need as many people as possible who realize that time is running short for us to truly affect change by commitment and dedication to humanity through the end to the US Empire (and its subsidiaries).

Beginning March 13th, we will erect a tent city on the grounds of the Washington Monument as a base camp for our actions, community gathering and activites.

Your commitment can range from the entire action: Until our demands are met; or any other chunk of time that you are available.

Acts of civil resistance will begin on Monday, March 22nd and we will end when the troops start to come home.

Individual commitment will entail an at least a once a week CR mission and support to the group at large through contributing to the running and infrastructure of our encampment and the care and feeding of activists.

Learn more on Cindy Sheehan’s Peace of the Action website

http://embedr.com/playlist/dennis-kucinich-forces-congress-to-debate-afghanistan-war

Original cosponsors of the Kucinich resolution include John Conyers, Jr. (D-Michigan); Ron Paul (R-Texas); José Serrano (D-New York); Bob Filner (D-California); Lynn Woolsey (D-California); Walter Jones, Jr. (R-North Carolina); Danny Davis (D-Illinois); Barbara Lee (D-California); Michael Capuano (D-Massachusetts); Raúl Grijalva (D-Arizona); Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin); Timothy Johnson (R-Illinois); Yvette Clarke (D-New York); Eric Massa (D-New York), Alan Grayson (D-Florida) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine).

The Pentagon doesn’t want Congress to debate Afghanistan. The Pentagon wants Congress to fork over $33 billion more to pay for the current military escalation, no questions asked, no restrictions imposed for a withdrawal timetable or an exit strategy.

Ideally, from the point of view of the Pentagon, Congress would fork over that money right away, before the coming Kandahar offensive that the $33 billion is supposed to pay for, because you can expect a lot of bad news out of Afghanistan in the form of deaths of American soldiers andAfghan civilians once the Kandahar offensive starts, and it would sure be awkward if all that bad news reached Washington while the $33 billion was hanging fire.

So it’s a great thing that Kucinich and his 16 allies are forcing Congress to debate the issue, and it would be even better if more Members of Congress would be urged by their constituents to support Kucinich’s resolution. That would be a signal to the House leadership that continuation of the open-ended war and occupation is controversial in the House, and the House leadership should not try to ram through $33 billion more for the war on a fast-track without ample opportunity for debate and amendment.

Every day the Afghanistan war continues is another day on which the United States government plays Russian roulette with the lives ofAmerican soldiers and Afghan civilians.

The British government has more urgency than the US government about ending the war – and is more supportive than the US of a political solution to end the conflict – because in Britain there is greater public outcry.

If there were greater public and Congressional outcry in the US, we could be more like Britain, and get our government on board the train to a political solution, instead of prolonging the war indefinitely.

The first step towards bringing our troops home is for members of Congress to hear from their constituents.

source: truthout

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is offering a resolution calling for a swift withdrawal from the war. His office confirmed the Ohio Democrat will introduce his resolution March 4 with the goal of setting up a three-hour debate and vote on March 10. The liberal lawmaker has been in talks with House Democratic leaders in recent weeks to schedule consideration of the resolution.

The measure has no chance of passing. But the vote will give the White House its first register of Congressional Democratic support for its plan to add 30,000 troops to the conflict ahead of a springtime debate on a supplemental spending request to fund it.

Source: Roll Call News

(February 25, 2010) – On Thursday, March 4, 2010 Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) will introduce his privileged resolution that will require House debate on continuing the war in Afghanistan.

It is expected that the resolution will be taken up for consideration on the following Wednesday, March 10, 2010 and that the debate will be subject to a rule providing for three hours of debate.

Source: Dennis Kucinich

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGD_BAj9_pQ

• Martin Chulov in Baghdad guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 January 2010 17.45 GMT

Pollution caused by the bombing of oil pipelines and the type of munitions used in two wars have led to health problems in Barsa, southern Iraq. Photograph: Dan Chung

More than 40 sites across Iraq are contaminated with high levels or radiation and dioxins, with three decades of war and neglect having left environmental ruin in large parts of the country, an official Iraqi study has found.

Areas in and near Iraq’s largest towns and cities, including Najaf, Basra and ­Falluja, account for around 25% of the contaminated sites, which appear to coincide with communities that have seen increased rates of cancer and birth defects over the past five years. The joint study by the environment, health and science ministries found that scrap metal yards in and around Baghdad and Basra contain high levels of ionising radiation, which is thought to be a legacy of depleted uranium used in munitions during the first Gulf war and since the 2003 invasion.

The environment minister, Narmin Othman, said high levels of dioxins on agricultural lands in southern Iraq, in particular, were increasingly thought to be a key factor in a general decline in the health of people living in the poorest parts of the country.

Toxic zones in Iraq”If we look at Basra, there are some heavily polluted areas there and there are many factors contributing to it,” ­she told the Guardian. “First, it has been a battlefield for two wars, the Gulf war and the Iran-Iraq war, where many kinds of bombs were used. Also, oil pipelines were bombed and most of the contamination settled in and around Basra.

“The soil has ended up in people’s lungs and has been on food that people have eaten. Dioxins have been very high in those areas. All of this has caused systemic problems on a very large scale for both ecology and overall health.”

Government study groups have recently focused on the war-ravaged city of ­Falluja, west of ­Baghdad, where the unstable security situation had kept scientists away ever since fierce fighting between militants and US forces in 2004.

“We have only found one area so far in Falluja,” Othman said. “But there are other areas that we will try to explore soon with international help.”

The Guardian reported in November claims by local doctors of a massive rise in birth defects in the city, particularly neural tube defects, which afflict the spinal cords and brains of newborns. “We are aware of the reports, but we must be cautious in reaching conclusions about causes,” Othman said. “The general health of the city is not good. There is no sewerage system there and there is a lot of stagnant household waste, creating sickness that is directly affecting genetics. We do know, however, that a lot of depleted uranium was used there.

“We have been regulating and monitoring this and we have been urgently trying to assemble a database. We have had co-operation from the United Nations environment programme and have given our reports in Geneva. We have studied 500 sites for chemicals and depleted uranium. Until now we have found 42 places that have been declared as [high risk] both from uranium and toxins.”

Ten of those areas have been classified by Iraq’s nuclear decommissioning body as having high levels of radiation. They include the sites of three former nuclear reactors at the Tuwaitha facility – once the pride of Saddam ­Hussein’s regime on the south-eastern outskirts of Baghdad – as well as former research centres around the capital that were either bombed or dismantled between the two Gulf wars.

The head of the decommissioning body, Adnan Jarjies, said that when inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived to “visit these sites, I tell them that even if we have all the best science in the world to help us, none of them could be considered to be clean before 2020.”

Bushra Ali Ahmed, director of the Radiation Protection Centre in Baghdad, said only 80% of Iraq had so far been surveyed. “We have focused so far on the sites that have been contaminated by the wars,” he said. “We have further plans to swab sites that have been destroyed by war.

“A big problem for us is when say a tank has been destroyed and then moved, we are finding a clear radiation trail. It takes a while to decontaminate these sites.”

Scrap sites remain a prime concern. Wastelands of rusting cars and war damage dot Baghdad and other cities between the capital and Basra, offering unchecked access to both children and scavengers.

Othman said Iraq’s environmental degradation is being intensified by an acute drought and water shortage across the country that has seen a 70% decrease in the volume of water flowing through the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

“We can no longer in good conscience call ourselves the land between the rivers,” she said. “A lot of the water we are getting has first been used by Turkey and Syria for power generation. When it reaches us it is poor quality. That water which is used for agriculture is often contaminated. We are in the midst of an unmatched environmental disaster.”

Source: -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/22/iraq-nuclear-contaminated-sites?CMP=AFCYAH

By Sabrina Eaton, The Plain Dealer

December 16, 2009, 6:34PM

Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s proposed resolution to pull troops out of Afghanistan seems to be getting a favorable reception from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

At a roundtable with reporters on Wednesday afternoon, Pelosi said many House members “are eager to have a vote soon on Afghanistan” and the resolution the Cleveland Democrat plans to introduce early next year will likely satisfy that need.

Since Kucinich announced last week that he’ll be introducing a resolution to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, a dozen colleagues from both political parties have agreed to cosponsor his measure.

House leaders attempted to thwart debate on past resolutions that Kucinich introduced to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney by moving to table them. Pelosi said tabling his Afghanistan resolution hadn’t occurred to her until a reporter asked about it.

Pelosi says it will be up to Obama to convince members of Congress to approve the money he needs to send extra troops to Afghanistan. Members of Congress will have to base their votes on their “consciences and constituents,” she said.

“I have told the members to give the President room, to listen to what he has to say,” Pelosi said. “This President was dealt a very bad hand because there was no plan in Afghanistan for years.”

Asked how she plans to vote on Kucinich’s measure, Pelosi replied: “I don’t vote unless it’s a tie.”

Source: Cleveland.com

Peace Movement Says Hello World

---

A new anti-war coalition based at EndUSwars.org held its first rally on Saturday, Dec. 12 2009 outside the U.S. White House.

It didn’t receive enough attention, but this author leaned into it upon learning about the new coalition atwww.EndUSwars.org. The coalition held its first rally outside the U.S. White House on Saturday, December 12, 2009.

The rally had music, a raft of speakers, and four former U.S. Presidential candidates: Kucinich, Gravel, McKinney, and Nader. These are the Green / progressive / anti-war left in touch with “Main Street” America. Apparently, they are too far left to suit the taste of U.S. network TV, which is pro-war, pro-genocide, and pro-corrupt status quo.

Network TV is “the corrupt, flacking for the corrupt,” and indeed their only role in the face of authentic and genuine protest is to put out the fire, by starving such protest of its metaphorical oxygen — the attention that would bring the concerns to wider audiences.

So, it should not surprise us that network TV yammered about Tiger Woods all weekend — it was a convenient distraction and it filled up air time that might otherwise have gone to Kucinich, Gravel, McKinney, and Nader, who addressed the high stakes questions of war and peace, and the waste of blood, treasure, lives, and livelihoods.

It should be a national issue — can we afford more war at a time when our economy is a crater?

But, the pro-war U.S. TV networks know how to sidestep serious issues, and what the public got instead is discussion of Tiger Woods, marital infidelity, and his sex life, endorsement deals, and PR strategy.

To be entertained with prurient titillation, go ahead and turn on CNN. To be informed, keep your mouse surfing at this web site.

In this article, I will simply insert pull quotes or highlights from the speeches of the ex-Presidential candidates. Then, I will insert the Cynthia McKinney speech. This will convey a sense of what was said, but of course it’s not everything, and to see more speeches go and visit www.EndUSwars.org.

The following points seemed to be striking (emphasis added):

“These wars are corrupting the heart of our nation. They raise serious questions about the legitimacy of the two party system….We have money for war, but not for jobs. Money for war, but not for health care. Money for war, but not for education. Money for war, but not for housing. Money for war, but not for peace. Billions for bailouts, bonuses, and bombs…. We are nation building in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, and some would have us nation build even in Iran. But we cannot nation build here at home! –Where bridges, water systems, sewer systems, and roads are falling apart! We must rally across America to set aright our nation’s priorities.”

–Dennis Kucinich

“Instead of investigating war criminals in the Bush administration, President Obama has chosen to become one. Our President is now complicit in torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace.”

–Cynthia McKinney

“It is not honorable to die in vain. And that’s what we did. We died in vain in Vietnam. We’ve been dying in vain in Iraq. And we’ll die in vain in Afghanistan. And we’re going to die more people in vain at the hands of the leadership of Barack Obama. This is sad…. [Gravel led the crowd to chant] ‘Hey, hey Obama say how many kids you killed today!’“

–Mike Gravel

“Now remember 1994, when a lot of Democrats and a lot of liberals stayed home. Gingrich toppled the Democrats in Congress and took control of Congress in January, 1995. That can happen again, if Obama continues his reckless path toward a criminal war of aggression that is undermining our national security, our national reputation, and destroying on both sides of the ocean — millions of innocent people’s lives, health, safety, and hopes for the future.”

–Ralph Nader

And now for Cynthia McKinney’s speech.

My fellow Americans,

Millions of us are drinking dirty and contaminated water. Four million of us will get foreclosure notices by the end of this year. 25 million of us are un- or under-employed. 47 million of us have no health insurance, and millions more are under-insured.

My aunt was killed by the health care system in this country. Not because she didn’t have insurance; she did. What she didn’t get was quality care. And amidst all the talk about health care, no one is talking about quality care.

My cousin, who is no more than 24 years old, is now $100,000 in debt because she wanted to get an undergraduate college education.

But the trials of my family are not our story alone. Millions of us are now in the same boat. And no matter how hard we wish for a better world and a kinder country, our policy makers are not delivering on our hopes and dreams. In fact, the dreams of our country stand deferred, and drowned in debt.

Sadly, in the face of growing income inequality, our President chose to transfer over $23 trillion of our hard earned money to the bankers and financial elite — who didn’t have to work hard at all for it — just tank our economy.

So, huddled in fear, we pray together that the flu, a hurricane, the Great Depression, or the next terrorist attack doesn’t hit us.

Now, given all these problems, what do our leaders do? Bomb, maim, and kill people on the other side of the planet, whose resources certain powerful people in this country want to steal, and whose territory occupies the land necessary for global conquest.

Now, instead of investigating war criminals in the Bush administration, President Obama has chosen to become one. Our President is now complicit in torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace.

So, what are we to do? We will not give up, and we will not go away. We are not so demoralized that we can’t see the truth. We know that lies are not true; ignorance is not strength; and war is not peace.

We see the power of the ballot in Latin America, where voters in unrigged elections are choosing freedom. Our freedom is under seige as much right here as it is in Haiti or Honduras. If U.S. politics was truly democratic, then we would not have war. That’s why I support Senator Gravel’s national initiative project. Who has $100 million of their own money to spend to get elected, like New York’s mayor did?

We are ready to act on our dreams. To create the kind of change that graduates students from college — free of charge. That treats medical ailments — free of charge. That reflects our interests, not the special interests. That elects peace candidates to Congress and that elects a peace President too.

While our fellow Americans are afraid to get sick, struggle to keep a job, educate their children, stave off foreclosure, and make ends meet, we will not rest. As long as bombs drop, and civilians die, we will not rest. While the oligarchs and the war machine get our money, we will not rest.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lamented that both political parties failed to take a stand for what was right. He said that our scientific power has outstripped our spiritual power. –That we possessed guided missiles, and misguided men.

Well, President Obama, don’t be misguided. Stop shielding war criminals from justice in our courts. Stop supporting the PATRIOT Act and spying against us environmentalists and peace activists. Stop granting power to the Federal Reserve. Close Guantanamo. Stop torture and renditions, secret prisons, and building military bases all over the planet.

President Obama, stop the saber rattling at Iran. Stop the drones and depleted uranium. Stop bombing Somalia. Stop using war as an energy policy. And finally, stop bankrupting our nation.

We will not stop, we will not rest, and our peace candidates will win.

Source: Echoes of Practical Idealism

Rep. Kucinich: “These Wars Are Corrupting… our Nation!”

On Sat., Dec. 12, 2009, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) was one of the featured speakers at the emergency End-the-U.S.-Wars rally. See for background: http://www.enduswars.org/ The event was held in Lafayette Park, opposite the White House. Rep. Kucinich has acted as the conscience of the House of Representatives in opposing U.S. wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i31UW0ghOdA

Demonstration follows President Obama’s Nobel speech

Hundreds of protesters have gathered near the White House to try and start a new anti-war movement.  Saturday’s demonstration closely follows President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech, in which he said war is sometimes needed to establish lasting peace.  Demonstrators in Washington opposed this view, as well as the president’s request for 30,000 more U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

“Make it personal, make it personal, because killing is personal. It’s immoral. It’s personal,” chanted protesters.

Former Democratic Alaska Senator and 2008 presidential candidate Mike Gravel led protesters in anti-war chants, while calling for a mass movement to help end U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The gathering, full of peace signs, anti-war posters, and one mock Guantanamo detainee, began under sunny,but cold skies with music from the hip-hop band Head-Roc.

The headline speaker at the event was current U.S. Democratic Representative from Ohio Dennis Kucinich.

“We must rally, protest, march to exercise our civic capacity to bring about real change. Congress must take responsibility. I will soon introduce two bills invoking the War Powers Act, which will force votes on withdrawal from Afghanistan. The decision to go to war is not the president’s alone to make” stated Kucinich.

But Kucinich acknowledged Congress has other plans in mind.  He went on to say, “this coming week, Congress will fold unemployment compensation into a bill which will provide $ 130 billion dollars to keep the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq going. The message is clear: ‘we have money for war, but not for jobs; money for war, but not for peace.’”

Many at the rally said they had voted for President Obama in the 2008 election, including Bill Steyert who took a morning train from New York City.

Steyert said,  “I would go after al-Qaida if and where we know they are and get them. But having thousands of troops shooting up villages, breaking in doors, looking for needles in haystacks, many times, it’s ridiculous. And I am just furious because I am a Vietnam veteran and I saw the terrible waste of lives there. You can go to the (Vietnam Veterans War Memorial) Wall here in D.C. and see what that got us, and for what: an independent, communist Vietnam who now we trade with.”

One unemployed woman, Wendy Fournier, said the protest was just a start.

“I think that there is such a thing as critical mass, the more protests, the more people out, the more people have to be aware of what is going on, the more people are conscious, that right there throws weight in our favor. Consciousness is the beginning of the whole thing,” she stated.

Speaker after speaker called for a safe return of all troops, the end of drone strikes and torture and secret detentions, while police looked on and singers like Jordan Page provided musical interludes.

Source: Voice of America News

Sat. December 12th: Anti-war rally in DC. Nader & McKinney will speak

Posted by Ian Wilder at onthewilderside.com

Green Party Prez candidates Nader & McKinney headline Anti-War Rally 12/12/09

This is an updated new advisory — Ralph Nader has just confirmed that he will speak at Saturday’s rally in front of the White House. At least six and as possibly as many as nine of the speakers are Greens. Those who show up for the rally: please bring your Green Party (including DC Statehood Green Party & other state & local GP) buttons, signs, etc.

Rally in DC on December 12 will tell President Obama “No You Can’t!” send more US troops to Afghanistan

• Obama’s escalation plans will turn many of his supporters against him, say rally organizers and speakers

Emergency Anti-War Rally at the White House against President Obama’s planned military escalation in Afghanistan

• When: Saturday, December 12, 11 am to 4 pm
• Lafayette Park in Washington, DC, across from the White House, near the Farragut West Metro Station
• Organized by End US Wars http://www.enduswars.org

Thousands of Americans will gather in Lafayette Park across from the White House on Saturday, December 12, to tell President Obama “No you can’t!” send over 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan.

Speakers for the rally will include Rep. Dennis Kucinich, former Rep. and 2008 GP Prez cand Cynthia McKinney, 2000 GP Prez cand Ralph Nader, former Sen. Mike Gravel, Kathy Kelly,Chris Hedges, David Swanson, Coy McKinney, Mathis Chiroux, Green candidate for Governor of Maine Lynne Williams , Marian Douglas-Ungaro and many others. Many of the speakers are available for interview: see the online speakers list (http://www.enduswars.org/guide). Statements from Colonel Ann Wright, Kevin Zeese , Jared Ball, John Judge and many more.

Ralliers will demand that President Obama announce an immediate ceasefire in Iraq and Afghanistan to end the wars and order our troops home, stop Predator drone attacks and covert operations in Pakistan, and begin immediate reconstruction and recovery in war torn regions.

If the President does not meet these demands, he will face intensified opposition, with anti-war candidates prepared to defeat his war policy politically.

Along with the rally on December 12, the film ‘Rethink Afghanistan’ will be shown Friday December 11, from 8 to 10 pm at Busboys & Poets, 14th and V Streets NW in Washington, DC.

Related: GP Prez cand Cynthia McKinney featured at 12/12/09 Anti-war Rally

Dennis Kucinich “We Can’t Afford These Wars!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8iozAwHYYE

Over A Million Innocent People Perished In A War Based On A Lie! Congressman Dennis Kucinich

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mafHPre-JgU

Dennis Kucinich “I Have Seen The Slow & Steady Erosion Of The Constitution Of The United States!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnEFhVaLrdk

Kucinich measure to end Afghanistan war gains cosponsors

By Sabrina Eaton, The Plain Dealer

December 15, 2009, 2:40PM

Dennis Kucinich’s proposed congressional effort to end the Afghanistan war has gained a dozen bipartisan cosponsors during the week the Cleveland Democrat has circulated it.

Here’s the cosponsor list provided by Kucinich’s office: John Conyers, Jr.; (D-MI); Ron E. Paul (R-TX); Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD); Bob Filner (D-CA); Walter Jones, Jr. (R-NC); Lynn Woolsey (D-CA); Edward Whitfield (R-KY); Michael Capuano (D-MA); Timothy V. Johnson (R-IL); Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ); Eric Massa (D-NY); and Alan Grayson (D-FL).

“At a time when 15 milllion people are unemployed we cannot continue spending hundreds of billions of dollars on disastrous wars,” Kucinich said in a press release. “My resolution will force a debate and vote on the war in Afghanistan. Congress must reassert its constitutional authority to start and end wars.”

Kucinich’s office said a similar privileged resolution to end the war in Pakistan will be introduced at a later date. Privileged resolutions require a House of Representatives debate within 15 days of introduction.

However, there is deep disquiet today within the ranks of the President’s own base in the Democratic Party, with independents, and with middle-of-the-roaders called “swing” voters. In unprecedented numbers, voters in the United States of all previous political persuasions went to the polls and invested their dreams and, most importantly, their votes in the “hope” and “change” promised by the Obama campaign. But in light of the President’s defense of Bush Administration war crimes and torture in U.S. courts, the transfer of trillions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars to the wealthy banking elite, continued spying on environmental and peace activists as well as support for the extension of the Patriot Act, and removal of Medicare-for-all (single payer) as a central feature of proposed health care reform, Obama voters are rethinking their support.

Already, according to a Daily Koss report written by Steve Singiser: “Two in five Democratic voters either consider themselves unlikely to vote at this point in time, or have already made the firm decision to remove themselves from the 2010 electorate pool. Indeed, Democrats were three times more likely to say that they will ‘definitely not vote’ in 2010 than are Republicans.” By contrast, Republicans are happy today. Almost giddy with glee as far as I can see. Warmonger John McCain and most Republicans will make sure the President gets what he wants. And in 2012, they will abandon their support of this President and support the candidate that comes from their base.

War-weary voters in this country are committed to peace. They reject the notion, as put forward by Vice President Dick Cheney that “the American way of life” is something worth fighting for when that means that war becomes an energy policy.

Tragically, the major unstated U.S. interest in the region that the President has bought into is the unacceptability of a proposed Iran-Pakistan-India (I-P-I) pipeline at a time when our country is saber-rattling against and threatening Iran with more sanctions. Earlier this year, Iran and Pakistan decided to move forward with their pipeline even if India decides to drop out. Ironically, I-P-I is also known as the “peace pipeline.”

The alternative pipeline route, Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (T-A-P-I), is supported by Washington because it denies an important economic benefit to Iran. Sadly, nowhere in the President’s remarks did he mention the pipeline on which construction is slated to begin in 2010.

U.S. policy is not only guided by pipeline politics. There is also the consideration of chessboard geo-positioning necessary to contain Russia, China, and ensure U.S. empire—for those inclined to traditional Cold Warrior “containment” thinking. Apparently, behind what some are calling a “shadow war in Muslim lands,” are targeted assassination teams that have wreaked tri-border havoc in Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Fortunately, this time around, I’m convinced that U.S. voters will vote for peace. President Obama has now ensured this outcome. Imagine, John McCain and Joe Lieberman have just been made very happy by the President’s choice while that same choice leaves swing voters, independents, and some Democrats who enthusiastically supported Obama’s campaign looking for somewhere else to go.

So it’s come to this. Obama’s gotta wage his war, and I gotta sit in the street.

It’s not that I like blocking traffic or getting arrested or dealing with the fall-out when I could be reading a book. It’s that I can’t live with endless war and I must end it or surely die.

I’m not leaving this country. This is my mess, so help me, and I’ll scrub it till my fingers bleed. I will not compromise with genocide. I will not run from those behind it.

Endless war is the promise of our time, signed in blood and sealed with death’s own kiss. Its stench hangs around us heavy smog. While I dare not breath for fear of intoxication, I cannot hold much longer.

This is the American nightmare, and it’s shattering my heart like glass.

As I stepped to the microphone outside West Point Military Academy Tuesday, all I wanted was to go home, honestly. Good lord, don’t let me cry in front of these people, I thought. Why must I play out this misery for all to see?

Obama’s only doing exactly what he said he’d do, but still, I’m heartbroken. I can’t go on like this.

I’ve been a mess. When I try to imagine the future of this country, I see nothing. I have no faith that good always triumphs anymore. I think where there’s a will to change there’s a way to subvert it. I taste the world I am to inherit, and it makes me sick to my stomach.

But as I admitted to the crowd my feelings of hopelessness and despondency, I realized once again, that I am not alone. People stared into my eyes with equally heavy brows and clenching teeth. When they came close, I saw tears in their eyes as well, and they seemed thankful to see them in mine.

Our suffering is one. We are the disenfranchised. In our lives, our jobs, our politics; we have been denigrated to utter impotence. People are not meant to live this way, and we cry out in one voice through history for liberation. Again and again, we’ve had our voices ignored and our mutual bonds dissolved by paranoia and fury.

But I couldn’t let him get away with it. They think his slick speeches and skin color will keep the left at home. Someone had to go down for this, even if it was me.

We marched to the installation gate where a line of cops and troops were waiting. When we sat down in front of the barricades, they didn’t seem all that concerned. Young and old alike joined us on the pavement. I was left awestruck by the singular dedication of the burgeoning crowd to ending our Global War of Lies and Terror.

For 30 minutes, the hundreds of us shouted down the full winter moon. We chanted our opposition to escalation. We lamented the change we were promised and denied. The message was loud and in no unmistakable terms: Obama, this is the death of your presidency!

When we moved into the traffic lane after he started his speech, I felt a great warmth from within for the first time in weeks. While through my head streamed images of Satyagrahas past, my heart pounded reassurance, for it knew I was there for a reason.

This government refuses to respond to the needs and demands of its people. It’s come to this. I refuse to be ignored. I pledge to be peacefully ungovernable.

The police carried my crutches while I limped to the car in hand-cuffs. A sense of satisfaction settled in as I waited in the back and counted those who’d be joining me ‘downtown.’ Six of us in total. We’d done it. At least to us, Obama had not gotten away with it.

Not an hour later, we were released. The officers who I dealt with were beyond respectful to us and our cause. While I didn’t make any friends, I didn’t find any enemies. At some point during the evening, I cut my finger on the pavement, but beyond that, we walked away with little more than disorderly conduct charges and a notice to appear Dec. 15 at 6:30 p.m. at the Town Court at 254 Main St. Highland Falls, NY 10928. (Come join us!)

As we left the station, I was thrilled to see a sidewalk full of activists waiting and to find a prominent lawyer in town already representing us. While Obama had shattered our dreams of peace, we felt we’d won the day. Even with the impending escalation, we found the strength to joyously declare the birth of a new peace movement!

The government won this round. 30,000 more troops is a clear loss for us and more importantly the people of Afghanistan. But from what I saw, we are ready to rededicate ourselves to unwavering resistence from within. In the words of our former dictator, “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…see, you can’t get fooled again.”

Obama is a war president and we are a peace movement. As long as we’re moving, Obama, and you refuse to be governed, we’ll refuse to be governed. Your racist wars will end and this world will know peace in our lifetimes. Until that day, rest assured that WE WILL BE YOUR INSURGENCY!

American Iraq War Veteran,

Matthis Chiroux

The LIE about “wipe israel off the map” was deliberately distranslated propaganda by meyrav wurmser (traitor) that signed the 1996 “A Clean Break” war plan FOR ISRAEL. ALL International news from the Middle East is “TRANSLATED” by MEMRI (founded by treasonous meyrav wurmser). Most of “our” intel from the Middle East comes from israeli mossad. “Our **ALLIES** in the Middle East” = israel (the name we shall not speak).

FYI: israel is NOT a US Ally by definition because they refuse to sign a treaty with us because they refuse to define their ever-expanding borders.

“A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”

First neocon report calling for Iran invasion.  Delivered to Israel, 1996.

With contributions from top DUAL-CITIZEN Pentagon officials: Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser all members of the “Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy,” and all key Iraq-war players in Bush administration.

“The loss of national critical mass was illustrated best by Israel’s efforts to draw in the United States to sell unpopular policies domestically, to agree to negotiate sovereignty over its capital, and to respond with resignation to a spate of terror so intense and tragic that it deterred Israelis from engaging in normal daily functions, such as commuting to work in buses (7/7).”

“Securing the Northern Border”

“Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An effective approach, and one with which American can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizballah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon.”

“recently, Netanyahu suggested that President Bush had assured him Iran will be prevented from going nuclear. I take him at his word. Netanyahu seems to be the main mover in America’s official adoption of the 1996 white paper A Clean Break, authored by him and American fellow neocons, which aimed to aggressively remake the strategic environments of Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. As they say in boxing circles, three down, two to go.”

Now that you understand, watch israeli cheerleaders naively attempting to swindle us into ANOTHER war.

John Bolton: Israel will attack Iran by end of 2009

No One Should Be Surprised That Israel Is Getting Ready To Attack Iran! John Bolton

President Obama On His Push To Stop Nuclear Proliferation In North Korea, Iran, & Around The World

“Ahmadinejad Denies The Holocaust! While Preparing The Next One! “

Iran War Games To Protect Nuclear Facilities

More Israeli Airstrikes In Gaza!

Israel Freezes Settlement Building! Palestinians Dismiss Temporary Move

“Nuclear Ambiguity”

for more information, see:
http://americanbuilt.us/videos/israeli-occupation.shtml

Wilkerson, who was chief of staff at the State Department (2002-2005) and now teaches at George Washington University, was alluding to President John F. Kennedy’s courage in 1962, when he faced down his top generals and refused to bomb Cuba and risk nuclear war.  That was as close as we came to nuclear calamity during the entire Cold War.

Despite the urgency of the threat posed by the Russian military buildup in Cuba (we now know the Russians had already placed nuclear weapons on the island), Kennedy’s deliberate decision-making style allowed enough time for cooler heads to prevail and yielded a peaceful solution.

A hallmark trait of John Kennedy was his ability to listen and learn.  At the same time, he did not hesitate to challenge conventional wisdom.

Call that “dithering,” if you wish.  I, for one, applaud President Barack Obama for following Kennedy’s calm, deliberative style, as Obama faces similar pressure from the military to send tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan.

Kennedy: Out of Vietnam

The Cuban crisis was not the only time JFK found himself at loggerheads with generals who thought they knew better and who verged on the insubordinate.  Kennedy’s sustained arm wrestling with his senior generals over whether to send more troops to Vietnam was just as tense, and much more sustained.

In the end, he concluded that they had it wrong and he decided against them.  In short, he opted to behave like a president-a “decider” (pardon the odd word).  His overruling of the U.S. military brass on Vietnam had huge implications, both short- and long-term.  This “real history” is highly relevant today.

The 46^th anniversary of John Kennedy’s assassination passed by last Sunday virtually unnoticed.  The unfortunate thing is this: his legacy on Vietnam is so widely misunderstood that it is easy to miss the relevance of his decision making in the early Sixties to the dilemma faced by President Barack Obama today as he decides whether to stand up to-or cave in to-the Pentagon’s plans for escalating another misbegotten war in Afghanistan.

Faux history has it that President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s infusion of hundreds of thousands, up to 536,000, combat troops into Vietnam was a straight-line continuation of a buildup started by his slain predecessor.  Kennedy did raise the U.S. troop level there from about 1,000 to 16,500 “advisers” – a significant increase.

But as he studied the options, cost, and likely outcomes, Kennedy came to see U.S. intervention in Vietnam as a fool’s errand.  Few Americans are aware that, just before he was assassinated, Kennedy had decided to pull all troops out of Vietnam by 1965.

The Pentagon was hell bent on thwarting such plans, and Defense Secretary McNamara found it an uphill struggle to enforce the President’s will on the top brass.  Senior military officers were experts at “slowrolling” politicians who favored a course that the Pentagon didn’t like.  When in May 1962 Kennedy ordered up a contingency troop-withdrawal plan, it took more than a year for the military brass to draw one up.

As the President encountered continuing resistance, he paid increasing attention to more levelheaded military and civilian advisers as well as to his own intuition and instincts.  Kennedy asked the Marine Commandant, Gen. David M. Shoup, “to look over the ground in Southeast Asia and counsel him.”  Shoup told the President:

“Unless we are prepared to use a million men in a major drive, we should pull out before the war expands beyond control.”

Kennedy concluded that there was no responsible course other than to press ahead for a phased withdrawal regardless of the opposition from his senior national security advisers.  He decided to pull 1,000 troops out of Vietnam by the end of 1963 and the rest by 1965.

How To Do It

My Irish grandmother called Kennedy “a clever lad” and she was right.

Realizing that he had to exercise the utmost care in navigating choppy military and political waters, Kennedy employed the artifice of sending Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Gen. Maxwell Taylor on a “fact-finding” trip to Saigon.  At the end of the trip they would “recommend” the course the President had already chosen.

Stopping in Hawaii en route back to Washington, McNamara and Taylor were given “their” report, which had been written by John and Robert Kennedy.  It was instantly named the “McNamara-Taylor report” and the two travelers presented it to the President on the morning of Oct. 2, 1963.  Wasting no time, the President convened a National Security Council meeting that evening to discuss the report.

The senior military saw through the subterfuge and strongly opposed the key recommendations of the report.  In his memoir, In Retrospect, McNamara wrote that the NSC meeting saw “heated debate about our recommendation that the Defense Department announce plans to withdraw U.S. military forces by the end of 1965, starting with the withdrawal of 1,000 men by the end of the year.”  In McNamara’s words, there was “a total lack of consensus.”

However, there is only one “decider” on the National Security Council – the President.  Kennedy stepped up to the plate and decided, bypassing the majority opposed.

Thirty-two years later in a Sept. 12, 1995 letter to the New York Times, McNamara took strong issue with a charge in an earlier op-ed that  “the groundwork was being laid for our tragic escalation of the war” before President Kennedy was killed.  McNamara described the President’s reasoning in deciding to go ahead, despite the lack of consensus:

“…[T]he President nonetheless authorized the beginning of withdrawal, believing that either our training and logistical support led to the progress claimed or, if it had not, additional training would not change the situation and, in either case, we should plan to withdraw.”

His decision made, Kennedy wasted no time in acting, well, like a President.  He told McNamara to announce it immediately in order to “set it in concrete,” according to McNamara.  As the defense secretary was leaving the NSC meeting to tell White House reporters, the President called to him, “And tell them that means all of the helicopter pilots, too,” according to Kenneth O’Donnell and David Powers in their book, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye.

Action Memorandum

The President’s policy was formalized nine days later in his National Security Action Memorandum Number 263 of October 11, 1963.  That document put into effect the McNamara-Taylor recommendations, which provided that:

“A program be established to train Vietnamese so that essential functions now performed by U.S. military personnel can be carried out by Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by that time….[and] the Defense Department should announce in the very near future presently prepared plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963.”

Whether Kennedy truly believed that the U.S. training program would succeed in helping the South Vietnamese prevail is doubtful.  Clearly, he wanted out.  He carried around in his conscience, and from time to time spoke of, the number of American troops already killed.  (Eight died under Eisenhower; about 170 during Kennedy’s tenure.)

Assistant Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff, to whom fell the task of announcing President Kennedy’s death on Nov. 22, 1963, told James Douglass, author of JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, that Kennedy’s mind was fixed on Vietnam the day before.  Instead of rehearsing for a press conference that day, Kennedy told Kilduff:

“I’ve just been given a list of the most recent casualties in Vietnam.  We’re losing too damned many people over there.  It’s time for us to get out.  The Vietnamese are not fighting for themselves.  We’re the ones who are doing the fighting.

After I come back from Texas, that’s going to change.  There is no reason for us to lose another man over there.  Vietnam is not worth another American life.”

A month before, during his last visit to Hyannis Port, Kennedy told his next-door neighbor Larry Newman, “I’m going to get those guys out [of Vietnam] because we’re not going to find ourselves in a war it’s impossible to win.

Kennedy understood that decisions on Vietnam were far too important to be left to myopic generals.  They were still chafing at what they considered Kennedy’s failure in 1962 to seize the moment and obliterate Cuba-and perhaps also the U.S.S.R., while we were at it.  Add Kennedy’s clear desire to work closely (often secretly) with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in a priority effort to prevent another Cuba-type crisis, and then letting generic “Communists” take over Vietnam-with dominoes likely to fall all over the place-and the military brass became convinced they needed to strongly oppose such “appeasement.”

“Best and Brightest”

And it was not only the generals.  Far from it.  The “best and the brightest,” first and foremost McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy’s national security adviser, were also strongly opposed to Kennedy’s decision to pull troops out of Vietnam.  Bundy disagreed with the recommendations in the McNamara-Taylor report.  He also resisted Kennedy’s frequently expressed doubts that foreign troops, even in large numbers, could prevail in guerrilla war, and Kennedy’s determination never to send combat troops to Vietnam.

Bundy thought he knew better, refusing to believe that the President would ever “let South Vietnam go.”  Years later, Bundy’s memoirs defended his views and advice to Kennedy on Vietnam.

However, after McNamara published In Retrospect in 1995, in which he concluded that “we were wrong, terribly wrong” on Vietnam, Bundy went back to the drawing board to rethink his assessment.

Bundy hired a man half his age, Gordon Goldstein, as research assistant to help him in what turned out to be Bundy’s personal quest to discover the roots of his own mistakes which, for the most part, were the result of hubris, pure and simple.

Early this year, author William Pfaff reviewed what started out as the Bundy Memoir Part II (McGeorge Bundy died in 1996), but ended up as Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam by Goldstein.  In his review, Pfaff highlights Bundy’s pedigree: tops at Groton, professor of government at Harvard and youngest dean of faculty; his mother a Boston Brahmin, his father a diplomat.  Pfaff is ruthlessly on point in describing Bundy’s attitude:

“American had to ‘win’ in Vietnam because America always wins.  America knows better than everyone else because of that intellectual firepower deployed at Harvard and other elite universities.  America does not have to know about other people because other people are not worth knowing.

“Goldstein’s decisive clue to why Bundy failed came by accident.  He found a note written in 1996, when Bundy was asked what had been most surprising about the war.  He answered, ‘the endurance of the enemy.’  Goldstein writes: ‘He didn’t understand the enemy ‘because, frankly, he didn’t think they warranted his attention.’”

The good news for today comes from press reporting that top officials of the Obama administration, including the President, have read Goldstein’s book.  Drawing a connection between Kennedy’s challenge on Vietnam and Obama’s on Afghanistan, a Wall Street Journal report of Oct. 7 noted, “For opponents of a major troop increase … ‘Lessons in Disaster’ encapsulates their concerns about accepting military advice unchallenged.”

Obama Must Decide

There are hints that Obama is more Chicago than Harvard-and that, like Kennedy, he carries casualty figures around in his conscience.  His late-night, early-morning appearance at Dover Air Force Base a few weeks ago to salute what the Washington Post called “transfer cases” coming home from the war is, I believe, a telling sign.  Obama knows they are not just “transfer cases.”

This young President, too, is a “clever lad;” he is also a politician.  Intellectually, he is surely equipped to understand the March of Folly that would be involved, were he to send substantial additional forces to Afghanistan.  And he is surely aware that the majority of Americans are no longer deceived by the pundits at Fox News.  Recent polls show broader and broader popular opposition to sending more troops.

The choice, in my view, is between courage and cowardice cloaked as politics of the possible.  Let me guess what you’re thinking – “But that’s asking too much of the young President; “cowardice” is too strong a word; Obama cannot possibly face down the entire military establishment.”

Yes He Can

John Kennedy did.  So the question is whether Barack Obama is “no Jack Kennedy,” or whether he will summon the courage to stand up to the misguided military brass of today.  We are talking, after all, about thousands more being killed-and for what?

I would suggest to the President that he give another close read to Goldstein’s “Lessons in Disaster” and then ponder the lessons that leap out of Barbara Tuchman’s The March to Folly: From Troy to Vietnam.

Obama may also wish to ponder the words of W.E.B. Dubois:

“Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season.  It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year.  It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow….”

Note:  In his book JFK and the Unspeakable, James Douglass has arrayed-and documented-his narrative with such care, that it has been all too easy for me to plagiarize from it.  Actually, the book takes the JFK story much further, to include a thorough discussion of what-and who-Douglass believes killed the President.  I recommend the book highly.

An earlier version of this article first appeared at www.Consortiumnews.com .

Source: -

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24063.htm

http://news.americanbuilt.us/2009/10/un-confirms-war-crimes-report-of-israeli-gaza-conflict/

More Israeli Airstrikes In Gaza! NOVEMBER 22, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3M9Yw6eECA

Palestinians Kicked Out Of Jerusalem At Record Rate!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl1N5oiNK4U

Israeli Settler Repeatedly Runs Over Palestinian With Car While Israeli Police Watch And Do Nothing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cxBoPbxgQE

Israel “The Occupier” Approves ANOTHER 900 Illegal Settlement Homes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV4J3trpOAQ

Israel Freezes Settlement Building! Palestinians Dismiss Temporary Move

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj36WZ_VBvw

STOP MURDERING CHILDREN!!!

STOP DEFENDING WAR CRIMES!!!

http://www.youtube.com/user/AmericanBuilt1776#g/c/DB03229E043F90C1

1915 – Nov 27, Columbia University president Nicholas Murray Butler (on the executive committee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) delivered an address, “A New World Order is Being Born” to the Union League of Philadelphia in which he stated: “The old world order changed when this war storm broke–the old world order died with the setting of the day’s sun and a New World Order is being born while I speak.”

1976 Congressman Larry P. McDonald: “The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control…. Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.”

1972 Robert Welch – May, page 10 “Or, as fellow Insider Mr. James Reston of the New York Times enthusiastically puts it, deliberately using the two-hundred years old language and slogan of the Conspiracy — ‘Mr. Nixon cannot become the head of a new world order (Novus Ordo Seclorum) unless the Communist nations are brought into the world order….’ ”

1972 Robert Welch – Sept, page 29 “This plan is to establish – very soon – the first stages of a ‘new world order.’ This will be the novus ordo seclorum for which a self-perpetuating inner circle of Conspirators has been working and scheming relentlessly during some six generations.”

1972 Robert Welch – Oct, page 28 “There should be no surprise for longtime readers of the Bulletin….that those plans include the conversion of the United States into a socialist nation – and the merger of that enslaved segment of mankind with other Communist nations into a New World Order. That goal, under that very name – originally written in bastardized Latin as novus ordo seclorum – has been envisioned by a Master Conspiracy for the past two hundred years as the ultimate product of all its crimes against humanity, and of all its subversive onslaughts against western civilization.”

2-25-1972: “and the hope that each of us has to build a new world order.” – nixon

1991 gw bush: “When we are successful, and we will be, we have a real chance at this new world order, an order in which a credible United Nations can use its peacekeeping role to fulfill the promise and vision of the UN’s founders.”

1993 – July 18: CFR member and Trilateralist Henry Kissinger writes in The Los Angeles Times concerning NAFTA: “What Congress will have before it is not a conventional trade agreement but the architecture of a new international system….a first step toward a new world order.”

1995 – Jan 27: Billionaire financier George Soros at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, says the world needs a “new world order,” and he further warns: “I am here to alert you that we are entering a period of world disorder.”

2001 – “There is a chance for the President of the United States to use this [9-11] disaster to carry out = a new world order.” (Gary Hart, at a televised meting organized by the CFR in Washington, DC 9/14/2001)

Alex Jones’ highly anticipated upcoming documentary Fall of the Republic: The Presidency of Barack Obama boldly lifts the lid and unveils the fraud behind Brand Obama and how the globalists are using their newest, and slickest ever puppet to destroy the last vestiges of America’s freedom, Constitution and economy, all while helping the bankers loot the country clean.

The film exposes the agenda that Obama was put in place to accomplish, a world government allied with a bank of the world run by globalist eugenicists hell-bent on destroying America’s first world status and replacing it with a hollow shell of tyranny.

The mind control, the television programming, and all the media talking points that serve to reinforce the image of Brand Obama are laid bare, unveiling the naked ruth, as legendary author and documentary film maker John Pilger recently discussed, that Obama is nothing more than a corporate marketing creation, a skilled hypnotist using seductive tools of propaganda – race, gender and class – to hoodwink the masses into accepting his rhetoric while ignoring the contradiction of his actions.
The film exposes how Brand Obama says one thing – to make people buy into the brand – and then the real Obama does another.

The burgeoning police state, warrantless wiretapping, secret arrests, indefinite detention of citizens, torture, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Pakistan, have all been expanded under Brand Obama despite his promises to reverse them all.

The real question to ask is not which class Obama claims to represent or fight for, but which class Obama serves. Fall of the Republic leaves no room for doubt that the class Obama serves is the elite and it is their agenda he is diligently following.

UN peacekeepers discovered the buried devices when they were blown up by remote control by Israel on Sunday.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora accused Israel of blatantly violating the UN Security Council resolution that led to the end of fighting.

Mr Siniora said an Israeli plane flying above peacekeepers and Lebanese troops investigating the blasts constituted further violation of the resolution.

The suspected spying device was seen in the southern village of Houla.

Source: BBC News

According to reports, the international group is aiming to step up its efforts to battle crime worldwide, claiming the need for its own special passports, shared global DNA and biometric information databases, cooperation with the UN’s military arm and much more. “It is the first step toward creating what Interpol calls a ‘global policing doctrine,’” reported the New York Times in an article entitled “Interpol and U.N. Back ‘Global Policing Doctrine.’’’

“As the world’s largest police organization, Interpol needs to remain at the forefront of all activity which enhances member country security and safety,” explained Interpol President Khoo Boon Hui. The organization — officially known as ‘THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL POLICE ORGANIZATION – INTERPOL’ — is comprised of more than 180 member nations, including a wide array of repressive regimes like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Sri Lanka (which is currently operating concentration camps), and even Zimbabwe. It was originally founded in 1923 and is based in Lyon, France.

The government ministers and high-level police representatives in attendance endorsed a special declaration that would create a “roadmap” for international police to fulfill their “full role” in so-called “peacekeeping challenges,” an Interpol press release explained. The UN already has over 12,000 civilian law-enforcement officers deployed around the globe.

“The police will be trained and equipped differently with resources,” said Interpol Secretary-General Ronald Noble, known as the “Enforcer” for his role in the infamous Waco siege, murders, and subsequent coverup in his position as Undersecretary of Enforcement at the U.S. Treasury. “When they stop someone, they will be consulting global databases to determine who they are stopping.”

The group also began issuing its own passports on Tuesday, aimed at eliminating visa requirements so global cops can get anywhere quickly. “That a person is traveling with an Interpol passport for official business should be all the information a country needs in order to grant them access,” explained Noble, the first American to head the organization. “By agreeing to waive visas, member countries will ultimately be assisting themselves.”

Source: The New American

The Washington Post reported on October 13 that the U.S. military is deploying 13,000 additional troops to Afghanistan — in addition to the 21,000 extra combat soldiers approved by President Obama last March.

Pentagon officials said that the latest deployment is made up of support troops, such as engineers, medical personnel, and intelligence experts, and and military police, rather than combat troops. However, in military operations such as in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the enemy is comprised of insurgents waging a guerilla operation, support personnel and civilians can become targets as well.

The deployment of the support troops to Afghanistan brings the total increase in troop strength to 34,000. A report in the British Guardian noted that both the White House and Pentagon announced earlier this year that the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan would be raised by 21,000, bringing the total to 68,000 by the end of the year.

Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai, speaking to ABC’s Good Morning America on October 13, expressed support for U.S. General Stanley McChrystal’s request for an extra 40,000 troops, saying: “I’m fully behind him for what he’s seeking in this report.”

The Guardian quoted a U.S. military planner’s statement to the Army Times: “We’ve increased forces in Afghanistan before we’ve reduced forces in Iraq in a meaningful way. If they want forces sooner than 2010, there are no additional forces available. You’ll have to pull them from Iraq and put them in Afghanistan.”

Kagan, who earned her Ph.D in ancient history, and who heads the Institute for the Study of War, previously has taught at West Point, Yale, Georgetown, and the American University. In an essay in Foreign Policy magazine for August 10 entitled “Why the Taliban Are Winning — for Now,” Kagan asserted:

McChrystal might adopt a different campaign design — perhaps requiring additional military resources — when he submits his formal assessment to the U.S. secretary of defense and NATO secretary-general sometime after the Afghan elections.

The fact that we have not been doing the right things for the past few years in Afghanistan is actually good news at this moment. A sound, properly resourced counterinsurgency has not failed in Afghanistan; it has never even been tried. So there is good reason to think that such a new strategy can succeed now. But we have to hurry, for as is often the case in these kinds of war, if you aren’t winning, you’re losing.

Dr. Kagan was, of course, part of McChrystal’s formal strategic assessment team, whose input served as the basis for the general’s well-known request for additional troops.

But if Kagan seems to be well-connected with America’s foreign policy establishment, her credentials are nothing in comparison to her husband, Frederick W. Kagan. The male Dr. Kagan (who received his Ph.D in Russian and Soviet military history from Yale) was an American resident scholar at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (with which he shares an affilation with prominent neocons such as William Kristol) and was also a professor at West Point. Frederick along with his brother, Robert (who is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group), and their father Donald are all signatories to the Project for the New American Century (cofounded by Robert Kagan and William Kristol) manifesto entitled Rebuilding America’s Defenses.

Frederick Kagan and his father David Kagan (a Yale professor and a fellow at the Hudson Institute) coauthored While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today, in which they argued in favor of a large increase in military spending and warned of future threats, including the now-discredited claim of a threat from Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction program.

Robert Kagan is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and is married to Victoria Nuland, the former U.S. ambassador to NATO, who has twice been a visiting fellow at the CFR.

Back to Dr. Kimberly Kagan, who, along with husband Frederick, was part of the strategic assessment team sent by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates last July to meet with McChrystal and advise the commander about improving U.S. military strategy. As we noted in our July 31 article, “Advisers Call for Afghanistan Troop Buildup,” other members of the team included Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), who was once a national security assistant to Senator John McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Stephen Biddle, a military analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. We noted that the CSIS has been described by some as “a CFR front group” because of the connections of some of its more prominent members to the CFR.

Likewise, Senator McCain, Defense Secretary Gates, and General McChrystal are all CFR members.

Lest we belabor a point, however, the CFR is by no means the only “think tank” (as such elite policy groups generally like to be labelled) exerting disproportionate influence on our government’s foreign policy. Though we often describe the CFR as “internationalist” in its philosophical bent, the association of organizations to which members of the extended Kagan family are affiliated include several that are “neoconservative” (neocon) in orientation. (For a brief introduction to neoconservatism, read “The Passing of Irving Kristol.”)

As we noted previously, William Kristol (Irving’s son) collaborated with Dr. Frederick Kagan (husband of Dr. Kimberly Kagan) in cofounding the neocon Project for the New American Century.

While these interconnected affiliations may be a bit much to absorb in a single sitting, those who would understand the dynamics behind the never-ending succession of wars in which our military has been entangled since (and including) World War II should make a serious effort to follow the trails. Not to do so, is to remain vulnerable to the next propaganda barrage purporting to show why we must send military forces to one backwater satrapy or another — “for our national security.”

Source: The New American

Cynthia McKinney was scheduled to address hundreds of people at the upcoming Palestinian Film Festival in the Mother City but the 2008 US presidential candidate was prevented from boarding a South African Airways flight in Washington DC on Tuesday.

McKinney was recently arrested by Israeli forces for attempting to bring humanitarian aid (including crayons for children) to Gaza. israeli boats attempted to assassinate Cynthia after Christmas 2008.

Festival organisor Faghri Hassan said they were trying to get clarity on the situation.

“If you want another terrorist attack in the US, abandon Afghanistan,” she said in an interview with Fortune magazine on Tuesday.

“The last time we left Afghanistan, and we abandoned Pakistan, that territory became the very territory on which al-Qaeda trained and attacked us on September 11th.

“So our national security interests are very much tied up in not letting Afghanistan fail again and become a safe haven for terrorists,” Rice added.

President Barack Obama is considering his options after the US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, said on Monday that extra troops are needed within the next year or else the war “will likely result in failure.”

Rice made the remarks after new threats of a possible terrorist attack emerged following a series of arrests in Denver and New York related to an alleged bomb plot.

“Counterterrorism officials have issued security bulletins to police around the nation about terrorists’ desire to attack stadiums, entertainment complexes, and hotels,” the Associated Press reported.