THE Pope has used his inaugural new year message to launch a veiled attack on Iran’s hardline leadership.

Pope Benedict’s comments follow calls by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Israel to be “wiped off” the global map and his recent dismissal of the Holocaust.

The Pope said: “Authorities who incite their citizens to hostility to other countries bear a heavy responsibility and make the future of humanity more uncertain and ominous.”
timesonline.co.uk

Doesn’t sound like Iran to me…

‘US planning strike against Iran’

The United States government reportedly began coordinating with NATO its plans for a possible military attack against Iran.

The German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel collected various reports from the German media indicating that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are examining the prospects of such a strike.

According to the report, CIA Director Porter Goss, in his last visit to Turkey on December 12, requested Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide military bases to the United States in 2006 from where they would be able to launch an assault.

The German news agency DDP also noted that countries neighboring Iran, such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, and Pakistan were also updated regarding the supposed plan. American sources sent to those countries apparently mentioned an aerial attack as a possibility, but did not provide a time frame for the operation.

Der Spiegel article:Is Washington Planning a Military Strike?

The beatings and insults to the sub-Saharan nationals in Melilla are something slightly more radical and fearsome than racism; they are the manifestation of a belligerent and potentially homicidal anti-humanism.

We Spaniards should have reserved a bit of naiveté for this occasion. During the last years we have been exposed to such a digest of horrors that our conscience got jammed. Spain trembled with the destruction of the Twin Towers and its 3,000 dead; it trembled with the bombing of the Atocha Station and its 200 victims torn to pieces; it also trembled with the missiles over Baghdad and with Abu-Ghraib’s tortures and trembled again with the scenes of a New Orleans turned upside down by the water and abandoned by its government. Nevertheless, much more impressive than all that –both as a question and as an image– is the zoological treatment accorded by the Spanish State to the African nationals at the iron curtain of the Melilla border with Morocco.

The gunfire, deportation and caging of thousands of persons who were asking for help–that strategy they call “migratory policy,” just as Hitler used to call “demographic policy” the transfer to Auschwitz of the European Jews–de facto challenges before the eyes of the world the legitimacy, viability and justice of the political and economic order in place.

At the same time, the reaction of our politicians, our mass media and our public opinion challenges our right to the wealth, to democratic institutions and, especially, our present and future right to feel we are good. After all, the pain caused by both the 11-S and 11-M can be attributed to “wicked terrorists” just the same that the pain of Baghdad’s children can be attributed to “wicked imperialists.” But in Melilla there is no doubt: we have photographed the system, we have fixed forever the image of an order that has to shoot the people who ask for help, that cannot stop treating as animals the people who are hungry, which cannot even allow hospitality.

The very fact that the African nationals are asking for help from the same people who rob them demonstrates their desperation; the very fact that those who rob them answer with bullets and clubs their demand for help demonstrates the irrevocable ignominy of capitalism. We can fight distant wars, impose programs of structural adjustment, sign in an office a commercial agreement and destroy ten countries without violating in appearance any commandment. But if a few men and women who are hungry and thirsty knock to our door then we have no option but to breach their heads, shoot them and abandon them in the desert. Whether one believes or not in God, this is a sin, a shameful, dirty, abject, despicable sin, and it is not strange that we make so big an effort to conceal it, to forget it or to justify it.
peacepalestine.blogspot.com

Nothing like a little imperial crisis to expose the true nature of a European ‘leftist’ government

…In the Express we can read the historian Andrew Roberts arguing that for “the vast majority of its half millennium-long history, the British Empire was an exemplary force for good. … the British gave up their Empire largely without bloodshed, after having tried to educate their successor governments in the ways of democracy and representative institutions”(9)(presumably by locking up their future leaders). In the Sunday Telegraph, he insists that “the British empire delivered astonishing growth rates, at least in those places fortunate enough to be coloured pink on the globe.”(10) (Compare this to Mike Davis’s central finding, that “there was no increase in India’s per capita income from 1757 to 1947”, or to Prasannan Parthasarathi’s demonstration that “South Indian labourers had higher earnings than their British counterparts in the 18th century and lived lives of greater financial security.”(11)) In the Daily Telegraph, John Keegan asserts that “the empire became in its last years highly benevolent and moralistic.” The Victorians “set out to bring civilisation and good government to their colonies and to leave when they were no longer welcome. In almost every country, once coloured red on the map, they stuck to their resolve.”(12)

There is one, rightly sacred Holocaust in European history. All the others can be ignored, denied or belittled. As Mark Curtis points out, the dominant system of thought in Britain “promotes one key concept that underpins everything else – the idea of Britain’s basic benevolence. … Criticism of foreign policies is certainly possible, and normal, but within narrow limits which show “exceptions” to, or “mistakes” in, promoting the rule of basic benevolence.”(13) This idea, I fear, is the true “sense of British cultural identity” whose alleged loss Max laments today. No judge or censor is required to enforce it. The men who own the papers simply commission the stories they want to read.
zmag.org

In the Name of God the Compassionate and Merciful
A memorandum from Nineveh Province Dignitaries, Sheikhs and Uleima to:
General Secretary of the United Nations
General Secretary of the League of Arab Nations
General Secretary of the Organisation of Islamic States
Kings and Presidents of the Arab and Islamic States
All Humanitarian and Human Rights Organisations

In the light of the difficult circumstance that our country and people in general and the Province of Nineveh in particular are going through, a number of dignitaries and tribal chiefs from the Nineveh Province have met to discuss the tragic condition of the people of the Province under the shadow of the deficiency and absence of legislative and executive authorities and their security and military authorities which have changed to become tools for the oppression of the people of the Province and to add further to their misery.

After discussions, it was decided to raise the following memorandum in the hope it may find some response to this call to protect this Arabic Islamic city and to assist our people in the Province of Nineveh.

We demand an International Committee of Enquiry in addition to an Iraqi committee formed by representatives of Uleima, Sheikhs and Notables drawn from central and southern Iraq to investigate the crimes committed by the American occupation forces assisted by members of the Interior Special Forces and National Guard. We especially point to the sectarian crimes and the rape of Iraqi women which count as grave precedent in Iraq. The Iraqi Government is partner to all of these crimes in the absence of the media and in particular the killing and kidnapping of journalists by mercenaries of the occupation after terrorising and excluding satellite stations and Arabic and International media preventing the coverage of what is going on to enable the slaughter of Iraqi people without witnesses.

As we lay before the international public opinion and international human rights organisations the truth of what is happening in Tel Afar of the extreme use of force and the use of internationally forbidden weapons of poison gases, cluster, microwave and napalm bombs, we demand autopsies be carried out on the corpses of our sons who fell in the barbaric aggression by international medical bodies to verify the inhuman practices carried out by the American forces of occupation and to expose the stooge militias that participated in the massacre of Tel Afar.
informationclearinghouse.info

…An examination of readily available, well-documented weekly reports by Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), throws a wholly different light on the context and framework for understanding the sequence of events and, equally important, the nature and goals of the Israeli state.

For the week of December 8-14, 2005, the PCHR recorded:
– 10 Palestinians killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) of which 7 of victims were extra-judicially executed by the IOF in the Gaza Strip.
– 34 Palestinian civilians, including 17 children were wounded by the IOF.
– IOF attacked civilian targets in the Gaza Strip
– IOF conducted 40 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank
– Houses were raided and 91 Palestinian civilians; including, university professors, parliamentary candidates and 4 children were arrested.
– The closure of the Moslem Youth Association in Hebron for 2 years
– A Palestinian house was seized, its occupants evicted and it was transformed into an IOF military site.
– IOF continued a total siege on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.
– IOF arrested 12 Palestinian civilians, including 6 children, at various checkpoints in the West Bank.
– IOF used rubber-coated metal bullets to disperse peaceful demonstrations protesting the Annexation Wall wounding a child and 6 demonstrators.
– Israeli settlers continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property in the OPT, while the IOF confiscated land from several Palestinian villages, near Bethlehem, Hebron and Jerusalem evicting 30 Palestinian families.

In this context Palestinian military actions are clearly defensive of community, family and livelihood.

A survey of previous reports covering 2005, indicates that the data for the week of December 8-14, 2005 was fairly representative of Israeli activity. If we were to multiply the weekly findings by years: 52 X 5 X military assaults???? We would capture the magnitude of Israeli offensive military action. The overwhelming evidence, both in terms of scale, scope and time frame of Israeli military attacks clearly points to persistent Israeli offensive activities linked to territorial expansion, colonial oppression and ethnic cleansing.
peacepalestine.blogspot.com

The Eastern Wall:Closing the Circle of Our Ghettoization
More than a year has passed since the Occupation Forces declared the completion of the first section of the Apartheid Wall – running from Jenin to Qalqiliya. Rapid construction around Jerusalem, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron marks the second phase of the project. Meanwhile, away from public attention, the Occupation has begun the third phase of the Wall, which will annex and ethnically cleanse the Jordan Valley. Under the rubric of “development,” the Valley has become a “Major Governmental Project” for settlement expansion. The result has been the destruction of Palestinian land, increased house demolitions, and the expulsion of Palestinian Bedouins. Last week, two of the four “terminals” controlling Palestinian movement in and out of the area were closed to all Palestinians not residing there, thus completely isolating the northern areas of the Jordan Valley. In the south, “flying checkpoints” exclude Palestinians without residency permits recognized by the Occupation – including land owners.

With no Palestinian state in sight, aid becomes an adjunct to occupation
This month has seen a flurry of high-level activity designed to fund the Palestinians under occupation. A private sector investors’ conference took place in London to discuss ways of boosting the Palestinian economy. It followed the G7 finance ministers’ meeting at the beginning of December, which pledged its support, saying that “economic development of the West Bank and Gaza is an indispensable element of lasting peace in the region”. And in the summer, the G8 summit at Gleneagles promised the Palestinian Authority an annual $3bn for three years. Next March, the donor countries will decide their allocations to the PA.

Sounds good. But will these donors pause to consider that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is set to continue so long as they remain prepared to underwrite it? The Palestinians’ dire need for help is indisputable: the PA is virtually bankrupt and has asked for an immediate injection of $200m, just for basic services, between now and next February. Humanitarian aid alone, however, will not solve the problem.

COLCHESTER, Vt. –Sen. Patrick Leahy wants the Defense Department to give him the details about two Vermont anti-war protests that were monitored by government officials.

Leahy, a Democrat, said Vermont had a long tradition of peaceful political protest.

“I want to know the extent of it. I want to know under what conceivable, conceivable legal justification they are doing it,” Leahy told Vermont Public Radio.

“And even if they could legally justify it, what dunderhead policy reason (is there) for doing it,” he said. “And again, I’d like to know how much it cost. The Department of Defense says we don’t have enough money to get the kind of armor and protection our troops need in Iraq, but we’ve got money to go around and spy on Quaker meetings?”
boston.com

UCSC chief alleges spying
A University of California chancellor called Wednesday on Bay Area congressional representatives to investigate the government’s reported spying at college campus protests, including one in April at UC-Santa Cruz.

“We are greatly concerned about the Pentagon’s investigation of a UCSC campus protest of military recruiting last spring,” UCSC Chancellor Denice Denton wrote in a campus e-mail. “MSNBC reports that this protest was classified as a `credible threat’ by the Department of Defense.”

NSA Web Site Puts ‘Cookies’ on Computers
The National Security Agency’s Internet site has been placing files on visitors’ computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict federal rules banning most of them. These files, known as “cookies,” disappeared after a privacy activist complained and The Associated Press made inquiries this week, and agency officials acknowledged Wednesday they had made a mistake. Nonetheless, the issue raises questions about privacy at a spy agency already on the defensive amid reports of a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States.

The Return of Total Information Awareness – Bush Asserts Dictatorial “Inherent” Powers
NEW YORK — Civil libertarians relaxed when, in September 2003, Republicans bowed to public outcry and cancelled Total Information Awareness. TIA was a covert “data mining” operation run out of the Pentagon by creepy Iran-Contra figure John Poindexter. Bush Administration marketing mavens had tried to dress up the sinister “dataveillance” spook squad–first by changing TIA to Terrorism Information Awareness, then to the Information Awareness Office–to no avail. “But,” wondered the Electronic Frontier Foundation watchdog group a month after Congress cut its funding, “is TIA truly dead?”

At the time I bet “no.” Once a regime has revealed a predilection for spying on its own people, the histories of East Germany and Richard Nixon teach us, they never quit voluntarily. The cyclical clicks that appeared on my phone line after 9/11 corroborated my belief that federal spy agencies were using the War on Terrorism as a pretext for harassing their real enemies: liberals and others who criticized their policies. As did the phony Verizon employee tearing out of my building’s basement, leaving the phone switching box open, when I demanded to see his identification. He drove away in an unmarked van.

So I was barely surprised to hear the big news that Bush had ordered the National Security Agency, FBI and CIA to tap the phones and emails of such dangerously subversive radical Islamist anti-American terrorist groups as Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the American Indian Movement and the Catholic Workers, without bothering to apply for a warrant. “The Catholic Workers advocated peace with a Christian and semi-communistic ideology,” an agent wrote in an FBI dossier, a man sadly unaware of the passings of J. Edgar Hoover and the Soviet Union.

12/29/05 — — WASHINGTON, Dec 29 (Reuters) – The number of Guantanamo Bay prisoners taking part in a hunger strike that began nearly five months ago has surged to 84 since Christmas Day, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

Forty-six detainees at the prison for foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, joined the protest on the Christian holiday on Sunday, said Army Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin, a military spokesman.

The prisoner population, which the Pentagon says numbers about 500, is believed to be uniformly Muslim. Only nine have been charged with any crime.

“There’s been a significant increase in the number that have been added to the hunger strike,” Martin said by telephone from Guantanamo.

Lawyers for some of the detainees call the strike a protest of jail conditions and prisoners’ lack of legal rights. The military has denied allegations of torturing detainees.

Medical personnel were force-feeding 32 of the hunger strikers with plastic tubes inserted into the stomach through through the nose, the military said. Asked the purpose of the force-feeding, Martin said, “Because our policy is to preserve life.”
informationclearinghouse.info

The U.S. military used white phosphorous as a weapon in Fallujah, and the U.S. military says such use is illegal. That’s one heck of a fog fact (Larry Beinhart’s term for a fact that is neither secret nor known). This fact has appeared in an article in the Guardian (UK) and been circulated on the internet, but has just not interested the corporate media in the United States.

It interests Congressman John Conyers, however. Last week, Conyers released a 273-page report titled “The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War.” This 273-page report covers many war-related crimes, including the use of white phosphorous. afterdowningstreet.org

On page 165, following discussion of other crimes against humanity, the report states: “Finally, there is evidence that the U.S. Military used an incendiary weapon in combat known as White Phosphorus, even though the U.S. Battle Book states, ‘[i]t is against the Law of Land Warfare to employ WP against personnel targets,’ and which would be in contravention of the Geneva and Hague Conventions and the War Crimes Act.”

That’s an impressive criminal feat, violating multiple U.S. laws and international laws at one shot. But it may be a greater feat of hypocrisy and irony. After all, this war was supposedly launched in order to prevent the use of so-called weapons of mass destruction. While that lie has been exposed, we now know that WMDs have been wantonly employed in the course of this war by the so-called liberators. That fact is not yet widely known within the United States.
zmag.org

The following staggering amount of our wealth producing companies has been sold to foreign owners in the 10 years from 1995 through 2005. Below is a partial list of the 8,600 U.S. companies sold.
economyincrisis.org

It was in the year 1997 that the phenomenon of suicides by Indian farmers emerged. Since then it has assumed frightening proportions and till now more than 25,000 farmers have taken their own lives. Only the other day a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly threatened to immolate himself in the house itself and a few days later, the news came that farmers in a particular village near Nagpur were preparing their own funeral pyres to immolate themselves.
zmag.org