…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

SAN CARLOS, Ariz. – American Indians are petitioning Congress to investigate the elite Skull and Bones society at Yale University and return the remains of Chiricahua Apache warrior Geronimo to Apaches for reburial.

The online petition describes the desecration of Geronimo’s grave in 1918 by members of the society, including President George W. Bush’s grandfather, Sen. Prescott Bush. The men removed Geronimo’s head and a prized silver bridle, which had been buried with him.

”Using acid and amid laughter, they stripped Geronimo’s head of hair and flesh. They then took their ‘trophies’ back to Yale University and put them on display in the clubhouse of the secret fraternity ‘Skull and Bones,”’ states the petition.

Outraged American Indian tribal members from across the nation and indigenous people from around the world are signing the petition with plans to pressure Congress to act.
indiancountry.com