Barbara Ehrenreich

De Amerikaanse auteur Barbara Ehrenreich schrijft: 'Was it only three years ago that some of our puffed up patriots were denouncing the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys," too fattened on Camembert to stub out their Gaulois and get down with the war on Iraq? Well, take another look at the folks who invented the word liberté. Throughout the month of March and beyond, they were demonstrating, rioting, and burning up cars to preserve a right Americans can only dream of: the right not to be fired at an employer's whim. The French government's rationale for its new labor law was impeccable from an economist's standpoint: Make it easier for employers to fire people and they will be more willing to hire people. So why was Paris burning? What corporations call "flexibility" - the right to dispose of workers at will - is what workers experience as disposability, not to mention insecurity and poverty. The French students who were tossing Molotov cocktails didn't want to become what they call "a Kleenex generation" - used and tossed away when the employer decides he needs a fresh one.
You may recognize in the French government's reasoning the same arguments Americans hear whenever we raise a timid plea for a higher minimum wage or a halt to the steady erosion of pensions and health benefits: "What?" scream the economists who flack for the employing class. "If you do anything, anything at all, to offend or discomfit the employers, they will respond by churlishly failing to employ you! Unemployment will rise, and you - lacking, of course, the health care and other benefits provided by the French welfare state - will quickly spiral down into starvation."' Lees verder: http://progressive.org/mag_ehrenreich0506 Of: http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/040706LA.shtml

De Leugens van Bush

Common Dreams bericht: 'President Bush, 2003: 'Leaks of Classified Information Are a Bad Thing.' NEW YORK - With the revelations Thursday that former Vice President Cheney aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby had testified before a grand jury that President Bush had authorized him to leak classified information to reporter Judith Miller in July 2003, it seems appropriate to recall the president's response to questions on this subject a little more than two months later. It took place in Chicago on Sept. 30, 2003, at a meeting with business leaders.The transcript follows:Q Do you think that the Justice Department can conduct an impartial investigation, considering the political ramifications of the CIA leak, and why wouldn't a special counsel be better?THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Let me just say something about leaks in Washington. There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. There's leaks at the executive branch; there's leaks in the legislative branch. There's just too many leaks. And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.And so I welcome the investigation. I -- I'm absolutely confident that the Justice Department will do a very good job. There's a special division of career Justice Department officials who are tasked with doing this kind of work; they have done this kind of work before in Washington this year. I have told our administration, people in my administration to be fully cooperative.I want to know the truth. If anybody has got any information inside our administration or outside our administration, it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true and get on about the business.' Lees verder: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0407-01.htm

Mensenrechten

Common Dreams bericht: 'U.S. Quits Council Race, Possibly Fearing Defeat. UNITED NATIONS - The United States, which has been lambasted for human rights abuses both by members of its armed forces in Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad and by U.S. law enforcement officials in the Guantanamo detention facility in Cuba, has backed out of a hotly contested race for membership in the newly-created U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC).U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack Thursday confirmed Washington's decision not to run for a seat at the upcoming HRC elections scheduled to take place May 9. The widespread speculation at the United Nations is that the U.S. decision may have been prompted by lingering fears it will not be able to muster the 96 votes needed in the 191-member General Assembly. "Since the voting was expected to be by secret ballot, it was very unlikely that the customary strong-arm tactics and political bullying would have helped the United States to get the necessary votes," an Asian diplomat told IPS. "If the United States contested and lost, it would have been a resounding public slap for a country which is a self-styled promoter of human rights but which still justifies abuses in the name of fighting terrorism," he added. The new 47-member HRC will replace a much-maligned 53-member Human Rights Commission that was once home to countries such as Zimbabwe, China, Sudan, Cuba, Iran and Libya, routinely labeled "human rights violators" by Washington. As of Thursday, Cuba, China, Iran and Libya were all candidates for membership in the HRC -- and with a fair chance of being elected. When the United States ran for a seat in the outgoing Human Rights Commission back in May 2001, it suffered a humiliating defeat and was ousted from the panel for the first time since its creation in 1947.' Lees verder:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0407-07.htm

De Bush Bende

Truthout bericht: 'Yesterday in a letter to President Bush, Rep. Waxman asks for a full accounting of the President's and Vice President's actions in authorizing leaks of classified intelligence about Iraq, while at the same time concealing the President's knowledge of serious doubts about Iraq's pursuit of nuclear weapons. The text of the letter follows:
Thursday 06 April 2006
The President The White House Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
Two recent revelations raise grave new questions about whether you, the Vice President, and your top advisors have engaged in a systematic abuse of the national security classification process for political purposes. News accounts suggest that the White House both (1) leaked classified intelligence information to further its faulty case for war and (2) improperly concealed information regarding your personal knowledge of serious doubts about this intelligence. These actions appear to violate your own executive order on handling classified information and - according to a new memorandum by the Congressional Research Service - represent an unprecedented expansion of the Vice President's role in this process. I request a full accounting of White House actions and full declassification and disclosure of all documents bearing on these critical questions.
Selective Declassification of NIE and Other Iraq Intelligence
According to an article published today in the National Journal, the Vice President's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, claims that you - through Vice President Cheney - authorized him to leak to the press classified information from an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate in order to blunt criticism from former Ambassador Joe Wilson about your improper use of intelligence in the run-up to war.[1] In testimony before the grand jury investigating the White House's leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's status as a covert CIA operative, Mr. Libby reportedly testified that "the Vice President had advised [Libby] that the President had authorized [Libby] to disclose relevant portions of the NIE."[2] Mr. Libby also reportedly testified that Vice President Cheney himself "authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq."[3] Both claims raise serious questions.
First, Mr. Libby's explanation that you authorized the leaks seems to contradict other facts. Mr. Libby claimed that he consulted David Addington, then counsel to the Vice President and now his chief of staff, who advised that your leak authorization "amounted to a declassification of the document."[4] Yet according to the National Journal, "only three people - the President, the Vice President and [Libby] - knew that the key judgments of the NIE had been declassified." It is unclear why your leak authorization would have been concealed in this way if it was truly a declassification. In addition, on July 18, 2003, some time after Mr. Libby leaked this classified information to reporters, your Administration formally declassified portions of the NIE for public release, suggesting that the information had not been declassified until that time.' Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040706Z.shtml

Amerikaanse Oorlogsmisdaden

De onafhankelijke Amerikaanse journalist Dahr Jamail schrijft: 'How Massacres Become the Norm. US soldiers killing innocent civilians in Iraq is not news. Just as it was not news that US soldiers slaughtered countless innocent civilians in Vietnam. However, when some rare reportage of this non news from Iraq does seep through the cracks of the corporate media, albeit briefly, the American public seems shocked. Private and public statements of denial and dismissal immediately start to fill the air. We hear, "American soldiers would never do such a thing," or "Who would make such a ridiculous claim?" It amazes me that so many people in the US today somehow seriously believe that American soldiers would never kill civilians. Despite the fact that they are in a no-win guerrilla war in Iraq which, like any other guerrilla war, always generates more civilian casualties than combatant casualties on either side. Robert J. Lifton is a prominent American psychiatrist who lobbied for the inclusion of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders after his work with US veterans from Vietnam. His studies on the behavior of those who have committed war crimes led him to believe it does not require an unusual level of mental illness or of personal evil to carry out such crimes. Rather, these crimes are nearly guaranteed to occur in what Lifton refers to as "atrocity-producing situations." Several of his books, like The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, examine how abnormal conditions work on normal minds, enabling them to commit the most horrendous crimes imaginable. Iraq today is most certainly an "atrocity-producing situation," as it has been from the very beginning of the occupation.
The latest reported war crime, a US military raid on the al-Mustafa Shia mosque in Baghdad on March 26th, which killed at least 16 people, is only one instance of the phenomena that Lifton has spoken of.' Lees verder: http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/newscommentary/000380.php

Irak 59

De Guardian bericht: 'Amid an internal crisis of credibility, Condoleezza Rice has washed her hands of her department. Since the Iraqi elections in January, US foreign service officers at the Baghdad embassy have been writing a steady stream of disturbing cables describing drastically worsening conditions. Violence from incipient communal civil war is rapidly rising. Last month there were eight times as many assassinations committed by Shia militias as terrorist murders by Sunni insurgents. The insurgency, according to the reports, also continues to mutate. Meanwhile, President Bush's strategy of training Iraqi police and army to take over from coalition forces - "when they stand up, we'll stand down" - is perversely and portentously accelerating the strife. State department officials in the field are reporting that Shia militias use training as cover to infiltrate key positions. Thus the strategy to create institutions of order and security is fuelling civil war. Rather than being received as invaluable intelligence, the messages are discarded or, worse, considered signs of disloyalty. Rejecting the facts on the ground apparently requires blaming the messengers. So far, two top attaches at the embassy have been reassigned elsewhere for producing factual reports that are too upsetting. The Bush administration's preferred response to increasing disintegration is to act as if it has a strategy that is succeeding. "More delusion as a solution in the absence of a solution," said a senior state department official. Under the pretence that Iraq is being pacified, the military is partially withdrawing from hostile towns in the countryside and parts of Baghdad. By reducing the number of soldiers, the administration can claim its policy is working going into the midterm elections. But the jobs the military doesn't want to perform are being sloughed off on state department "provisional reconstruction teams" (PRTs) led by foreign service officers. The rationale is that they will win Iraqi hearts-and-minds by organising civil functions.' Lees verder:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1747665,00.html

Westers Terrorisme 7

Channel 4 bericht over Westerse huurlingen die zonder reden onbewapende Irakese burgers beschieten. "We don't know whether it was an innocent civilian or whether that was an insurgent - we don't know, because we never stop". The words of a former security consultant, explaining the story behind the video footage. Zie: http://www.channel4.com/player/playerwindow.html?id=4089&vert=news Zie ook: http://stanvanhoucke.blogspot.com/2005/12/westers-terrorisme-2.html

De Oorlogsstaat 38

Het gezicht van de oorlog: 'Iraqi insurgents drag burning US pilot. While the USA is preoccupied with deporting Mexican undocumented workers, the war in Iraq is still raging resulting in the death and maiming of a rapidly increasing number of US occupation soldiers. On Saturday at 5:30 pm, Iraqi insurgents shot down a AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter which was conducting a combat air patrol about 10 miles southwest of Baghdad.In a statement, the U.S. military confirmed that two US pilots had died, The video below shows Iraqi insurgents dragging Captain Timothy Moshier, 25, of Bethlehem, New York. The video was first shown by MSNBC News.' Zie: http://www.aztlan.net/iraqi_insurgents_drag_burning_us_pilot.htm

Ray McGovern

Via Information Clearing House kunt u luisteren naar een interview met Ray McGovern. 'Retired CIA Official Says Bush Is A War Criminal. An in-depth interview with former high-level CIA analyst Ray McGovern; McGovern talks about his work as an advisor to Bush 1 and his belief that Bush 2 is a war criminal and should be tried for crimes against humanity. Zie:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12628.htm

De Oorlogsstaat 37

De Engelstalige editie van Der Spiegel bevat een interview met Nobelprijswinnaar Joseph Stiglitz. 'Trillion Dollar War ."The War Is Bad for the Economy" Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, 63, discusses the true $1 trillion cost of the Iraq conflict, its impact on the oil market and the questions of whether the West can afford to impose sanctions on Iran. Professor Stiglitz, at the beginning of the Iraq war, the United States administration was hoping to almost break even in terms of the costs ...Stiglitz: ... they truly believed the Iraqi people could use their oil revenues to pay for reconstruction.SPIEGEL: And now you are estimating the cost of war at levels between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. How do you explain this difference?Stiglitz: First, the war was much more difficult than President Bush and his government expected. They thought they were going to walk in, everybody would say thank you, and they would set up a democratic government and leave. Now that this war is lasting so much longer, they constantly have to adapt their budget. It rose from $50 billion to $250 billion. Today, the Congressional Budget Office talks about $500 billion or more for this adventure. SPIEGEL: That's still by far lower than your own calculations.Stiglitz: The reported numbers do not even include the full budgetary costs to the government. And the budgetary costs are but a fraction of the costs to the economy as a whole. And compare this to Gulf War number one, where America almost made a profit!SPIEGEL: Because Germany paid for it?Stiglitz: Because Germans paid, because everybody paid. We got our allies to pay full price for used equipment, and we got to refurbish our military. This time, most of the other countries were not willing to do so again.SPIEGEL: Did Bush just miscalculate, or was he misleading the public about the true costs of war?Stiglitz: I think it was both. He wanted to believe it was not going to be expensive, he wanted to believe it would be easy. But there's also enormous evidence now that information channels into the White House were distorted. Bush wanted only certain information, and that's mostly what they supplied him with. Larry Lindsey ...SPIEGEL: ... the White House's former top economic adviser ...Stiglitz: ... gave -- back in 2002 -- a number of up to $200 billion. I think that was the most accurate inside information at the time. He was dismissed. They didn't want to hear it.' Lees verder: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,409710,00.html Of:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12634.htm

Irak 58

De Independent bericht: 'Bush authorised Iraq 'leak', White House aide testifies. A senior White House official has told prosecutors that President George Bush authorised the dissemination of previously classified intelligence about Iraq's purported weapons arsenal to the media .
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, is in court charged with obstructing a federal leak investigation. He testified that he had been given permission to share the contents of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) about Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities. He also said he was authorised to talk about Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who had been publicly critical of Mr Bush's conduct over Iraq.
Mr Libby's claims are contained within court papers that were made public yesterday.
However, there is nothing in the papers which suggests Mr Libby claims either Mr Bush or Mr Cheney authorised him to reveal the identity of Mr Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative. Mr Libby was charged last October with five counts in relation to the leaking of Ms Plame's identity - something which constitutes a federal offence.' Lees verder:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article356252.ece

Howard Zinn 5

De Amerikaanse historicus Howard Zinn schrijft: 'Now that most Americans no longer believe in the war, now that they no longer trust Bush and his Administration, now that the evidence of deception has become overwhelming (so overwhelming that even the major media, always late, have begun to register indignation), we might ask: How come so many people were so easily fooled? The question is important because it might help us understand why Americans—members of the media as well as the ordinary citizen—rushed to declare their support as the President was sending troops halfway around the world to Iraq.A small example of the innocence (or obsequiousness, to be more exact) of the press is the way it reacted to Colin Powell’s presentation in February 2003 to the Security Council, a month before the invasion, a speech which may have set a record for the number of falsehoods told in one talk. In it, Powell confidently rattled off his “evidence”: satellite photographs, audio records, reports from informants, with precise statistics on how many gallons of this and that existed for chemical warfare. The New York Times was breathless with admiration. The Washington Post editorial was titled “Irrefutable” and declared that after Powell’s talk “it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.” It seems to me there are two reasons, which go deep into our national culture, and which help explain the vulnerability of the press and of the citizenry to outrageous lies whose consequences bring death to tens of thousands of people. If we can understand those reasons, we can guard ourselves better against being deceived. One is in the dimension of time, that is, an absence of historical perspective. The other is in the dimension of space, that is, an inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior. If we don’t know history, then we are ready meat for carnivorous politicians and the intellectuals and journalists who supply the carving knives. I am not speaking of the history we learned in school, a history subservient to our political leaders, from the much-admired Founding Fathers to the Presidents of recent years. I mean a history which is honest about the past. If we don’t know that history, then any President can stand up to the battery of microphones, declare that we must go to war, and we will have no basis for challenging him. He will say that the nation is in danger, that democracy and liberty are at stake, and that we must therefore send ships and planes to destroy our new enemy, and we will have no reason to disbelieve him.' Lees verder: http://progressive.org/mag_zinn0406

De Architecten van de Oorlog

Het progressieve Amerikaanse Think Progress bericht: 'The Architects of War: Where are They Now? President Bush has not fired any of the architects of the Iraq war. In fact, a review of the key planners of the conflict reveals that they have been rewarded - not blamed - for their incompetence.
Paul Wolfowitz
Role in Going to War: Wolfowitz said the U.S. would be greeted as liberators, that Iraqi oil money for pay for the reconstruction, and that Gen. Eric Shinseki's estimate that several hundred thousand troops would be needed was "wildly off the mark." [Washington Post, 12/8/05] Where He Is Now: Bush promoted Wolfowitz to head the World Bank in March 2005. [Washington Post, 3/17/05]
Key Quote: "We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon." [Wolfowitz, 3/27/03]
Douglas Feith
Role in Going to War: As Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Feith spearheaded two secretive groups at the Pentagon - the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group and the Office of Special Plans - that were instrumental in drawing up documents that explained the supposed ties between Saddam and al Qaeda. The groups were "created in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believed to be true." Colin Powell referred to Feith's operation as the Gestapo. In Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack, former CentCom Commander Gen. Tommy Franks called Feith the "f***ing stupidest guy on the face of the earth." [LAT, 1/27/05; NYT, 4/28/04; New Yorker, 5/12/03; Plan of Attack, p.281]
Where He Is Now: Feith voluntarily resigned from the Defense Department shortly after Bush's reelection. He is co-chairman of a project at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government to write an academic book on how to fight terrorism. Feith's secretive groups at the Pentagon are under investigation by the Pentagon and the Senate Intelligence Committee for intelligence failures. [Washington Post, 1/27/05, 11/18/05; Washington Times, 3/3/06]' Lees verder: http://thinkprogress.org/the-architects-where-are-they-now Of: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040606P.shtml

Israel

De Israelische krant Haaretz bericht: 'High Court upholds ban on Machsom Watch exhibit in Be'er Sheva. The High Court of Justice has decided not to interfere with Be'er Sheva Mayor Ya'akov Turner's decision last week to ban a Machsom Watch photo exhibit at the Teacher's Center in the city. Machsom Watch is a women's group that monitors the behavior of soldiers toward Palestinians at checkpoints. The pictures in question depict interactions at the Qalandiyah and Hawara checkpoints in the West Bank. Turner announced the ban last Thursday, claiming that the contents of the exhibit are harmful to the sensitivities of the public.
Justices Edna Arbel, Miriam Naor and Elyakim Rubinstein ruled that Turner acted in accordance with his authority, which gives him the right to ban a public exhibit in a municipal building. However, the court ruling also stated that the municipality should allow activities of this sort in public locations.Attorney Gabi Lasky submitted a petition to the court on behalf of Machsom Watch, after the Be'er Sheva District Court rejected an appeal by the group.Lasky noted that just two weeks ago, the Teacher's Center held an exhibit on human rights abuses in China.' Lees verder: http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/700776.html Hier kunt u de betreffende foto's van de Israelische mensenrechtenorganisatie Women for Human Rights bekijken:
http://www.machsomwatch.org/eng/homePageEng.asp?link=homePage&lang=eng Ook de vertoning van Paradise Now van de Nederlans/Palestijnse filmer Hany Abu Assad werd verboden. De Haaretz bericht: 'Acre municipality vetoes screening of acclaimed suicide bomber movie . The Acre municipality and the national network of "Matnas" community centers canceled at the last minute Wednesday a screening of the controversial film "Paradise Now" about Palestinian suicide bombers."Paradise Now" won a Golden Globe for best foreign film and was nominated for an Oscar in the same category.The El-Yatir organization, dedicated to the cultural development of the city and responsible for the scheduled screening, maintains extremist Jewish groups pressured the municipality to cancel it. City officials say that the decision to cancel the screening stemmed from considerations of sensitivity towards the city's residents. They fear that screening the film, which depicts the inner struggle of two suicide bombers, could disrupt the delicate co-existence between Jews and Arabs in the city.' Lees verder: http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/702925.html

Victor IV

Werk van wijlen de Amerikaanse/Amsterdamse beeldend kunstenaar Victor IV die zich ook wel Bulgar Time noemde. Willem Sandberg, van 1945 tot 1962 directeur van het Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, die grote interesse had voor iemand die nooit eerder geschilderd had, schreef hem: 'maar mijns inziens is u geen zondagsschilder, tenminste niet in de gebruikelijke zin van het woord. Natuurlijk is het belangrijkste bij een schilder dat hij wat te zeggen heeft en dat hij weet hoe. Dat is uiteraard zeldzaam onder de onnoemelijk velen die menen met of zonder kwast verf op een of ander materiaal te moeten aanbrengen en zich dan kunstenaar noemen.'

Nederland en Afghanistan 51

De Guardian bericht: 'MPs warn on troop deployment. British troops preparing to be deployed in southern Afghanistan face serious problems including a "fundamental tension" between promoting stability and fighting the opium trade, a cross-party committee of MPs warns today.
It also expresses concern about the treatment of any detainees handed over to the Afghans by British forces, and the prospect of a lack of air cover to protect troops on the ground. From next month more than 3,000 British soldiers will be based in Helmand province for a potentially dangerous mission maintaining security, training the Afghan army, and countering narcotics. ' Lees verder: http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1747946,00.html

De Israelische Terreur 11

Terwijl Hamas door het Westen wordt geboycot krijgt Israel steeds meer steun voor zijn repressieve regime in de Westbank. De Guardian bericht: 'Huge jump in arms sales to Israel · Military export licences to country almost double · Government accused of arming repressive regimes. The number of arms export licences granted for countries the government accuses of human rights abuses increased significantly over the past year, the latest official figures show. They also show that licences for weapons sales to Saudi Arabia increased by 25% last year, to £25m. They included sales of assault rifles, riot control equipment and body armour. Licences for British arms sales to Israel last year amounted to nearly £25m, almost double the previous year. The licences covered the export of armoured vehicles and missile components. Quarterly annual figures appear separately on the Foreign Office website and were collated by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (Caat), which alerted the Guardian to them. They show that licences were also approved for sales of arms valued at more than £12.5m to Indonesia. Amnesty International last year reported extrajudicial killings carried out by Indonesian security forces in Aceh and West Papua. British-made armoured vehicles were reported to have been deployed against protesters in West Papua in November last year. Israel, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia are among 11 out of 20 countries described by the FO in its 2005 annual human rights report as "major countries of concern" to which the government licensed military equipment. The sales cleared for Israel are the highest since 1999. This was before Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, sought assurances from Israel that equipment supplied by the UK was not being used against civilians and in the occupied territories. In 2002 the government said it was tightening controls on arms exports to the country after it found that assurances had been breached.' Lees verder: http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,,1747893,00.html

De Pro Israel Lobby 5

Inter Press Service bericht: 'Evangelicals Rally Their Flocks Behind Israel. OAKLAND - To prevent the George W. Bush administration from pressuring the Israelis into turning over even more land, Hagee, the pastor of San Antonio's Cornerstone Church and the head of a multi-million-dollar evangelical enterprise, recently brought together 400 Christian evangelical leaders -- representing as many as 30 million Christians -- for an invitation-only "Summit on Israel". The result was the launch of a new pro-Israel lobbying group called Christians United for Israel (CUFI). By 2002, a number of veteran Christian conservative evangelical leaders and Republican Party power brokers had joined forces with conservative Jewish leaders to launch several pro-Israel organisations. But the history of Jewish-evangelical involvement goes back several decades. According to Rabbi James Rudin, writing in his recently published book, "The Baptising of America: The Religious Right's Plans for the Rest of U.S.," "the first [modern] evangelical-Jewish meeting" took place in New York in 1975. A bevy of issues including "the meaning of Messiah in both traditions, Jesus the Jew, biblical theology and the meaning of modern Israel and Jerusalem for Christian conservatives and Jews" were discussed. Rudin points out that "the evangelical commitment to Israel creates some... ambivalence" in the Jewish community, since that "commitment" is built on the biblical belief that "without an Israel, an ingathering of Jewish exiles, [the] major event in Christian eschatology [the Second coming of Jesus to Jerusalem] cannot take place." "That is why some evangelicals are dismayed at any Israeli withdrawal or disengagement from any area of the biblical 'Holy Land.' That is also why the strong Christian conservative support of Israel is not linked to Middle East realpolitik or America's growing thirst for Arab oil," Rudin says.' Lees verder: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0405-09.htm

Goedkope Arbeiders

Inter Press Service bericht: 'Embracing Cheap Workers, Ignoring Their Welfare. UNITED NATIONS - The top 10 countries hosting the largest number of international migrants have neither signed nor ratified a 1990 U.N. convention aimed at protecting the rights of migrant workers worldwide. "It is obvious," says a senior U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, "that these countries don't want to be held accountable for the welfare of their migrants." The 10 countries -- the United States, Russia, Germany, Ukraine, France, Saudi Arabia, Canada, India, United Kingdom and Spain -- accounted for over 102 million migrants in 2005, according to a new U.N. report released Tuesday. The United States was host to 38.4 million migrants last year, followed by Russia (12.1 million), Germany (10.1 million), Ukraine (6.8 million) and France (6.5 million). The number of international migrants worldwide rose from about 175 million in 2000 to 191 million in 2005. And six out of 10 -- about 115 million -- live in rich countries where they are deprived of basic rights, while seven out of every 100 migrants are refugees.' Lees verder:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32772 Of: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0405-01.htm

11 september 2001 (5)

Kijkt u eens naar deze documentaire: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5137581991288263801&q=loose+c

Het Exporteren van Banen 2

NRC bericht: 'Philips sluit fabriek in WeertPhilips sluit zijn lampenfabriek in Weert, omdat deze ondanks pogingen om haar goedkoper te maken niet rendabel genoeg is. Voor de 250 medewerkers betekent dat verlies van hun baan. Dat heeft het elektronicaconcern vandaag bekendgemaakt. Philips verhuist een deel van de productie van gloeilampen en speciale verlichting naar lagelonenlanden als China en Polen. Ook gaat een deel naar Maarheeze, elf kilometer verderop in Noord-Brabant. Philips produceert verder gloeilampen in Nederland in Oss, Middelburg en Deurne. FNV Bondgenoten verwacht ook bij die fabrieken harde klappen binnen niet al te lange tijd. Er werken 3.500 tot 4.000 werknemers die volgens de bond moeten vrezen voor verplaatsing van de productie naar lagelonenlanden.' Zie: http://www.nrc.nl/economie/article272584.ece Wanneer NRC schrijft dat de lampenfabriek in Weert 'niet rendabel genoeg is' draait de krant keurig om de hete brij heen. Want natuurlijk kunnen Nederlandse werknemers nooit rendabel zijn als een derde wereldbewoner maar een fractie krijgt van het inkomen dat zij krijgen. Iemand uit een welvarend land kan nooit concurrerend zijn op de arbeidsmarkt zolang er miljarden armen leven die zonder vakbonden en zonder strenge milieuwetten soms onder de meest erbarmelijke omstandigheden willen produceren.

Oorlogsmisdaden

De Amerikaanse auteur Norman Solomon schrijft: 'When War Crimes Are Impossible. Is President Bush guilty of war crimes? To even ask the question is to go far beyond the boundaries of mainstream US media. A few weeks ago, when a class of seniors at Parsippany High School in New Jersey prepared for a mock trial to assess whether Bush has committed war crimes, a media tempest ensued. Typical was the response from MSNBC host Tucker Carlson, who found the very idea of such accusations against Bush to be unfathomable. The classroom exercise "implies people are accusing him of a crime against humanity," Carlson said. "It's ludicrous." In Tennessee, the Chattanooga Times Free Press thundered in an editorial: "That some American 'educators' would have students 'try' our American president for 'war crimes' during time of war tells us that our problems are not only with terrorists abroad." The standard way for media to refer to Bush and war crimes in the same breath is along the lines of this lead-in to a news report on CNN's "American Morning" in late March: "The Supreme Court's about to consider a landmark case and one that could have far-reaching implications. At issue is President Bush's powers to create war crimes tribunals for Guantanamo prisoners." In medialand, when the subject is war crimes, the president of the United States points the finger at others. Any suggestion that Bush should face such a charge is assumed to be oxymoronic. But a few journalists, outside the corporate media structures, are seriously probing Bush's culpability for war crimes. One of them is Robert Parry.' Lees verder:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040406B.shtml

Nederland en Afghanistan 50

De Volkskrant bericht: 'Nederlandse militairen doodden mogelijk Afghaan. Van onze verslaggever DEN HAAG - Nederlandse militairen in Afghanistan hebben mogelijk een dodelijk slachtoffer gemaakt tijdens de belegering van hun basis, begin dit jaar. Defensie heeft de begrafeniskosten betaald en de familie van het slachtoffer ‘afgekocht’, vooruitlopend op de uitkomst van een onderzoek door de Koninklijke Marechaussee. Staatssecretaris Van der Knaap van Defensie heeft de Tweede Kamer dinsdagavond ingelicht over een schietincident dat plaatsvond in februari, toen honderden Afghanen bij de Nederlandse basis in het stadje Pol-e Khomri protesteerden tegen de Deense spotprenten die de islam in een kwaad daglicht stelden. De belaagde militairen vuurden rook-, licht- en geluidgranaten af. Daarbij zou een betoger om het leven zijn gekomen.' Zie: http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/article272239.ece Dit bericht roept meer vragen op dan het antwoorden geeft. Onze verslaggever in Den Haag moet ogenblikkelijk uitzoeken wat hier aan de hand is. Hoe kan een Afghaan om het leven komen door een rookgranaat, danwel een lichtgranaat, dan wel een geluidsgranaat, of alle drie tegelijk. Ik heb al die granaten van nabij in werking gezien en kan u verzekeren dat ze van alles doen, maar niet doden. Ondertussen is toch belastinggeld gebruikt om een familie af te kopen. Aan de slag verslaggever. Overigens moet dit gebeurd zijn door diezelfde grappige militairen waarover ik al eerder heb geschreven en die zo'n geinig videofilmpje hebben gemaakt waarin ze in boerka's rondhuppelen. Kennelijk zijn deze bewapende lolbroeken erg geschrokken van een Afghaanse demonstratie. Zie: http://stanvanhoucke.blogspot.com/2005/11/nederland-en-afghanistan-3.html

De Media

Cecile Landman van http://streamtime.org/ wees me net op het volgende: 'Is the media telling the truth about Iraq? Do you have an opinion on this issue? How does the nature, quality, and content of media coverage of the Iraq war ultimately impact the lives of people in Iraq, the Middle East and around the planet? In your country, how does the media’s Iraq coverage rate? Fair and balanced? Biased? Which way? How about bloggers’ reporting and discussion of the issue? Have blogs helped clarify things or added to the confusion? We want to bring the opinions of the world’s bloggers on this issue directly into the debate. Please join us for a live discussion on Wednesday at 22:00–24:00 GMT (6–8pm EDT). Here’s the plan: Reuters will be hosting a panel discussion which will be videocast and audio cast via this link: http://reuters.com/IraqNewsmakers. Several members of the Global Voices community will be live-blogging the event: Middle East/North Africa Editor Haitham Sabbah, Iraq contributor Salam Adil, Iraqi-Australian blogger who now lives in the U.S., Fayrouz Hancock, Omar of Iraq the Model blogging from Baghdad, and Iraqi blogger Raed Jarrar (who will be present in the room in New York). Panelists in the room will include CBS’s Lara Logan, independent Iraqi photo journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, Reuters’ Iraq Bureau Chief Alastair MacDonald, Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, Chief of Strategic Communication, Combined Arms Center, U.S. Army, and others. We will have a live IRC chat which you can join (via the link above or on Freenode at #globalvoices. Read here for more instructions for getting on IRC, or you can use the client on the Reuters event site.). I will be present in the room as “IRC ambassador,” representing your questions and comments in the room and making sure that the panelists address as many as possible. If you have views in advance, you can start sharing them now in several ways:
- Write a comment on this post.
- Write your views on your own blog and trackback to this post.
- When you find blog posts and articles related to this issue that you want to share please tag them “gv-iraq” in Technorati or del.icio.us. Feel free to tag your own posts that way too so we can find them easily and re-blog them for the world to see.' Lees verder:
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2006/04/04/asking-the-blogosphere-is-media-coverage-of-iraq-biased-in-what-direction/

Martelen 33

Ik ontving zojuist deze email van Amnesty International: 'Verenigde Staten. Onder de radar: Geheime vluchten naar marteling en ‘verdwijning.’ In het vandaag gepubliceerde rapport, USA Below the radar: Secret flights to torture and “disappearance”, geeft Amnesty International uitgebreide informatie over de buitenwettelijke overdracht van mensen (“rendition”) van het ene naar het ander land en worden de omstandigheden beschreven waaronder slachtoffers gevangengehouden werden.De mensenrechtenorganisatie heeft de vliegbewegingen van direct aan de CIA gelieerde vliegtuigen tussen 2001 en 2005 geanalyseerd, speciaal de vliegtuigen die bekende “rendition” slachtoffers als Khaled el Masri, Mahar Arar en Abu Omar vervoerd hebben. Deze analyse toont aan dat deze vliegtuigen vaak het Europese luchtruim gebruikt hebben, alhoewel er geen bewijs is dat er zich altijd gevangenen aan boord van de vliegtuigen bevonden.Amnesty International heeft diverse slachtoffers van “rendition” geïnterviewd. Hun getuigenissen zijn geloofwaardig en komen overeen met controleerbare feiten zoals vluchtdata. Ze zijn ook consistent met de beschrijvingen, door ieder van hen, van marteling en mishandeling.‘Verdwijningen’Alleen drie Jemenitische burgers, Muhammad al-Assad, Muhammad Basmillah en Salah Qaru hebben er in toegestemd hun getuigenis openbaar te maken. Deze mannen zijn 18 maanden ‘verdwenen’ geweest, waarbij ze vastgehouden zijn in vier onbekende detentiecentra. Omdat ze geblinddoekt waren tijdens het transport, weten de drie mannen niet waar ze precies gevangengezeten hebben, maar de duur van hun vluchten en de bidschema’s die ze kregen, wijzen er op dat ze waarschijnlijk in Djibouti, Afghanistan en ergens in Oost-Europa zijn gedetineerd.Als gevolg van de “renditions” is op dit moment nog een aantal mensen ‘verdwenen’, hoewel het moeilijk is om precieze aantallen te achterhalen. Families zijn vaak terughoudend om de vermissing van verwanten te melden uit angst voor represailles. Waarschijnlijk gaat het om enkele honderden gevallen van “rendition”.' Lees verder: http://www.amnesty.nl/persberichten/ME-PB0219.shtml

De Oceaan

De Seattle Post-Intelligencer bericht: 'Research in Pacific Shows Ocean Trouble Acidity rises, oxygen drops, scientists find. Research fresh off a boat that docked Thursday in Alaska reveals some frightening changes taking place in the Pacific Ocean. As humans are pumping out more carbon dioxide that is helping to warm the planet, the ocean has been doing yeoman's work to lessen the effects - but it's taking a toll. Over time, the changes could have an impact that ripples through the food chain, from microscopic plants that can't grow right to salmon and whales unable to find enough to eat. The Pacific is getting warmer and more acidic, while the amount of oxygen and the building blocks for coral and some kinds of plankton are decreasing, according to initial results from scientists with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, the University of Washington and elsewhere. "There are big changes," said Christopher Sabine, chief scientist for one leg of the research trip, which ultimately traveled from Antarctica to Alaska. Many of the most interesting results are tied to the ocean becoming increasingly acidic because of its absorption of carbon dioxide. "You don't have to believe in climate change to believe that this is happening," said Joanie Kleypas, an oceanographer with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a non-profit organization based in Boulder, Colo. "It's pretty much simple thermodynamics." And it's alarming.' Lees verder: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/265052_acid31.html Of:
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/040406EA.shtml

De Oorlogsstaat 36

Het onafhankelijke Inter Press Service bericht: 'Bush's War Hawks Edged Out of the Nest. WASHINGTON - Although still united in pushing for confrontation with Iran, the coalition of hawks that propelled U.S. troops toward Baghdad three years ago appears to have finally run out of steam. Demoralized by the quagmire in Iraq, as well as Pres. George W. Bush's still falling approval and credibility ratings, the coalition of aggressive nationalists, neo-conservatives, and the Christian Right that promoted the belligerent, neo-imperial trajectory in U.S. foreign policy has lost both its coherence and its power to dominate the political agenda here. As a result -- and almost by default -- realists under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and in the uniformed military have steadily gained control over the administration's policy. Within the increasingly fractious Republican Party, more xenophobic forces appear to be on the rise, as evidenced by recent and ongoing controversies surrounding immigration and foreign control of U.S. ports.
Evidence of a decisive shift is not hard to find, beginning with the latest edition of the "The National Security Strategy of the United States of America", released earlier this month.
A kinder, gentler version of its fire-breathing 2002 predecessor that laid out the doctrinal justification for the March 2003 invasion, the new version puts a greater emphasis on diplomacy and development, tending alliances, and other realist themes, even as it continued the administration's defense of pre-emptive military action with Iran squarely in mind.
Rice's constant travel -- as well as that of her two underlings, Deputy Secretary Robert Zoellick and Undersecretary for Policy Nicholas Burns -- not only demonstrates the priority the administration has placed on cultivating allies and even states more skeptical of U.S. benevolence. It also suggests that the State Department -- the bastion of foreign policy realism -- is considerably more confident of its own power within the administration.' Lees verder:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0404-04.htm

Land of the Free. Home of the Brave! 2

De Guardian bericht: 'Silence in class University professors denounced for anti-Americanism; schoolteachers suspended for their politics; students encouraged to report on their tutors. Are US campuses in the grip of a witch-hunt of progressives, or is academic life just too liberal? After the screenwriter Walter Bernstein was placed on the blacklist during the McCarthyite era he said his life "seemed to move in ever-decreasing circles". "Few of my friends dropped away but the list of acquaintances diminished," he wrote in Inside Out, a memoir of the blacklist. "I appeared contaminated and they did not want to risk infection. They avoided me, not calling as they had in the past, not responding to my calls, being nervously distant if we met in public places." As chair of African American studies in Yale, Paul Gilroy had a similar experience recently after he spoke at a university-sponsored teach-in on the Iraq war. "I think the morality of cluster bombs, of uranium-tipped bombs, [of] daisy cutters are shaped by an imperial double standard that values American lives more," he said. "[The war seems motivated by] a desire to enact revenge for the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon ... [It's important] to speculate about the relation between this war and the geopolitical interests of Israel."
"I thought I was being extremely mealy-mouthed, but I was accused of advocating conspiracy theories," says Gilroy, who is now the Anthony Giddens professor of Social Theory at the London School of Economics. Scot Silverstein, who was once on the faculty at Yale, saw a piece in the student paper about Gilroy's contribution. He wrote to the Wall Street Journal comparing Gilroy to Hitler and claiming his words illustrated the "moral psychosis and perhaps psychological sadism that appears to have infected leftist academia". The Journal published the letter. Gilroy found himself posted on Discoverthenetworks.org, a website dedicated to exposing radical professors. The principle accusation was that he "believes the US fabricated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein".' Lees verder: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1746227,00.html

De Oorlogsstaat 35

Dit overzicht is niet beschikbaar. Klik hier om de post te bekijken.

Noam Chomsky 6

Tom Engelhardt schrijft: 'Noam Chomsky on War Crimes in Iraq. In the Vietnam era, the subject of war crimes was the last to arrive and the first to depart. When, in 1971 in Detroit, Vietnam Veterans Against the War convened its Winter Soldier Investigation into U.S. war crimes in Southeast Asia, it was roundly ignored by the media. Over 100 veterans gave firsthand testimony to war crimes they either committed or witnessed. Beyond the unbearable nature of their testimony, the hearings were startling for the fact that here were men who yearned to take some responsibility for what they had done. But while it was, by then, possible for Americans to accept the GI as a victim in Vietnam, it proved impossible for most Americans to accept him as a human being taking responsibility for a crime against humanity. There was no place for this in the American imagination, it seemed, no less for the thought that the planning and prosecution of the war were potential crimes committed by our leaders. Evidently there still is none, which is why it's important to follow Noam Chomsky back into the Iraq of recent years to consider the American occupation of that country in the context of war crimes. The piece that follows is an excerpt from Chomsky's new book, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy, which is officially published on this very day. It is Chomsky at his best, a superb tour (de force) of a world in which the Bush administration has regularly asserted its right to launch "preventive" military interventions against "failed" and "rogue" states, while increasingly taking on the characteristics of those failed and rogue states itself. It will be an indispensable volume for any library. (You can check out a Chomsky discussion of it at Democracy Now!). Lees verder: http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=73753

Guantanamo 2

De Guardian bericht: 'Return My Work, Says Guantánamo Poet. The Americans can't return the three years that Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost lost, locked in a cell in Guantánamo Bay. But they could at least give back his poetry. "Please help," said Dost, who says he penned 25,000 lines of verse during his long imprisonment. "Those words are very precious to me. My interrogators promised I would get them back. Still I have nothing." The lost poems are the final indignity for Dost, a softly spoken Afghan whom the US military flew home last year, finally believing his pleas of innocence. Accused of being an al-Qaida terrorist, Dost had been whisked from his home in Peshawar, northern Pakistan, in November 2001. Five months later he was shackled, blindfolded and flown to Cuba. Wearing an orange jumpsuit and trapped inside a mesh cage, the Pashtun poet crafted his escape through verse. "I would fly on the wings of my imagination," he recalled. "Through my poems I would travel the world, visiting different places. Although I was in a cage I was really free." Inmates were forbidden pens or papers during Dost's first year in captivity. So he found a novel solution - polystyrene teacups. "I would scratch a few lines on to a cup with a spoon. If you held it up to the light you could read it," he said. "But when the guards collected the trash they threw them away." It was only when prison authorities provided awkward rubbery pens - so soft they could not be used as weapons - that Dost wrote in earnest. His themes were love of his homeland, poetry and his children, and especially his hope of release. Sitting in his library, he quoted a couplet from a favourite poem: "Handcuffs befit brave young men/Bangles are for spinsters or pretty young ladies." Dost lampooned his military captors, mocking what he perceived as ridiculous - women with men's haircuts, men without beards. "In the American army I could not see a real man," he said. "And they talk rudely about homosexuals, which is very shameful to us." The satires delighted fellow inmates, who passed them from cage to cage using a pulley system fashioned from prayer cap threads. Some even passed Dost their two-sheet paper allowance so he could write some more. But invariably the poems were confiscated during cell searches.' Lees verder: http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329448739-103681,00.html Of: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0403-04.htm

Klimaatverandering 31

Common Dreams bericht: 'Is It Too Late to Stop Global Warming? WASHINGTON - A man stands on a railroad track as a train rumbles closer. "Global warming?" he says. "Some say irreversible consequences are 30 years away. Thirty years. That won't affect me." He steps off the tracks -- just in time. But behind him is a little girl, left in front of the roaring train. The screen goes black. A message appears: "There's still time." It's just an ad, part of a campaign from the advocacy group Environmental Defense, which hopes to convince Americans they can do something about global warming, that there's still time. But many scientists are not so sure that the oncoming train of global warming can be avoided. Temperatures are going to rise for decades to come because the chief gas that causes global warming lingers in the atmosphere for about a century. "In the short term, I'm not sure that anyone can stop it," said John Walsh, director of the Center for Global Change and Arctic System Research at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. There are limits, experts say, to how much individuals can do. The best we can hope for is to prevent the worst -- world-altering disasters such as catastrophic climate change and a drastic rise in sea levels, say 10 leading climate scientists interviewed by The Associated Press. They pull out ominous phrases such as "point of no return." The big disasters are thought to be just decades away. Stopping or delaying them would require bold changes by people and government. "The big payoff is going to be for our children," said Tim Barnett, a senior scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California. "Together, if we take a concentrated action as a people, we might be able to slow it down enough to avoid these surprises."
But he and other scientists say it's too late to stop people from feeling the heat. Nearly two dozen computer models agree that by 2100, the average global temperature will be 3 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit higher than now, according to Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.' Lees verder:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0403-01.htm

Iran 22

De Engelstalige editie van de Pravda bericht: 'This week in the world of economics began with the opening of the international oil exchange in Iran. The intrigue of the situation is accentuated by the fact that trading will take place in the European currency. This in itself is setting a precedent: in modern history oil has been quoted exclusively in dollars. Alarmists and antiglobalists from all countries have rushed to describe this as yet another sentence against the hegemony of the dollar and the USA. It can not be ruled out that this idea is what is motivating the Iranian authorities. At the height of tension in relations between the USA and Iran the latter’s move looks like a blow to the economic power of its enemy. This cannot be deemed a weak blow – Iran has a share of at least 4% of worldwide oil production. Moreover, it has been declared that the format of the exchange will meet international norms: the question now is: which other of the Persian Gulf states will support Iran? “The situation there will depend on the extent to which other countries and regions will want to convert from the dollar to the euro,” the analyst of IK ‘FINAM” Olga Belenkaya told Pravda.Ru.' Lees verder:
http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/21-03-2006/77628-oil-0

Cyber War

De Sunday Herald bericht: 'While the US remains committed to hunting down al-Qaeda operatives, it is now taking the battle to new fronts. Deep within the Pentagon, technologies are being deployed to wage the war on terror on the internet, in newspapers and even through mobile phones. -- -- IMAGINE a world where wars are fought over the internet; where TV broadcasts and newspaper reports are designed by the military to confuse the population; and where a foreign armed power can shut down your computer, phone, radio or TV at will.In 2006, we are just about to enter such a world. This is the age of information warfare, and details of how this new military doctrine will affect everyone on the planet are contained in a report, entitled The Information Operations Roadmap, [PDF] commissioned and approved by US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld and seen by the Sunday Herald.The Pentagon has already signed off $383 million to force through the document’s recommendations by 2009. Military and intelligence sources in the US talk of “a revolution in the concept of warfare”. The report orders three new developments in America’s approach to warfare:lFirstly, the Pentagon says it will wage war against the internet in order to dominate the realm of communications, prevent digital attacks on the US and its allies, and to have the upper hand when launching cyber-attacks against enemies.lSecondly, psychological military operations, known as psyops, will be at the heart of future military action. Psyops involve using any media – from newspapers, books and posters to the internet, music, Blackberrys and personal digital assistants (PDAs) – to put out black propaganda to assist government and military strategy. Psyops involve the dissemination of lies and fake stories and releasing information to wrong-foot the enemy.lThirdly, the US wants to take control of the Earth’s electromagnetic spectrum, allowing US war planners to dominate mobile phones, PDAs, the web, radio, TV and other forms of modern communication. That could see entire countries denied access to telecommunications at the flick of a switch by America.Freedom of speech advocates are horrified at this new doctrine, but military planners and members of the intelligence community embrace the idea as a necessary development in modern combat.Human rights lawyer John Scott, who chairs the Scottish Centre for Human Rights, said: “This is an unwelcome but natural development of what we have seen. I find what is said in this document to be frightening, and it needs serious parliamentary scrutiny.”' Lees verder: http://www.sundayherald.com/54975 Of:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12609.htm

Guantanamo

Trouw bericht: 'Guantánamo / Onschuldig opgesloten. Voor het eerst wordt meer duidelijk over de rechtsgang in Guantánamo Bay. Sommige van de 480 gevangenen zijn officieel onschuldig verklaard, toch zitten ze nog steeds vast. Advocaat Neil McGaraghan (36) had tot een jaar terug alleen in de krant over Guantánamo gelezen. Van het oorlogs- of internationaal recht, dat bepaalt hoe landen met gevangenen uit een gewapend conflict om moeten gaan, wist hij niets. Hij deed alleen commercieel werk. Op zijn bureau op de 19de verdieping van een kantorenkolos in het hart van Boston liggen papieren over beslechting van geschillen in de bouw.
Maar op een dag sprak een collega hem aan. „Die zei echt misselijk te worden van het nieuws over Guantánamo Bay. Dat dit in Amerika kon gebeuren. Hij wilde de partners van ons advocatenkantoor overhalen hem deels vrij te maken voor de verdediging van gedetineerden. Hij vroeg me te helpen.” Sindsdien is er veel gebeurd. Bingham & McCutchen vertegenwoordigt intussen twaalf gevangenen. Op het hoofdkantoor in Boston werken zes man aan hun zaak. McGaraghan telt hardop: „Een paar advocaten op het kantoor in Washington helpen, één in Hartford en nog één in San Francisco.” Alles pro bono, wat betekent ’voor het algemeen goed’, gratis dus. McGaraghan besteedt een kwart van zijn tijd aan "Gitmo".' Lees verder:
http://www.trouw.nl/deverdieping/overigeartikelen/
article269183.ece/Guant%E1namo+%2F+Onschuldig+opgesloten De twee reacties die het artikel kreeg van Trouw-lezers stemmen niet hoopvol. Er zijn kennelijk nog steeds Nederlanders die moeite met het recht hebben.

Iran 21

De Washington Post bericht: 'Attacking Iran May Trigger Terrorism. U.S. Experts Wary of Military Action Over Nuclear Program. As tensions increase between the United States and Iran, U.S. intelligence and terrorism experts say they believe Iran would respond to U.S. military strikes on its nuclear sites by deploying its intelligence operatives and Hezbollah teams to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide. Iran would mount attacks against U.S. targets inside Iraq, where Iranian intelligence agents are already plentiful, predicted these experts. There is also a growing consensus that Iran's agents would target civilians in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, they said. U.S. officials would not discuss what evidence they have indicating Iran would undertake terrorist action, but the matter "is consuming a lot of time" throughout the U.S. intelligence apparatus, one senior official said. "It's a huge issue," another said. Citing prohibitions against discussing classified information, U.S. intelligence officials declined to say whether they have detected preparatory measures, such as increased surveillance, counter-surveillance or message traffic, on the part of Iran's foreign-based intelligence operatives. But terrorism experts considered Iranian-backed or controlled groups -- namely the country's Ministry of Intelligence and Security operatives, its Revolutionary Guards and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah -- to be better organized, trained and equipped than the al-Qaeda network that carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.' Lees verder:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/01/AR2006040100981.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

Henk Kamp als Pion

Het Parool bericht vanavond: 'Chávez: Kamp is pion van Amerika. Van onze redactie buitenland.
CARACAS - President Hugo Chávez van Venezuela vindt de Nederlandse minister Henk Kamp van Defensie een 'pion van Washington'. Kamp suggereerde onlangs dat Chávez de Nederlandse Antillen en Aruba wil veroveren. In zijn tv-programma Aló Presidente veegde Chávez Kamp de mantel uit. Volgens Chávez passen de 'leugens' van Kamp in de 'wereldwijde campagne' van de VS tegen hem. Chávez zei dat Venezuela en de Antillen juist 'goede buren' zijn en blijven.Volgens Hugo Chávez doet Kamp aan de Amerikaanse campagne tegen Venezuela mee omdat de minister 'een man van de extreem-rechtervleugel is'. Chávez zei onlangs te vermoeden dat Amerika de Nederlandse Antillen en Aruba wil gebruiken voor een aanval op Venezuela.Kamp noemde Chávez ''een onverdraagzame populist die met grote ogen kijkt naar de snippertjes voor de kust van Venezuela, die onderdeel zijn van Nederland''. ' Lees verder:
http://www.parool.nl/nieuws/2006/APR/03/p1.html Kamp een pion van Amerika? Dat is helemaal geen nieuws. Ieder mens met een beetje politiek inzicht weet dat. Maar toch raakt Het Parool er helemaal opgewonden van, want op pagina 2 van de krant lezen we als kop: 'Chavez dol op tirades.' U begrijpt het wel: Chavez, Zuid-Amerikaan, negerbloed, geen vriend van de Verenigde Staten nadat Washington via een militaire staatsgreep had geprobeerd de democratisch gekozen Chavez weg te werken. En dus moet deze onbesuisde vlerk worden afgeschilderd als een halve gare brulboei. Maar een feit blijft dat Kamp een pion is van de VS. Hoe hard of zacht Chavez dit ook roept. En nu zou de redactie buitenland van het Parool aan de slag moeten, huiswerk doen, kijken of Kamp ook meewerkt via de Antillen, net zoals hij braaf in Irak heeft meegedaan en nog steeds in Afghanistan meedoet. Aan de slag! Ik ben benieuwd.

Het Neoliberale Geloof 4

De onafhankelijke Molly Ivins schrijft in AlterNet: 'Racists seem to think that illegal workers - the hardest-working, poorest people in the US - are getting away with something. In 1983, I was a judge at the Terlingua Chili Cookoff, and my memory of the events may not be perfect - for example, for years I've been claiming Jimmy Carter was president at the time, but that's the kind of detail one often loses track of in Terlingua. Anyway, it was '83 or some year right around there when we held The Fence climbing contest. See, people talked about building The Fence back then, too. The Fence along the Mexican border. To keep Them out. At the time, the proposal was quite specific - a 17-foot cyclone fence with bob wire at the top. So a test fence was built at Terlingua, and the First-Ever Terlingua Memorial Over, Under or Through Mexican Fence Climbing Contest took place. Prize: a case of Lone Star beer. Winning time: 30 seconds.
I tell this story to make the one single point about the border and immigration we know to be true: The Fence will not work. No fence will work. The Great darn Wall of China will not work. Do not build a fence. It will not work. They will come anyway. Over, under or through.
Some of you think a fence will work because Israel has one. Israel is a very small country. Anyone who says a fence can fix this problem is a demagogue and an ass. Numero Two-o, should you actually want to stop Mexicans and OTMs (other than Mexicans) from coming to the United States, here is how to do it: Find an illegal worker at a large corporation. This is not difficult - brooms and mops are big tip-offs. Then put the CEO of that corporation in prison for two or more years for violating the law against hiring illegal workers. Got it? You can also imprison the corporate official who actually hired the illegal and, just to make sure, put some Betty Sue Billups - housewife, preferably one with blonde hair in a flip - in the joint for a two-year stretch for hiring a Mexican gardener. Thus Americans are reminded that the law says it is illegal to hire illegal workers and that anyone who hires one is responsible for verifying whether or not his or her papers are in order. If you get fooled and one slips by you, too bad, you go to jail anyway. When there are no jobs for illegal workers, they do not come. Got it?' Lees verder:
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/34256/ Of: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040106H.shtml

Het Amerikaans Imperium

De Independent bericht: 'US and UK Forces Establish "Enduring Bases" in Iraq. Despite talk of withdrawal "when the job is done", there are signs that coalition troops will be there for the long term. The Pentagon has revealed that coalition forces are spending millions of dollars establishing at least six "enduring" bases in Iraq - raising the prospect that US and UK forces could be involved in a long-term deployment in the country. It said it assumed British troops would operate one of the bases. Almost ever since President Bush claimed an end to "major combat operations" in Iraq on 1 May 2003, debate has focused on how quickly troops could be withdrawn. The US and British governments say troops will remain in Iraq "until the job is done". Yet while the withdrawal of a substantial number of troops remains an aim, it has become increasingly clear that the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) are preparing to retain some forces in Iraq for the longer term. The US currently has around 130,000 troops in Iraq; Britain has 8,000. Major Joseph Breasseale, a senior spokesman for the coalition forces' headquarters in Iraq, told The Independent on Sunday: "The current plan is to reduce the coalition footprint into six consolidation bases - four of which are US. As we move in that direction, some other bases will have to grow to facilitate the closure [or] transfer of smaller bases." He added: "Right now, I don't have any information that tells me which nationality will comprise the remaining two bases, though my assumption is that at least one will be run by the Brits." An MoD spokesperson said British forces were currently operating out of eight bases in southern Iraq, with a small contingent based in Baghdad, and that "discussions with coalition forces relating to future basing are still at a very early stage. Nothing has been agreed." The official added: "We have no intention of remaining, or indeed retaining bases in Iraq long-term. We will leave Iraq as soon as the democratically elected Iraqi government is confident that its security forces have the capability and capacity to counter terrorism and to preserve the security of democracy there." A senior military source recently told the IoS that some British troops could be expected to stay in Iraq in a training role for years to come. There would be no British presence in the urban areas, however. The American and British governments say they remain in Iraq at the invitation of the interim Iraqi government, and would leave if asked to do so. The Pentagon says it has already reduced the number of US bases from 110 a year ago to a current total of around 75. But at the same time it is expanding a number of vast, highly defended bases, some in the desert away from large population areas. More than $280m (£160m) has already been spent on building up Al Asad air base, Balad air base, Camp Taji and Tallil air base, and the Bush administration has this year requested another $175m to enlarge them. These bases, which currently house more than 55,000 troops, have their own bus routes, pizza restaurants and supermarkets.' Lees verder: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article355178.ece Of: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040206E.shtml

Iran 20

De Britse Telegraph bericht: 'Government in Secret Talks About Strike Against Iran. The Government is to hold secret talks with defence chiefs tomorrow to discuss possible military strikes against Iran. A high-level meeting will take place in the Ministry of Defence at which senior defence chiefs and government officials will consider the consequences of an attack on Iran. It is believed that an American-led attack, designed to destroy Iran's ability to develop a nuclear bomb, is "inevitable" if Teheran's leaders fail to comply with United Nations demands to freeze their uranium enrichment programme. Tomorrow's meeting will be attended by Gen Sir Michael Walker, the chief of the defence staff, Lt Gen Andrew Ridgway, the chief of defence intelligence and Maj Gen Bill Rollo, the assistant chief of the general staff, together with officials from the Foreign Office and Downing Street. The International Atomic Energy Authority, the nuclear watchdog, believes that much of Iran's programme is now devoted to uranium enrichment and plutonium separation, technologies that could provide material for nuclear bombs to be developed in the next three years. The United States government is hopeful that the military operation will be a multinational mission, but defence chiefs believe that the Bush administration is prepared to launch the attack on its own or with the assistance of Israel, if there is little international support. British military chiefs believe an attack would be limited to a series of air strikes against nuclear plants - a land assault is not being considered at the moment. But confirmation that Britain has started contingency planning will undermine the claim last month by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, that a military attack against Iran was "inconceivable".' Lees verder: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/02/wiran02.xml&sSheet=/portal/2006/04/02/ixportaltop.html Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040206A.shtml

De Oorlogsstaat 34

De New York Times stelt in een redactioneel commentaar: 'The Endgame in Iraq. Iraq is becoming a country that America should be ashamed to support, let alone occupy. The nation as a whole is sliding closer to open civil war. In its capital, thugs kidnap and torture innocent civilians with impunity, then murder them for their religious beliefs. The rights of women are evaporating. The head of the government is the ally of a radical anti-American cleric who leads a powerful private militia that is behind much of the sectarian terror. The Bush administration will not acknowledge the desperate situation. But it is, at least, pushing in the right direction, trying to mobilize all possible leverage in a frantic effort to persuade the leading Shiite parties to embrace more inclusive policies and support a broad-based national government. One vital goal is to persuade the Shiites to abort their disastrous nomination of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Mr. Jaafari is unable to form a broadly inclusive government and has made no serious effort to rein in police death squads. Even some Shiite leaders are now calling on him to step aside. If his nomination stands and is confirmed by Parliament, civil war will become much harder to head off. And from the American perspective, the Iraqi government will have become something that no parent should be asked to risk a soldier son or daughter to protect. Unfortunately, after three years of policy blunders in Iraq, Washington may no longer have the political or military capital to prevail. That may be hard for Americans to understand, since it was the United States invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and helped the Shiite majority to power. Some 140,000 American troops remain in Iraq, more than 2,000 American servicemen and service women have died there so far and hundreds of billions of American dollars have been spent.' Lees verder:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/opinion/02sun1.html?ex=1301634000&en=7d98d16956682228&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040206Z.shtml

Amerikaanse Deserteurs

De BBC bericht: 'US Deserter 'Shocked by Abuses.' A US soldier who fled to Canada to avoid serving in Iraq says he was shocked by alleged atrocities committed by the American military. Josh Key was speaking before Canada's refugee board hearing his asylum plea. Among the incidents, he described soldiers kicking the severed head of an Iraqi like a football in Ramadi. Mr. Key served as an explosives expert in Iraq for eight months, and deserted to Canada with his family in 2004. He faces a court martial back in the US. The soldier, 27, also told Canada's refugee board he saw a US army squad leader shooting the foot off an unarmed Iraqi man. The army's attitude in Iraq was "just shoot and ask questions later", Mr. Key said. Appeal. Mr. Key says he refuses to fight in a war he regards as immoral and illegal. About 20 US soldiers have applied for asylum in Canada. Two have already had their applications rejected. The Immigration and Refugee Board said it was not convinced the men would face persecution if they were sent back to the US. They have said they will appeal against the decision. Speaking to the BBC, Mr. Key said he was in Iraq when he realized the war was unjustified. "The only people that were getting hurt was the innocent; that was innocent Iraqi people, as well as innocent soldiers."' Lees verder: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4859948.stm Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040106C.shtml

Het Exporteren van Banen

Uit onderzoek in de Verenigde Staten blijkt dat de meeste mensen van mening zijn dat het outsourcen van werk, dus het exporteren van banen naar goedkope lonen landen, niet bestreden kan worden. Opmerkelijk, want het betekent dat burgers in een parlementaire democratie ervan overtuigd zijn dat ze geen greep hebbenop het nagenoeg belangrijkste in hun leven. Common Dreams bericht: 'Problem: Foreign Oil, Answer: Blowing in the Wind? WASHINGTON - Alongside the war in Iraq, Americans worry most about U.S. dependence on foreign oil, a leading pollster said Thursday. While most appeared fatalistic over problems like job outsourcing, around half said the government can do something about energy dependence, according to a survey run by Daniel Yankelovich, funded by the Ford Foundation, and published by the Council on Foreign Relations in its journal Foreign Affairs. Environmentalists appeared to validate that sentiment, separately highlighting rapid growth in homespun energy alternatives and urging policymakers to boost support for the sector. Almost 90 percent of the 1,000 Americans canvassed in January for the Confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy Index said dependence on foreign energy jeopardized national security. Forty-six percent gave policymakers a failing grade for their efforts to wean the nation off foreign oil and natural gas.
And 55 percent said they worried that foreign conflicts would drive up oil prices or cut off supplies. Only 42 percent said so last August but since then, U.S. consumers have been buffeted by a hurricane-induced slump in domestic oil production, tension in foreign oil fields, and record oil industry profits. Yankelovich, chairman of nonpartisan pollsters Public Agenda, said those figures constitute a ''tipping point.'' ''The oil-dependency issue now meets all the criteria for having reached the tipping point: an overwhelming majority expresses concern about the issue, the intensity of the public's unease has reached significant levels, and the public believes the government is capable of addressing the issue far more effectively than it has until now,'' Yankelovich wrote in an analysis of the survey.' Les verder:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0331-02.htm

Klimaatverandering 31

De Times bericht: 'Antarctic Air is Warming Faster Than Rest of World. New finding could have implications for sea level rises.
AIR temperatures above the entire frozen continent of Antarctica have risen three times faster than the rest of the world during the past 30 years. While it is well established that temperatures are increasing rapidly in the Antarctic Peninsula, the land tongue that protrudes towards South America, the trend has been harder to confirm over the continent as a whole. Now analysis of weather balloon data by scientists at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has shown that not only are the lower reaches of the Antarctic atmosphere warming, but that they are doing so at the fastest rate observed anywhere on Earth.
Temperatures in the troposphere — the lowest 8km (5 miles) of the atmosphere — have increased by between 0.5C and 0.7 C (0.9F and 1.3F) per decade over the past 30 years. This signature of climate change is three times stronger than the average observed around the world, suggesting that global warming is having an uneven impact and that it could be greater for Antarctica. It is already known that temperatures in the Arctic are rising steeply, but with the exception of the Antarctic peninsula, the data for the southern ice-cap are more mixed. Although the Antarctic peninsula has warmed by more than 2.5C during the past 50 years, most surface measurements suggest that there have been no pronounced temperature changes elsewhere on the continent, while some have indicated a small cooling effect. The new research, led by John Turner, of the BAS, shows that the air above the surface of Antarctica is definitely warming, in ways that are not predicted by climate models and that cannot yet be explained. The results are published today in the journal Science.
“The rapid surface warming of the Antarctic Peninsula and the enhanced global warming signal over the whole continent shows the complexity of climate change,” Dr Turner said.
“Greenhouses gases could be having a bigger impact in Antarctica than across the rest of the world and we don’t understand why.' Lees verder:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2111772,00.html Of: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0331-05.htm