Gunter Grass

De Ashville Global Report bericht: 'Gunter Grass, celebrated German novelist,
playwright, poet, essayist, sculptor and commentator,
is a living legend. When this Nobel Laureate speaks,
people listen.

His address in Berlin to the annual Congress of
International PEN, the worldwide organization of
writers, had been much anticipated, especially given
his long admonition to intellectuals to speak up on the political and moral issues of the day.

He himself has done so all his life, most famously
against the Nazi past and contemporary neo-Nazism and xenophobia.

Grass, at 78 still spry and energetic, quickly gets
into his topic, "The hubris of the world's only
superpower," and proceeds to offer a sweeping critique.

His words find resonance among the writers gathered,
including another Nobel Laureate, South African
novelist Nadine Gordimer.

"Armed force is used by this superpower to defeat the
terrorism it is itself responsible for," Grass says,
citing Osama bin Laden, the by-product of US support
for Afghan jihadists in the 1980s. "The war [on Iraq], deliberately started in blatant disdain of the laws of civilized societies, produces still more terror."

Yet George W. Bush is searching for new enemies and
targets.

"Dictatorships, and there are plenty to choose from,
are referred to as rogue states and threatened
vociferously with military strikes, including the
deployment of nuclear weapons. But it only further
stabilizes the fundamentalist power systems in those
countries.

"Whether the term 'axis of evil' is used to refer to
Iran or North Korea or Syria, politics could not be
more stupid and hence more dangerous. Yet the entire
world is watching and pretending to be powerless."

Grass quotes liberally from the blistering speech given
last year by British playwright Harold Pinter in
accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature: "The United
States supported and, in many cases, engendered every right-wing military dictatorship in the world after World War II - Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador and, of course, Chile...

"Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place in those countries... but you wouldn't know it. The crimes of the US have been systematic, constant, vicious, and remorseless but very few people have actually talked about them.' Lees verder:
http://agrnews.org/?section=news&news_section=6&#Nobel%20Laureate%20flays%20Bush

Irak 87

Van Jason Miller's website overgenomen: 'OTHER PEOPLE'S BLOOD.

"If you don't think our culture's marginalization of its own war is odd, imagine this: someone in your office, sitting at a desk across from you, is suddenly blown to bits, and you are splattered with his or her bloody goo. You wouldn't get over it for the rest of your life. Folks, this is what happens every single day in Iraq." BY BOB HERBERT 6-8-06 New York Times.
For the smug, comfortable, well-off Americans, it doesn't seem to matter how long the war in Iraq goes on, so long as the agony is endured by others. If the network coverage gets too grim, viewers can always switch to an infotainment channel -- one hand on the remote, the other burrowing into a bag of chips -- to follow the hilarious-yet-pathetic antics of Paris, Britney, Brangelina, et al.Americans think: "This foreign war is depressing and denial is the antidote. After all, why should ordinary citizens -- good people, religious people, patriots -- stop to consider their role in, and responsibility for, these thunderous explosions of unending carnage? Enough with this introspection! Let's go to the ballpark, get drunk, and boo Barry Bonds."This nation is in deep denial about Iraq. For years the president and his supporting cast of arrogant, bullying characters have tried to put their best PR facade on this ill-advised military adventure. They had no idea what they were doing when they ordered the invasion of Iraq, and they still don't see that they've opened up a Pandora's Box. Many of the troops who were assured that the Iraqis would welcome them with open arms are now dead. And yet there's still no plan, no mission, and no exit strategy.Paul Wolfowitz, who fashioned the phony intellectual underpinnings of this catastrophe, told us that Iraqi oil revenues would cover the cost of reconstruction. He was as wrong about that as the president was about those phantom weapons of mass destruction. And as wrong as Dick Cheney was last June, when he said the insurgency was in its last throes.Here are the facts: the war, so recklessly launched by the neocon amateurs in the Bush White House, has already taken well over one hundred thousand lives; and it will ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers somewhere between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. Yes, that's "trillion" with a "t."No one has been held accountable for this fiasco. While Mr. Bush's approval ratings are low, the public has been largely indifferent to the profound suffering that we have created in Iraq. This is primarily for two reasons: (1) because most Americans have no immediate personal stake in this war (indeed, the wealthiest keep getting more tax cuts during the war); and (2) because the administration and the news media intentionally hide the worst atrocities, carnage and suffering from the eyes of the U.S. population.Even the killing of American troops is usually kissed off with a paragraph or two in the major papers, and a sentence or two, at best, on the national newscasts. If you don't think our culture's marginalization of its own war is odd, imagine this: someone in your office, sitting at a desk across from you, is suddenly blown to bits, and you are splattered with his or her bloody goo. You wouldn't get over it for the rest of your life. Folks, this is what happens every single day in Iraq.The many thousands of Iraqis who are killed — including babies, children, and women who are being shot to death, blown up, and incinerated — remain completely unreported, and totally unknown to the American public. Hence, among ordinary Americans there is not only very little empathy for the suffering of Iraqis, but also virtually no sense that we share responsibility for their suffering.Despite the fantasies that are frequently expressed by President Bush and the leading politicians in both parties, the idea of a U.S. victory in Iraq is a vainglorious illusion. The nightmarish violence is rising, not receding. Iraq definitely is not being pacified.For instance, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a bustling market in Basra last weekend, killing 27 and wounding scores. On Sunday, 20 people were stopped and pulled from their vehicles on a highway near Baquba and shot to death.John Burns, writing in yesterday's New York Times, told us in his report from Iraq: "The death toll in one of the most grisly recent attacks, in the village of Hadid, near Diyala's provincial capital of Baquba, rose to 17 on Tuesday when the police delivered nine severed heads to the Baquba morgue, after they were found inside fruit boxes in the village." Just a few days earlier, eight more heads had been found.Instead of beginning to withdraw our troops from Iraq, we are belatedly sending more in. The permanent Iraqi government, which was supposed to be the answer to everybody's prayers, is a study in ineffectual haplessness. Although Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is dead, someone has already take his place as Al Qaeda's number one man in Iraq. And the real masterminds of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, are still at large somewhere in Pakistan.As was the case with Vietnam, the war in Iraq is a fool's errand. After more than three years, there is no clear mission for the American troops in Iraq. "Democratization" is, in fact, a raging civil war in which the Americans are but one among many competing militias. And the long-ago promised "Iraqification" of this war is still an illusory farce.No one can really say what the dead have died for. And yet the dying continues. When all of this gruesome carnage finally comes grinding to a halt -- according to President Bush, on somebody else's watch -- we'll look around at the hideous costs in bloodshed, human lives, and cold hard cash, and ask ourselves: "What in the world were we thinking?"Fair Use StatementIn accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 of US Copyright Law, this attributed work is provided via Thomas Paine’s Corner on a non-profit basis to facilitate understanding, research, education, and the advancement of human rights and social justice.' Lees verder:
http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/

De Oorlogsstaat 61

Jason Miller is a 39 year old sociopolitical essayist with a degree in
liberal arts and an extensive self-education (derived from an
insatiable appetite for reading). He is a member of Amnesty
International and an avid supporter of Oxfam International and Human
Rights Watch. He welcomes responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com or
comments on his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at
http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.

In Information Clearing House schrijft hij: 'Throughout Bush’s tenure in the White House, our Commander in Chef and his staff of gourmets have prepared a veritable smorgasbord of propagandistic delights for the psyches of those who still cling to the myth of America’s innate superiority.American Exceptionalism is a pathological fiction which our wealthy and corporate elites have cynically employed for years to justify their acts of imperialism, exploitation, enslavement, and genocide. America’s current regime has taken this rationalization for crimes against humanity to new heights.Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s death is the latest Haute cuisine to emerge from the perverse kitchen of America’s ruling elite. Bush’s sub-30% approval rating indicated that the minds of America’s masses were starving for propaganda to realign their thinking.Strauss’s disciples responded with a particularly delicious meal. On 6/8/06 George Bush presided over the execution of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. A butcher of over a hundred thousand human beings sentenced a murderer of a relative handful of people to die by explosion. American justice was served, ladies and gentlemen.Father, we thank you for providing us with this blessed bounty which will satisfy our wretched masses’ ravenous appetite for violence, drama, revenge, and evidence of their righteousness. And bless Israel, the World Bank, Tony Blair, and Fox News. Amen.While the Neocons and their bellicose supporters are thanking their God for bestowing the blessing of Zarqawi’s execution upon America and the “free world”, this killjoy sees very little cause for celebration.Isn't it obvious that we're winning?
Proudly displaying their macabre trophy picture of Zarqawi, the US military and its hand-maidens in the mainstream media now have “tangible proof” that America is succeeding in the “War on Terror”. Never mind that Osama bin Laden, a man who walks with a cane and survives on dialysis, is still at large nearly five years after 9/11. Forget the fact that many of the “terrorists” exist as reactionaries to unwavering American support of the ruthless Israeli squatters in Palestine and cruel tyrants like the Shah of Iran. Disregard the knowledge that the Iraqi Resistance shows little or no sign of relenting, despite the staggering human and financial toll the invasion has taken on the United States. Marvel at our humanity...Speaking about Zarqawi on behalf of the invading US forces, Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday via a video link from Baghdad, Iraq:Despite the fact that this person actually had no regard for human life, we were not going to treat him in the same manner. And so, they did clean his face up for the shots that were shown publicly.How humane of them to clean up their trophy before displaying it to the public. Did they also cleanse their victims in Fallujah or Haditha? If you are going to kill someone, you can at least have the human decency to clean them up afterwards.The buck doesn't stop on his desk...Noted for his unfettered presentation of the truth, Mike Whitney recently wrote a piece concerning the mainstream media complex’s complicity in perpetuating the Iraqi Occupation. Mike opined:“The bloody footprints from Haditha lead straight to the corporate headquarters at Time Warner and FOX News. They are every bit as guilty as anyone who served in Kilo Company.”' Lees verder:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13565.htm

Irak 86

De onafhankelijke Amerikaanse journalist Chris Floyd schrijft: 'Everybody Knows: Storms of Horror in a Tormented Land.


The last few weeks have seen disastrous news breaking over the Bush administration, like Katrina come again. This time, though, it's not hurricane winds and surging seas, but waves of innocent blood overtopping the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates to turn the White House crimson. Report after report of horrific atrocities — long held back by a levee of lies, fear, obfuscation and the natural confusion of war — has broken through, flooding the imperial capital with the reeking, corpse-filled backwash of the vast criminal folly committed by its grubby little Caesar. So great is the stench of moral corruption that even America's corporate media, for so long a simpering handmaiden to the ruling thugs, have been forced to take notice, just as they did, all too briefly, during the Bushist abandonment of New Orleans. New sites of shame have entered the American lexicon: Haditha, Ishaqi, Hamdaniyah, Samarra — places where horrors large and small, confirmed and alleged, comprehensible and unfathomable, have marked this beginning of the fourth year of occupation. Meanwhile, this week's reported killing of the man identified as Abu Musab al-Zaqarwi will be the spark for another spiral of bloodshed – and not just from the followers. Zarqawi, whose power and influence was wildly – and deliberately – exaggerated by Pentagon propagandists, was almost certainly betrayed by his ostensible allies in the insurgency: the local Sunni-led nationalists, along with members of his own organization. He had already been "demoted" by the Iraqi resistance for his mad-dog ways; even al Qaeda leaders were disassociating themselves from him, denouncing his mass-murdering attacks on fellow Muslims, as the Christian Science Monitor reported weeks ago (and Eric Garris of Antiwar.com reminded us this week). Now that he's gone, the nationalist insurgents have pledged to intensify their attacks on Americans, to show that Zarqawi was nothing, that they are the ones who have been doing the real fighting, as Juan Cole reports. The frenzy of death and darkness savaging Iraq will only grow, despite the PR blip (see the New York Times regurgitating the whole Pentagon fabrication of Zarqawi's supposed central role in the entire insurgency here) of the Zarqawi hit.
Indeed, as the tormented land flails in agony — racked by civil war, unbounded corruption, religious repression, infrastructure collapse, the violent subjugation of women and all the other evils introduced by President George W. Bush's war of aggression — U.S. forces seem to be gripped by an increasing frenzy of their own. In just the last three months, a string of incidents has seen Iraqi civilians gunned down by U.S. soldiers in outbursts of fury and panic, as Scotland's Sunday Herald reports. The innocent victims include unarmed women (one of them a pregnant woman trying to reach a hospital), infants, children, the elderly and the mentally handicapped. In May alone, Iraqi government officials charged that 32 civilians, including women and children, were killed in airstrikes on houses, an airstrike on a car and Baghdad house raids, AFP reports. These allegations come from the Iraqi Islamic Party, which has cooperated with the American occupation and "forms the core of the Iraqi Accord Front, the Sunni religious coalition that holds 44 seats in parliament," along with "a vice president, a vice premier, four cabinet members and the speaker of the house," as Juan Cole reports. "So these charges are originating not with hardliners or radicals outside the new system, but with…de facto allies of the United States," Cole notes.' Lees verder:
http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php

Nederland en Afghanistan 85

Truthout bericht: 'Afghan Violence Kills More Than 500.

The worst three weeks of violence since the fall of the Taliban have left more than 500 people dead, the U.S.-led coalition said Saturday.
Fighting on Saturday killed six insurgents and three police, officials said. Late Friday, a top Afghan intelligence agent narrowly survived a bomb attack on his convoy that killed three other people near the capital, Kabul.
Much of the recent Taliban fighting is believed funded by the country's $2.8 billion trade in opium and heroin - about 90 percent of the world's supply.
The daily violence has raised fears of a Taliban resurgence almost five years after the Islamic extremists were driven out by a U.S.-led invasion for harboring al-Qaida.
More than 44 militants were among those killed in the last week. More than 30 of them died in a battle with Canadian and Afghan troops in Zabul province on Monday, a coalition statement said.
A coalition spokesman, Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick, said there would be no letup in attacks on militants.
"We will not be deterred from our mission to provide a safe and secure environment to the Afghan people," he said in a U.S. military statement.
In an apparent attempt to kill Kabul's director of government intelligence, Humayoon Aini, a bomb ripped through the first car in his convoy late Friday, killing a local politician and two other people, said Kabul's police chief, Amanullah Ghazar.
Aini, who was in the second car, was unhurt, Ghazar said. The intelligence director had been returning to the capital from a meeting in a neighboring district, Ghazar said.
In southern Zabul province Saturday, Afghan troops battled insurgents for hours, killing two and capturing two, before dozens of others fled into nearby mountains, army commander Gen. Rehmatullah Raufi said.
The Afghan Interior Ministry announced that in the past week 9 tons of opium and 88 pounds of heroin have been seized in raids across the country.
The United States, Britain and other countries are spending hundreds of millions of dollars fighting the drug business.' Dat laatste doen de Verenigde Staten en hun bondgenoten door het in het zadel houden van de krijgsheren die tevens drugsbaronnen zijn. Lees verder:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061106Z.shtml


Een verhelderend overzichtje was onlangs in de Guardian te lezen: 'After four years and $12bn, £6.5bn, in foreign aid, the majority of Afghans still scrape through life without electricity or clean water. More than seven million people are chronically hungry, according to the UN, and 53% live on less than a dollar, or 54p, a day. The sight of foreigners earning large salaries and driving large vehicles protected by private security companies has focused frustrations. More recently, a spate of civilian deaths in US anti-Taliban bombing has aroused public anger in a country with a history of violently ejecting foreign occupiers. The government and its western backers argue that, since reconstruction started from an impossibly low base, much progress has been made. The west and north are peaceful, smooth roads stretch through the countryside, and the economy is projected to grow by 10% this year. A record number of children attend school. But faith in the Karzai government, dogged by violence in the south and allegations of corruption in Kabul, is faltering.
Many Afghans believe their $12bn in aid has been squandered or stolen.' Lees verder:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1785600,00.html

De Israelische Terreur 27

Een schreeuwend Palestijns kind na het meest recente Israelische bloedbad. Na het vermoorden van een Palestijns gezin hebben Israelische extremisten wederom een nieuwe ronde van geweld uitgelokt. De New York Times bericht: 'Hamas Fires Rockets at Israel After Calling Off Truce.

Jerusalem - The ruling Hamas group fired a barrage of homemade rockets at Israel on Saturday, hours after calling off a truce with Israel in anger over an artillery attack that killed seven civilians at a beachside picnic in the Gaza Strip, according to Associated Press reports.
The end of the truce raised the prospect of a new wave of bloodshed and the resumption of suicide attacks that Hamas had suspended since reaching the cease-fire in February 2005.
The Islamic militant group claimed responsibility for at least 15 of the rockets fired after midnight, as well as a barrage of mortar bombs. The attacks caused no casualties, and the Israeli army said nearly all of them appeared to land inside Gaza.
"The earthquake in the Zionist towns will start again and the aggressors will have no choice but to prepare their coffins or their luggage," the Hamas militants said in a leaflet. "The resistance groups ... will choose the proper place and time for the tough, strong and unique response."
Hamas had officially been abiding by an intermittent 16-month-old cease-fire, but Friday's killing of five members of a family and two women at a beach picnic led to the shift announced in a leaflet and confirmed by the Palestinian government spokesman.
Israeli military officials expressed regret for any "strike on innocents," saying that it was accidental and that the shells were aimed at a target 400 yards away, which had been the launching ground for dozens of crude rockets fired by Palestinians at southern Israeli towns. The officials ordered a halt to shelling in the area and offered help to some 30 other Palestinians who had been wounded.
The Palestinian reaction was one of fury, with the deaths putting the ruling Hamas faction in an awkward political position, apparently unable either to protect ordinary Palestinians or pay them, given the halt in financing to the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority by Israel and the West.
"The Israeli massacres represent a direct opening battle, and that means the earthquake in the Zionist cities will resume," the Hamas statement said. "We will respond at the appropriate place and time."
Ghazi Hamad, the spokesman of the Hamas government, confirmed the statement. "They killed innocent civilians who were enjoying their time on the beach and have nothing to do with military affairs," he said in a telephone interview. "So I believe that we the Palestinians, including Hamas, have the right to respond and defend ourselves."' Lees verder:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/10/world/middleeast/10mideast.html Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061006F.shtml

Let u op de reactie van de Nederlandse regering en de Nederlandse pro Israel lobby.

Martelen 48

De New York Times bericht: 'Three Guantánamo Detainees Committed Suicide, Military Says.

Miami - Three foreign prisoners being held at the US navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, died on Saturday in apparent suicides, the US military said.
"Two Saudis and one Yemeni, each located in Camp 1, were found unresponsive and not breathing in their cells by guards," US Southern Command said in a statement.
The military said attempts to resuscitate the detainees failed and they were pronounced dead by a physician at Guantanamo, which holds just under 500 foreigners captured mainly in the US war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Facing indefinite detention with none of the rights afforded formal prisoners of war, or criminal suspects in the US justice system, dozens of the detainees have undertaken hunger strikes.
Several have also attempted suicide while at least one fake suicide attempt was staged recently to trick prison guards into going into a cell where detainees intended to ambush them.
The names of the deceased - the first deaths at Guantanamo since it started being used as a prison camp in 2002 - were not released.
The US military said the bodies were being treated "with the utmost respect." An investigation had begun, it said.
The United States has faced criticism from human rights groups and some of its allies for indefinitely holding prisoners at Guantanamo. President George W. Bush has said he would like to close the detention center.' Zie: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/10/world/americas/10wire-cuba.html Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061006W.shtml