The Empire 739

Why We Should Take Jared Loughner's Politics Seriously

Friday 14 January 2011

by: Steve Striffler, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: HeyThereSpaceman., unforth, D Sharon Pruitt)

Jared Loughner, the 22-year-old accused of shooting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others, apparently drew political ideas from the radical right and radical left, listing (fascist) Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and (communist) Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto" among his favorite books. He was also attracted to conspiracy theories, thought we should be on a gold standard (because the government was trying to control us through currency), and at times just believed life was meaningless and nothing could be done.

Contrary to the prevailing wisdom, however, holding muddled political views does not in and of itself necessarily make Loughner mentally ill, unstable, crazy, or even particularly unusual. It makes him American and peculiarly so. In the college classroom, at political events and in grassroots organizing meetings, it does not take long to find many young (and not so young) people who hold what many of us consider to be an oddly contradictory collection of political views. After more than a decade of teaching, I can say that very few of today's college students have any sense of what "the left" or "the right" are or have traditionally stood for, what "liberal" and "conservative" have historically meant or where on the political spectrum we might place fascism and communism. When asked, most students - most Americans - "know" that Hitler and Marx are "bad," but very few can articulate what they stood for politically and many often assume that Nazi and Communist are synonymous.

Like Loughner, a significant portion of young people are, for very good reasons, profoundly anti-establishment, distrustful of anything they hear from the government or mainstream media. But this does not make them crazy anymore than it automatically leads them toward a coherent critique of the political system. Rather, in a world where fragments of information come from so many sources, it often leads them to the odd place where any explanation of the world is as good as any other, where there is no conceptual rudder for judging one theory or idea against another. Hence, they draw from wildly opposing political ideologies and are attracted to conspiracy theories. And it often leaves them in a frustrated place where public figures cannot be trusted, and to the conclusion that nothing can be done to change the world (except perhaps something chaotic and dramatic). Hence, the tendency toward apathy and (after a philosophy class or two) nihilism.

How the hell could we expect otherwise? It is bit ridiculous to ask why so few Americans are politically literate, much less hold politically coherent ideas, after we have gutted public education, turned schools into learning prisons and told young people over and over again they are consumers and not citizens. Political literacy, we learn, is no longer even a requirement for seeking political office, but is in fact seen as a drawback. And an important source of such political guidance, the left, has all but disappeared from mainstream life.

Within this context, it is amazing that any person in their twenties is able to develop anything resembling a coherent political framework for understanding the world, let alone acquire the tools to decipher between news and entertainment, to critically evaluate the fragments of information flying at them 24 hours a day from their TVs, computers and smart phones. Most do not have these tools by the time they arrive to college, and I long ago stopped expecting them to. But neither do I hold it against them, or dismiss their views simply because they are (from my perspective) muddled, incoherent and frequently go in completely opposite directions. I take them seriously both because it is my job as an educator and because I know a better future depends on equipping them with the ability to piece together a critical framework for understanding the world.

It is a bit ironic that at the same time as many commentators are urging us to listen more closely to our opponents' ideas and resist the urge to demonize them, that we are dismissing Loughner's political views without even so much as a real discussion. What he did is horrible, but the commentary has gone too quickly from "Loughner's actions were politically motivated" to "it had nothing to do with politics." We are now told that because his political views do not fall seamlessly into a neat box labeled "left" or "right" that they were irrelevant for understanding events in Arizona and, by connection, for understanding the current political situation in the United States. We should take Loughner's political views seriously. His mental state may have led him down a particularly destructive path, but his political confusion is by no means unique.
 http://www.truth-out.org/why-we-should-take-jared-loughners-politics-seriously66864

Daar zou aan kunnen worden toegevoegd dat de jeugd nu weet hoe corrupt het systeem is waarin ze leven en hoe weinig ze daaraan kunnen veranderen.

John Pilger 45

The War on WikiLeaks: John Pilger's Investigation and Interview With Julian Assange

Friday 14 January 2011

by: John Pilger, t r u t h o u t | Interview

Founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange. (Photo: Ben Bryant / Flickr)

The attacks on WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, are a response to an information revolution that threatens old power orders in politics and journalism. The incitement to murder trumpeted by public figures in the United States, together with attempts by the Obama administration to corrupt the law and send Assange to a hell-hole prison for the rest of his life, are the reactions of a rapacious system exposed as never before.

In recent weeks, the US Justice Department has established a secret grand jury just across the river from Washington in the eastern district of the state of Virginia. The object is to indict Assange under a discredited espionage act used to arrest peace activists during the First World War, or one of the "war on terror" conspiracy statutes that have degraded American justice. Judicial experts describe the jury as a "deliberate set up," pointing out that this corner of Virginia is home to the employees and families of the Pentagon, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, and other pillars of American power.

"This is not good news," Assange told me when we spoke this past week, his voice dark and concerned. He says he can have "bad days - but I recover." When we met in London last year, I said, "You are making some very serious enemies, not least of all the most powerful government engaged in two wars. How do you deal with that sense of danger?" His reply was characteristically analytical. "It's not that fear is absent. But courage is really the intellectual mastery over fear - by an understanding of what the risks are and how to navigate a path through them."

Regardless of the threats to his freedom and safety, he says the US is not WikiLeaks' main "technological enemy." "China is the worst offender. China has aggressive, sophisticated interception technology that places itself between every reader inside China and every information source outside China. We've been fighting a running battle to make sure we can get information through, and there are now all sorts of ways Chinese readers can get on to our site."

It was in this spirit of "getting information through" that WikiLeaks was founded in 2006, but with a moral dimension. "The goal is justice," wrote Assange on the homepage, "the method is transparency." Contrary to a current media mantra, WikiLeaks material is not "dumped." Less than one percent of the 251,000 US embassy cables have been released. As Assange points out, the task of interpreting material and editing that which might harm innocent individuals demands "standards [befitting] higher levels of information and primary sources." To secretive power, this is journalism at its most dangerous.

On 18 March 2008, a war on WikiLeaks was foretold in a secret Pentagon document prepared by the "Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch." US intelligence, it said, intended to destroy the feeling of "trust," which is WikiLeaks' "center of gravity." It planned to do this with threats to "exposure [and] criminal prosecution." Silencing and criminalizing this rare source of independent journalism was the aim: smear the method. Hell hath no fury like imperial Mafiosi scorned.

Others, also scorned, have lately played a supporting part, intentionally or not, in the hounding of Assange, some for reasons of petty jealousy. Sordid and shabby describe their behavior, which serves only to highlight the injustice against a man who has courageously revealed what we have a right to know.

As the US Justice Department, in its hunt for Assange, subpoenas the Twitter and email accounts, banking and credit card records of people around the world - as if we are all subjects of the United States - much of the "free" media on both sides of the Atlantic direct their indignation at the hunted.

"So, Julian, why won't you go back to Sweden now?" demanded the headline over Catherine Bennett's Observer column on 19 December, which questioned Assange's response to allegations of sexual misconduct with two women in Stockholm last August. "To keep delaying the moment of truth, for this champion of fearless disclosure and total openness," wrote Bennett, "could soon begin to look pretty dishonest, as well as inconsistent." Not a word in Bennett's vitriol considered the looming threats to Assange's basic human rights and his physical safety, as described by Geoffrey Robertson QC, in the extradition hearing in London on 11 January.

In response to Bennett, the editor of the online Nordic News Network in Sweden, Al Burke, wrote to the Observer explaining, "plausible answers to Catherine Bennett's tendentious question" were both critically important and freely available. Assange had remained in Sweden for more than five weeks after the rape allegation was made - and subsequently dismissed by the chief prosecutor in Stockholm - and that repeated attempts by him and his Swedish lawyer to meet a second prosecutor, who reopened the case following the intervention of a government politician, had failed. And yet, as Burke pointed out, this prosecutor had granted him permission to fly to London where "he also offered to be interviewed - a normal practice in such cases." So, it seems odd, at the very least, that the prosecutor then issued a European arrest warrant. The Observer did not publish Burke's letter.

This record straightening is crucial because it describes the perfidious behavior of the Swedish authorities - a bizarre sequence confirmed to me by other journalists in Stockholm and by Assange's Swedish lawyer Bjorn Hurtig. Not only that, Burke cataloged the unforeseen danger Assange faces should he be extradited to Sweden. "Documents released by WikiLeaks since Assange moved to England," he wrote, "clearly indicate that Sweden has consistently submitted to pressure from the United States in matters relating to civil rights. There is ample reason for concern that if Assange were to be taken into custody by Swedish authorities, he could be turned over to the United States without due consideration of his legal rights."

These documents have been virtually ignored in Britain. They show that the Swedish political class has moved far from the perceived neutrality of a generation ago and that the country's military and intelligence apparatus is all but absorbed into Washington's matrix around NATO. In a 2007 cable, the US Embassy in Stockholm lauds the Swedish government dominated by the conservative Moderate Party of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt as coming "from a new political generation and not bound by [anti-US] traditions [and] in practice a pragmatic and strong partner with NATO, having troops under NATO command in Kosovo and Afghanistan."

The cable reveals how foreign policy is largely controlled by Carl Bildt, the current foreign minister, whose career has been based on a loyalty to the United States that goes back to the Vietnam War when he attacked Swedish public television for broadcasting evidence that the US was bombing civilian targets. Bildt played a leading role in the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a lobby group with close ties to the White House of George W. Bush, the CIA and the far right of the Republican Party.

"The significance of all this for the Assange case," notes Burke in a recent study, "is that it will be Carl Bildt and perhaps other members of the Reinfeldt government who will decide - openly or, more likely, furtively behind a façade of legal formality - on whether or not to approve the anticipated US request for extradition. Everything in their past clearly indicates that such a request will be granted."

For example, in December 2001, with the "war on terror" under way, the Swedish government abruptly revoked the political refugee status of two Egyptians, Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed al-Zari. They were handed to a CIA kidnap squad at Stockholm airport and "rendered" to Egypt, where they were tortured. When the Swedish ombudsman for justice investigated and found that their human rights had been "seriously violated," it was too late.

Independent journalism is important. Click here to get Truthout stories sent to your email.

The implications for the Assange case are clear. Both men were removed without due process of law and before their lawyers could file appeals to the European Human Rights Court and in response to a US threat to impose a trade embargo on Sweden. Last year, Assange applied for residency in Sweden, hoping to base WikiLeaks there. It is widely believed that Washington warned Sweden through mutual intelligence contacts of the potential consequences. In December, prosecutor Marianne Ny, who reactivated the Assange case, discussed the possibility of Assange's extradition to the US on her web site.

Almost six months after the sex allegations were first made public, Assange has been charged with no crime, but his right to a presumption of innocence has been willfully denied. The unfolding events in Sweden have been farcical, at best. The Australian barrister James Catlin, who acted for Assange in October, describes the Swedish justice system as "a laughing stock ... There is no precedent for it. The Swedes are making it up as they go along." He says that Assange, apart from noting contradictions in the case, has not publicly criticized the women who made the allegations against him. It was the police who tipped off the Swedish equivalent of the Sun, Expressen, with defamatory material about them, initiating a trial by media across the world.

In Britain, this trial has welcomed yet more eager prosecutors, with the BBC to the fore. There was no presumption of innocence in Kirsty Wark's "Newsnight" court in December. "Why don't you just apologise to the women?" she demanded of Assange, followed by: "Do we have your word of honour that you won't abscond?" On Radio 4's "Today" program, John Humphrys, the partner of Bennett, told Assange that he was obliged to go back to Sweden "because the law says you must." The hectoring Humphrys, however, had more pressing interests. "Are you a sexual predator?" he asked. Assange replied that the suggestion was ridiculous, to which Humphrys demanded to know how many women he had slept with.

"Would even Fox News have descended to that level?" wondered the American historian William Blum. "I wish Assange had been raised in the streets of Brooklyn, as I was. He then would have known precisely how to reply to such a question: 'You mean including your mother?'"

What is most striking about these "interviews" is not so much their arrogance and lack of intellectual and moral humility; it is their indifference to fundamental issues of justice and freedom and their imposition of narrow, prurient terms of reference. Fixing these boundaries allows the interviewer to diminish the journalistic credibility of Assange and WikiLeaks, whose remarkable achievements stand in vivid contrast to their own. It is like watching the old and stale, guardians of the status quo, struggling to prevent the emergence of the new.

In this media trial, there is a tragic dimension, obviously for Assange, but also for the best of mainstream journalism. Having published a slew of professionally brilliant editions with the WikiLeaks disclosures, feted all over the world, The Guardian recovered its establishment propriety on 17 December by turning on its besieged source. A major article by the paper's senior correspondent Nick Davies claimed that he had been given the "complete" Swedish police file with its "new" and "revealing" salacious morsels.

Assange's Swedish lawyer Hurtig says that crucial evidence is missing from the file given to Davies, including "the fact that the women were re-interviewed and given an opportunity to change their stories" and the tweets and SMS messages between them, which are "critical to bringing justice in this case." Vital exculpatory evidence is also omitted, such as the statement by the original prosecutor, Eva Finne, that "Julian Assange is not suspected of rape."

Having reviewed the Davies article, Assange's former barrister James Catlin wrote to me: "The complete absence of due process is the story and Davies ignores it. Why does due process matter? Because the massive powers of two arms of government are being brought to bear against the individual whose liberty and reputation are at stake." I would add: so is his life.

The Guardian has profited hugely from the WikiLeaks disclosures, in many ways. On the other hand, WikiLeaks, which survives on mostly small donations and can no longer receive funds through many banks and credit companies thanks to the bullying of Washington, has received nothing from the paper. In February, Random House will publish a Guardian book that is sure to be a lucrative best seller, which Amazon is advertising as "The End of Secrecy: the Rise and Fall of WikiLeaks." When I asked David Leigh, the Guardian executive in charge of the book, what was meant by "fall," he replied that Amazon was wrong and that the working title had been "The Rise (and Fall?) of WikiLeaks." "Note parenthesis and query," he wrote, "Not meant for publication anyway." (The book is now described on the Guardian web site as "WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy.") Still, with all that duly noted, the sense is that "real" journalists are back in the saddle. Too bad about the new boy, who never really belonged.

On 11 January, Assange's first extradition hearing was held at Belmarsh Magistrates Court, an infamous address because it is here that people were, before the advent of control orders, consigned to Britain's own Guantanamo, Belmarsh prison. The change from ordinary Westminster magistrates' court was due to a lack of press facilities, according to the authorities. That they announced this on the day Vice President Joe Biden declared Assange a "high tech terrorist" was no doubt coincidental, though the message was not.

For his part, Assange is just as worried about what will happen to Bradley Manning, the alleged whistleblower, being held in horrific conditions which the US National Commission on Prisons calls "tortuous." At 23, Private Manning is the world's pre-eminent prisoner of conscience, having remained true to the Nuremberg principle that every soldier has the right to "a moral choice." His suffering mocks the notion of the land of the free.

"Government whistleblowers," said Barack Obama, running for president in 2008, "are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal." Obama has since pursued and prosecuted more whistleblowers than any other president in American history.

"Cracking Bradley Manning is the first step," Assange told me. "The aim clearly is to break him and force a confession that he somehow conspired with me to harm the national security of the United States. In fact, I'd never heard his name before it was published in the press. WikiLeaks technology was designed from the very beginning to make sure that we never knew the identities or names of people submitting material. We are as untraceable as we are uncensorable. That's the only way to assure sources they are protected."

He adds: "I think what's emerging in the mainstream media is the awareness that if I can be indicted, other journalists can, too. Even the New York Times is worried. This used not to be the case. If a whistleblower was prosecuted, publishers and reporters were protected by the First Amendment that journalists took for granted. That's being lost. The release of the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, with their evidence of the killing of civilians, hasn't caused this - it's the exposure and embarrassment of the political class: the truth of what governments say in secret, how they lie in public; how wars are started. They don't want the public to know these things and scapegoats must be found."

What about the allusions to the "fall" of WikiLeaks? "There is no fall," he said. "We have never published as much as we are now. WikiLeaks is now mirrored on more than 2,000 websites. I can't keep track of the of the spin-off sites: those who are doing their own WikiLeaks ... If something happens to me or to WikiLeaks, 'insurance' files will be released. They speak more of the same truth to power, including the media. There are 504 US embassy cables on one broadcasting organisation and there are cables on Murdoch and Newscorp."

The latest propaganda about the "damage" caused by WikiLeaks is a warning by the US State Department to "hundreds of human rights activists, foreign government officials and business people identified in leaked diplomatic cables of possible threats to their safety." This was how The New York Times dutifully relayed it on 8 January, and it is bogus. In a letter to Congress, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has admitted that no sensitive intelligence sources have been compromised. On 28 November, McClatchy Newspapers reported, "US officials conceded they have no evidence to date that the [prior] release of documents led to anyone's death." NATO in Kabul told CNN it could not find a single person who needed protecting.

The great American playwright Arthur Miller wrote: "The thought that the state ... is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied." What WikiLeaks has given us is truth, including rare and precious insight into how and why so many innocent people have suffered in reigns of terror disguised as wars and executed in our name; and how the United States has secretly and wantonly intervened in democratic governments from Latin America to its most loyal ally in Britain.

Javier Moreno, the editor of El Pais, which published the WikiLeaks logs in Spain, wrote, "I believe that the global interest sparked by the WikiLeaks papers is mainly due to the simple fact that they conclusively reveal the extent to which politicians in the West have been lying to their citizens."

Crushing individuals like Assange and Manning is not difficult for a great power, however craven. The point is, we should not allow it to happen, which means those of us meant to keep the record straight should not collaborate in any way. Transparency and information, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, are the "currency" of democratic freedom. "Every news organisation," a leading American constitutional lawyer told me, "should recognize that Julian Assange is one of them and that his prosecution will have a huge and chilling effect on journalism."

My favorite secret document - leaked by WikiLeaks, of course - is from the Ministry of Defense in London. It describes journalists who serve the public without fear or favor as "subversive" and "threats." Such a badge of honor.

http://www.truth-out.org/the-war-wikileaks-john-pilgers-investigation-and-interview-with-julian-assange66847

Uri Rosenthal. Een Nederlandse Minister 20

De Interkerkelijke Organisatie voor Ontwikkelingssamenwerking, ICCO, laat zich niet chanteren door de dreigementen van de pro-Israel minister van Buitenlandse Zaken.

Persberichten

 ICCOtweet rss

ICCO wijzigt beleid niet na gesprek minister Rosenthal

13 januari 2011

ICCO sprak vanochtend met minister Rosenthal van Buitenlandse Zaken over de financiering door ICCO van de website Electronic Intifada. Het was een pittig en openhartig gesprek, maar ICCO ziet geen reden om haar beleid te wijzigen. Voor haar werk is het internationaal recht de belangrijkste leidraad.

  

Die site biedt volgens de minister een platform aan de oproep voor een boycot van Israël. Het steunen van deze site staat hiermee volgens de minister diametraal tegenover het Nederlands buitenlands beleid. ICCO verschilt hierover van mening met de minister.

Sinds 2005 roepen meer dan 170 Palestijnse en enkele Israëlische organisaties op tot boycot, desinvestering en sancties tegen het Israëlische beleid. Doel is dat Israël zich houdt aan het internationaal recht en de mensenrechten. Omdat de Israëlische bezetting van de Palestijnse gebieden voortduurt, is deze druk gerechtvaardigd. Het is een vreedzame en legale manier om de Israëlische bezetting van de Palestijnse gebieden te beëindigen en te komen tot een vreedzame en rechtvaardige oplossing.

Achtergronden

In 2004 verklaarde het Internationaal Gerechtshof in Den Haag dat de door Israel gebouwde muur illegaal is, omdat die voor het grootste deel gebouwd is op Palestijns grondgebied. Het Hof bevestigde verder de illegaliteit van de Israëlische nederzettingen. Het hof riep staten op zich te onthouden van steun aan de bouw van de muur. Deze uitspraak is bevestigd door de Algemene Vergadering van de Verenigde Naties (UN General Assembly resolution A/RES/ES-10/15 of 20 July 2004). Nederland heeft hier vóór gestemd.

Ondanks de uitspraak van het hof en vele VN-resoluties, zet Israël de bouw van de muur en nederzettingen door.

ICCO

ICCO heeft deze oproep tot boycot niet zelf ondertekend. Wel hebben vrijwel alle maatschappelijke Palestijnse organisaties, en sommige Israëlische, die oproep ondertekend, onder wie organisaties die steun ontvangen van ICCO, maar ook van andere Nederlandse organisaties en het ministerie zelf. ICCO steunt het Kairos-document, waarin Palestijnse christenen oproepen om meer druk uit te oefenen tegen het Israëlische beleid.

Voor ICCO zijn internationaal recht en internationale humanitaire verdragen de belangrijkste leidraad. Ook artikel 90 van de Nederlandse grondwet stelt: ,,De regering bevordert de ontwikkeling van de internationale rechtsorde."

ICCO maakt zich sterk voor mensenrechten en internationaal recht in alle landen waar ze werkt, of dat nou Soedan, Congo, Guatemala of het Midden-Oosten is. ICCO roept dan ook zowel de Palestijnse als Israëlische autoriteiten op de mensenrechten te respecteren. ICCO streeft samen met haar Palestijnse en Israëlische partners naar een duurzame en rechtvaardige vrede voor iedereen: Palestijnen en Israëliërs.

Het is in Nederland goed gebruik dat maatschappelijke organisaties zelfstandig hun beslissingen nemen. ICCO ziet dan ook geen reden haar beleid te wijzigen.

http://www.icco.nl/nl/actueel/persberichten/674/icco-wijzigt-beleid-niet-na-gesprek-minister-rosenthal

The Empire 739

Why Isn't Jared Lee Loughner a Homegrown Terrorist?

Wednesday 12 January 2011

by: Sahar Aziz, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Jared Lee Loughner's mug shot, released by Pima County. Arizona, 1/10/2011

How many more members of Congress have to be victims of politically motivated violence before we acknowledge terrorism is defined by the act and not the identity of the actor? Any person who "use[s] violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature ... through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear" is aterrorist.

While clearly suffering from some sort of mental disorder, Jared Lee Loughner was motivated to some extent by anti-government politics. Had his name been Mohammed, we would be talking about homegrown terrorism, not gun control or mental illness.

The tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is a wakeup call that religious profiling does not work. While our nation was obsessed with Muslim "homegrown terrorism," Loughner stealthily planned his terrorist scheme.

It is no secret that since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the FBI has focused its anti-terrorism efforts on Muslims. Traveler watch lists have grown exponentially, primarily with Muslim and Arabic names. Internet web sites and chat rooms with expressions of political dissent coupled with Islamic rhetoric are presumably under vigilant surveillance. More recently, Muslim youth have become ensnared in sting operations as part of a zealous preventative campaign. So much so that civil rights groups claim the tactics may cross into unlawful entrapment.

To be sure, Muslims engaged in illegal terrorist activity should be investigated and prosecuted accordingly. But with its investigative authorities broadened after 9/11, why didn't the FBI stop Loughner before he shot a Congresswoman in the head, killed six civilians, including a federal judge and nine-year-old girl, and injured 17 people?

In light of the FBI's recent stings of Muslim terrorist suspects that involved months of surveillance, undercover operations and careful execution, where was the FBI when Loughner was plotting his murderous scheme? Did they fail to discover his plot because he did not fit the "profile" of a Muslim terrorist?

But Loughner is not the first time the FBI dropped the ball on countering homegrown terrorism. In February 2010, Joseph Stack flew an airplane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas, to protest tax laws and the IRS's order for him to pay his taxes. Prior to his crime, he publicly expressed his intent to protest the tax laws through violence. In the end, his terrorist act killed a federal employee and veteran. Had the plane crashed into the building a different time of the day, hundreds of IRS employees could have been killed.

In another troubling case in 2008, the FBI was apparently unaware of James Cummings' preparation of a dirty bomb. Only after the police investigated his shooting by his abused wife did the FBI discover that Cummings' house had a cache of radioactive materials suitable for building a "dirty bomb." In addition to literature on how to build dirty bombs and various radioactive materials, the FBI found evidence linking Cummings to white supremacist groups and his ardent admiration of Adolf Hitler. Fortunately for the prospective victims of his dirty bomb, he was unable to murder and terrorize an unknown number of people.

As our law enforcement fixates on young Muslim males in the legitimate goal to stop domestic terrorism, those outside the profile execute their terrorist acts undetected. Thus, it should come as no surprise that when law enforcement misguidedly focus their resources investigating individuals and communities based on ineffective racial or religious profiles, they miss the Loughners of the world.

The rise in terrorist plots by right-wing extremists is not accidental. Ever since Barack Obama's historic election, there has been a troubling proliferation of armed right-wing groups. Many of the groups question the legitimacy of Obama's presidency and by extension anyone supporting Obama's policies. Indeed, Giffords was among numerous elected officials subjected to threats because she voted for health care reform, pejoratively coined "Obamacare."

The violence in Arizona appears to be the latest episode in this troubling growth of right-wing violent extremism. It is a tragic reminder of the perils of focusing on only one particular religious, racial or ethnic group when countering homegrown terrorism. For the sake of our collective safety, not to mention our civil liberties, let's hope our government never forgets this basic fact.

http://www.truth-out.org/why-isnt-jared-lee-loughner-a-homegrown-terrorist66783

Israel als een Schurkenstaat 320

Sonja heeft een nieuwe reactie op uw bericht "Zionist Terrorism" achtergelaten: 

Ik heb dit een beetje uitgebreid 

JERUZALEM, GEBOORTEPLAATS VAN HET MODERNE TERRORISME

Zo begint The Age of Terror, een 3BM Television (Londen) productie in samenwerking met Discovery Europe.



"We didn't mind being called terrorists then, because we actually used brutal force in order to get rid of them." --Yechiel Kadishai, voormalige privésecretaris van Menachim Begin, over de Britten.

Verkleed als Arabieren bliezen de joodse terroristen van de Irgun van Menachim Begin in 1946 het King David Hotel op. 91 mensen kwamen om, waaronder 28 Britten, 17 joden, en 41 Arabieren. 54 doden waren onschuldige burgers, die niets met de Britten te maken hadden.

The British later captured some responsible and tried and sentenced them to death. Upon the execution day Menahem Beigin told the British if they executed their comrades, the gang would execute two kidnapped British soldier prisoners, who were killed and their corpses hung from trees and booby trapped with grenades. For these multiple acts, Menahem Beigin was wanted on open criminal charges of kidnapping, murder, armed robbery, extortion, bribery, conspiracy to commit acts against the English Crown, as was wanted to respond for these terrorist acts, and therefore he could not travel to any British or British Commonwealth country thoughout his life. There was a second Jerusalem Hotel bombing which also was targeted at civilians, However, Menahem Beigin, said he had,"turned all of Palestine into a glass house, Where the entire world was looking in." (transcriptie videoclip)

Zoals we in de video kunnen zien vertelt een van de terroristen trots en lachend hoe hij te werk ging. Dat is niet verwonderlijk, aangezien de daden van de joodse terroristen van weleer in Israël nog steeds worden vereerd.

Israel celebrates Irgun hotel bombers

THE TELEGRAPH | BY HARRY DE QUETTEVILLE | 22 JULI 2006

n the midst of its campaign against Hizbollah and Hamas "terrorists", Israel has been accused by Britain of feting Jewish "terrorists" whose bomb attack killed 28 Britons 60 years ago today.

The accusation, which reopens the debate about the use of politically-inspired violence in the region, follows the unveiling of a plaque commemorating the attack on the King David hotel in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946, by the Irgun Jewish "resistance" to British mandate rule in Palestine. The 28 Britons were among 91 people killed.

This week, former Irgun fighters and current Right-wing politicians unveiled the plaque at the hotel, which read: "The hotel housed the Mandate Secretariat as well as the Army Headquarters. On July 22, 1946, Irgun fighters at the order of the Hebrew Resistance Movement planted explosives in the basement. Warning phone calls had been made urging the hotel's occupants to leave immediately. For reasons known only to the British, the hotel was not evacuated and after 25 minutes the bombs exploded, and to the Irgun's regret and dismay 91 persons were killed." [zie laatste foto onderaan]

But Israel's celebration of its "freedom fighters" remains highly controversial at a time when it continues to pound Palestinian "terrorists".
Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister, has found herself deeply embroiled in the debate - her father, Eitan, was Irgun's chief operations officer.

Er is zelfs een speciaal museum ter ere van de (daden van) de Irgun, genaamd Etzel House. Het museum is gehuisvest in een geconfiskeerd Arabisch huis in de wijk Al-Manshiyya aan de rand van Jaffa, die door de Irgun samen met de Haganah in 1948 in de as werd gelegd (alleen deHasan Beik moskee bleef overeind):

(foto: palestineremembered.com)

In Israël wordt gesproken over "de bevrijding van Jaffa". Bijna 67.000 van de 71.000 Arabische inwoners van Jaffa werden door de onafgebroken bombardementen letterlijk de zee ingedreven.

Het ‘Etzel Huis’, een museum ter nagedachtenis aan de Irgun, waarin de terroristen van weleer worden geëerd.

Plaquette bij de ingang: “Ter nagedachtenis aan de bevrijders van Jaffa”

Maquette van het verwoeste King David Hotel

Eregalerij van joodse terroristen in het museum, die "martelaren" worden genoemd.

Ook in Nederland worden door o.a. door Ratna Pelle in pakketreizen 'uitstapjes' naar het Irgun Museum georganiseerd. Pelle vindt de verheerlijking van joodse terroristen blijkbaar zo belangrijk dat het in een reis naar Israël niet mag ontbreken.

Op dit bord bij het huidige King David Hotel staat bovenaan het embleem van nota bene de terroristen die het opbliezen, de Irgun. Benadrukt wordt dat men vóór de aanslag gewaarschuwd is, maar dat wordt door de Britten ontkend. In de laatste regel staat "...tot spijt van de Irgun werden 92 mensen gedood". Israël ontkent haar eigen geschiedenis.

Lees hier ook » De verheerlijking van joodse terroristen

Peter Siebelt. Poseur 5

Lucas heeft een nieuwe reactie op uw bericht "Peter Siebelt. Poseur 4" achtergelaten:

"Aluhoedje Siebelt maakt in zijn werk gebruik van een techniek die zich het beste laat omschrijven als 'guilty by association'. Dat werkt als volgt: jij kent meneer B, en meneer B is een keer op een borrel geweest waar ook mevrouw C was, die weer op de lagere school heeft gezeten met Mohammed B. (niet te verwarren met meneer B), en dus ben jij verantwoordelijk voor de moord op Theo van Gogh. Zou je deze redeneertrant loslaten op Gonggrijp, dan zou overigens blijken dat dagblad De Telegraaf een terroristisch bolwerk is. Gonggrijp begon zijn carrière als hacker namelijk met de computer en het modem dat zijn vader van zijn werkgever kreeg. Die werkgever was De Telegraaf."http://webwereld.nl/column/105369/schande-telegraaf---column-.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Webwereld+%28Webwereld%29&utm_content=Google+Reader 

SCHANDE TELEGRAAF! (column)

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10x Aanbevolen

Gepubliceerd: Donderdag 13 januari 2011
Auteur: Maarten Reijnders

Rop Gonggrijp is geen 'linkse terreuractivist', maar De Telegraaf is wel een slecht geïnformeerde, leugenachtige en bovenal hypocriete prutskrant.

"SCHANDE AIVD!" Anderhalf jaar geleden stond deze kop op de voorpagina van De Telegraaf met chocoladeletters die zelfs voor het wakkere ochtendblad buitenproportioneel groot waren. De inlichtingendienst had de toorn van 's lands grootste krant over zichafgeroepen omdat Justitie huiszoeking had gedaan bij Telegraaf-journaliste Jolande van der Graaf.

Van der Graaf zou staatsgeheimen openbaar hebben gemaakt die betrekking hadden op de beveiliging van de Dalai Lama bij een bezoek aan Nederland en het geblunder van de AIVD in de aanloop naar de Irak-oorlog. Justitie wilde achterhalen hoe De Telegraaf aan deze informatie kwam en deed daarom huiszoeking. Bovendienluisterde de AIVD de telefoons af van enkele Telegraaf-medewerkers.

Met grote instemming citeerde de krant de 'woedende' secretaris van de Nederlandse journalistenvakbond (NVJ) Thomas Bruning. "Een journalist moet zijn bronnen altijd kunnen beschermen." De woede van Bruning en De Telegraaf waren terecht: bronbescherming is zeer belangrijk voor journalisten en het afluisteren van de Telegraaf-journalisten was een bijzonder kwalijke zaak.

Linkse terreuractivist

Fast forward naar afgelopen maandag. Toen kopte De Telegraaf op de voorpagina: 'VS achter hacker Gonggrijp aan'. Hoewel de term 'hacker' bij menige Telegraaf-lezer ongetwijfeld associaties oproept met sinistere types die zich schuldig maken aan computercriminaliteit, was de kop op de voorpagina nog het meest feitelijke deel van het voorpaginastuk en de overlees op pagina 5.

Gonggrijp wordt in de artikelen achtereenvolgens aangeduid als 'staatsvijand van de Verenigde Staten', 'meestercomputerkraker', 'motor achter Wikileaks', 'staatsgevaarlijk', 'adjudant van Wikileaks-voorman Assange' en – als klapper op de vuurpijl – 'linkse terreuractivist' met een 'beruchte reputatie'. "Jarenlang was hij de spil en drijvende kracht achter het cyberterrorisme."

Die laatste quote en de kwalificatie 'linkse terreuractivist' zijn afkomstig van de zelfbenoemde 'inlichtingenexpert' Peter Siebelt die regelmatig wordt opgevoerd in De Telegraaf als de krant weer eens een politieke hatchet job uitvoert. Hoewel De Telegraaf Siebelt keer op keer een platform geeft, is diens reputatie elders – en nu volgt het understatement van het jaar – iets minder goed.

Prins Claus

De Amerikaanse komiek Stephen Colbert, die een show presenteert waarin hij zich voordoet als een even conservatieve als domme talkshow-host, zei ooit eens: "I don't like facts. They have a liberal bias." Zonder het te weten, schetste Colbert daarmee een prima beeld van Siebelts werkwijze: alle feiten die niet in diens zeer rechtse wereldbeeld passen, worden terzijde geschoven. De zo ontstane lacunes, en dat zijn er nog al wat, vult hij vervolgens op met verzinsels.

Aluhoedje Siebelt maakt in zijn werk gebruik van een techniek die zich het beste laat omschrijven als 'guilty by association'. Dat werkt als volgt: jij kent meneer B, en meneer B is een keer op een borrel geweest waar ook mevrouw C was, die weer op de lagere school heeft gezeten met Mohammed B. (niet te verwarren met meneer B), en dus ben jij verantwoordelijk voor de moord op Theo van Gogh. Zou je deze redeneertrant loslaten op Gonggrijp, dan zou overigens blijken dat dagblad De Telegraaf een terroristisch bolwerk is. Gonggrijp begon zijn carrière als hacker namelijk met de computer en het modem dat zijn vader van zijn werkgever kreeg. Die werkgever was De Telegraaf.

Gonggrijp doet op zijn blog overtuigend uit de doeken hoe Siebelt in zijn geval de plank volledig misslaat, maar de medeoprichter van XS4ALL is zeker niet het enige slachtoffer van beroepsfantast Siebelt. Het pijnlijkste voorbeeld betreft vermoedelijk een passage uit zijn boek over Mabel Wisse Smit. Siebelt schrijft daarin dat prins Claus 'zichtbaar in zijn nopjes' was toen Friso en Mabel in juni 2003 hun verloving aankondigden. Prins Claus was negen maanden daarvoor echter al overleden.

Conspiratieve hersenspinsels

Siebelts conspiratieve hersenspinsels zouden lachwekkend zijn, ware het niet dat sommige mensen hem wel degelijk serieus nemen. Dat De Telegraaf dat ook doet, kan verstrekkende gevolgen hebben voor Gonggrijp.

Het is voor de Amerikaanse Justitie geen gemakkelijke opgave om Julian Assange en anderen die bij Wikileaks betrokken zijn, juridisch aan te pakken. In het verleden heeft Justitie namelijk nooit (!) succes gehad bij de vervolging van mensen die geheime overheidsinformatie ontvangen en vervolgens publiceren.

Alleen als de Amerikaanse Justitie kan bewijzen dat Assange en anderen actief hebben samengewerkt met Bradley Manning (de soldaat die ervan wordt verdacht dat hij de ambtsberichten en dergelijke heeft gelekt) bij het naar buiten brengen van de geheime informatie, bestaat er een mogelijkheid om Assange cum suis te vervolgen wegens samenzwering. Door bij Twitter (en mogelijk ook bij andere partijen) informatie op te vragen van Wikileaks-sympathisanten probeert de Amerikaanse Justitie vermoedelijk om het bewijs daarvoor rond te krijgen.

Karaktermoord

Gonggrijp heeft er nooit een geheim van gemaakt dat hij betrokken was bij de Wikileaks-openbaarmaking van de Collateral Murder-film, een video uit 2007 waarin te zien is hoe Amerikaanse soldaten vanuit een Apache-helikopter het vuur openen op burgers en journalisten in Bagdad.

Met de release van de video was een groot algemeen belang gediend: 'Collateral Murder' toonde niet alleen de rauwe werkelijkheid van de oorlog in Irak, maar ook een (mogelijke) oorlogsmisdaad. Het is werk waarvoor Gonggrijp een pluim verdient – net zoals complimenten voor De Telegraaf op zijn plaats zijn met betrekking tot de berichtgeving over het AIVD-falen in de aanloop naar de Irak-oorlog.

Die AIVD-berichtgeving leidde destijds tot justitieel onderzoek waarop De Telegraaf furieus reageerde. Nu niet De Telegraaf zelf het doelwit is, maar de 'linkse terreuractivist' Gonggrijp, lijkt de krant het onderzoek alleen maar toe te juichen. Sterker nog, de krant maakt het met zijn leugenachtige berichtgeving over Gonggrijps betrokkenheid bij Wikileaks (Gonggrijp zou met een miljoen euro op zak hostingbedrijven zijn afgegaan op zoek naar onderdak voor Wikileaks) alleen maar makkelijker voor de Amerikaanse Justitie om straks een uitleveringsverzoek te doen.

Dat de solidariteit van De Telegraaf ophoudt bij de voordeur van de redactie aan de Basisweg, is nog tot daaraan toe, maar dat de krant Gonggrijp willens en wetens een mes in de rug steekt, is beneden alle peil. Met de publicatie van de artikelen van maandag verspeelt de krant elk krediet om ooit nog te klagen als de eigen redacteuren weer in het vizier van Justitie komen. Eigenlijk passen er maar twee woorden voor de karaktermoord op Gonggrijp: SCHANDE TELEGRAAF!

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