Lara Logan Casts Her Spell for War

by Kelley B. Vlahos, October 13, 2009

"What appears to be a wavering in American resolve is the smell of victory for al-Qaeda and the Taliban."

Normally, one would expect only a veteran in the art of war demagoguery – Charles Krauthammer, Victor Davis Hanson, Cliff May perhaps – to exhale such square-ball jazz.

So score at least one for the military, because these words, spoken on the wildly popular Colbert Report on Oct. 6, came from none other than CBS chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan.

In fact, her three-minute interview with Stephen Colbert passed a succession of similar kidney stones, such as "in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda is so strong, it is the spiritual home of al-Qaeda," and "the time [Obama] is taking [to decide on a strategy] is so frightening, especially to the soldiers on the ground. Because in a way, we are lost right now."

After so much bald-faced propaganda in so little time, one fully expected Logan – like at the end of a half-hour Scooby Doo mystery – to rip off the mask and reveal none other than Kimberly Kagan herself inside.

Lara Logan

These days, the U.S. military leadership, led by the indomitable Gen. David Petraeus and his equally indubitable ace Gen. Stanley McChrystal, needs all the civilian emissaries it can find – and they don’t get much better than Lara Logan. She almost makes up for all those pesky media stories last week about al-Qaeda being diminished and the administration thinking the Taliban is not so much of a threat to U.S. national security.

But in Logan, the military and their pro-war strategic communicants have an advocate so perfect one would think she was put together by the fictional hucksters on Mad Men. She’s a knockout. With that sexy, authoritative accent (think David Kilcullen meets Charlize Theron), one is strangely compelled to listen to what she has to say. She’s a ball-buster, but she’s just so charming about it. She can grandstand one minute about putting an "armor-piercing RPG in the face of the bureau chief" to get her story on the air, then purr the next in that low, intimate way about being the poor victim of a petty U.S. news cycle.

Called everything from an "ass-kicker" to a "bombshell in Baghdad," Logan has been an embedded correspondent in both Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. She’s infiltrated insurgencies, but she claims she never wants to leave her mascara and moisturizer behind. That sloppy mess about husband-stealing aside, she’s got cred, especially with a mainstream audience that puts such a high premium on good looks and barrier-breaking heroics.

That credibility (at least among the antiwar Left) was at its peak when she was dive-bombed back in January 2007 by none other than the 101st Fighting Keyboarder Brigade for what they charged was "passing along terrorist propaganda." (Logan had launched an e-mail appeal to force her bosses at CBS to air controversial footage of fighting along Haifa Street in Baghdad – footage critics later said was captured by al-Qaeda and not attributed as such by the network.) Right-wing doyenne Michelle Malkin called Logan a "correspondent-turned-activist," while progressive bloggers leaped instantly to Logan’s defense.

However, after three weeks on a more recent assignment to Afghanistan, CBS and its favorite foreign correspondent seem to be on the same sheet of music, and they are now carrying Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s tune. Beyond the shock and awe of the aforementioned Logan-Colbert exchange, a click through to the network’s war coverage displayed on its Web site, "Afghanistan: The Road Ahead," reveals first-rate access to the generals, the suits, and the battlefield. But one look at the final, odious product and you’re instantly compelled to ask, "At what price?"

First, there’s this useless interview with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in which super-anchor Katie Couric sounds like she is channeling Joe Lieberman and/or Lindsey Graham:

"Our stated objective in Afghanistan and Pakistan is to quote, ‘Disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat al-Qaeda and prevent their return to Afghanistan.’ Can that goal be accomplished without providing stability to the country, in the form of security and economic opportunity for the people of Afghanistan?"

Lara Logan in Iraq (U.S. Army)

Key stories include "Cooperation Rises Between Iran and the Taliban" and "Afghan City’s Close Ties with Iran," both by Lara Logan. Fellow correspondent David Martin asks, "Not Enough Troops?" Logan gains access to Taliban fighters on the ground in "Taliban Gaining Firepower and Influence" and again surmises:

"The fight against the Taliban has become inseparable from the war against al-Qaeda. The momentum now is on the side of the insurgents and terrorists. They’re watching antiwar feeling in the U.S. grow, and they smell victory."

In fact, Logan does a lot of surmising, and CBS seems to assume we all want to hear it. The Oct. 8 interview with her own network (she does a lot of those) was spectacular in that it showed she has absolutely no shame in advocating for more war – in particular, a war that she and her husband (a federal contractor) have benefited from, both professionally and financially, since the beginning.

In this presentation, which a now appreciative HotAir.com refers to as "CBS’s Afghan Correspondent Tears Obama’s Taliban Strategy to Shreds," Logan says a proposed shift to a "counter-terrorism plan," as advocated by Vice President Joe Biden, is "just ludicrous" and "an absolute disaster," before leaping into apparatchik territory with McChrystal:

“‘You can’t do any of those things if you have no security in most of the country,’ Logan told moderator Bob Orr. ‘I don’t understand why no one will listen to the man you put your faith in and said he is the guy who is going to do this for us,’ she said referring to Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for more combat troops. …

"’Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are clearly at war with the U.S. They are not concerned with the counterinsurgency, counterrorism… They are at war and McChrystal has to fight that war,’ Logan said, reiterating the need for the Obama administration to give more combat troops to the effort."

Logan’s remarks left the normally cynical posters at Malkin’s HotAir.com a bit baffled, including "Mojave Mark," who enthused, "Maybe some at CBS have been listening to Rush on CBS affiliates."

In CBS’ desperate post-Rathergate quest for right-wing forgiveness, Logan unleashed could be a positive first step on the road to redemption. And this is more than McChrystal & Co. could hope for. Even combined, all of the academics and think-tankers the general has collected for his
growing "brain trust" couldn’t equal the 100-proof appeal of Lara Logan. Contrary to conventional wisdom, most Americans still watch network TV to get their news, and the younger set increasingly considers The Daily Show and Colbert primary news sources. Logan and her Afghan epiphanies have been making the rounds with the force of a country preacher, hitting all the target audiences smack in the eyeballs.

In the end, the 101st (keyboarders, that is) may think they’ve gained a worthy accomplice. And maybe they have. It’s more important, however, to recognize that for the U.S. military, having its way – advancing COIN in Central Asia with the tens of thousands of U.S. troops and billions of dollars it demands – means engaging in high-stakes media hardball, Strategic Communications-USA, if you will. And Lara Logan is the Message Force Multiplier for today’s mission.

Read more by Kelley B. Vlahos

• PATRIOT Act Fight Needs More Patriots – October 5th, 2009
• The Two Faces of Kimberly Kagan – September 28th, 2009

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Report: Israel planning wave of Jerusalem house demolitions

13/10/2009 13:55

Jerusalem – Ma’an – Israeli authorities are planning to demolish 150 Palestinian houses, home to about 1,000 people in East Jerusalem, according to a new report from the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights.

The leveling of two structures in the town of Beit Hanina on Monday were the first of a series that Israeli officials are planning over the coming year, the center said in a report released on Tuesday.

In a statement released Tuesday the center explained the demolition orders were issued during the administration of former Israeli Jerusalem Mayor Uayor Uri Lupolianski, who finished his term as the head of the Israeli-controlled Jerusalem Municipality in 2008. The orders were recently renewed under the current mayor, Nir Barkat, the center said.

The center’s research unit reports that the majority of the houses under threat are in the neighborhoods of Beit Hanina, Shu’fat, Al-Ashqariyya, Nusayba, Silwan, Ath-Thuri, Al-Mukabbir, Sur Bahir, At-Tur, Az-Za’yyim, Iisawiyya, and Ras Khamis. Many of the houses slated for destruction were build at least three years ago.

The group of houses under threat does not include another 125 houses and apartments whose owners were given demolition orders in the neighborhoods of Al-Bustan, Al-Abbasiyya, and Wadi Hilwa.

On Monday, witnesses told Ma’an, Israeli troops forcibly evicted Amjad At-Taleiqi and his family of five from their 70-sqaure meter house in Beit Hanina before flattening it with bulldozers. At-Taleiqi’s hands were bound until the demolition was complete, witnesses said.

Israel frequently demolishes houses because they have been built without permits. Palestinian residents universally report, however, that such permits are nearly impossible to obtain.

The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem reports that Israel have demolished about 420 Palestinian-owned houses in East Jerusalem since 2004 on the grounds that they were built without permits.

Humanitarian Law Applies to All

By Tammy Obeidallah
October 12, 2009

Throughout the world, people have attempted to distinguish ordinary Americans from the United States government. Perhaps our complacency for aiding and abetting war crimes has been attributed to lack of education, apathy in the face of an omnipotent pro-Israeli lobby or that we are simply hapless workaholics with time for little else. Yet private citizens, either for some warped religious or political viewpoint, or through sheer ignorance often exacerbate the control pro-Israel interest groups have over American institutions.

In September, the city of Dayton, Ohio--population roughly 160,000--signed a three-year commitment to share military technology with Israel. One of the key components of the agreement is the further development of unmanned aircraft. County officials reported $350,000 in private donations was raised to contribute to this and other "economic development projects" in Israel.

The attitude of this small Midwestern city is reflective of the American nation as a whole. Sharing military technology with a nation that is known to use such technology against civilians is against international law; yet human rights take a back seat to the promise of job opportunities and economic growth at the expense of people half a world away. While Americans enjoy the freedom of unfettered Internet access and ample educational opportunities, the majority choose to remain deliberately ignorant of the law and an all but forgotten value system.

The American Society of the Red Cross offers a four-hour class on International Humanitarian Law during armed conflict, which draws its legal basis from the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. Ratified by all 194 of the world's countries, the Conventions prohibit attacks on civilians and institutions such as hospitals, houses of worship and schools. They also mandate the humane treatment of sick and injured combatants as well as prisoners of war.

In 1998, the world community took additional steps to establish a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) responsible for prosecuting individuals for violations of International Humanitarian Law. Ironically, the United States did not ratify the Rome Statute which created the ICC and notified the United Nations that it will not recognize the authority of such a court.

Not coincidentally, the United States made this announcement in May 2002, less than a month after Israel's attack on the Jenin refugee camp. Untold numbers of civilians were massacred in the onslaught and survivors were subsequently denied Red Cross and Red Crescent access, representing yet another grave breach of the Geneva Conventions. Journalists were kept out in an attempt to conceal mass graves of Palestinian men, women and children from the rest of the world--crimes worthy of referral to the ICC.

Small wonder the United States, protector-in-chief of the Jewish State, chose that time to deny the court's right to exist. Yet, as horrific as was the Jenin massacre, it served as a merely a bloody preamble to Israel's attacks on Lebanon in 2006 and most recently, Gaza.

During Israel's December 2008-January 2009 offensive, Gazans suffered indiscriminate attacks on civilian neighborhoods, mosques, clinics and a UN school.

The BBC reported a clinic run by Christian Aid, along with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of medical equipment, was destroyed in an Israeli missile attack. The clinic provided free health care, with specific focus on mothers and children. Its purpose was well-known, as Israeli military officials called the organization 15 minutes prior to its destruction, alleging "terrorist operations in the area."

Civilians, particularly children, were targeted by Israeli soldiers. Dr. Ahmed Yahia, head of neurosurgery at the El-Arish hospital in Egypt told BBC News that brain scans "made it clear that a number of the child victims had been shot at close range."

Compounding the human toll, Israel used white phosphorus and the DIME bomb, a heinous weapon causing catastrophic internal wounds and the rapid onset of cancer in those exposed to it.

The Geneva Convention calls on its signatories--all 194 of them--to prosecute war crimes. When a nation is unwilling or unable to do so, it is up to the international community to step in and apply sanctions against the offending nation.

However, when governments are unwilling to live up to their agreements, it should fall into the hands of private citizens to pressure these said governments; when private citizens are ignorant of international law, the pro-Israeli media juggernaut and corrupt politicians are all too eager to fill the vacuum.

Such was the case at the recent G-20 summit held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The United States, France and Britain called for sanctions against Iran for pursuing nuclear power, hypocritically ignoring Israel's already hefty nuclear arsenal along with its demonstrated willingness to use weapons of mass destruction.

It is time International Humanitarian Law be made an educational requirement in our public schools rather than an optional course offered intermittently. Only then will we have a citizenry capable of demanding government adherence to the Geneva Convention.

The alternative is unfolding before our very eyes: a decline in civility, the breakdown of morality and the rapidly decreasing value we place on a human life. This is the legacy the children of the world are doomed to inherit if teaching international law is not made a priority.

- Tammy Obeidallah is a writer based in Dayton, Ohio. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

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Massacre in Ireland, Massacre in Iraq

British Government Still Covering Up Bloody Sunday

By EAMONN McCANN
October 12, 2009

The families of 14 men killed by British paratroopers in Derry in Northern Ireland on January 20 1972 - “Bloody Sunday” - have been paying close attention to a ruling of the High Court in London in the case of Khunder al-Sweady.

Mr. al-Sweady is one of six Iraqis who claim that soldiers of the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment tortured and murdered a number of civilians in southern Iraq in May 2004. On October 6th last, three judges ruled on the men’s application for previous decisions to be set aside and a new, public inquiry ordered into the incident.

Upholding the application, Judges Scott Baker, Silber and Sweeney, none of them noted as a radical maverick, accused the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the Royal Military Police and the Treasury Solicitors of deliberately withholding evidence and of dishonesty with regard to the evidence which they did present. Civil servants from the Treasury Solicitors were said by the judges to have lied persistently in telling the court that they knew of no undisclosed documents which might throw light on the case.

Under current plans for publication of the Bloody Sunday report, the Treasury Solicitors - in essence, the British Government’s solicitors - will be allowed to go through the text after it has been delivered to the Northern Ireland Office but before the public, including the Bloody Sunday families, are allowed to see it. According to Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward, the reason is so that they can recommend the removal of passages which they reckon might contravene the rights under Article Two of the European Human Rights Convention of anyone named in the Report

Woodward himself would then decide whether to accept or reject the recommended cuts.

Article Two deals with the right to life. Woodward’s concern, so he says, is that the lives of soldiers might be put at risk if they were identifiable from the Report.

The implication is that Saville, a senior British Law Lord, William Hoyt, former Chief Justice of New Brunswick, and John L. Toohey, a former member of the Federal Court of Australia and a Justice of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territories, may have failed to discharge their duties under Article Two in compiling the Report and that the Treasury Solicitors must be brought in to check on their work.

Saville and his colleagues dealt with a series of Article Two applications during the hearings. The applications came mainly from soldiers, politicians and others who claimed that their lives would be at risk if they were made to testify in Derry and from others who, on the same ground, claimed a right to anonymity. The notion that the three members of the Tribunal might not be up to speed on Article Two is fanciful. That this is being advanced as a reason for giving British officials an opportunity potentially to tamper with the Report before its publication may indicate that Woodward tried but failed to come up with an even remotely plausible excuse for planned political interference with a judicial report.

The Treasury Solicitors were the instructing solicitors for barristers representing British soldiers at Tribunal hearings.

The arrangements proposed by Woodward would also give the soldiers’ side a huge advantage when it comes to responding to the Report. It is expected that the document, to be published next March or April, will run to more than 4,000 pages. Allowing British officials to comb through the text for two or three weeks (Woodward’s estimate) before the families set eyes on it - the relatives are to be given access in a “secure environment” for 10 hours before publication - will mean that the soldiers’ supporters will be much better prepared than the families for the propaganda battle which will erupt once the findings are in the public domain. The British side will have had ample opportunity to tease out any sentence which can be quoted to suggest that the soldiers’ behaviour had been reasonable in the circumstances or that marchers on the anti-internment demonstration that the paratroopers fired into had somehow been the authors of their own misfortune.

The apprehension of the British authorities at the Report’s possible findings has been expressed over the past year in a barrage of abuse aimed at Saville from right-wing politicians and commentators. He has taken far too long to complete his task, they say. His Inquiry has cost far too much. And maybe so. But there are mitigating factors.

It will be 11 years in January since Tony Blair announced the establishment of the Inquiry. There were 434 days of hearings between March 2000 and November 2004. The judges have since spent five years writing up their findings. The final cost is likely to be around £200 million.

One reason for the length and cost of the exercise is that Bloody Sunday happened in broad daylight in a built-up area thronged with people gathered for a rally following a 10,000-strong civil rights march. Every death and wounding was witnessed by dozens of people huddled in the gutters or crouched behind lamp-posts or peering from the windows of houses and flats where they’d found shelter from the shooting. A total of 921 witnesses gave oral evidence, written statements from a further 1,555 were read. Sixteen million words were spoken. In all, around 40 million words, plus 109 videos and 13 volumes of photographs were considered. No military operation in British history - maybe history full stop - has ever been subjected to such detailed examination. It was the brazenness of the atrocity which made this possible. And then the Tribunal - to the amazement and concern of those who’d set it up, apparently - took its task seriously and grasped the possibility.

As well, the soldiers’ Article Two claims resulted in a series of delays as bevies of barristers betook themselves to the higher courts for arcane argument. Hearings were further delayed by applications from the soldiers’ representatives for the exclusion of items of evidence on the ground that disclosure would compromise national security.

All the time, the lawyers’ taximeters were whirring at a rate of up to 2,000 guineas (guineas!) a day.

In the al-Sweady case, applications were made by the MoD last May to have evidence which “related to the permissible limits of the techniques of tactical questioning of captured individuals by military interrogators” ruled out on grounds that exposure would damage national security. At that point, the court accepted the integrity of the Defence Minister who had signed the relevant Public Interest Immunity (PII) certificates.

But on October 6th, the High Court judges said that the MoD’s intention in making the applications had in fact been to thwart the court by concealing evidence: “The Secretary of State had relied on what transpired to be a partly false public interest immunity certificate...The court had been persuaded that the balance of public interest required that the material should not be disclosed. It was a matter of deep regret that the court...as a result had made a number of rulings which had subsequently been shown to have been wholly wrong. The court should not have been misled...

“Until such time as the Ministry had demonstrated that it had taken steps to ensure that false assertions were never again made in a [PII) certificate and schedule, it would, in the court’s view, be incumbent on the courts to approach the content of any such documents from the Ministry with very considerable caution.”

Far from resigning in face of this indictment, Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth has not felt compelled even to offer a comment. There have been no calls for his sacking from parliamentarians or in the editorial columns of any but fringe, radical journals.

The al-Sweady case demonstrates that there are few lengths to which the British ruling class won’t go to hide evidence of its army’s criminality. This is what they are at when they seek to pollute the atmosphere in which Saville’s conclusions are made public.

The complaints about the time Saville’s Tribunal has taken to report, against the background of the al-Sweady case and given the quarters the complaints are coming from, can fairly be regarded as arising from fear that Saville might, by exposing the truth, illuminate an appalling vista.

It shouldn’t need repeating, but it does, that Bloody Sunday differs from the other atrocities which litter the recent history of Northern Ireland in this crucial respect - that this wasn’t an outrage perpetrated by people purporting to represent one community against people from another community - much as that is the perspective in which Irish Nationalist and Ulster Unionist as well as British politicians either pretend or tend instinctively to see it.

When the State kills its citizens it is the interests of all that the truth be uncovered and those responsible held to account.

The armed group responsible for Bloody Sunday hasn’t called a ceasefire or decommissioned its weaponry but has moved on to other theatres of war, where, as in the case of Mr. al-Sweady, allegations of outrageous behaviour continue to be made.

Mr. al-Sweady, Hussein Fadel Abass, Atiyah Sayid Abdelreza, Hussein Jabbari Ali, Mahdi Jassim Abdullah and Ahmad Jabbar Ahmood claim that that, following a gun-battle on May 14th/15th known as “the Battle of Danny Boy”, around 20 Iraqis, including farmers caught in crossfire who had sought cover in adjacent fields, were taken at gunpoint by soldiers to the nearby Camp Abu Naji where they were hooded and had their hands tied, were kicked and jumped on until bones were smashed, in some cases had their eyes gouged out or their genitals pulped. A number were then shot or hanged. The six say they are the survivors. They say that a previous investigation by Royal Military Police fell short of the requirements of Articles Two, Three and Five of the European Convention. Hence the appeal for a new, public inquiry now upheld by the High Court

The determination of senior British politicians and commentators in predictable newspapers to damage Saville’s credibility in advance is similar in intent to the political and civil service misbehaviour in the al-Sweady case which the High Court has deemed disgraceful. The purpose in both instances is to conceal or obscure the truth.

Woodward, the chief political representative in Northern Ireland of the perpetrators of the Bloody Sunday massacre, should be told in no uncertain terms that the arrangements he proposes for publication of the Saville Report are indicative of bad faith, wholly outrageous and utterly unacceptable.

One of our problems is that Nationalist politicians here, including Sinn Fein, may be reluctant to alienate the British ruling class at a time when they and their Unionist partners/opponents want British endorsement of their position on how to solidify the wobbling power-sharing administration. The result is that some of the families may be left to fight the last battle for the truth about Bloody Sunday on their own.

(A summary of the al-Sweady judgement can be found at http://www.lawreports.co.uk/WLRD/2009/QBD/al-sweady.htm) Eamonn McCann can be reached at Eamonderry@aol.com

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"A clique that the Palestinians must get rid of"

Report: Israeli police unit disguised as medics

October 12, 2009

Bethlehem – Ma’an – While Israel often accuses Palestinians of misusing ambulances as cover for attacks, a report from the country’s second-largest newspaper suggests Israel may want to first clean up its own house before accusing others.

In its special magazine supplement, the Hebrew-language daily Ma’ariv exposed an undercover unit created by Israeli police that disguises its operatives as medics, Bedouins, ultra-Orthodox Jews, or even Israeli civilians faking car trouble.

According to the report, the special unit is responsible for targeting Palestinians listed on Israel’s long “wanted” list.

Seventeen policemen form the unit, which was created at the end of July, described by Ma’ariv as the first of its kind. The team is reportedly most often deployed in Bedouin residential centers in the Negev, where it boasts 30-40 arrests each month from all over Israel.

The head of the special unit, Yousi Makhluf, proudly explained that its members “are the best men, with more experience, very high investigative intelligence experience, speak Arabic, and have good relations with Bedouins.”

“There are no geographical borders that limit the work of the unit, which works in Ramle, Haifa, Ashdod…” he added. “A number of [its members] have served in the army’s undercover unit and worked in the West Bank and Gaza, where they were trained in the most advanced methods of disguise and blending in.”

Meanwhile, a nongovernmental media organization expressed concern on Saturday about reports that undercover Israeli operatives were posing as photojournalists during Palestinian demonstrations against Israeli policies in Jerusalem.

In a statement, Awad Awad, a photojournalist working with the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA), said that concerns arose from reports the organization received from residents of the East Jerusalem neighborhood Ras Al-Amoud.

Awad quoted residents saying they saw Israeli agents carrying cameras and disguised as press photographers on Thursday and Friday. The same agents, they, arrested young men who participated in the demonstration.

Speaking to Ma’an on Saturday, residents of the area reported identical incidents. Witnesses said they saw Israelis dressed as photographers seize several young male protesters.

Ras Al-Amoud saw some of the fiercest clashes between stone-throwing protesters and Israeli riot police. Reported intrusions by Israeli settlers into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam, have sparked over a week of demonstrations.

The next day, a photo published on the website of The New York Times also showed plainclothes Israeli officers seizing a Palestinian man during a demonstration in East Jerusalem.

In its statement, MADA warned that Israeli operatives disguising themselves as photographers could endanger the lives of actual photojournalists.

The Toxic Legacy of Christopher Columbus

By William A. Cook

When beliefs morph into truth, regardless of the realities of time and place, the non-initiated become fodder for those with the zeal and power to enforce their will. Thus the great discoverer of the Americas “fantasized that he had located— or had come close to—the site of the paradise into which Jehovah had placed Adam and Eve” ( Ned Hopkins, CTA Action, 1992). The “Christ-bearer,” baptized in his unquestioned faith, utilized his birth name to justify his actions, reasoning that God gave license to him as His servant. Perhaps, as we bear down on the anniversary of Columbus’ achievements, we might consider how it has been possible for a Medieval world of unbridled superstition, intolerance, and religious myopia to envelop the advanced civilizations of western culture at the beginning of the 21st century.

The irony of this review that watches Columbus sail from the ports of Spain as the Spanish Crown expelled or slaughtered the Jews and Muslims in 1492, empowered by their Christian faith, resides in the realty that the west and the Muslim world of the 21st century clings still to the superstitions that gave rise ultimately to the greatest holocaust the world has ever known, as David Stannard notes in his work, The American Holocaust. If Columbus precipitated an invasion of the western powers into the “new” hemisphere, what Hopkins claims “…resulted in the largest exchange of people, animals, and plants that the planet has ever seen…,” it also resulted in the near extermination of an entire race and multiple cultures. The justification for this invasion found expression in the authority of the Roman Catholic faith to bring salvation to the “savages” and civilization to the primitives who lagged behind the advances of European cultures.

What mindset allows such darkness to blind what the eyes can see? Before Columbus an estimated 10-18 million people lived and loved in what we now call the United States. The Hopi and Zuni cultures thrived in the south west for an estimated 4000 years before the Spanish arrived. In the east the Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Muskogee peoples existed as far back as 10,000 years. The Iroquois formed a confederacy with five other tribes in the late 15th century that lasted long enough that Benjamin Franklin could visit its assembly and learn from it. These “savages” had a constitution and a code to guide behavior that included a prohibition of blood revenge, a social compact communitarian in nature, communal land, and hunters that provided for the community not for themselves. “There were no mendicants or paupers among them” (French Jesuit 1657) and “… the Chiefs are generally the poorest among them … obliged to give to others” (Dutch missionary). It might be said that these “savages” were taught “to think for them selves but to act for others.” What a novel thought for the “civilized” beasts that invaded this continent from Europe.

Whether we observe the Spaniards in central and south America or the Puritans in New England, we find a Eurocentric racist mindset cobbled with an imperialistic belief in their own superiority given vitality by their religious tenets that they are the chosen of God, redeemed – and hence destined for everlasting life in the presence of God Almighty. Indeed the western mind has been bathed in such moral epistemology since medieval times and sustained by historians and politicians who defend colonialism by conquest as a God given duty. “The colonialist … reaches the point of no longer being able to imagine a time occurring without him. His irruption into the history of the colonized people is deified, transformed into absolute necessity,” as Frantz Fanon puts it.

All that is needed to sustain such a mindset is obliteration of the peoples being subjugated, to transform them from people to “savages” or barbarians, primitives without souls, without culture or intelligence, irrelevant “cockroaches” to be discarded, driven from the land, or killed. Thus do we witness the civilized European inflict their beliefs on the natives through acceptance of the “requerimiento” that ordered them to accept the truth of Christianity and allegiance to the Spanish Crown or suffer torture or death. Or in the case of the Puritans as they moved against the Pequot people, face extermination as Godless minions of Satan.

Then, strangely enough, as Edward Said remarked, the “Settler group adorns itself with the mantle of the victim: the European homeland of the colonists—or the metropolitan European power that politically controls the settlement area—is portrayed as the oppressor, while the European settlers depict themselves as valiant seekers of justice and freedom, struggling to gain their deserved independence on the land that they “discovered” or that is theirs by holy right.” (as quoted by Stannard).

Perhaps Columbus and the Puritans might be excused for their actions since they were raised in a world that knew the truth of God’s word from the dominant religious and political forces of their times. As a consequence they found license to slaughter at will in the name of their God. “[The Spaniards] took babies from their mother’s breasts, grabbing them by the feet and smashing their heads against rocks … They built a long gibbet, low enough for the toes to touch the ground and prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles. … Then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive” (Bartolome de Las Casas). Such is the power of myth in the medieval mind. What one believes justifies all. So Columbus and the Conquistadors mercilessly plundered and ravaged a people and their land.

Such dependence on myth to establish belief that drives the actions of a state to destroy another is surely the product of by gone times, times where superstition, prejudice, racism festered like some infection embedded in the heart and mind, the toxic atmosphere that propelled Columbus and the Puritans. Today, in our advanced DNA omniscience, in a world driven by globalization, prodded by ideologies of democracy, equality, liberty and the realization that we humans can bring these virtues to the entire world, surely such myths no longer exist.

How explain then America’s proclivity to torture under our most Christian of Presidents? Did he not send his forces to Iraq at God’s behest to bring the infidels the “gift” of God’s freedom and liberty in the manner of King Ferdinand of Spain who enlisted his servant Columbus to bring “souls to God” on his behalf? Didn’t our president’s advisor, Dick Cheney, justify “extraordinary interrogation techniques” to bring the recalcitrant to the truth, or die? How like the “requerimiento” that offered the Native life or death in the name of God Almighty.

What differentiates the slaughter of the natives by bloody massacres that wiped out whole tribes, as the Conquistadores swept across the south west or the Puritan massacre of the Pequots, in the fiery hell they designed for those God helped them destroy, from the razing of Fallujah by the American forces as they leveled the city to the ground and in the process scorched and seared the residents in the unforgiving fire of white phosphorus? What has changed since Medieval times? What progress is discernible but the technology of death? The racist mindset clamped on the brain by arrogance of belief in white superiority remains firmly in place justifying what the soul knows in its silence to be merciless slaughter that needs no God to trumpet its evil.

How similar the incantations of the righteous “settlers” arriving from a foreign land to lay claim to the homes of an indigenous people, people bought and brought to Israel by American dollars, defying law and logic in the process, condemning those who have lived on the land for centuries as invaders or usurpers of their God given rights as proclaimed in an ancient book of dubious authenticity but useful for purposes of theft. How strange that civilized people throughout the world witness this ludicrous behavior as rational, finding confrontation of truth and international law uncomfortable and so allow the robbery to continue.

Not even the barbaric behavior of these demented souls that find favor with their G-d when they club to death an old shepherd or mob children in the streets on the way to school or burn Palestinian homes or throw the residents of an apartment into the streets and take their home for themselves or, as soldiers in the IDF, glorify their G-d by killing defenseless and innocent women and children in Gaza, can nudge the indifferent people of the world to scream to the heavens that some sick stupidity is loose in this ancient land that is senselessly claimed to be the holiest piece of real estate on the planet.

Benny Morris, the most prolific of Israeli historians, in an interview in Ha’aretz contends that the annihilation of the Native Americans was unavoidable. “The great American democracy could not have been achieved without the extermination of the Indians. There are cases in which the general and final good justifies difficult and cruel deeds that are carried out in the course of history.” Dr. Adi Ophir, in commenting on this interview notes: “Morris seems to know what the general and final good is: the good of the Americans, of course. He knows that this good justifies partial evil. In other words, under specific circumstances, Morris believes that it is possible to justify genocide. In the case of the Indians, it is the existence of the American nation. In the case of the Palestinians, it is the existence of the Jewish state.” (“Genocide Hides Behind Expulsion,” Adi Ophir, 1-16-2004). How convenient an argument to give credibility to the genocide in Palestine, especially since the declaration of the American state occurred 289 years after the arrival of Columbus. But logic does not play a role here; superstition does.

Consider the logic of the new Prime Minister of Israel, Bibi Netanyahu, as he castigated the world leaders at the UN two weeks ago for allowing a holocaust denier to address their assembly. “Shame on you,” he yelled, lifting his covenant with the God of Abraham high above the podium to prove that the land of Palestine belongs by historical right to the Jews, “Shame on you” for not accepting the fact that G-d gave this land to the Jews, as though their belief in what is now known to be fiction must be used to justify the decimation of the Palestinians. “If as archeology suggests, the sagas of the patriarchs and the Exodus were legends, compiled in later periods, and if there is no convincing evidence of a unified invasion of Canaan under Joshua, what are we to make of the Israelites’ claims for ancient nationhood?” (The Bible Unearthed, Finkelstein and Silberman, 98).How ironic that the “real” descendents of the people of ancient Judea are the people of Palestine who centuries ago converted to the Christian or Muslim faiths, not the Ashkenazi European Jews like Netanyahu who have no Semitic blood connection to the land but only an acceptance by conversion to the Jewish faith (Shlomo Sand, When and How the Jewish People Was Invented). What a convenient way to justify theft of another’s home and land.

How can we pretend that the United States and its “only friend” in the mid-east have the right to impose their beliefs on other states? Have these modern day colonists not, as Fanon said, deified their own being and justified their actions as the will of their imagined God as though no other God exists or no belief in a different divinity can be conceived? How can we pretend that flechette bombs, depleted uranium weapons, dimes, white phosphorus, bunker buster bombs, cluster bombs and all the machinery of modern war designed to decimate thousands of people, to inflict heretofore unseen wounds on mind and body, can in any rational way be justified as civilized or humane? Perhaps, like Columbus and his Conquistadores, we should forgo the luxury of technological prowess and return to the shield and sword so the full carnage we inflict might be visible to all of us as the screams of the baby and the mother sink deep into our hearts and the blood splatters over our face and we must face what we have wrought.

- William A. Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California and author of Tracking Deception: Bush’s Mideast Policy.

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A Dollar Rout or More Bernanke Trickery?

By MIKE WHITNEY
October 12, 2009

Consumer credit is falling fast. In July, consumer credit plunged by $19 billion, followed by an August drop of $12 billion, a 5.8 percent annual rate. Credit card spending decreased by nearly $10 billion in August, while non-revolving debt, including auto loans, fell by $2 billion. Credit has shrunk for 7 consecutive months, the longest period of decline since 1991. The banks have shrugged off their commitment under the TARP program to increase lending to consumers and businesses. They've either deposited their excess reserves with the Fed, where they earn interest, or invested them in the equities markets for better returns. The bottom line: Credit is shrinking and the economy is slipping further into deflation.

From MarketWatch:

U.S. banks are reducing their lending at the fastest rate on record ... According to weekly figures provided by the Federal Reserve, total loans at commercial banks have fallen at a 19% annual rate over the past three months, while loans to businesses have dropped at a 28% annualized pace...

... if the decline is mainly due to weak banks unable or unwilling to lend, then a turnaround in credit creation may have to wait until banks' balance sheets are repaired, a process that could be delayed by further expected defaults in consumer loans, mortgages and commercial real-estate loans. (Rex Nutting, "Banks cutting back on loans to businesses", Marketwatch)

Unemployment is rising and the pool of creditworthy borrowers is declining. When credit contracts in an economy where salaries have stagnated and joblessness is increasing, demand falls and recession deepens. That is, unless government spending takes up the slack in excess capacity.

There is no organic growth in the economy at present. The so-called recovery is a result of fiscal stimulus and the Fed's extraordinary liquidity injections into the financial system. True growth and prosperity do not come via the printing press. The Fed's actions are just putting more and more pressure on the dollar.

From Bloomberg today:

Central banks flush with record reserves are increasingly snubbing dollars in favor of euros and yen, further pressuring the greenback after its biggest two- quarter rout in almost two decades...

Policy makers boosted foreign currency holdings by $413 billion last quarter, the most since at least 2003, to $7.3 trillion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Nations reporting currency breakdowns put 63 percent of the new cash into euros and yen in April, May and June...the highest percentage in any quarter with more than an $80 billion increase.

Global central banks are getting more serious about diversification, whereas in the past they used to just talk about it,” said Steve Englander, a former Federal Reserve researcher who is now the chief U.S. currency strategist at Barclays in New York. “It looks like they are really backing away from the dollar.” (Bloomberg News)

Congress has no say-so. Neither do the American people. The decision to skewer the dollar was made by the big banks and their allies at the Federal Reserve. Everyone else is just along for the ride. The Fed wants a cheaper dollar to increase exports, provide cheap capital for Wall Street, and to lower the true value of household and financial sector debt. But there are many pitfalls to "inflating one's way out of debt". It is a policy which should have been debated by the representatives of the people and not decided by unelected bank-oligarchs pursuing their own self-interests.

The dollar's share of global reserves is steadily falling. Private industry and central banks are shedding dollars to avoid painful adjustments in the future. Last week, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the Philippines launched currency market interventions to keep the dollar from plummeting. The situation is grave. The Fed's monetization and liquidity programs have made dollar-holders jittery. The central banks actions are the first sign of a disorderly unwind. The prospect of a dollar crash is now real.

Surprisingly, there is also a good chance that the dollar will strengthen short-term and that the misinformation about the dollar's future is being used to achieve the Fed's objectives. Fed chair Ben Bernanke is already monetizing the debt (via quantitative easing) and has slashed interest rates to zero. What else can he do? The only way to weaken the dollar further is through asymmetrical warfare, a disinformation campaign aimed at triggering a sell-off before the dollar strengthens when the stock market corrects and credit tightens even more. Is that what Bernanke has in mind?

The Fed has its back to the wall. It will do whatever is necessary to micro-manage the dollar's decline and retain its stranglehold on the global system.

Mike Whitney can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com

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Journalist vows to follow up on 'Israel organ theft'

Press TV - October 12, 2009

Six weeks after he caused a political storm over his article on alleged Israeli organ thefts, the Swedish journalist behind the controversy says he will not quit the story despite receiving hundreds of death threats.

Donald Bostrom told Press TV on Monday that he did not believe there was any real intention behind the threats, which he has been receiving via email.

While he said he could not guess who was behind the anonymous threats, he acknowledged that the piece had received a large amount of bad publicity over accusations of anti-Semitism, which he overruled.

"My article asks very simple question: what happened to this young man in Palestine?"

He added that he was proud of the way Stockholm had handled the issue according to the Swedish Constitution, staying out of the decision-making process at the Aftonbladet daily, which ran the piece on August 17.

He emphasized that with all the frenzy that piece caused, even causing a diplomatic row between Sweden and Israel, he felt it was his and the newspaper's obligation to follow up on article and further investigate and "explain" its facts.

The article accused Israeli forces of kidnapping and murdering Palestinian youths for the sale of their organs — a ruthless trade going back as far as 17 years.

It also noted a current case of an American Jew charged with trafficking kidneys of Palestinians.

Is Canada more pro-Israel than the US?

By Yves Engler, The Electronic Intifada, 12 October 2009

In June, Israel began barring some North Americans with Palestinian-sounding names entry through Ben Gurion Airport. Forced to reroute through a land-border crossing that connects the West Bank with Jordan, their passports were stamped "Palestinian Authority only," which prevents them from entering Israel proper.

The Obama Administration objected to the move by Israel that discriminates against American citizens of Palestinian origin. However, there has been no protest from Ottawa even though Time magazine and the Israeli daily Haaretz ran lengthy articles focusing on Palestinian Canadian businessmen harmed by this new policy. A few weeks ago the Globe and Mail reported that "Although some of the most high-profile cases of individuals being turned away involve Canadian citizens, the Harper government has, so far, made no protest."

This silence bolsters claims by some commentators that under Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government, Canada has become (at least diplomatically) the most pro-Israel country in the world. Israeli officials concur. After meeting Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister, four other Conservative ministers and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff in July 2009, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who has openly called for the expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel, commented:

"It's hard to find a country friendlier to Israel than Canada these days. Members both of the coalition and the opposition are loyal friends to us, both with regard to their worldview and their estimation of the situation in everything related to the Middle East, North Korea, Iran, Sudan and Somalia. No other country in the world has demonstrated such full understanding of us."

Two days after Harper won a minority government in January 2006, Hamas won Canadian-monitored and facilitated legislative elections. Quickly after assuming power Harper made Canada the first country (after Israel) to cut its assistance to the Palestinian Authority. The aid cutoff, which was designed to sow division within Palestinian society, had devastating social effects.

Ostensibly the aid cutoff was due to Hamas's refusal to recognize Israel. Yet, Canada has not severed relations with Likud-led Israeli governments, which do not recognize the Palestinians' right to a state. Harper explained that "Future assistance to any new Palestinian government will be reviewed against that government's commitment to the principles of nonviolence, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations." But support for Israel was never made contingent on "nonviolence" or an end to settlement construction.

In March 2007, Palestinian political factions representing more than 90 percent of the Palestinian Legislative Council established a unity government. Still, the Conservatives shunned the new government all the while claiming to speak regularly (like the Israelis) with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. When the unity government's Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti traveled to Ottawa on a global peace tour, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay refused to meet him. Barghouti, who represents a secular party, explained at the time that "I think the Canadian government is the only government that is taking such a position, except for Israel." Barghouti had already met the foreign ministers of Sweden and Norway, the secretary-general of the United Nations and then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

However, once Hamas officials were ousted from the Palestinian Authority (PA), Ottawa restarted diplomatic relations and financial support. "The Government of Canada welcomes the leadership of President Abbas and Prime Minister [Salam] Fayyad in establishing a government that Canada and the rest of the international community can work with," explained MacKay after the unity government's collapse in mid-2007 and the appointment of a new government in Ramallah. "In light of the new Palestinian government's commitment to nonviolence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, and in recognition of the opportunity for a renewal of peace efforts, Canada will provide assistance to the new Palestinian government."

With Palestinian society divided and a more compliant authority in control of the West Bank, the Canadian International Development Agency contributed $8 million "in direct support to the new government." Part of this aid was directed towards creating a Palestinian police force "to ensure that the PA maintains control of the West Bank against Hamas," as Canadian ambassador to Israel Jon Allen was quoted by the Canadian Jewish News. US Lt. General Keith Dayton, in charge of organizing the Palestinian force, never admitted that he was strengthening Fatah against Hamas but to justify his program Dayton argued that Iran and Syria funded and armed Hamas. Bolstering Fatah to counteract the growing strength of Hamas was the impetus for Dayton's mission. However, the broader aim is to build a force to patrol Israel's occupation, a fact Dayton does little to dispel.

In January 2007, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay offered an immediate $1.2 million for Dayton's mission. A fifth of Dayton's initial staff was comprised of Canadians and during a press conference with MacKay in Jerusalem Condoleezza Rice said Dayton "has a Canadian counterpart with whom he works very closely." Two years later Dayton's military training force in the West Bank reportedly included nine Canadians, 16 Americans, three Brits and one Turk.

In June 2008, a Harper government press release announced that "Canada is a strong supporter of Palestinian security system reform, particularly through our contribution to the mission of Lt. General Keith Dayton, the US security coordinator, and to the European Union Police Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support."

Canada's contribution to the Dayton mission was part of a $300 million "aid" package that began in December 2007. According to the government agency Public Safety Canada, "a significant component [of the $300 million will be] devoted to security, including policing and public order capacity-building. This five year commitment will go towards the creation of a democratic, accountable, and viable Palestinian state that lives in peace and security alongside Israel."

But does anything close to a "viable Palestinian state" exist? Is Israel allowing it to be created? Growing Jewish-only settlements, Israeli bypass roads and the apartheid barrier all make a Palestinian state far from realistic in the short to medium term. Yet Canadian officials act as if Israel is working toward a Palestinian state.

In Gaza, Israel's occupation has turned into a blockade. For 27 months, Israel has reduced food and medicine from entering the tiny coastal territory to a fraction of what is needed by the besieged population. Yet, the Harper government has refused any criticism of the siege. Canada was the only country at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to vote against a January 2008 resolution that called for "urgent international action to put an immediate end to Israel's siege of Gaza." It was adopted by 30 votes with 15 abstentions.

Instead, the Conservative government has been quick to congratulate Israel for any small pause in its blockade. In January 2009 International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda proclaimed that "We commend Israel's decision to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance [to Gaza] through a temporary ceasefire." A day after Oda's announcement, Israeli forces fired on a UN convoy during a ceasefire, killing a Palestinian aid worker. There was no follow-up statement from Oda condemning Israel's actions.

Compared to Ottawa's cheerleading most of the world was hostile to Israel's attacks on Gaza last winter. In solidarity with Gaza, Venezuela expelled Israel's ambassador at the start of the bombardment and then broke off all diplomatic relations two weeks later. Israel didn't need to worry since Ottawa was prepared to help out. "Israel's interests in Caracas will now be represented by the Canadian Embassy," explained The Jerusalem Post (Ottawa had been "doing this for Israel in Cuba" since 1973). In August 2009, the Canadian embassy in Caracas also began providing visas to Venezuelans traveling to Israel.

For defining Canadian policy as "we support Israel no matter what it does," B'Nai Brith International bestowed Harper with its Presidential Gold Medallion for Humanitarianism. The first ever Canadian to receive the award, Harper joined former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, and US Presidents John F. Kennedy and Harry S. Truman. For its part, the Canadian Jewish Congress gave Harper its "prestigious Saul Hayes Human Rights award, named for a former CJC executive director, the first time it's been given to a sitting PM."

Despite the government's strident support for Israel, grassroots opposition to that country's policy has never been greater. Recent protests against the Toronto International Film Festival's spotlight on Tel Aviv were a major setback to Israeli public relations efforts. The festival embarrassment followed massive demonstrations against Israel's assault on Gaza, when many cities across the country witnessed their largest ever Palestinian solidarity demonstrations.

Alongside displays of opposition to specific Israeli policy, the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign is growing. Many social groups such as Independent Jewish Voices and Quebec's most active student Federation, ASSE, have joined the BDS movement, as have a number of unions, including the Canadian Union of Public Employees (Ontario), the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and the teachers Federation in Quebec. Social movements in Canada have never been more critical of Israel.

Yves Engler is the author of the recently released The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy and other books. The book is available at http://blackbook.foreignpolicy.ca/.