Stephen Lendman

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PACTI - stoptorture.org) calls "torture and ill treatment of any kind....incompatible with" moral democratic values. It "advocates for all persons" in Israel and Occupied Palestine to protect them from abusive treatment of all kinds.

In June 2008, its report titled, "No Defense: Soldier Violence against Palestinian Detainees" is just as relevant today, perhaps more so given Israel's intensified violence and abuse in Gaza and the West Bank in the past year.

PACTI interviewed detainees and participating soldiers, included media reports, IDF provided information, and comments of political figures regarding these practices.

Observed was a phenomenon dating back decades, and, of course, remains ongoing today. Hence, the report's relevance and need to discuss it. Especially since September 2000 (the beginning of the second Intifada), "the number of arrests has been unprecedented. Thousands of Palestinians are arrested each year....and are executed by a large number of combat units in the Israeli military."

Violent arrests followed by torture and ill treatment are commonplace. For decades, Israeli soldiers have abused Palestinian detainees "on a routine basis." Recognizing and exposing it is key to stopping it.

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Kourosh Ziabari
 

Government-run psy-ops campaigns as a prelude to war

"The continued presence of all options on the table"; this is the disappointing message which a Nobel Peace Prize laureate dispatches internationally. In his latest interview with CBS news, American President Barack Obama refused to rule out the possibility of a military strike against Iran. By saying so, he linked up with former U.S. President George W. Bush, who coined this well-known catchphrase.

Putting the nature of these options aside, the very "table" on which they should be placed is a matter to be considered too. -In terms of legitimacy, who is in a position to decide upon the destiny of Iran's nuclear program? Does the Nobel Peace Prize laureate want to set aside the question of legitimacy and rather engage in power politics? -What is wrong with Iran having a nuclear program? Why, exactly, should a 70-million nation be subjected to crippling sanctions, continued threats of military strike, isolation and economic embargo? What is the definite answer to the simple question that "why should the U.S., France and Israel possess nuclear weapons"? Which nation is the more offensive and violent? -Iran with its nuclear program, which has been demonstrated time and again to not have anything to do with military purposes, or Washington and its European allies, who have started on this adventurous, and aggressive trajectory of threats and sanctions?

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Ellen Brown

As if attacks from paparazzi and star-crazed fans weren’t enough, Hollywood stars may soon have a literal price put on their heads by investors in the Cantor Exchange, a real-money trading platform where people can bet on the gross profits of upcoming movies. Sales of The Dark Knight skyrocketed after Heath Ledger died unexpectedly, and so did sales after the deaths of Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. Will greed-driven investors now be laying in wait for the stars of movies they have bet on?

The Cantor Exchange (CE) is based on a virtual trading platform called the Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX), a web-based, multiplayer simulation in which players buy and sell “shares” of actors, directors, upcoming films, and film-related options. The difference is that where the HSX uses virtual money, CE will turn the game into a real casino using real dollars.

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Dahr Jamail

(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted:
Kevin N. Murphy, abrinsky)

Chuck Luther, who served 12 years in the military, is a veteran of two deployments to Iraq, where he was a reconnaissance scout in the 1st Cavalry Division. The former sergeant was based at Fort Hood, Texas, where he lives today.

“I see the ugly,” Luther told Truthout. “I see soldiers beating their wives and trying to kill themselves all the time, and most folks don’t want to look at this, including the military.”

Luther, who founded and directs “The Soldier’s Advocacy Group of Disposable Warriors,” knows about these types of internal problems in the military because he has been through it himself.

The Web site for the group explains his story:

“SGT Luther unknowingly suffered PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] after living in the combat environment. After weeks of suffering with sleepless nights/nightmares, headaches, bouts of anger, lack of focus, weight loss, depression, high stress and extreme exhaustion, SGT Luther sought out his Command for help. Knowing he was not able to perform his daily duties in this state of mind, he’d hoped to be sent for some form of treatment and sent back into battle. Unfortunately, this is not what happened. SGT Luther’s chain of command responded with phrases such as, ‘Drink water and drive on …’ and told he was ‘malingering’ and ‘faking’ his symptoms. After being belittled and stripped of his dignity, still, with no assistance from those in charge, he was then placed on suicide watch and held in an Aid Station for five weeks.

“Those sent to watch over him for potential ’suicide’ spoke down to him, and he was not given meals or showers on a regular basis. Even prisoners receive better treatment. SGT Luther was told that if he continued in this manner, he would be discharged from the Army with a Chapter 5-13, Personality Disorder. Because SGT Luther would not give in to the demands of his command to ‘drink water and drive on’ - knowing he needed some form of treatment, he was brought back to Ft. Hood in July of 2007 where he was quickly discharged with a Personality Disorder. His 12 years of Military Service was ended abruptly with the brush of a Colonel’s pen.”

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Jeff Gates

Americans can now see the light at the end of a long dark tunnel—if only they will look.

We entered this tunnel in 1948 when an enclave of religious fanatics induced President Harry Truman to portray them as a “state” meriting recognition, aid and protection.

We were warned not to do so.

These extremists had just inflicted on the Palestinians an ethnic cleansing that rivaled in its savagery the fascist abuse of ethnic groups during WWII. In December 1948, Albert Einstein and 27 other concerned Jews urged us “not to support this latest manifestation of fascism.”

Our failure to heed that warning led to the current morass in which we find ourselves.

Einstein and his colleagues foresaw that a “Leader State” was the goal of the “terrorist party” that has led Israel over all but a few of the 62 years since Truman’s fateful decision.

The latest Likud Party coalition ranks among the worst in the consistency of its duplicity and the blatant manipulation of its loyal ally, the American people. By our unbreakable bond with this abusive enclave, the U.S. appears guilty by association, making us a target of those abused.

From the outset, deceit was the foundation on which this ill-fated alliance was built. To betray, one must befriend. To defraud, one must first create a relationship of trust. Therein lies the basis of the “special relationship” through which Tel Aviv pursued, though us, its expansionist agenda.

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Stephen Lendman

Be wary when Washington talks reform. Nearly always it's bogus and ends up making a bad situation worse, the likely outcome this time addressing longstanding Wall Street abuses not easily changed at a time tinkering around the edges or papering them over won't work.

Case in point - the House passed "Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009" (HR 4173) and current Senate debate on the "Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010" (S. 3217). This writer addressed both measures on April 1:

Still a work in progress, the Senate bill will be as bogus as the House one, so whatever reconciliation produces will be another promise made, another broken. Business as usual will persist so don't be fooled - on this measure or any other, including the appalling health care bill that made a dysfunctional system worse, and took a giant step toward ending Medicare, one of the main reasons it was enacted, besides enriching corporate providers.

Instead of restraining financial fraud, House and Senate bills sanctify it. They leave too big to fail banks in place, permit greater consolidation, and let Wall Street casinos game the system with public money, gambling with unregulated exotic and fraudulent derivatives and other securities.

In Washington, the more things change, the more they worsen, and the public always gets scammed - fooled again because power and privilege trump people.

Lobbyists and corporate lawyers write legislation affecting their interests and get precisely what they want, a few public-friendly crumbs added for deception.

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Chris Floyd

I. The Ghost Who Walks
Last week, the reappearance of a figure from the recent past briefly stirred the amnesiac fog that enfolds the brutal reality of the American empire. Former Panamanian ruler Manuel Noriega was taken from the American prison which has been his home for the past 21 years and flown to Paris, where he is to stand trial for decades-old drug-trafficking charges.

The extradition was itself illegal. Noriega, who was captured after the illegal American invasion of his country in 1989, was classed by the United States as a "prisoner of war." In fact, he is the only official POW in American hands today; the empire's innumerable Terror War captives have been denied this designation and its legal protections under the Geneva Conventions. But of course the United States long ago stopped paying even lip service to those "quaint" strictures, as the Noriega case once again demonstrates. Under the Geneva Conventions, POWs cannot be sent by their captors to a third country. But Washington wants to keep Noriega – a former CIA asset who left the rez and defied his imperial paymasters – under wraps, even though his U.S. sentence for drug charges has now been served. So off he went to France at the order of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – convention, and Conventions, be damned.

But why is it so vital to keep the ex-CIA hireling deep-sixed? Simon Tisdall has some answers in the Guardian. Tisdall notes that the U.S. invasion was ordered by Noriega's former CIA boss turned president, George Herbert Walker Bush, to complete an American-backed coup that had failed a few months earlier. Bush sent 24,000 troops to the tiny Central American country – which had been illegally hived off from Colombia in the early 20th century in order to give America control over the territory where the Panama Canal would be built.

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Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood considers Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’s feeble acceptance of, and silence over, Israel’s humiliation of him – and the Anglican Church which he leads – during his visit to Gaza.

There’s another twist in the recent adventures of the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. This Christian top cat visited Gaza in February – a year late, let it be said – but afterwards made no public statement about the wretched human conditions still prevailing there.

He didn’t even reveal his findings to the House of Lords where he has the support of a large gaggle of bishops.

This despite his claim to be "in a unique position to bring the needs and voices of those fighting poverty, disease and the effects of conflict, to the attention of national and international policy makers".

And despite his declaration that "Christians need to witness boldly and clearly".

And despite his urging greater awareness of the humanitarian crisis to ensure that the people of Gaza are not forgotten. But there’s more.

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William Pfaff

Large and firmly implanted bureaucratic organizations are almost impossible to kill, even when they have no reason to continue to exist, as NATO has not since the Soviet Union, communism, and the Warsaw Pact all collapsed. There is no equivalent to driving a stake into the heart of a bureaucracy, whose impulse to live is inextinguishable. Hence the persisting efforts to force the beast onto a new course where some good can come from its uncheckable energy.

Its existence also is a temptation to Washington to do foolish things. First the decision was to expand NATO, despite the assurances that had been given to Moscow by the George H.W. Bush administration. This perpetuated the organization’s spirit, if not its function, as an institution hostile to Russia, which was not the effect that intelligent people in the West should have wanted.

However, it actually did not displease many in the Baltic states and Central and Eastern Europe who had spent the years since the beginning of World War II under brutal Russian repression and were not in a forgiving mood. Yet forgiveness – as an act of will and intelligence, not a sentiment – is essential to a future that will be different. Thus Poland’s traumatic but essential consignment of the Katyn murders to the past, now officially accomplished.

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Larry Kaplow

The wood boxes that once contained the victims' remains decom-
posed long ago, leaving bundles of bones, boots and clothes.
Larry Kaplow/GlobalPost

Will there finally be justice for more than 100 villagers raped and buried alive during Guatemala's civil war?

LAS CRUCES, Guatemala — Archeologists this month meticulously unearthed the brittle, bare bones of what are thought to be at least 162 men, women and children killed by the Guatemalan army in 1982.

Stoic old folks watched intently for signs of brothers and sisters; kids asked about the heaps of femurs and broken craniums. There were gasps as the muddy clothing was extracted and documented — a boy’s athletic jersey, a girl’s yellow dress, an infant’s blouse.

Twenty-eight years ago, survivors couldn’t risk funerals or even discuss the crime. They couldn’t return to the frontier village of Las Dos Erres, which they had hacked out of the forest, planting crops and fruit trees in a back-breaking, doomed bid to rise from the peasantry. Entire families had been buried — some alive — in a dry well, mothers raped and hurled onto their wounded children below in about 18 hours of systematic savagery.

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Gilad Atzmon

With Britain’s three-way race for prime minister entering the final lap, many Brits are still wondering who to vote for. As if it makes any difference. However, if you are interested in my take on the subject, I would suggest you opt for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. If you want to know why, it is pretty simple - just because the Jews don’t like Clegg at all. This is at least the impression I gathered after reading the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA).

The JTA grasps that no single party is expected to capture a majority of the British parliament in the May 6 ballot. They realise, like the rest of us, that the office of Prime Minister may go to whichever party leader is able to secure a coalition deal or win the support of another party. This is indeed horrible news for our relentless Zionist fundraisers. Usually they buy just one party. In fact, in this particular election, they already gambled on the Conservatives. As it happens, now they have to buy all three leading parties.

A few days ago the JTA published a manual for the British Jewish voter. As one might expect, the JTA and the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BOD), a rabid Zionist institute that claims to represent British Jewry, are convinced that British Jews are a top British political priority. “One thing is certain,” says Rosalind Preston of the BOD, “whoever is elected will have to deal with some very real and pressing issues, not only on the national and international level, but as they affect British Jews on the home front.” British Jews, she said, are concerned with “boycotts of Israeli goods, the spike of anti-Israeli resolutions and speakers on university campuses.”

I myself would be far more optimistic if I knew that British Jewry were actually concerned with war crimes committed in their names by the Jewish state. This leaves us with a very clear picture, as much as a growing number of Brits try to resurrect Britain’s stand on humanism, the BOD and the JTA want this kingdom to continue to be subservient to the interest of one tribe only.

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Human Rights Watch

Prosecute Officials Involved at All Levels

Detainees in a secret Baghdad detention facility were hung upside-down, deprived of air, kicked, whipped, beaten, given electric shocks, and sodomized, Human Rights Watch said today. Iraq should thoroughly investigate and prosecute all government and security officials responsible, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 42 of the men in the Al Rusafa Detention Center on April 26, 2010. They were among about 300 detainees transferred from the secret facility in the old Muthanna airport in West Baghdad to Al Rusafa into a special block of 19 cage-type cells over the past several weeks, after the existence of the secret prison was revealed.

The men's stories were credible and consistent. Most of the 300 displayed fresh scars and injuries they said were a result of routine and systematic torture they had experienced at the hands of interrogators at Muthanna. All were accused of aiding and abetting terrorism, and many said they were forced to sign false confessions.

"The horror we found suggests torture was the norm in Muthanna," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The government needs to prosecute all of those responsible for this systematic brutality."

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Igor Tomberg

Developments concerning the Arctic region have been a recurrent theme in politics this April. Russian President D. Medvedev and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg reached a breakthrough agreement on the demarcation of the long-contested maritime border between Russia and Norway in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean, and Russian Prime Minister V. Putin visited Franz Josef Land where he stated that geopolitically Russia's deepest interests are linked to the Arctic. Russian First Deputy Prime Minister V. Zubkov stressed Russia's commitment to further energizing its two transit projects implemented jointly with Canada - the Arctic Bridge and the Polar Air Routes – and praised the Canadian expertise in creating industrial clusters in the north-eastern regions.

The signing in Oslo of the agreement on the maritime delimitation between Norway and the Russian Federation in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean brought to an end the protracted dispute over a 75,000 square km of territory located between Norway's Svalbard and Russia's Novaya Zemlya. As a part of the deal, Russia consented to a shift of the 1926 demarcation line which linked directly the edge of the Kola Peninsula border and the North Pole, and Norway accordingly tamed its own territorial claims.

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Stephen Lendman

Over 15 weeks post-quake, Haiti's imperial takeover is proceeding. It began straightaway after the calamity, Haitians victimized by denied aid, appalling repression, and now dispossession of their land, homes, and communities. More on that below.

On April 16, The New York Times carried Reuters and AP reports stating Haiti's parliament approved the participation of foreign investors to rebuild the country, meaning, of course, seize, occupy, own, control, and colonize it for profit, using Haitians as exploited serfs.

AP stated:

"Haiti's soon-to-expire parliament has approved the creation of (an Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission - IHRC) co-chaired by former US President Bill Clinton to oversee billions in post-quake reconstruction aid, the Ministry of Communications said Friday (April 16)."

The vote also extended Haiti's state of emergency for 18 months, leaving the Rene Preval-Jean-Max Bellerive government in charge, effectively a dictatorship like Preval instituted in 1999 by not renewing parliament and ruling by decree pending new elections.

Reuters explained that a March 31 "donors" conference established the IHRC to oversee their investment, Preval to have nominal veto power over commission decisions. In fact, he'll rubber stamp what Washington and corporate interests dictate, supervised by the World Bank, a longstanding imperial tool.

Preval asked, "Do we lose our sovereignty because of the creation of this commission? I think the answer is no."

Except for the Aristide years (1991, 1994 - 96, and 2001 -2004), early in Preval's first term (1996 - 2001), and its brief 1804 liberation, Haiti lacked sovereignty throughout its history. Post-quake, it has even less, its people more than ever in jeopardy with imperial plans to gravely harm them, perhaps exterminate hundreds of thousands through neglect or other means.

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Sharell Cook

Sharell Cook lives in Mumbai and writes on travel.
Photo: Aliefya Vahanvaty

When she goes out with her Indian husband, she’s taken to be a foreign prostitute. When they holiday in Goa, they’re busted for drugs. Yet neighbours line up to meet her, coolly ignoring her husband. The curiosity of what it means to be a white woman married to a brown man.

If you saw me walking down the street in Mumbai, based on my skin colour it’s likely that you’d think I was just another foreigner here in India. Perhaps a foreigner on a well paying contract, or the wife of a foreigner on a well paying contract.

What you wouldn’t expect is for me to be married to an Indian guy—a guy who’s shorter than me, and dare I say it, doesn’t come from a wealthy upper class family. Then, when you found out, you’d probably find it hard to comprehend.

How foreigners are regarded in India is a curious matter. Our white skin, and the belief that we have power and money, unwittingly elevates us to the top of the social hierarchy. Doors will open for me in India, while at the same time remaining closed for many Indians. Shop assistants will beckon for my attention,while ignoring other potential customers. Everyone wants to have a foreigner for a friend. I’ve lost count of how many times my neighbours have knocked on my door, asking me to meet every relative who visits them. They’re not interested in my husband, though.

However, actually having a relationship with a foreigner creates a completely different scenario. Again, perceptions come into play. A whole complex range of them. Foreigners don’t take marriage seriously. Foreigners don’t have good values. Foreigners can’t cook and manage a house. Foreigners could never adapt to the Indian culture. And then there are the perceptions about the relationship itself. Love marriage is improper. Love marriage with a foreigner is even more objectionable. What will the community think? Our family will lose respect. Our family will be brought into disrepute. The marriage prospects of our other children will be ruined.

Thus, having a relationship with a foreigner is strongly discouraged in Indian society.

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Stephen Lendman

During a recent visit, a 50-person European Campaign to End the Siege of Gaza (ECESG) assessed conditions on the ground firsthand, one year after Operation Cast Lead:

"to collect and document the facts, and then return to our respective countries and the European Parliament to push for actions that will bring immediate humanitarian relief and an end to the siege, as well as peace and justice to the Palestinian people," what they've long been denied under a repressive occupation.

ECESG (www.savegaza.eu) calls itself:

"an umbrella body of non-governmental organizations across Europe that advocates (for) the fundamental right of the Palestinian people in Gaza to live in peace and dignity without being subjected to any form of collective punishment....ECESG supports the restoration of (Gazans') inalienable rights....and lobbies for pressure to be exerted on (Israel) to lift its siege and end the human tragedy there."

Meetings were held with Palestinian Legislative Council members, Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, and UNRWA Director of Operations, John Ging.

Areas toured were most affected, including Izbet Abet Rabu, the Al-Fakhoura School, and the Al-Salam neighborhood. Delegates also met with Al-Samouni family survivors who lost 23 members during the war.

They saw firsthand what human rights and various international organizations documented, including the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) Goldstone Commission's damning indictment of Israeli crimes of war and against humanity after its extensive 2009 fact finding mission.

The combination of destructive war, siege, and humanitarian crisis has been well reported. Nonetheless, ECESG's report is important because it's current and by 50 European parliamentarians and ministers, able to reach other high level officials at home, perhaps with enough clout for action - if not now, toward it happening sooner.

Israel's edifice is weakening. It's just a matter of time until it's effectively pierced. The ECESG, Judge Goldstone, the Global BDS movement, and other committed activists will realize it by relentlessly hammering for peace, equality and justice. Nothing less must be accepted or tolerated.

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Ali Jawad

by Faris Garabet-Al Rayah newspaper-Qatar

In the self-sensationalising world of modern media, some truths are better witnessed than told. Over the past fortnight, major media outlets have converged on Syria’s alleged delivery of scud missiles to the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah. By examining how the story first came to limelight, as well as the manner in which media sources have uncritically covered the story, one can begin to notice the vastly degenerated state of today’s media and its deeply polarising effects.

On 11th April, Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai Al-Aam broke the ‘scud missiles’ story. Relying solely on American sources, the author Husain Abdul-Husain claimed that both western and Israeli intelligence had uncovered the training of Hezbollah resistance fighters in Syria in the use of scud and surface-to-air missiles. This, we are told, occurred some time during last summer. Subsequent to the alleged discovery, the article adds, Israel threatened Syria through official Turkish and Qatari channels warning against the transfer of either of the two armaments to Hezbollah.

Western coverage of the story has been an unquestioned regurgitation of the original claims made in the Al-Rai Al-Aam article. Further signified by an overriding infatuation with Israel’s security, political commentators have even sought to draw parallels between Saddam and the alleged Syrian scud missiles delivery. Amidst the suffocating miasma of yellow journalism redolent in western reporting, the parallel was not lost on Lebanese prime minister. Speaking to a group of Lebanese citizens in Rome, Saad Hariri noted: “All this is similar to what was said previously about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that were never found.”

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Bill Van Auken

An average of 18 US military veterans are taking their lives every day as the Obama administration and the Pentagon grow increasingly defensive about the epidemic of suicides driven by Washington’s wars of aggression.

The stunning figure was reported last week by the Army Times, citing officials in the US Veterans Affairs Department.

The department estimates that there are 950 suicide attempts every month by veterans who are receiving treatment from the department. Of these, 7 percent succeed in taking their own lives, while 11 percent try to kill themselves again within nine months.

The greatest growth in suicides has taken place among veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who accounted for 1,868 suicide attempts in fiscal 2009, which ended on September 30. Of these, nearly 100 succeeded in killing themselves.

The connection between the “surge” in military suicides and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is undeniable. The suicide rate within the military doubled between 2001 and 2006, even as it remained flat among the comparable (adjusted for age and gender) civilian population. And the numbers continue to rise steadily. In 2009, 160 active-duty military personnel killed themselves, compared to 140 in 2008 and 77 in 2003.

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