Stephen Lendman

Washington's dirty hands control anti-Assad violence. At issue is longstanding policy to install a pro-Western regime. All means are used to do it, including war if others fail.

As a result, the Syrian pot keeps boiling. Assad's obligated to confront it. Syrians rely on him, yet he's blamed for doing his job.

Besides heavily armed killer gangs, US, UK, French, and perhaps other NATO Special Forces operate in Syria covertly. They've done so for months the same way as last year in Libya.

Nonetheless, NATO secretary-general Anders Fog Rasmussen audaciously claimed intervention in Syrian affairs isn't planned. In fact, it's been ongoing for months stoking violence.

On March 23, addressing the German Marshall Fund, he also said:

NATO "played a major role in guaranteeing peace in the Euro-Atlantic area for over sixty years, and as our mission for Libya showed, our Alliance remains an essential source of stability in an unpredictable world. NATO is the indispensable Alliance."

In fact, it's a lawless, aggressive killing machine. It's responsible for millions of deaths, mass destruction, insecurity, and instability wherever it shows up. Expect no letup in its crimes against Syria.

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Stephen Lendman

From a 10-day Iranian war drill near the strategic oil route
that passes through the Strait of Hormuz...

In mid-April, Istanbul or Geneva will host nuclear talks with Iran. America, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany will attend. Russian Foreign Secretary Sergei Lavrov calls them a "last chance" to avoid war.

Russian diplomats and independent observers expect it after talks designed to fail. Some believe launching it prevents or delays attacking Syria.

Al Quds al Arabi editor Abdel Bari Atwan told Russia Today he expects a package war against Iran, Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Perhaps also against Hamas. At issue is when. Washington wants it after November's elections. Israel wants it sooner.

On March 21, former Mossad chief Meir Dagan said he believes Israel will know if Iran moves toward nuclear weapons production when, for example, it's enriching uranium to 90% purity.

He also said Israeli air power can inflict significant damage, but not without serious repercussions. Iran will counterattack. Hundreds of missiles will strike Israeli cities and strategic facilities, including nuclear ones. Hezbollah and perhaps Hamas will act supportively. So will America.

Middle East conflict may escalate beyond what's stoppable. The entire region will be embroiled. Netanyahu says Israel's prepared to strike Iran independently - "not within days, but not within years either." He also said "Israel has never left its fate in the hands of others, not even in the hands of our best friends."

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Charles Davis & Medea Benjamin

Repression is worse now than under Mubarak, says AI report.

Confronted with popular protest, the country's unelected rulers have doubled down on repression, jailing peaceful activists and killing dozens of civilians who have the gall to exercise their rights. Those who state security forces haven't killed for demanding democracy have been tear-gassed and brought before the perverted justice of a military court, even as the ruling clique promises the world and its red-eyed subjects democratic reform. Eventually.

Were it Syria or Iran, the rhetoric from Washington would be stern, aggressive even. But since the repressive ruling clique is the military junta in Egypt, the lectures are timid – and coupled with a handout. Indeed, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just announced, the Obama administration is waiving a legislative requirement that made military assistance to Egypt conditional on its rulers “implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association, and religion, and due process of law.” This allows the U.S. government to send Egypt's rulers $1.5 billion in taxpayer money, more than 85 percent of which is explicitly set aside for the armed forces.

If one only pays attention to what politicians say, ignoring what they do, this may come as a surprise. President Barack Obama, after all, has voiced support for the Arab Spring. He gave a speech in Cairo full of lofty words about the people of the region's legitimate democratic aspirations. So why would his administration lavish a regime that cracks down on pro-democracy forces with money for weapons?

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Roger Tucker

The recent open letter Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon, apparently written by Ali Abunimah, has come as a shock to many people, including yours truly. Not only have the Zionists colonized Palestine and subjected them to a permanent campaign of genocide, but as anyone who has been paying attention knows, they have colonized the Western democracies, turning them into obedient puppets. Now it appears that they have also colonized the Palestine Solidarity movement.

At the end of this essay are links to a number of responses supporting Atzmon and what he stands for. These cover the ground pretty well, but I’d like to add a critical look at the language used by Abunimah et al and some of the notions underlying such terminology. I’ll start with the title itself, which begins with the curious phrase “Granting No Quarter.” The phrase is familiar to anyone who has read books or seen films based on British naval warfare set in the 18th or early 19th centuries. - this is as extreme as it gets. This from a group of mostly Palestinian supporters of the Palestinian struggle against Israel in opposition to another such supporter. That is sufficiently mind-boggling in itself, but Ali Abunimah, and I would assume at least some of his fellow signatories, are also supporters of One Democratic State as the solution to the basic conflict in the Middle East, as is Atzmon. Some fundamental and portentous difference, beyond a mere dispute about strategy or tactics, must be responsible for such a total and uncompromising attack on a seemingly close ally. It allows for no debate, no compromise – no quarter offered or accepted.

Some observers have implied that Ali & Co. have actually gone over to the enemy, or may have been Zionist agents from day one, and that the Jewish members of these Solidarity groups are acting as their handlers. For the sake of argument, I’m going to assume that is not so, that they are perfectly sincere in considering themselves loyal to the Palestinian cause as they conceive it. Looking at the signatories of the Letter we find some successful academics, Abunimah and Massad being the most prominent. They have prospered as unofficially sanctioned spokesmen for the Palestinian cause in the US and have no incentive to rock the boat. If they presented any perceived danger to tribal Jewry, they would likely find themselves on the street, as has happened to a number of academics, many of them Jewish, who have dared to challenge the predominant Jewish narrative. This points to a simple motivation based on economic and professional self-interest, but I believe there’s more to it than that.

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Stephen Lendman

The ink's barely dry on the March 21 Security Council Presidential Statement. It called on both sides "to bring an immediate end to all violence" and engage in conflict resolution diplomacy.

Nonetheless, Western-backed killer gangs keep attacking civilians and Syrian forces. According to Reuters:

Clashes continue. At least 40 died. The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR) isn't sure who's responsible but implies Assad. A pro-Western front group, its spurious accounts lack credibility.

Independent observers called past reports propaganda, not truth and full disclosure. Critics denounce its pro-Western anti-Assad bias. In fact, two SOHR sites each claim to be the original.

The initial one's in Arabic with a Facebook English version. The splinter group's in English. Each calls the other an impostor. Information they report differs. Featuring falsified claims and bogus casualty counts, both lack credibility.

Their agenda entails blaming Assad for killer gang violence and condemning his efforts to stop it. According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich:

"As far as we know, this organization employs only two people (its head and secretary-translator)." The original's "headed by Rami Abdulrahman, who has no training either in journalism or law or even a complete secondary education."

"The fact that representatives of the 'observatory' have been avoiding contact with our diplomats speaks for itself. We think that these facts allow one to judge how trustworthy the information provided by this structure is."

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Bill Van Auken

An Afghan woman, right, is interviewed as she sits next
to the body of a child killed by a U.S. service member in
Panjwai, Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanistan,
Sunday, March 11, 2012. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)

While the US media, searching for an explanation for the mass killings, has focused its attention on Bales’ mental state and the possibility that he was abusing alcohol, the Afghan villagers have a simpler explanation: revenge.

The US government Friday officially charged Staff Sergeant Robert Bales with 17 counts of murder and other offenses in connection with the March 11 massacre of Afghan civilians, most of them children.

The killing spree, which took place in the Panjwai district of the southern province of Kandahar, has sharply escalated an already advanced deterioration in relations between the Afghan population and the US-led military occupation, now in its 11th year.

While until now, both US and Afghan officials had given the death toll in the murderous rampage attributed to Bales as 16—including nine children and three women—the 17 homicide charges indicated an additional victim. The official charges gave no explanation for the additional murder count, and press reports cited unnamed officials as attributing it, in one case, to the death of an Afghan severely wounded in the massacre and, in another, to the forensic identification of an additional set of remains.

Bales is also charged with having “assaulted and attempted to murder six other civilians” in the incident. At least three of these victims remain hospitalized. One of them is a six-year-old girl who was shot in the head and has not regained consciousness since being taken to Kandahar Hospital. She is not expected to survive.

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CODEPINK DC

Dr. Mustafa Bargouti talks with Elsa Rassbach about the Global March to Jerusalem on March 30th

Every year on March 30th Palestinians around the world celebrate Land Day, which commemorates a general strike and marches in 1976 against Israeli land appropriation, an event that was a pivotal event in bringing about Palestinian national unity. This year Palestinians throughout the Middle East and in the Diaspora will commemorate Land Day by calling attention to the dangers facing Jerusalem.

The Israeli government has long denied most Palestinians – whether Muslim or Christian – access to Jerusalem, even to visit holy sites. The organizers of the Global March allege that through methods of ethnic cleansing, Israel has been forcing Jerusalem’s remaining Arab inhabitants out, thus endangering the multi-religious, multi-ethnic character of the city that is the intended capital of Palestine.

On March 30th, the Palestinians will attempt to get as close to Jerusalem as they can: whether at the borders of Lebanon and Jordan, at checkpoints in the West Bank, or at the Erez crossing in Gaza. There will also be a demonstration in Jerusalem itself. The Palestinians will be joined by supporters from five continents. An eminent Advisory Board includes the Nobel Peace Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mairead Maguire. Solidarity vigils and actions are also planned on March 30th at Israeli Embassies and other locations in sixty cities around the world.

The Palestinian coalition organizing this Global March to Jerusalem is perhaps unprecedented in its breadth. Equally unprecedented is the Israeli campaign against the March, which has included faux Websites and Facebook pages to mislead participants regarding gathering places. After seventy supporters from India, Malaysia, Pakistan and other Asian countries visited Iran on their way to Lebanon to join the March, the Israeli press alleged that the March is directed from Iran and that violent "clashes" with Israeli forces are planned.

Among the most outspoken Palestinian supporters and organizers of the Global March is Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, 58, the well-known nonviolence advocate. As General Secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, Dr. Bargouti played a key role in recent attempts to bring Hamas and Fatah together. He is medical doctor educated in the former Soviet Union, the US and Jerusalem; he founded and leads Palestinian Medical Relief society, which provides health care in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In 2005 Dr. Bargouti ran for presidency of the Palestinian National Authority and won 19% of the vote. He resides in Ramallah in the West Bank.

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Stephen Lendman

1.7 million Gazans endure severe hardships. They're suffocating because too few vital to life supplies enter. Others remain at Israel's whim to curtail or cut off entry entirely for any reason or none at all. This must end.

Israel's claimed easing is false. Besieged Gazans remain isolated. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) assessed conditions in January.

Except for limited amounts of agricultural products, Gaza's export economy's suffering. In addition, imports of basic needs and raw materials fall well below minimal needs.

Karm Abu Salem crossing was closed nearly 30% of the time. Incoming truckloads are 28.5% of pre-siege levels.

Out of 60 million flowers produced annually, export permission's granted for only a tiny fraction. In 2005, 70 truckloads of agricultural products were exported daily. Now it's a shadow of that amount.

Before June 2007, 570 average daily truckloads entered Gaza. Now it's around 150.

Karm Abu Salem crossing handles commercial traffic only. Currently, it doesn't meet Gaza's needs. Previously, goods entered through four crossings.

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Gilad Atzmon

Israeli press reported this evening that French gunman Mohamed Merah had been on a trip to Israel in the past.

According to the report, Merah's passport had Israeli stamps in it. The purpose of his visit is unknown. Israeli analysts suspect he was either trying to visit the Palestinian territories or preparing for a terror attack.

However, I won’t rule out the possibility that Merah was actually trained by Israeli forces. Marah may have conducted a false flag operation. By way of deception is, after all, the Mossad’s motto.

Read the story of Naeim Giladi, an Israeli agent operating in Iraq in the late 1940’s.

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Stephen Lendman

ICONS Syria and Iran feel emboldened; their leaders (left and center)
appeared with Hezbollah’s on a poster for sale in Damascus last June.
(Photo: Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times)

As America's leading broadsheet, what it reports matters, especially on war and peace. Instead of accuracy, full disclosure, and supporting right over wrong, The Times consistently cheerleads US wars and prospective ones. Enemies are vilified. Rule of law principles don't matter, nor do decades of crimes of war and against humanity, as well as millions of lost lives in the last decade alone.

In June 1950, The Times called Truman's war on North Korea the right decision, even though Pyongyang responded defensively to repeated South Korean cross-border incursions.

IF Stone's "Hidden History of the Korean War" explained what scoundrel journalism suppressed, including NYT feature stories. Stone called it international aggression. So did Monthly Review co-founders Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy, saying:

"....we have come to the conclusion that (South Korean president) Syngman Rhee deliberately provoked the North Koreans in the hope that they would retaliate by crossing the parallel in force. The northerners fell neatly into the trap."

Truman instigated what happened and took full advantage. Stone explained, saying:

"we said we were going to Korea to go back to the status quo before the war but when the American armies reached the 38th parallel they didn't stop, they kept going, so there must be something else. We must have another agenda here and what might that agenda be?"

He learned it reflected America's imperial ambitions. Vietnam followed. He opposed both wars. So did others.

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James Tracy

With few exceptions the news that will shape public discourse is subject to a de facto censorial process of powerful government and corporate elites beyond accountability to the public.

It is here that Sigmund Freud’s notion of repression is especially helpful for assessing the decrepit state of media and public discourse in the United States. In Freud’s view, one’s collective life experiences are registered in the subconscious, with those particularly disturbing or socially impermissible experiences being involuntarily suppressed, only later to emerge as neuroses. Whereas suppression is conscious and voluntary, repression takes place apart from individual volition.

With opinion polls indicating at least half of the public distrusting the official account of September 11th, the foremost basis for the “war on terror”, no public event has been more repressed in public consciousness via the mass media than 9/11. The enduring usefulness of Freud’s theory is suggested in repeated manifestations of the repressed episode to haunt the public mind for which a surrogate reality has been crafted.

Peter Dale Scott describes occasions such as the assassination of President John Kennedy and September 11th as “deep events” because of their historical complexity and linkages with the many facets of “deep government”—the country’s military and intelligence communities and their undertakings. The failure to adequately explain and acknowledge deep events and pursue their appropriate preventative remedies leads to continued deceptions where unpleasant experiences are contained and a new “reality” is imposed on the public mind. Together with the notion of repression, the term is also applicable for considering how instances of such historical import are dealt with in mass psychological terms, or, more specifically, by ostensibly independent alternative news media capable of recollecting the real.

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Alex Lantier

Massacre: Seven people, including three children, were gunned
down at a Jewish school in Toulouse. (Photo: Reuters)

Now, as the media pin the blame on Merah, the leading parties have returned to stoking up anti-Muslim racism and promoting attacks on democratic rights under the rubric of anti-terrorist safety measures.

Yesterday evening, an armed standoff continued in Toulouse between Mohamed Merah, the alleged gunman in a spate of shootings in southern France, and elite police units. Officials claim he is responsible for the deaths of seven people in three attacks since March 11—three paratroopers in two shootings in Toulouse and nearby Montauban, and four civilians in an attack Monday on the Jewish Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse.

A RAID (Search, Assistance, Intervention and Deterrence) unit attacked Merah in his apartment shortly after 3AM yesterday. He fired back, reportedly wounding two officers. After a standoff during the day, police again assaulted the apartment around midnight, blasting away a door and blowing a hole in a wall.

Authorities assert that Merah, aged 23, has Al Qaeda sympathies. They insist that he carried out the killings alone. Based on the wildly contradictory reports circulating in the media, however, it is unclear whether any of these statements are true.

Merah bears little physical resemblance to eye-witness descriptions of the perpetrator in the Montauban shooting. Witnesses said the gunman was “corpulent.” They also said they saw a tattoo and scar on his left cheek when the visor of his motorcycle helmet flipped open. However, pictures of Merah released to the media show a slender man with no facial hair or markings.

Nor are reports of Merah’s links to Al Qaeda any more convincing. They rely on conflicting accounts and an alleged confession in a call placed from a public telephone booth to the night editor of France24 television, Ebba Kalondo. French officials claimed to be “98 percent” sure that the caller was Merah. Kalondo’s story was widely reported as fact by French media and TV outlets.

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Peter Symonds

Israeli soldiers watch as a missile is launched from the Iron
Dome defense system. A US war simulation of a possible
scenario where Israel launched pre-emptive strikes against
Iran's nuclear facilities would likely draw America into the
conflict and cost hundreds of lives, a report said on 3/20/12.

Details of a recent Pentagon war game, leaked yesterday in the New York Times, underscore the advanced character and recklessness of the Obama administration’s preparations for war against Iran. Nominally premised on an attack by Israel on Iran, the conclusion from the exercise was that “the strike would lead to a wider regional war which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead.”

The two-week war game was carried out by US Central Command to test communication and coordination between its headquarters in Tampa, Florida and US forces in the Persian Gulf.

“When the exercise had concluded earlier this month, according to the [American] officials, [US Central Command head] General Mattis told aides that an Israeli first-strike would likely have dire consequences across the region and for United States forces there,” the Times stated.

The article ominously noted that a similar “Internal Look” exercise had been used in December 2002, by Central Command head General Tommy Franks, “to test the readiness of his units for the coming invasion of Iraq.” Just three months later, in March 2003, US President George Bush unleashed the illegal US-led war of aggression that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and devastated much of the country.

Likewise, the latest “Internal Look” exercise is far from being purely hypothetical. It took place amid a spate of top-level political and military discussions between the US and Israel over Iran. Both countries have repeatedly threatened military action. Last week President Obama issued another warning to Tehran that “the window for solving this issue diplomatically is shrinking.”

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Stephen Lendman

Twin car bomb attacks on security posts in Syria's second city of
Aleppo [last week] killed at least 28 people and wounded another
235, state television reported, citing the health ministry.

Last weekend's anti-Assad Damascus and Aleppo terrorist violence reflects Washington's violent pursuit of regime change. Peaceful resolution efforts are subverted. Obama's waging undeclared war.

On March 19, Iran's Russian ambassador, Mahmoud Reza Sajjadi, explained US-style democracy, saying:

"There were the first signs that American democracy had come to Damascus (and Aleppo). We saw American puppets’ attempt to establish democracy in Syria by exploding (bombs) in Damascus (and Aleppo)."

Dozens died. Many others were injured. Calling Washington's regional allies "reactionary Arab regimes," he said getting in bed with the devil has a price. Their Western support will backfire when their regimes are targeted.

On Monday morning, heavy Damascus fighting erupted. Witnesses said explosions and machine gun fire were heard in the al-Mezzeh district. It's home for several government security installations. Russia Today reported one resident saying:

"There is fighting near Hamada supermarket and the sound of explosions there and elsewhere in the neighborhood. Security police have blocked several side streets and the street lighting has been cut off."

Free Syrian Army leader Col. Riad al-Asaad refused comment, saying

"(t)his is a sensitive military matter that we cannot comment about."

Days of stepped-up violence reveals Washington's real intentions. Assad's right calling insurgents "terrorists." Syria's Foreign Ministry said Western and regional states are supplying heavy weapons and munitions. It's no secret Saudi Arabia is providing them. So are Qatar and Israel, among others.

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Vijay Prashad

Sirte all but flattened. Thousands killed. - What's so humanitarian
about that? Wasn't the UN Resolution 1973 (2011) about "the
protection of civilians" and the Security Council's "strong commit-
ment to the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and
national unity of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya"? Did the UN do
anything whatever to stop the vicious US-NATO attack on Libya?

Ten days into the uprising in Benghazi, Libya, the United Nations’ Human Rights Council established the International Commission of Inquiry on Libya. The purpose of the Commission was to

“investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law in Libya.”

The broad agenda was to establish the facts of the violations and crimes and to take such actions as to hold the identified perpetrators accountable. On June 15, the Commission presented its first report to the Council. This report was provisional, since the conflict was still ongoing and access to the country was minimal. The June report was no more conclusive than the work of the human rights non-governmental organizations (such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch). In some instances, the work of investigators for these NGOs (such as Donatella Rovera of Amnesty) was of higher quality than that of the Commission.

Due to the uncompleted war and then the unsettled security state in the country in its aftermath, the Commission did not return to the field till October 2011, and did not begin any real investigation before December 2011. On March 2, 2012, the Commission finally produced a two hundred-page document that was presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Little fanfare greeted this report’s publication, and the HRC’s deliberation on it was equally restrained.

Nonetheless, the report is fairly revelatory, making two important points:

■ first, that all sides on the ground committed war crimes with no mention at all of a potential genocide conducted by the Qaddafi forces;
■ second, that there remains a distinct lack of clarity regarding potential NATO war crimes.

Not enough can be made of these two points. They strongly infer that the rush to a NATO “humanitarian intervention” might have been made on exaggerated evidence, and that NATO’s own military intervention might have been less than “humanitarian” in its effects.

It is precisely because of a lack of accountability by NATO that there is hesitancy in the United Nations Security Council for a strong resolution on Syria.

“Because of the Libyan experience,” the Indian Ambassador to the UN Hardeep Singh Puri told me in February, “other members of the Security Council, such as China and Russia, will not hesitate in exercising a veto if a resolution – and this is a big if – contains actions under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which permits the use of force and punitive and coercive measures.”

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Amnesty International

NATO has so far failed to investigate the killing of scores of civilians in Libya in airstrikes carried out by its forces, Amnesty International said today in a new briefing paper released a year after the first strike sorties took place.

Libya: The forgotten victims of NATO Strikes says that scores of Libyan civilians who were not involved in the fighting were killed and many more injured, most in their homes, as a result of NATO airstrikes. Amnesty International said that NATO has not conducted necessary investigations or even tried to establish contact with survivors and relatives of those killed.

The organization said that adequate investigations must be carried out and full reparation provided to victims and their families.

"It is deeply disappointing that more than four months since the end of the military campaign, victims and relatives of those killed by NATO airstrikes remain in the dark about what happened and who was responsible" said Donatella Rovera, Senior Crisis Response Adviser at Amnesty International.

"NATO officials repeatedly stressed their commitment to protecting civilians. They cannot now brush aside the deaths of scores of civilians with some vague statement of regret without properly investigating these deadly incidents.”

NATO appears to have made significant efforts to minimize the risk of causing civilian casualties, including by using precision guided munitions, and in some cases by issuing prior warnings to inhabitants of the areas targeted. But this does not absolve NATO from adequately investigating the strikes which killed and injured scores of civilians and from providing reparation to the victims and their families.

Investigations must look into whether civilian casualties resulted from violations of international law and if so those responsible must be brought to justice.

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Stephen Lendman

An Afghan policeman stands guard inside Kandahar jail on April
27, 2011. (Photo: CNN / Caption: RAWA.org)

Post-9/11, torture became official US policy. Bush officials mandated it. Obama continues it in US overseas prisons and foreign ones, including in Afghanistan.

Even the Army Times noticed. On March 18, it headlined "US sent detainees to banned prisons," saying:

A report by two human rights groups revealed the practice continues "despite an announced moratorium on such moves." More on their report below.

The New York Times also covered the story in an article headlined, "Groups Report on the Continued Transfer of Detainees to Afghan Prisons," saying:

Following months of investigations, evidence shows American agencies "abett(ed) torture," besides committing it at US run prisons like Bagram, Guantanamo, and numerous black sites. It's one of many American dirty secrets.

While "not groundbreaking," the new report increases the body of evidence "uncovered last year by the United Nations, and highlights the continuing challenge of trying to end the abuse."

Documented cases examined captured US detainees transferred to Afghan facilities known to commit torture. transfers continued after doing so was supposed to stop.

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Khalid Amayreh

French President Nicolas Sarkozy (L) has reportedly described
hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a "liar"
during a chat with US president Barack Obama. "I cannot stand
him. He's a liar," Sarkozy was overheard by reporters while
speaking with Obama at the Group of 20 Summit in southern
France, The Financial Times reported. [Nov. 2011] (On Islam)

In his reaction to the tragic shooting incident outside a Jewish school in France Monday, Israeli Prime Minister invoked "Palestinian terror."

"I haven't heard any condemnation from the UN, but one of its bodies, the human rights council, invited representatives of Hamas who condemned the US for killing Osama bin Laden and kills Jewish men, women and children. This is who UNHRC invites today. I have one thing to say to the UNHRC: What do you have to do with human rights? You should be ashamed of yourself."

Netanyahu is elaborate about the death of a few Jews in occupied Palestine, for which nefarious Zionism is solely responsible (responsible because Zionism brought these Jews into Palestine from their original homelands in Eastern Europe elsewhere to live on a land that belongs to another people), but quite dismissive or completely silent about the pornographic killings of non-Jews at the hands of the "holy tribe" or "Master race."

In fact, as the pathological liar was speaking about the regrettable incident in France, his dirty hands were being stained with the innocent blood of Palestinian children.

Netanyahu and other Israeli political and military leaders got accustomed to giving Israeli Jews a "present" on major Jewish holidays in the form of killing Arab civilians, particularly children, in cold blood.

This happened last week in Gaza when Israel's war machine wreaked havoc on Palestinian homes throughout the coastal enclave, killing farmers, workers, school children and women.

The Palestinians are mostly helpless and defenseless people, and ganging up on them using state-of-the-art of the American technology of death is analogical to the Third Reich embarking on the extermination of Jews during WWII.

It is also an expression of ultimate cowardice to attack people, especially innocent people, who don't have the means to defend themselves and protect their children.

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Roger Sheety

From the December 2008 massacre in Palestine (Gaza). The
murderous siege still is in place and many people are dying.

The recent killing of 25 Palestinians in Gaza and the wounding of at least 80 more within four days—March 9-12—requires some context as the majority of western mainstream media outlets are either unwilling or unable to provide any.

More often than not these mainstream media reports in some form or another refer to the Palestinian dead as “militants.” The term militant is defined simply as “vigorously active and aggressive, especially in support of a cause” and “engaged in warfare; fighting.” Synonyms listed include “belligerent, combative, and contentious. See: fanatic.” Already then, Palestinians, even as they are killed in large numbers by the most sophisticated weapons money can buy, are marked as the aggressors. Further, as implied within the definition, they are fanatics, irrational and bent on destruction—the victim in this case being poor, nuclear-armed and US-protected Israel.

Virtually none of the major western media outlets ever ask questions such as: who exactly are these “militants”? Why are there so many of them in such a small place as Gaza? Why, if they are such an existential threat to poor Israel, are they always being killed in such substantial numbers? And why do the dead always include scores of women, children, the elderly and the sick? These, apparently, are taboo questions in the free western media and therefore beyond the realm of permitted discussion.

Here, however, is some background to help answer these supposedly unspeakable questions.

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Bill Van Auken

Since the naming last Friday of the soldier charged with massacring 16 Afghan civilians, the media has sought to make this horrific crime comprehensible by delving into the history and personal problems of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, while studiously ignoring the criminal nature of the war itself.

Bales, who is being held at the US military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, is charged by the military with walking away from his outpost in the Panjawi district in southern Kandahar Province in the predawn hours of March 11 and breaking into homes in two nearby villages, shooting, stabbing and killing the Afghans, nine of them children. In one house, he is said to have piled up his victims’ bodies and set them on fire.

He is now universally described as a “rogue” soldier. President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, have all issued formal statements assuring the world that Bales’ actions do not reflect the values and attitudes of the US military. According to this official story, the only question to be answered is: what made him “snap”?

The factual basis of this story has been called into question by the Afghan villagers, the country’s US puppet president, Hamid Karzai, and an investigative commission formed by the lower house of the Afghan parliament, all of whom have charged that the killing spree was the work not of a lone gunman, but of as many as 15 to 20 US troops. The parliamentary panel presented its findings over the weekend, which included the charge that two of the women slain in the massacre had been sexually assaulted.

Even if the US military’s version of these bloody events is proven true, and Bales did act single-handedly, the fact that the overwhelming opinion among Afghans is that a number of US troops were involved in the bloodbath is telling. Clearly, they do not see this as the act of a madman or a “rogue,” but rather as an all too routine episode in a decade-old war and occupation that has taken the lives of tens of thousands of Afghan civilians.

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