With Friends Like This

(Reuters) – Canada’s foreign ministry, responding to pressure from close allies, said on Saturday it would remove the United States and Israel from a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured.

O Canada!

Ink Floyd: Your Graffiti On The Israeli Wall

Graffiti by proxy, basically you go to this website and in return for a donation fee (30 euros or equivalent) that goes to Palestinian NGO’s you can write up to 100 characters that go via Holland to artists by the wall who then design & put the text on the wall, they take 3 photos and send it back to you or a friend (no it’s not photoshopped). All explained in this clip:

Or this article. 

So go to sendamessage.nl  I’m thinking up mine now (is it too crass to put the blog address as part of the message? hmmmm, or would that be an amusing way for blogs to engage in a kind of graffiti race), I’ll post the pic once it’s done. (ht2 People’s Geography)

Congress Dismisses NIE 369-46, Declares Iran A Nuclear Threat

Via Larisa Alexandrovna–

Congress Dismisses NIE, declares Iran a nuclear threat
Thu, 01/17/2008 – 20:35 – Wire Services

Iran poses a nuclear weapons threat to the United States and its allies, according to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 H R 4986 passed 369-46 by the US House of Representative yesterday, even though the National Intelligence Estimate concluded that that Tehran abandoned its atomic weaponry ambitions in 2003.

SEC. 229. POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES ON PROTECTION OF THE UNITED STATES AND ITS ALLIES AGAINST IRANIAN BALLISTIC MISSILES.

(a) Finding- Congress finds that Iran maintains a nuclear program in continued defiance of the international community while developing ballistic missiles of increasing sophistication and range that–

(1) pose a threat to–

(A) the forward-deployed forces of the United States;

(B) North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies in Europe; and

(C) other allies and friendly foreign countries in the region; and

(2) eventually could pose a threat to the United States homeland.

(b) Policy of the United States- It is the policy of the United States–

(1) to develop, test, and deploy, as soon as technologically feasible, in conjunction with allies and friendly foreign countries whenever possible, an effective defense against the threat from Iran described in subsection (a) that will provide protection–

(A) for the forward-deployed forces of the United States, NATO allies, and other allies and friendly foreign countries in the region; and

(B) for the United States homeland;

(2) to encourage the NATO alliance to accelerate its efforts to–

(A) protect NATO territory in Europe against the existing threat of Iranian short- and medium-range ballistic missiles; and

(B) facilitate the ability of NATO allies to acquire the missile defense systems needed to provide a wide-area defense capability against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles; and

(3) to proceed with the activities specified in paragraphs (1) and (2) in a manner such that any missile defense systems fielded by the United States in Europe are integrated with or complementary to missile defense systems fielded by NATO in Europe.

HR 4986 mandates that it is the policy of the US to “develop, test, and deploy, as soon as technologically feasible, in conjunction with allies and friendly foreign countries whenever possible, an effective defense against the threat from Iran.”

Essentially, this calls for the establishment of the controversial missile defense shield, which is threatening to reignite the cold war and start a new arms race with Russia.

The findings of the Congress contradict the NIE released last month which concluded with “high confidence” that “in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program” and that “Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007”.

Combined with this-

After a series of legislative defeats in 2007 that saw the year end with more U.S. troops in Iraq than when it began, a coalition of anti-war groups is backing away from its multimillion-dollar drive to cut funding for the war and force Congress to pass timelines for bringing U.S. troops home.

In recognition of hard political reality, the groups instead will lower their sights and push for legislation to prevent President Bush from entering into a long-term agreement with the Iraqi government that could keep significant numbers of troops in Iraq for years to come.

The groups believe this switch in strategy can draw contrasts with Republicans that will help Democrats gain ground in November and bring the votes to pass more dramatic measures. But it is a long way from the early months of 2007, when Democrats were freshly in power and momentum for a dramatic shift in Iraq policy seemed overpowering.(ht2 Lenin)

The empire and its people march on. Anti-war groups more concerned with supporting the dems and appearing as credible lobbyists (like all institutions they inevitably become about protecting their own existence with whatever original ethos for their formation becoming subordinate to that) as the congress proves the majority of both parties are pro-war, as befits an empire. The dems could have stopped it, they were given a mandate to do that in ’06, they betrayed that and answer, as do the repubs, to elite interests who are not suffering because of the war, in fact they are prospering off it. They are setting up Iran for the next profit centre and the missile shield is a laughably non-functioning technology scam to continue expansion and fuel the military/industrial backbone of the empire.