Friday! The Jesus & Mary Chain- April Skies

So say goodbye to April, maybe the last month for years we do not live under a spite filled, hateful Tory administration attacking migrants, the poor & those on welfare on behalf of the ruling class & corporate state. Or as it is otherwise known another stretch of neoliberalism this time under Conservative management as opposed to conservative New Labour management. We are 31 years into the neoliberal remaking of our country into a corporatist authoritarian divided and unequal shit hole. Play it fucking LOUD!

If You Only Read One Article This Week About Israel & Palestine Make It This One

Via Pulse (who have a video of the speech)-

The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. the New Afrikaners

This is the transcript of the Hisham B. Sharabi Memorial Lecture delivered by John J. Mearsheimer at the The Palestine Center today.

It is a great honor to be here at the Palestine Center to give the Sharabi Memorial Lecture.  I would like to thank Yousef Munnayer, the executive director of the Jerusalem Fund, for inviting me, and all of you for coming out to hear me speak this afternoon.

My topic is the future of Palestine, and by that I mean the future of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, or what was long ago called Mandatory Palestine.  As you all know, that land is now broken into two parts: Israel proper or what is sometime called “Green Line” Israel and the Occupied Territories, which include the West Bank and Gaza.  In essence, my talk is about the future relationship between Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Of course, I am not just talking about the fate of those lands; I am also talking about the future of the people who live there.  I am talking about the future of the Jews and the Palestinians who are Israeli citizens, as well as the Palestinians who live in the Occupied Territories.

The story I will tell is straightforward.  Contrary to the wishes of the Obama administration and most Americans – to include many American Jews – Israel is not going to allow the Palestinians to have a viable state of their own in Gaza and the West Bank.  Regrettably, the two-state solution is now a fantasy.  Instead, those territories will be incorporated into a “Greater Israel,” which will be an apartheid state bearing a marked resemblance to white-ruled South Africa.  Nevertheless, a Jewish apartheid state is not politically viable over the long term.  In the end, it will become a democratic bi-national state, whose politics will be dominated by its Palestinian citizens.  In other words, it will cease being a Jewish state, which will mean the end of the Zionist dream.

Let me explain how I reached these conclusions.

Given present circumstances there are four possible futures for Palestine.

The Met Police Are Protecting A Killer They Know The Name Of

I wonder…if Officer E, the killer of Blair Peach, is named and if god forbid some member of the public foolishly follows the incitement by the right wing media (who never fail to side with the police oh the irony) to take an eye for an eye and enacts vigilante justice on the officer then the police can write a report about it, sit on that for 31 years and then release it but refuse to name or prosecute the murderer. Seems barbaric and wrong doesn’t it?

Also see Harpy– the illegal weapons, the Nazi regalia and the Police commander reiterating that police are allowed to murder people in a riot.

Metastasising

(Reuters) – Canada’s minority Conservative government is locked in a power struggle with opposition members of Parliament over allegations that Canadian soldiers left Afghan detainees open to abuse, and the confrontation might just trigger an early election. Last December, the House of Commons, where the Conservatives have a minority of members, ordered the government to turn over uncensored files on people detained by the military in Afghanistan. The government refused, citing national security.

What happens next depends on House of Commons speaker Peter Milliken, who is due to rule shortly on who has the right to control the documents. If he backs Parliament and the government refuses to obey, the House could vote nonconfidence in the government, and that would trigger an election. The government could also refer the matter to the Supreme Court of Canada, asking it to judge who has priority, or it could set up a special commission. Opposition legislators insist Parliament is supreme and say the government’s behavior shows too much power is concentrated in the office of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who they portray as being obsessed with secrecy.

“It is one of the fundamental roles of the House of Commons to hold the government to account … it is a basic tenet of our democracy,” said Jack Harris, a member of the left-leaning New Democrats.

Government officials say Canada’s relations with major allies could be seriously harmed if sensitive details leaked out from the documents.

Harper & his neocon cabal have already prorogued parliament which ably demonstrates the neoconservative contempt for…well anything they do not like, democracy, the law, not killing over a million people. This will be remarkable, either torture causes the fall of Harper or it pushes Canada further into an authoritarian ally of the Empire. Going from the UK experience I would not lay bets on the former, none of the Big 3 deviate significantly from war-on-terror dogma & national security fetishism and the continuing cover up of our torture regime has not been a major issue in the General Election. Unless the next Cameron poster calls for water-boarding people on benefits. And you know right there, that such a slight joke can be made shows the reality of 2010, torture is a part of life, people generally expect people our governments claim are very evil indeed will be tortured, protesters & Muslim looking males will on occasion be killed by police and the murder of Afghans is somehow the best method of keeping the streets safe in the homeland.

Naomi Klein On The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth

It was 11 am and Evo Morales had turned a football stadium into a giant classroom, marshaling an array of props: paper plates, plastic cups, disposable raincoats, handcrafted gourds, wooden plates and multicolored ponchos. All came into play to make his main point: to fight climate change, “we need to recover the values of the indigenous people.”

Yet wealthy countries have little interest in learning these lessons and are instead pushing through a plan that at its best would raise average global temperatures 2 degrees Celsius. “That would mean the melting of the Andean and Himalayan glaciers,” Morales told the thousands gathered in the stadium, part of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. What he didn’t have to say is that the Bolivian people, no matter how sustainably they choose to live, have no power to save their glaciers.

Bolivia’s climate summit has had moments of joy, levity and absurdity. Yet underneath it all, you can feel the emotion that provoked this gathering: rage against helplessness.

Not A Mistake An Example

Vodpod videos no longer available.
Via Raed in the Middle: WikiLeaks Video: Exception or Example?

Laura Flanders with- Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films, who was in Iraq and visited the scene of the shootings just the day after they happened, and senior fellow at Peace Action, Raed Jarrar.

Rowley (there a day afterwards) recounts that a survivor of the Apache attack died when troops ran over him virtually cutting him in half and both make the point this is not an aberration in spite of ROE but because of them. Also see Democracy Now-

these residents came and told me that the man who they drove over was alive, that he had crawled out of the van that had been shot to pieces and that he was still alive when the Americans drove over him and cut him in half, basically, with a Bradley or tank or whatever armored vehicle they were driving in.

Not breaking the rules but following them, thus all the counter spin is to hide the reality and conduct of the war. Also Glenn Greenwald on this and Obama’s assassination program and Chris Floyd- The Accomodationists: Memo to Liberals on the White House Death Warrants.

Courts Use Tory Law, Under New Labour Government To Fight Class War

As with BA corporations now turn to the courts to delegitimise strike action using the anti-union Trade Union and Labour Relations Act of 1992 brought in by the Conservatives and left on the books by New Labour, 30 years of neoliberal rule-

A high court judge today granted Network Rail a temporary injunction to block next week’s planned four-day rail strike by signal workers. Mrs Justice Sharp made the temporary order after being told that the planned walkout, called by the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, was unlawful because of the way a strike ballot was conducted. Network Rail argued that there were scores of inaccuracies and discrepancies in the vote by signal workers, who backed a walkout with a majority of 54%. It does not affect a separate dispute involving maintenance workers, who still plan to go ahead with strikes next week, although this is expected to cause only minor disruption. The strike was due start on Tuesday, the day Gordon Brown is expected to call a general election.

The TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, said: “It’s becoming increasingly easy for employers, unhappy at the prospect of a dispute, to rely on the courts to intervene and nullify a democratic ballot for industrial action on a mere technicality. Disputes between employers and unions should be settled by negotiation. Today’s decision in the court will simply drag the dispute out and make it more difficult to solve.”

And Another White Terrorist

Ex Territorial Army made bombs and possessed the White Resistance Manual,

A firework containing a lightbulb, a plastic shell attached to a nine volt battery, an electrified wooden clothes peg, and a tub of aluminium powder were all found when officers searched his house in April last year. A polystyrene block painted black, which was designed to contain mercury, was also discovered, the court heard.

Three terrorist training manuals were uncovered on his computer – The White Resistance Manual, The Proper Anarchist’s Cookbook and an explorer’s handbook for Muslim extremists. The Army was called to evacuate his house, which he shares with his parents, and that of his neighbours.

Cartwright was arrested then let out on bail with an electronic tag two months later, but he was arrested again in October when police found similar devices at his house. However, it later emerged the items were missed by officers who conducted the original search.

The cops say-

Acting Detective Chief Inspector Chris Wilde, of Lancashire Constabulary’s Counter Terrorism Branch, said: “Although it became clear during the course of the investigation that Cartwright has no affiliations to any extremist or political groups or organisations or any particular cause or agenda, these were serious offences and we welcome today’s guilty pleas.

Joiner Justin Cartwright, 38, from Penwortham, made crude explosive devices at his home in Woodville Road, and downloaded several terrorist training manuals.

The defence argument ‘his purpose was to stop terrorists, and he hoped to start a business training security officers.’ Was ridiculed but no one tried to connect him to anything wider-

David Farrell QC, prosecuting, told the court Cartwright was “a fantasist” who was “plainly misguided and extremely foolish”.

He added: “What he was proposing was out of touch with reality. It had no place in the real world of close protection training. It was his fantasy world feeding his fascination with the military.”

Judge Anthony Russell told Cartwright: “I accept you have no connection with any terrorist organisation or extreme political organisation. The devices could have been used for some form of terrorist act and could have caused some harm and fear. You made them in your own home with no proper safeguarding for your family or the public.”

Now then would a non-white person having a document about Al Qaeda be seen as having no connection? No. But a militarily trained white man having a white supremacy tract and making IED’s to ‘stop terrorists’ no wider context to that is there-

The MoD has launched an investigation after a photograph of a soldier who had an offensive message written on his kit appeared in its official magazine. The serviceman’s left kneepad has “Get some P*ki” scrawled on it. His picture featured in Soldier magazine alongside a story about new rations for troops.

The picture was printed in January’s edition of Soldier, the magazine of the British army published for the UK armed forces by the Ministry of Defence. Officials airbrushed the online version, but thousands have already been put on sale, with 70,000 sent to serving British troops – many in Afghanistan.

PS. Although the BBC delightfully call photoshopping airbrushing still, that shows that the Army knew what was in the picture, now did they panic after a big print run so the mags were out there and pulping was deemed too costly (although the mag has to be laid out and so that picture got looked at and passed by someone), or did they happily have it out there but for the wider non army online audience they hid something they tacitly approved. No wider context.

Out Of Sight

Current Google trends snapshot-

While Al Maliki is being spun as a cautious winner by the US & UK mainstream, the secular nationalist bloc Al-Iraqiya is showing some legs, although lots of claims of corruption, bans, terrorism and an occupation don’t help (not to mention ongoing birth defects caused by the invaders). But as the above image shows, the people of the nation who drove us into this war and occupation remain relatively uninterested in the world around them, imperialism might fleetingly be glimpsed in relation to a marketing event dressed as film awards ceremony (of which many seem unsure of the date & time it takes place) and that’s about it.

PS. Oops I tell a lie, Iraq Election is  No. 2 in US topics, though not searches, Oscars of course is number 1.

Andy Worthington On Amnesty, Gita Sahgal & Moazzam Begg

I think this can reasonably be called expert opinion and is required reading to anyone interested in this issue (and not just because he references one of my previous posts, although clearly he displays consummate good taste there!). He very perceptively notes how this is being used as a vehicle by some figures with pre-existing agendas that are in fact at odds with human rights. This is the wider context that I think those immediately rushing to seeing this in stark terms are crucially lacking. There is also this transcript made by Earwicga of Gita Sahgal’s short interview on the Today programme (and oh dear is that Justin ‘Dim but Dim’ Webb interviewing her, oh Today, poor wee programme). He also has had much time to talk and debate with Moazzam Begg, something Sahgal hasn’t which is why I think she should spend some time talking with him rather than journalists looking to stir things.

Peace & Arms Deals- ‘the IDF’s qualitative edge’

While Clinton creates another piece of theatre in the ongoing fictitious peace process… what are these self declared peace seeking Nobeled saints actually talking about-

The Bush administration violated security related agreements with Israel in which the U.S. promised to preserve the IDF’s qualitative edge over Arab armies, according to senior officials in the Obama administration and Israel.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak traveled to the U.S. in September for a rushed meeting in which it was agreed that the two allies would discuss how to resolve the problems regarding this issue.

U.S. National Security Adviser General James Jones is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Tuesday for what is likely to be talks on the issue of the IDF’s qualitative edge. Senior sources in the current U.S. administration, and senior officials at the foreign and defense ministries in Israel, have suggested that during the last year of the Bush administration the U.S. sold advanced military equipment to moderate Arab states – Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. The Americans justified the arms sales with the need to bolster these countries against the perceived threat posed by Iran.

In an address before the National Jewish Democratic Council, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, commented on the matter. “We discovered that the qualitative edge of the IDF has been eroded,” Oren said. “We came to the Obama administration and said: ‘Listen, we have a problem.'”

According to Oren the response of the Obama administration was positive and immediate. “They said they are going to deal with this matter and ensure that the qualitative edge of the IDF is preserved,” he said. “Since then we have embarked on a dialogue [on preserving the IDF’s qualitative edge].”

The arms transfers that were particularly disturbing for Israel were of advanced air and naval systems. For example, the U.S. sold Saudi Arabia advanced F-15 fighter-bombers, similar to the ones it sold Israel. According to Israeli assessments, following the U.S. sales to the Saudi kingdom, the Saudi Air Force is currently in possession of 200-250 aircraft of this type.

In addition, the U.S. sold Saudi Arabia and other Arab states satellite-guided and laser-guided “smart bombs” for their fighter aircraft, as well as advanced anti-ship missiles and electronic suites for aircraft, all similar to the equipment in the IDF.

Toward the end of the Bush term in office, the defense establishment recommended to the political leadership to raise the issue with the incoming U.S. administration. Defense establishment officials warned that the U.S. is arming countries in the moderate Arab camp in “a way that erodes the qualitative edge of the IDF, especially in the air.”

In recent months officials close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began quiet exchanges with their U.S. counterparts on ways of retaining the IDF’s balance of arms. The negotiations are held at the highest levels, with the White House and the Pentagon.

In September, for example, a day before the start of the United Nations General Assembly conference in New York, Barak traveled to Washington and the purpose of his meetings there were kept under wraps. At the time, the defense minister’s office announced that Barak had met with Jones and other senior administration officials in order to discuss the resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians.

In subsequent talks between the Obama administration and Israel, Israeli officials have stressed that the arms provided with the aim of bolstering moderate Arab states against Iran could be directed in the future against Israel. A number of meetings have taken place since, in an effort to “assess the damage” and find ways of securing the IDF’s qualitative edge. Last week, Haaretz reported that the Obama administration will sell advanced weapons systems to Arab states.

According to the weekly Jewish publication Forward, as a result of Israeli concerns the Obama administration intends to make changes to deals that the Bush administration signed with Arab states and are currently being implemented.

So further confirmation of the legal requirement the US imposed on itself to maintain Israel’s military superiority (22 USC Sec. 2776) and a rather predictable glimpse of the Bush regime’s fondness for money and aggression towards Iran, which apparently meant to the entitled Zionists superior arms sales were insufficiently centred on Israel even if they liked the Iran bashing (but it seems that is their gig and they do not trust Arabs to do it even if the neocons attempts to divide and conquer Shia and Sunni worked), so they whine and Obama promises to do better. Y’konw, the guy with the peace prize. That would be two sides of the peace talks promising to ensure the third party and all others in the region are militarily weak. Yes of course they seek peace, isn’t that what they said? And politician’s would never lie. Which is also perhaps why when the IAEA was ‘concerned’ over Israel’s rogue nukes, it was reported virtually nowhere and aid convoys can be delayed and attacked. Our country along with the US, Israel and Egypt are conspiring to besiege Gaza, which is also not a very peace seeking thing to do. And dutifully our media tell us about the peace process as if bullies’ conditions for submission are such a great deal.

New Year, Same Shit?

Courtiers relaying gossip to the hoi polloi. Canada under its Neocons, who needs a parliament? The Genocidal Lusts of Imperial Elites

Tribal justice-

The Blackwater mercenaries who massacred 17 Iraqi civilians have been let off by a US judge because they gave evidence under duress – the threat of losing their jobs…Yet evidence given by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed during hundreds of torture sessions, including over a hundred sessions of waterboarding, is admissible in the US, torture apparently not being duress like the threat of losing your job.

The warfare in the Congo continues, Hillary Clinton’s words were just that, try to act surprised.

Hundreds of thousands of women, children and men are repeatedly raped and their bodies and lives destroyed and why?  Because “the minerals of the Congo continue to be exploited by the world”.  Basically because we don’t give a shit as long as we can continue to buy whatever we want to.

As I cooked my mother her dinner (tomato and garlic sauce with shallots and mushrooms on wholemeal spaghetti with some honey roasted carrots if you must know) I had the misfortune of seeing the ITV news (I’ll catch Who on the iplayer) and it would not be out of place in North Korea, the emotional masturbation over returned ‘hostage’ (POW) and the deaths of our troops in Afghanistan, no mention of Afghan deaths as far as I heard… or Iraqi. Anglophone tribalism shot through with nationalism conveyed simply enough 8 year olds can understand it is not, as far as I have checked, journalism.

So will it be the same shit, or has a decade of war on terror bullshit finally run out of credulous morons to con?

Juan Cole’s probably necessary but sounds a bit patronising Top Ten Good News Stories from the Muslim World in 2009 that You Never Heard About lists as number one-

1. A considerable proportion of the Iranian public resorted to concerted street and cultural protests against the stealing of the June presidential election by incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Crowds demanded popular sovereignty and democracy and condemned dictatorship. Among the largest demonstrations were held just last Sunday. It is the greatest political awakening in Iran for 30 years.

The regime want to hang onto power, not least because the brutality they have meted out they are afraid will come back on them if they are removed, they are in full on destroy opposition in all and any forms mode. Nevermind the soundbite ‘Green revolution’ this is a larger turmoil that is not about replacing one regime with one ‘more Western friendly’ as most imperially privileged observers witter on about incessantly (I think in most case they don’t even recognise their immense biases and assumptions), we should support moves for liberty and self determination while obstructing outside forces who seek to control Iran for their gain.

Gaza is now more besieged than ever in the face of the Freedom March and Viva Palestina Egypt has shown it will not demur from the conspirers in the collective torture being meted out to the Palestinians. There are people who talk about the ‘peace process’ well for that you have to stop warfare and that includes sieges, colonising , ethnic cleansing and apartheid laws, oddly they affect ignorance of many of those realities (which is necessary to believe there is a current actual ‘peace process’), all the oppressors agreeing to support Zionism is not a ‘peace process’.

I will not mourn CIA operatives killed by resistance forces in Afghanistan, the CIA murders and tortures people and is also likely involved in the heroin trade. No such sorrow is expressed for the civilians wiped out by remote control by video game playing young adults, that is a dynamic of tribalism and Imperial privilege that goes unchallenged. Our side to be mourned unquestionably the ‘other’, well not even worth thinking about. It is preferable that violent death does not happen but given the circumstances people have a right to self defence against invading and occupying forces. Although to be honest this is just as likely to be over a big drug deal as anything else. Meanwhile Obama is destroying evidence of war crimes Demolishing Bagram.

That Newsnight Piece Trafigura Want Memory Holed

(Trafigura dumps toxic waste, people suffer & die on the Ivory Coast, Trafigura uses Carter Ruck to silence reporting with our draconian libel laws etc. I was mid real world stuff so missed out on the first round of this with the commons question stuff) From Don’t Get Fooled Again Via D-Notice (and more links & Censored Newsnight Story-pdf)-

I have downloaded the clips in case it disappears, please repost and spread it around. Google cache of the missing page here.

PS. Another report is still up (which had me confused at first) worth a read too.

PPS. On an ontological tangent, I take back ‘real world stuff’ this is real world too, I should say I was too busy with immediate family concerns to do much reading/surfing.

Say No To Fascists In Wrexham

From Proper Tidy:- Saturday Queens Square Wrexham 11am – 4pm Wrexham Communities Festival – Let’s show the EDL they are not welcome in Wales. Lots of music, dancing, food vans, kids fun-fair, percussion workshop, martial arts exhibition.

Resorting To Threats Of Violence Is A Fascist Reaction

Perversely the strange cult (Cheerleaders, Fighting Cocks, whatever) around Tory Islamophobe Dominic Wightman and Charlie Flowers/Ludas Matyi (and by association Patrick ‘once sacked for racism‘ Mercer MP) claim to fight extremism yet they applaud intimidation and threats of violence against blogger Tim Ireland which are strongly reminiscent of the common or garden fascist. What is even more puzzling is they appear to also be a ‘band’ who rather than rebellion and anti establishment passion proudly associate themselves with state security services in the name of fighting ‘radical Islam’, how very Rock & Roll. It’s as if Nine Inch Nails teamed up with the CIA and released an album about how great it is to bomb Iraq… (except NIN are talented, can play and more than 3 people have heard of them). The whole thing seems so cack handed it’s enough to make you wonder if our spooks are part funding this astroturf oddment, it’s Terry & June dressed as punks in its cultural illiteracy.

So if the only answer to journalistic enquiry is to challenge someone to a fight we can deduce they have no arguments. I suppose it could be worse, they could be threatening to play their albums at bloggers. To those people in the ‘band’ who may not be fully aware of the odd activities of the ringleaders, I would find some musical differences quick and move on to more talented pastures.