General International views

[michelle]

The great catastrophe

Monday marks the 58th anniversary of the founding of Israel in 1948 - and the expulsion of Palestinians from their land. With millions still living under occupation or in exile, what Palestinians call their 'nakba' remains at the heart of their national identity, argues Karma Nabulsi

Friday May 12, 2006
The Guardian

In the last week of April 1948, combined Irgun-Haganah forces launched an offensive to drive the Palestinian people out of the beautiful port city of Jaffa, forcing the remaining inhabitants to flee by sea; many drowned in the process. My aunt Rose, a teenager at that time, survived the trip to begin her life in exile on the Lebanese coast. Each Palestinian refugee family grows up hearing again and again the stories of those final moments in Palestine, the decisions, the panic, as we live in the midst of their terrible consequences. Throughout 1948, Jewish forces expelled many thousands of Palestinians from their villages, towns and cities into Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of others fled in fear. The purpose was to create a pure Jewish state, ethnically cleansed of the original inhabitants who had lived there for centuries. The creation of the state of Israel was the heart of this cataclysmic historical event for the Palestinians - the mass forced expulsion of a people; the more than 50 massacres carried out over the summer of 1948 by various armed Jewish forces; the demolition of villages to ensure the refugees could not return - all this is summed up in a single word for Palestinians: nakba, the catastophe.

"We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinians] never do return ... The old will die and the young will forget," said David Ben-Gurion, the founder of Israel, in 1949. But the young have not forgotten. The event is remembered every year on May 15, and the youth are at the heart of it: at a rally on the site of the destroyed village of Umm al-Zinnat near Haifa, Salim Fahmawi, now 65, a primary school student when the soldiers entered the village 56 years ago to expel them, told an Israeli reporter: "The presence of so many young people, many of whom are third- and fourth-generation post-1948, gives me a sense of relief - because I know the torch has not been extinguished and is passing from generation to generation."
Nakba day has now become a profoundly political event - unlike other cultural and social manifestations of our national identity - because it is all about resistance to the current Palestinian situation rather than enshrining past memories of victimhood. The project against the Palestinians begun at the start of the past century had two purposes: first, to deny the very concept of Palestine and destroy its political and social institutions, and second, to annihilate the spirit of the Palestinians as a people, so that they would forget their collective identity once scattered far from home. But the relentless and dynamic nature of the catastrophe - it is an ongoing daily Palestinian experience - binds this generation directly to the older one, and binds the exiled to Palestine. Indeed, the past few years have witnessed a violent acceleration in this process of attempted destruction - hence the title of this year's event: The Nakba Continues.

The nakba is being lived again today in the brutal thrust of the current policies of the Israeli state. More than 10,000 Palestinian refugees have been created by the construction of the concrete separation wall that has cordoned off huge new tracts of occupied land. This wall, condemned as illegal by the International Court of Justice, has turned West Bank cities such as Qalqilya into ghost towns, and thousands of refugees have been created for the third and fourth time in the refugee camps in Gaza. Yet it is not simply in the building of the walls and checkpoints by Israel's occupying forces, or the different roads created for Jews and Arabs on Palestinian land, or the use of specially constructed bulldozers that rip up Palestinian orchards and olive groves and demolish hundreds of homes, or the imprisonment of thousands of political prisoners, or the daily murder of Palestinian civilians, that demonstrates the continuing nature of the nakba. It is also in the dedication of Israel's military and political machinery to the destruction of Palestinian resistance to their project.

This resistance operates on two levels, just as the nakba operated - and operates today - on both. The first is the Palestinians' physical effort to resist Israeli attempts to dispossess, disinherit and physically control them and their land, to get rid of its people and to militarily control and legally disenfranchise those they cannot. The second lies in the Palestinians' existential affirmation of their identity in the face of a systematic Israeli effort to fragment and destroy it, so that Palestinians will surrender, submit, forget. But no matter how violently the first method is used by Israel, the second has been a failure: Palestinian identity is stronger than ever in 2006.

Nevertheless, the denial of the Palestinians' right to resist what has been imposed on them has been demonstrated dramatically in recent weeks. We have witnessed the astonishing international policy of imposing sanctions as a form of collective punishment on an occupied people - rather than on their occupier who is maintaining that occupation through brute violence. Vital international aid for basic services has been cut off by the European Union and the US - from Palestinians in the territories occupied by Israel since 1967 - because they elected Hamas, voting for representatives who had campaigned on a platform promising to hold the line against this destruction of their national identity and rights.

The most malicious aspect of this policy is the fact that the money being withheld is only needed because the occupation tactics of curfews, closures and checkpoints have destroyed the Palestinian economy. The financial catastrophe triggered by these sanctions is created entirely by the Israeli occupation itself, as World Bank and British parliamentary select committee reports have made clear. The punishment of starving the Palestinians is quite blatant: to force them to their knees and make them repudiate their elected representatives. Even more absurdly, Israel has not accepted - or even been asked to accept - any of the parallel conditions being demanded of the Palestinians for a resumption of aid: an end to violence; the acceptance of the 1993 Oslo agreements; or the recognition of a Palestinian state in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967: the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. Instead they build expand settlements, denounce the Oslo accords, and have used increasingly indiscriminate violence in both Gaza and the West Bank. The west's response in a conflict it helped created 58 years ago has fallen to a truly cruel, but also bizarre level.

This denial of Palestinians' worth has been demonstrated again in the way western media studiedly ignore their daily suffering. In April and May, more than 40 Palestinians have been killed by the army - most of them civilians, at least eight of them children - with the most perfunctory coverage in the western press. Schoolchildren blown to bits while playing in Beit Lahia, like Mamdouh Obeid; Eitan Youssef, a 41-year-old mother from Tulkarm, shot in front of her children because troops "thought they saw a suspicious movement"; an old man, Musa Sawarkah, herding his flock in Gaza, gunned down; a taxi-driver, Zakariya Daraghmeh,"accidentally" shot in the back in Nablus. Each one a story unheard, untold.

The predicament of life under military occupation is usually recognised in principle, but life in exile has its own characteristics, and continues to create its own bitter experience for Palestinians. Most young Palestinians today live not in the West Bank or Gaza, but in the immediate region outside of historic Palestine in the Arab world: stateless, ID-less, jobless, without the international legal protections of other refugees from other countries. Theirs is often a relentless struggle to live any kind of life at all. The younger generation, wherever they are, possess a common character created through these harsh conditions of exile and passed on through others' memories of place names, old liberation songs, photographs of eternally absent relatives, intimate domestic connections and objects - above all, the rusted key to the front door of the lost house, never seen. As the French philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs first noted, human memory is an entirely collective engagement. In his nook La mémoire collective, published in 1949 four years after he was executed at Buchenwald, Halbwachs was the first to recognise that memory itself is never really individual.

In 2005, young Palestinian activists helped to organise more than 100 meetings in refugee camps and exile communities in more than 28 countries. The idea was to bring Palestinians together - whether under occupation or in exile - to discuss the things they want to do next. I participated in many of these gatherings and witnessed the promise of this generation replicating something they have no first-hand experience themselves, for it is rarely talked about and is as yet unwritten: the secret history of the previous generation of Palestinian resistance activists and fighters. Their current endeavours echo the same practices, the same spirit, and the same direction.

Although these huge meetings held last year were all organised locally, the transcripts - from places as far apart as Australia, Iraq, Egypt, Sweden, Lebanon, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Greece - show that a shared conversation is happening. Palestinians are reclaiming their past - of the nakba and dispossession - and at the same time preparing the next phase of their fight for justice. By some miracle of the general will, every Palestinian has somehow, through different journeys, arrived together at the same place.

· Karma Nabulsi is a politics fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford University and a former PLO representative.
Source: www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1773020,00.html

[michelle]

7 House Members Arrested at Sudan Embassy

Tuesday May 16, 2006 9:46 PM
By FREDERIC J. FROMMER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Seven members of the Congressional Black Caucus were arrested at the Embassy of Sudan on Tuesday while protesting conditions in the nation's Darfur region.

``We will not tolerate genocide,'' said Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., the caucus chairman. ``We are saying to Sudan this has got to stop.''

The seven were taken away in Secret Service cars after blocking the entrance to an embassy. They were released a short time later after paying $50 fines.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., wore a green T-shirt that read, ``End the Darfur Genocide.''

Lee said she visited the Darfur region, where ``I saw the desperation in the eyes of the people.''

The Sudanese government and main Darfur rebel group signed an agreement on May 5 to end Darfur's three-year civil war, which has killed at least 180,000 and displaced some 2 million people. But there have been several attacks since the signing, U.N. officials said.

Khidir Haroun Ahmed, Sudan's ambassador to the United States, called the protest ``unfortunate.''

``We think the effort should be exerted toward persuading the other two rebel movements to sign the peace agreement,'' he said. A splinter faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement and the rebel Justice and Equality Movement have resisted pressure to join the agreement.

Tuesday's protesters said they want an end to the violence; accountability for those responsible; U.N. peacekeepers; distribution of food to help prevent starvation; and full implementation of the peace agreement.

``Enough is enough,'' said Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. ``We must do all we can to stop the violence.''

The other lawmakers arrested Tuesday were Reps. Al Green, D-Texas, Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, and District of Columbia Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat.

The lawmakers held the rally on the steps of the embassy with the intention of getting arrested. The Secret Service was given advance notice, and let the lawmakers take questions for several minutes before arresting them. Last month, five other House members were arrested after a similar protest at the embassy.

Darfur has been torn by violence since rebel groups made up of ethnic Africans rose up against the Arab-led Khartoum government in 2003. The government is accused of responding by unleashing Arab militias known as the Janjaweed who have been accused of some of the war's worst atrocities. Khartoum denies backing the Janjaweed but has said it will try to rein them in since the deal was signed.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5826059,00.html

[michelle]

US Agents Shoot Driver On Border

NOTE: I didn't know where to put this one, so here it is. Any Mexicans reading here may want to be aware of this.

OK, America, typical of U.S. citizens' reactionary responses to information supplied to them, many in the United States turned on illegal immigrants in this country. They could not see that this was just another way to blow smoke up our butts to take our eyes off of the growing awareness of what the Bush administration is all about. They did a great job of dividing us ever further, turning one group against the other, and seeding more HATE within Americans against others.

So now we're KILLING anyone who dares to cross our boarders. IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED TO HAPPEN?! I've said it over and over again:
That if U.S. citizens had been paying attention to the plight of third world residents and lent their support or solidarity to worker's rights around the world we would not be losing our jobs overseas or to immigrants within our country because corporations would have to pay fair wages globally. If you pressed me, I would stand with the immigrants in this country. I would ask you: "Do you understand that NAFTA and CAFTA, put into policy by our government, has been devastating to the poor in Latin American countries?

I've personally heard many people speak in favor of building a wall at our borders. Great, and while we're at it let's electrify the wall, and here's a good idea; why don't we take it a step further and build a moat around the wall. That will take care of any scum who want to take our jobs away!

Get real, America. Where's your compassion, your humanity? Now we're another step closer to marital law, one step closer to a totalitarian government. There are reports out that U.S. citizens who LOOK like an immigrant are being arrested. There are reports that spouses of U.S. citizens, married for many years, are being deported. Did you ever think that YOUR movements could be contained if all hell breaks loose here? Did you ever think that YOU could be shot in a case of mistaken identity?

Go ahead, America, keep on reacting like mindless puppets; you've played right into their hands........Michelle

US agents shoot driver on border
THOMAS WATKINS
IN SAN DIEGO
Sat 20 May 2006

THE driver of a car suspected of carrying illegal immigrants was shot and killed by US federal agents as he tried to cross the border back into Mexico.

The world's busiest border crossing, the San Ysidro Port of Entry which links Tijuana in Mexico with San Diego in the United States, was closed for nine hours after the shooting until early yesterday morning.

Border agents had pulled over a four-by-four vehicle after reports that its driver had picked up what appeared to be a group of illegal immigrants.

When the driver tried to veer back into traffic on Interstate 5, the officers fired.

The shooting came as George Bush, the US president, has come under pressure over illegal immigration from Mexico.

He has announced that the National Guard's part-time soldiers will be used to help police the border.

The Mexican government asked its consulate to investigate the shooting, which occurred about 50ft north of the border.

Lieutenant Kevin Rooney, of the San Diego police department, said US border protection agents began following the vehicle after somebody reported seeing a group of suspected illegal immigrants get into the car near the American side of the Otay Mesa border crossing.

As traffic backed up near the border, the vehicle stopped on the hard shoulder.

When agents approached and tried to get the driver to step out of the car, the suspect "began to drive off and he veered hard to the left, trying to get back in traffic", Lt Rooney said.

Two agents then opened fire, he said. It was not immediately clear if the driver, who was not identified, was armed.

He was pronounced dead at the scene with multiple gunshot wounds, said Maurice Luque, a spokesman for the San Diego fire department. No other injuries were reported.

The five passengers, who were also not identified, were taken into US custody.

Anna Valderrama of Tijuana, Mexico, who was about four vehicles back when the shooting took place, said that she had been stuck in her car for more than two hours.

"I was going to eat with my family," said Ms Valderrama. "I feel desperate to go home."

Ruben Aguilar, a spokesman for the Mexican president, said it appeared the driver was engaging in organised crime or people smuggling and that the vehicle was trying to escape US officials by crossing into Mexico.

It was unclear whether Mexican citizens had been involved, he said.

In a new immigration bill, Mr Bush has proposed an overhaul that combines better border security with a guest worker programme, allowing some people working illegally to stay.

The president faces resistance from conservative Republicans, who prefer a get-tough approach and oppose the guest-worker programme, which they see as providing amnesty for criminal behaviour.

Meanwhile, a presidential spokesman said yesterday that Mr Bush supported two Senate proposals that English is the official US language and the "common and unifying language". The United States currently has no official national language.
[I'm so pleased that Congress is taking action; that's getting something done, Senators! Does this mean anyone who doesn't speak English in the United States will be shot on the spot?]
SOURCE:
news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=748992006

[michelle]

Where are the Arabs in this Israel-US show?
By Linda S. Heard
Online Journal Contributing Writer
May 17, 2006, 11:44

Israel looks set to talk peace with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Now for the bad news: according to Israelis in the know, the proposed powwow is pure American and Israeli PR. The Palestinians are being conned all over again while the Arab world watches in virtual silence.

Hamas has been officially labelled "a terrorist entity" by the West. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been ignored by Israel; his party discredited as corrupt. The Palestinians have been subjected to collective deprivation and starvation because they were perceived to have backed the wrong horse.

The US has intimidated Arab banks not to transfer donations to the Palestinian National Authority. Frustrations have led to Palestinian infighting on the street. It's not a pretty picture, and it's set to get worse.

The current chaos within the Palestinian territories triggered mainly by Israel's determination to bring down the Hamas-led authority, championed by Washington, plays right into the ambitions of Sharon's like-minded successor Ehud Olmert.

Based on a faux premise that Israel does not have a peace partner, Olmert has devised what he calls "a convergence plan," which basically translates to Israel grabbing any Palestinian land it sees fit, and drawing its own borders. Ha'aretz correspondent Aluf Benn says the Bush administration is likely to rubber stamp this move viewed by Israeli officials as "the only game in town."

But first, he says, there will be an organised charade. Washington wants to be perceived by its allies as the good guy and, thus, will encourage Tel Aviv to engage Abbas in peace talks, designed to go precisely nowhere.

Underhanded Strategy

The question that immediately springs to mind is this: Why is Olmert's underhanded strategy, designed to leave the Palestinians stateless and subsisting under the poverty line in perpetuity, seen as "the only game in town?"

What happened to the much touted "roadmap?" Why has the Saudi-inspired Arab peace initiative adopted during a 2002 Arab League summit been swept under the carpet?

In reality, the "roadmap" was a damp squib from the get-go. Bush's distaste was palpable the day that he announced it from the Rose Garden, looking as though he had a bad smell under his nose. The "roadmap" was nothing more than a sap to Tony Blair, needed at the time to get on board the invasion of Iraq.

As for the Arab peace initiative, Sharon dismissed this historic breakthrough out of hand, while the international media curiously played it down.

Israel's rejection of the Saudi plan proves more than anything that it is more interested in power and land theft than all encompassing peace and security. If the initiative had been embraced, people in this region would be booking vacations to Tel Aviv by now and stocking supermarket shelves with jars of Israeli dill pickles. More importantly, the Palestinians could finally get on with the process of living and US armies would be under pressure to butt out from all sides of the divide.

I'll say it again. There is another plan in town and this is it: In return for Israeli withdrawal from all territories occupied since 1967 and return of Palestinian refugees to Israel, all Arab countries will recognise the Israeli state and conduct normal relations with it.

Flowers Instead of Bullets

Just imagine the implications. There would be no Palestinian "problem." Investments would flood into the West Bank, Gaza and Israel. The streets of Palestine could be lined with flowers instead of bullets.

Israelis could visit pizza parlours with abandon. Palestinian children could play outside without fear of being the victims of tank shells or missiles. Arabs and Israelis could trade together, exchange technology and learn about each other's cultures.

Moreover, from an international perspective, groups like Al Qaida would be weakened without one of the mainstays of their ideological fight and those Arab countries, considered to be failed, would no longer have any excuse for their neglect in joining the 21st century.

The Arab peace initiative doesn't ask anything of Israel that is not already enshrined in resolutions adopted by the UN. This is the only plan in town that would truly work, one which would be fair and equitable for all involved. In this case, Arab leaders should surely be shouting it from the rooftops.

Peace cannot be left to the devices of the US and its client state in the region. American foreign policy still rides on the old British "divide and rule" precept. If Arabs and Israelis got together they would soon be telling Washington "out damned spot." And Israel, despite playing the eternal victim, is content with the status quo, its military and nuclear might ensuring its security. In this way, it keeps Washington happy, hangs on to Palestinian land and cocks a snook at its neighbours.

Arabs must act now. If necessary using their oil, investments in the West and their status as hosts for US bases as bargaining chips. Else, Occupied Jerusalem will be swiped forever, Palestinians will be left to scratch a living in Bantustans and the eternal Intifadah will be born.

Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at [e-mail].
Source:
onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_806.shtml

****************************************************
A LETTER TO AIPAC
By Betty McCollum

The letter below was sent by Representative Betty McCollum, a Democrat from Minnesota, to the executive director of AIPAC. The bill mentioned, H.R. 4681, the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006, would place so many restraints on aid to the Palestinian people, and so many restrictions on the administration's ability to deal with the Palestinians, that even the State Department has opposed it. AIPAC has strongly backed it. The Senate version of the bill, S. 2237, would allow the administration far more flexibility. On April 6, the House International Relations Committee passed H.R. 4681 by a vote of 36 to 2; McCollum was one of the two nays. As of May 11, AIPAC has yet to respond to her demand for an apology.

—Michael Massing
April 10, 2006

Mr. Howard Kohr
Executive Director
American Israel Public Affairs Committee
440 First Street, NW; Suite 600
Washington, D.C. 20001

Dear Mr. Kohr:

During my nineteen years serving in elected office, including the past five years as a Member of Congress, never has my name and reputation been maligned or smeared as it was last week by a representative of AIPAC. Last Friday, during a call with my chief of staff, an AIPAC representative from Minnesota who has frequently lobbied me on behalf of your organization stated, "on behalf of herself, the Jewish community, AIPAC, and the voters of the Fourth District, Congresswoman McCollum's support for terrorists will not be tolerated." Ironically, this individual, who does not even live in my congressional district, feels free to speak for my constituents.

This response may have been the result of extreme emotion or irrational passion, but regardless, it is a hateful attack that is vile and offensive to me and the families I represent. I call on AIPAC to immediately condemn this un-American attack and disavow any attempt to use this type of threat and intimidation to stifle legitimate policy differences. I will not stand to be labeled or threatened in a manner that questions my patriotism or my oath of office.

Last week, I did vote against H.R. 4681 during mark-up of the bill in the House International Relations Committee. As a Member of Congress sworn to uphold the Constitution, and ensure the security of the US and represent the values and beliefs of the constituents who I serve, it was my view that H.R. 4681 goes beyond the State Department's current policies toward Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and potentially undermines the US position vis-à-vis the coordinated international pressure on Hamas. The language contained in S. 2237 accurately reflects my position.

Keeping diplomatic pressure on Hamas to renounce terrorism, recognize the State of Israel, dismantle terrorist infrastructure, and honor past agreements and treaty obligations, while preventing a humanitarian crisis among the Palestinian people, are all policy goals already strongly supported by myself, the Bush administration, Congress and the American people. But, if the purpose of H.R. 4681 was to send another strong message to Hamas and the Palestinian people, as Congress already has sent with the passage of S. Con. Res. 79, then I disagree with the vehicle for that message. In my opinion, Congress should be articulating clear support for the Secretary of State's present course of action; not creating a new law which likely diminishes the diplomatic tools needed to advance US policy goals with regard to the Palestinian people, potentially cuts US funding to the United Nations, and largely restates current law while creating on-going and burdensome unfunded reporting requirements.

As you well know, in Congress we do not shy away from condemning the vile words of despots and dictators who use anti-Semitism as a weapon to incite hatred, fear and violence. AIPAC should not have a lower standard for persons affiliated and representing its organization when they label a Member of Congress who thinks for herself and always puts the interest of our nation and people first a supporter of terrorists.

You and your colleagues at AIPAC have the right to disagree with my position on any piece of legislation, but for an AIPAC representative to say that I would ever vote to support Middle East terrorists over the interests of my country will never be tolerated by me or the families I serve. This incident rises to a level in which a formal, written apology is required.

Mr. Kohr, I am a supporter of a strong US–Israeli relationship and my voting record speaks for itself. This will not change. But until I receive a formal, written apology from your organization I must inform you that AIPAC representatives are not welcome in my offices or for meetings with my staff.

Betty McCollum
Member of Congress
4th District, Minnesota
Washington, D.C.

Source: www.nybooks.com/articles/19063

[michelle]

Sat 27 May 2006
More than 1300 dead as earthquake rips through city in Indonesia

A POWERFUL earthquake killed more than 1300 people in Indonesia today as it flattened buildings and ripped up roads.

Government officials said hospitals had been overwhelmed by the tragedy and that the death toll could be even higher.

The Indonesian Red Cross could not confirm the toll, saying its figure stood at 446 dead and nearly 3000 injured. The magnitude 6.2 quake struck at 5.50am near the ancient city of Yogyakarta as many people slept, causing many deaths in the area as well as severe damage.

Roads and bridges were destroyed, hindering efforts to get the wounded to hospitals.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered the army to help evacuate victims, as panicked residents ran into the smouldering streets, many clutching young children. He said he would head to the disaster zone in Central Java province later today.

Eight hours after the quake struck, the number of dead stood at 1325, said Social Affairs Ministry official Andriana.

The Indonesian Red Cross said its toll stood at 446, but that it had not been able to reach officials in one of the most devastated areas, Bantul, which the ministry had.

"Their death toll is very possible," said Arifin Muhadi, head of the Red Cross disaster division. "We just don't know yet."

The victims had generally suffered head injuries and broken bones from collapsing buildings.

"Most of them have wounds on their heads. The numbers are going to escalate," a hospital official said.

Yogyakarta is on Indonesia's main island of Java and near Mount Merapi, a volcano that has been on top alert for a major eruption this month. A vulcanologist in Yogyakarta said the quake was not caused by the volcano.
Source:
news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=785772006

[michelle]

Featured Video:
Hunt for earthquake survivors Report

May 28 - Rescuers search desperately for survivors of Indonesia's deadly earthquake, as residents return to their ruined homesThe death toll from Saturday's 6.2 magnitude dawn quake has climbed quickly into the thousands. According to UNICEF, the U.N. Children's Fund, more than 100,000 people have been left homeless.

Go to: tinyurl.com/hb7yz

[michelle]

CUPE Ontario Supports Campaign Against Israel

Ontario's Largest Public Sector Union Has Voted
To Support An International Campaign Of Boycott,
Divestment And Sanctions Against Israel
Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Ontario's largest public sector union has voted to support an international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

Delegates to the Canadian Union of Public Employees convention in voted overwhelmingly Saturday to support the campaign until Israel recognizes the Palestinian right to self-determination.

The global campaign started last July and has been supported by many North American churches, 20 Quebec organizations, and others.

The Israeli “apartheid wall” has been condemned and determined illegal under international law, CUPE said in a release.

Under the resolution approved by delegates, CUPE Ontario will develop an education campaign about the issue, including Canada's political and economic support for Israeli policies, similar to the campaign developed by CUPE British Columbia.

Canada has a free trade agreement with Israel, the only such agreement this country has outside of the western hemisphere, the union noted.

In Ontario, the liquor control board carried more than 30 Israeli wines, many produced in the occupied Golan Heights, CUPE said.

“Boycott, divestment and sanction worked to end apartheid in South Africa,” said Katherine Nastovski, chairwoman of the CUPE Ontario international solidarity committee. “We believe the same strategy will work to enforce the rights of Palestinian people, including the right of refugees to return to their homes and properties.”
Source:
tinyurl.com/mp3aq

[michelle]

Don't be held prisoner by Holocaust guilt, Iranian leader tells Germans

IRAN'S president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has told Germans they should no longer allow themselves to be held prisoner by a sense of guilt over the Holocaust.

In an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, he said he doubted that Germans were allowed to write "the truth" about the Holocaust. "More than 60 million were killed in World War Two ... the question is: why is it that only Jews are at the centre of attention? How long is this going to go on? How long will the German people be held hostage to the Zionists? Why should you feel obligated to the Zionists? You've paid reparations for 60 years and will have to pay for another 100 years."

Mr Ahmadinejad went on: "We say, if the Holocaust happened, then the Europeans must accept the consequences and the price should not be paid by Palestine. If it did not happen, then the Jews must return to where they came from."

The president, a football fan, also said he might still go to Germany to support Iran in the World Cup, despite protests over his possible visit that he claimed had been stirred up by a "worldwide network of Zionists".

Related topics:

Iran
news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=386
Holocaust
news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=739

Source:
news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=791472006

[michelle]

The Toronto terror plot and the Canadian establishment’s political agenda
By Keith Jones
16 June 2006

The alleged Toronto terror plot is being used by Canada’s ruling elite to stampede the public into accepting a dramatic shift to the right in Canada’s foreign and domestic policies.

By conjuring up the image of a Canada under siege from al-Qaeda and “homegrown” Islamicist terrorists, the Conservative government, the national security establishment, the corporate media, and a pliant official opposition are seeking to overcome popular resistance to Canada’s participation in wars, closer collaboration with the Bush administration, further economic and geo-political integration with the United States, and increased repressive powers for the state.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been quick to hold up the alleged Toronto terror plot as proof of his longstanding claim that Canada is not immune from terrorism and to justify Canada’s enhanced role in suppressing opposition to the US-installed Afghan government of Hamid Karzai.

“This country is as much a [terrorist target] as the United States,” affirmed Harper in a radio interview last week. “That’s why not only is the government acting nationally against terror threats, but we’re working globally in Afghanistan and all over the world to deal with this problem.”

The uncovering of a Toronto terrorist network has come at a highly sensitive time for the four month-old Conservative government and Canada’s national-security establishment. Last month the Harper government took the highly controversial decision to extend and expand the Canadian Armed Force’s counter-insurgency mission in Afghanistan.

Parliament is currently conducting a statutory review of Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act. Adopted in December 2001, the act created a new category of political crimes subject to harsher penalties, empowered the state to compel testimony, and expanded the state’s prerogative to prevent the accused in terrorism cases, their lawyers, and the public from knowing the substance and source of evidence against them.

And this week the Supreme Court heard a challenge to the constitutionality of “national security certificates”—a legal instrument whereby the state can indefinitely detain persons without charge.

A familiar pattern

Canada’s ruling elite is following the international pattern of using a grossly-exaggerated terror threat to push for the implementation of a pre-determined right-wing agenda.

The Bush administration seized on the events of September 11, 2001 to realize the US elite’s ambition of seizing strategic beachheads in the oil-rich regions of Central Asia and the Middle East and, through the Patriot Act, greatly expanded the state’s power to spy on domestic opponents of the government. Bush, Vice President Cheney, and both the Republican and Democratic parties have repeatedly invoked the threat of further terror attacks to try to manipulate the electorate and intimidate even ruling-class critics of their actions.

In Britain, Bush’s closest international ally, Tony Blair’s Labour government used last July’s London bombings to bring forward the latest in a series of anti-terrorism laws that have armed the police with major new powers and effectively ended the right of habeas corpus. Among the key features of the most recent legislation was a sweeping attack, in the name of preventing the fomenting and “glorification” of terrorism, on the right of free speech.

It is events in Australia, however, that most closely parallel those now unfolding in Canada. Last November, when the right-wing government of John Howard was seeking to ram through a draconian anti-terrorism bill and facing mounting opposition to its anti-worker labor relations reform, 850 Australian police and intelligence personnel raided scores of Sydney and Melbourne residences and arrested 17 Muslim men on vaguely-worded terrorism charges.

In the days that followed, the press and politicians whipped up public fear and panic, insisting that the state had, in the words of New South Wales Police Minister Carl Scully, “disrupted a large-scale operation which, had it been allowed to go through to fruition ... would have been catastrophic.” Later, police officials had to concede that they had no evidence of particular locations, dates or methods of the alleged planned attacks.

The police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organization also revealed that they had been closely monitoring the men for nearly 18 months, using phone taps, physical surveillance and previous house raids.

All the circumstances surrounding last November’s raids point to political motivations and manipulation, so as to assist the Howard government in its assault on working conditions and democratic rights.

The Australian media’s trumpeting of unsubstantiated allegations has completely compromised the right of the accused in the alleged terror plot to a fair trial. Seven months after their arrest, they remain locked away for 20 hours a day in isolation cells, without the right to publicly answer the accusations made against them.

Howard, whose government has deployed Australian troops to support the US-British occupation of Iraq and mounted its own overseas military interventions in East Timor and the Solomon Islands, last month became the first foreign head of government to visit Canada under the Conservatives—a measure of the esteem that the Conservatives and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have for Howard and his Bush-style politics.

In all the aforementioned cases of terrorist attacks and alleged terrorist conspiracies, there are serious inconsistencies and outright holes in the official explanation. Months, and in the case of 9/11, years after the threat of terrorism was used to effect fundamental changes in state policy, key questions as to the role played by security forces remain unanswered.

In this, the alleged Toronto terror plot also conforms to the familiar pattern. Even if one excludes the possibility that police informants played a role in the crystallization of the alleged Toronto terror plot—and we do not—it is evident that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), with the approval of first the Liberal and then the Conservative government, were involved in manipulation.

Police-intelligence sources have admitted that security forces had at least some of the 17 alleged Toronto terrorists under state surveillance since 2004 and had enough evidence to arrest many or all of them months ago, but chose not to. Rather, CSIS and the RCMP let the terror plot grow, so they could better use it to bolster official claims that Canada is a frontline state in the war on terrorism and stage arrests when most conducive to their aims and those of the government.

Only after some of the alleged terrorists had accepted shipment from undercover police of 3 tons of what they reputedly believed was a fertilizer that can be used in making bombs, did police swoop in to “smash the terrorist plot”. By placing phony bomb-making materials in the hands of the alleged terrorists, CSIS and the RCMP sought to lend a measure of verisimilitude to their claims that the Toronto group, most of whom are young men or boys, had the “capacity” to commit carnage.

In a further piece of state-orchestrated drama, large numbers of machine-gun-toting tactical police have been mobilized for court appearances of the accused, who have been shackled at their hands and feet throughout their legal proceedings.

The corporate media, it must be emphasized, has been both complicit in, and pivotal to, the Conservative government and security forces’ attempt to whip up public anxiety and fear. Rather than critically evaluating the claims of the government, CSIS, and the RCMP, the media has mounted a sensationalist blitz aimed at amplifying and embellishing the authorities’ claim that only the prompt intervention of security forces spared Canadians one or more terrorist atrocity.

The media and leading Liberal and Conservative politicians have long complained that Canadians have failed to “get it” when it comes to terrorism, by which they mean that the public has proven resistant to their calls for Canada to increase the budgets and powers of Canada’s security forces, slash social spending so as to expand and rearm the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), and join the US, Britain and Australia in adopting a much more “muscular” foreign policy.

A February 2005, Victoria, British Columbia hearing of the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence sheds light on the thinking that has prevailed in establishment circles. Members of the upper house of Canada’s parliament and a former high-ranking CAF and NATO officer deplored the fact that Canadians don’t believe their security to be at risk and lamented the “failure” of the country’s politicians to champion increased military spending in the face of widespread popular opposition.

Then-Liberal Senator Tommy Banks interjected that what is needed to change public attitudes toward the military and national security is better political leadership “or an attack.” Taking up Bank’s point, retired CAF Rear-Admiral Ken Summers declared, “Yes, and this goes back to 9/11. We have forgotten about that. ... I almost wish—God forbid—that there would be just a minor one here that would bring home to Canadians that this is important.”

The Harper government and the agenda of Canadian capital

Soon after the Bush administration came to power and began to implement its agenda of militarism and massive tax cuts for business, the rich and super-rich, powerful sections of corporate Canada began pushing for a major change in federal government policy.

In the preceding eight years, the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien had carried through the most sweeping social spending cuts in Canadian history, and then unveiled a five-year $100 billion program of corporate and personal income tax cuts. It had also won ruling-class plaudits for responding to the near-defeat of the federalist forces in the 1995 Quebec referendum by passing legislation that makes the national parliament the arbiter of the validity of any future referendum and threatens a seceding Quebec with partition.

But with the US bourgeoisie under Bush attempting to reverse the decline in its world position through militarism and intensified social reaction at home, corporate Canada increasingly came to see Chrétien’s promotion, even if it was little more than empty rhetoric, of a 1970s-style Canadian nationalism that contrasts a liberal, semi-egalitarian and pacifistic Canada to the militaristic dollar republic to the south as an impediment to pressing forward with the dismantling of Medicare and other remnants of the welfare estate and effecting a major shift in Canada’s geo-political strategy.

In respect to Canada’s foreign and military policy, a ruling class consensus was rapidly emerging in favor of two interconnected changes. The notion that Canada’s military is a peace-keeping force must be buried and its martial tradition revived and promoted in the populace, so that the CAF can be used more frequently and overtly in waging wars and counter-insurgency operations that assert and advance the interests of Canadian capital on the world stage. Canada’s foreign and national-security policy must be more closely aligned with that of the Bush administration so as to maintain Canada’s influence in Washington and ensure Canada’s full participation in an emerging fortress North America.

Given the lack of popular support for, and divisions between, the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative parties, corporate Canada first attempted to shift the federal government sharply to the right by encouraging Paul Martin, the multi-millionaire businessman who as Chretien’s finance minister had been the principal architect of the Liberals’ spending and tax cuts, to stage a political putsch within the Liberal party.

But the ruling elite soon lost confidence in Martin. Within months of his becoming prime minister, he was being derided by the corporate media as a ditherer. Martin was attacked for modestly increasing social spending, in the hopes of winning a popular mandate, and failing to “show leadership”—that is, to defy public opinion on issues like Canadian participation in the US missile defence program.

In the January 2006 federal election, Canadian big business shifted decisively behind the neo-conservative ideologue Stephen Harper and his newly unified Conservative Party.

Despite this support and the corporate media’s echoing of Harper’s claims that the election should be a referendum on Liberal corruption, the Conservatives barely scraped into power as a minority government, winning just 36 percent of the popular vote and not a single seat in Canada’s three largest urban centers.

Four months on, the corporate elite’s support for the Harper Conservative government, as indicated in the editorials of the leading dailies and the press releases of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, has grown still stronger.

Big business has applauded the Conservatives’ corporate tax cuts, the gutting of the Liberal national day care scheme, their renunciation in all but name of the Kyoto Accord on greenhouse gases, and their pledge to refocus the federal government on its core responsibilities—i.e., to massively scale back federal social programs. But above all, Canada’s corporate elite has applauded the Conservatives for moving to assert its predatory interests and ambitions on the world stage.

The Conservatives have announced major increases in military spending, in accordance with Harper’s vow to expand the CAF to the point that the world’s major powers will take notice and eagerly pursued closer relations with the Bush administration. Pleasing Washington is one of the Conservatives’ motivations for expanding the CAF mission in Afghanistan, but by no means the only one. Through their very public promotion of the CAF intervention in Afghanistan, the Conservatives are seeking to whip up a patriotic-militarist fervor and acclimatize the population to war-deaths.

Just as the Bush administration used the invasion of Afghanistan as a stepping stone to the Iraq War, so the Harper government and the Canadian elite intend to use Canada’s growing involvement in the counter-insurgency campaign in southern Afghanistan to pave the way for further military interventions and wars.

But this open militarist and imperialist agenda threatens to become a focal point of popular opposition to the government. The weeks before the 2003 US-British illegal invasion of Iraq saw some of the largest demonstrations in Canadian history. Bush is popularly reviled in Canada.

Hence the need for the Conservatives and the ruling elite to resort, as have Bush, Blair and Howard, to the exploitation and manipulation of terrorist attacks and alleged conspiracies to try to frighten and confuse the populace and manufacture a political context in which they can brand those who oppose their policies as disloyal.

At the same time, big business has launched a concerted campaign to remold the Liberal Party. Michael Ignatieff, who emerged as a prominent “liberal” proponent of the US invasion of Iraq and defender of the Bush administration’s claim that the “terror emergency” necessitates the suspension of traditional civil liberties, has emerged, according to the media, as the candidate to beat in federal Liberal leadership race.

Ignatieff, who last month supported the Harper government’s decision to greatly expand Canada’s military intervention in Afghanistan, recently called for the slaying of Liberal “sacred cows,” including the party’s espousal of an anti-US strand of Canadian nationalism and Medicare.

Bob Rae, the other reputed front-runner for the Liberal Party leadership, expresses, albeit somewhat differently, the sharp shift to the right of the entire political establishment. As the New Democratic Party (NDP) premier of Ontario between 1990 and 1995, Rae slashed social spending and public sector wages and jobs and initiated workfare, paving the way for the coming to power of the arch right-wing Harris Conservative government.

Rae now criticizes his actions as premier, saying that he should have cut public and social services sooner and much more sharply and that today he has a much greater appreciation of the need to “promote growth”—i.e., to even more completely tailor government policy to the demands of big business.

Although Rae has formally parted ways with the social democrats of the NDP, they and the trade union bureaucracy are all on the same political trajectory, working ever more intimately and openly with big business and the political right in the implementation of a widening assault on jobs, wages, and democratic rights.

The Quebec trade unions, through their support for the Bloc Québécois, are effectively helping sustain the Conservatives in power. (The BQ is providing the votes needed to prop up the Harper government in parliament.)

Under conditions where auto workers are facing a massive assault on their jobs and working conditions, the Canadian Auto Workers union has severed its decades-long association with the NDP to pursue closer relations with the Liberals.

In the last parliament, while the ruling class was still weighing up Harper and his Conservatives, the NDP helped prop up the Martin Liberals, only later to assist the Conservatives in their attempt to use the charge of Liberal corruption as a smokescreen for their right-wing designs.

So impressed was Harper by the NDP’s repeated proclamations of its readiness to work with a Conservative government, he offered in late February to cut a deal with the social democrats to support his government for “an extended period of time,” said to be two years.

The NDP’s response to the alleged Toronto terror plot underscores it complicity with, and prostration before, the government-police-media scare campaign. NDP leader Jack Layton heaped praise on Canada’s security forces, while another prominent New Democrat repeated the lurid and outlandish claims of the press and police that the alleged terrorists plotted to behead parliamentarians.

So cowed were the social democrats by the mood of national emergency that reigned last week, they “mistakenly” voted in favour of the Conservative budget in parliament.

The events of the past two weeks must serve as a warning to the working class. For decades the social democrats and union bureaucrats promoted the myth of a gentler and kinder Canadian capitalism. But in the pursuit of “international competitiveness” in the struggle for markets, resources and geo-political influence, the Canadian bourgeoisie, no less than its US, British, German, or French rivals, is embracing militarism and social reaction.

Pursuit of this agenda, which is inimical to the interests of the vast majority of Canadians, is likewise compelling the Canadian elite to resort to the politics of provocation and to seek to develop extra-parliamentary means of overcoming popular resistance.

The turning point in the last federal election was the revelation by the top brass of the RCMP that it was investigating allegations of insider-trading surrounding a Liberal budget announcement—a move that served to bolster the Conservatives charges of systematic government corruption.

One year ago this month, the Supreme Court, with its decision in the Chaouilli case, provided the ruling class with a mechanism to achieve its longstanding aim of dismantling the country’s universal public health scheme, Medicare.

As defenders of the capitalist order, the unions and NDP are no more willing or able to mount a struggle in defence of democratic rights than they have been in defence of jobs, working conditions and public and social services. For that a new party of the working class must be built on socialist and internationalist principles.
SOURCE: www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jun2006/toro-j16.shtml

See Also At Source:
Canada’s corporate media incites public panic over alleged terror plot
[13 June 2006]
Why did Canada’s security agencies allow the alleged terror plot to grow?
[10 June 2006]
Sensational charges, lurid headlines in alleged Toronto terrorist plot
[8 June 2006]
Canadian government, media use alleged terrorist plot to push right-wing agenda
[7 June 2006]
Canada dramatically escalates its military intervention in Afghanistan
[19 May 2006]

[michelle]

MEX-CAN-USA...
The North American Union "matrix"
By Steven Yates
June 15, 2006

Back in 2004, I published The Real Matrix, in seven parts (read them here). I had little idea how the process outlined there would accelerate in 2005 and 2006. Indeed, even those still "plugged in" ought to be wondering why the U.S. Senate just gave thumbs-up (62 yeas vs. 26 nays) to an immigration bill that most of the public does not want, and that would clearly be destructive of this country's long-term best interests – educationally, culturally, and economically. Those of us out here in the Desert of the Real are aware that the Senate just took us one step closer to a North American Union. In fact, I do not believe the Senate's action of May 25 can be understood apart from this larger scheme.

In 2005:

March 14 The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) issued a Tri-National Call for a North American Economic and Security Community by 2010. Three former high-ranking government officials from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico claim this will address "shared security threats, challenges to competitiveness, and interest in broad-based development across the three countries."

March 23 President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and then-Prime Minister of Canada, Paul Martin, signed the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). The Wall Street Journal, long an advocate of globalism, published North America the Beautiful. "Deepening the integration of our three countries promises great benefits for our citizens,..." the WSJ opined. "Working groups" were formed, with the promise of progress reports in 90 days.

April 20 S.853, the North American Cooperative Security Act, was introduced in the Senate (the corresponding House bill, H.R. 2672, would be introduced on May 26). This bill proposes the deep integration of security strategies of U.S., Canada, and Mexico, and the formation of a common perimeter around all three, using the supposed threat of terrorism as a reason for close monitoring citizens of all three nations. (At present, this Act remains buried in committee, but will doubtless surface in the next year or so.) This bill would call for "the development and expansion of public-private partnerships to secure the supply chain of goods coming into North America..." Public-private partnerships, equals corporatism, equals soft fascism (as I have argued elsewhere). It would call for "a common security perimeter by enhancing technical assistance for programs and systems to support advance reporting and risk management of cargo data, improved integrity measures through automated collection of fees, and advance technology to rapidly screen cargo." None of these governments have control over their borders now. Are we really expected to believe they intend to monitor a perimeter that would be thousands of miles longer? The true purpose, to "promote the legitimate flow of both people and goods across international borders." In other words – given that "legitimate" will mean whatever those with money and power want it to mean – open borders, with high-tech surveillance. Note that, while doubtless, there are people who will believe all these combined security measures look good – aren't we supposed to protect ourselves from terrorists, after all? – none are possible without a radical internationalizing of the relevant laws and regulations, and the formation of supra-national globocracies to oversee their implementation. The new cadre of globocrats will answer to the super-elite, not to the U.S. Constitution, or to American voters.

May 17 The CFR reported on a "Task Force Urges Measures to Strengthen North American Competitiveness, Expand Trade, Ensure Border Security." The official CFR News Release stated, "We need a vision for North America to address the new challenges. The Task Force establishes a blueprint for a powerhouse North American trading area that allows for the seamless movement of goods, increased labor mobility, and energy security. We are asking the leaders of the United States, Mexico, and Canada to be bold, and adopt a vision of the future that is bigger than, and beyond, the immediate problems of the present... They could be the architects of a new community of North America, not mere custodians of the status quo." Note that North America is being used here to name a supra-national entity, not merely a continent.

May 27 The CFR released its book-length statement Building a North American Community: Report of the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America. This statement included the following: "We think that there should be a North American border pass: a card that we can use to enter any of the three countries, without going through the normal procedures for questioning, either at airports or at the border with biometric identification.... We think that we should be on the fast-track to complete labor mobility in North America.... And finally, in a military context, of course, we're suggesting that the relationship can also be deepened; that NORAD needs to essentially expand beyond air defense and into other areas of defense... It needs to be more clearly focused on the defense needs of North America."

June 30 The Senate passed CAFTA-DR (NAFTA expanded to Central America and the Dominican Republic) by a vote of 54-45. The House would pass it 217-215 – the closest vote on a trade deal ever, and with clear evidence of arm-twisting and deal-cutting, that indicated how badly the power elite wanted this deal. Bush would sign it on August 2. CAFTA-DR is behind schedule in implementation, because in nations like El Salvador this situation prevails: the local politicians and business elites want it, while the common people don't, and are fighting it.

July 27 The "working groups" established by the SPP checked in, with several proposals involving regional coordination and collaboration across national borders on a number of projects. More public-private partnerships had developed. The language, again, used North America as if it referred to a political entity instead of a continent.

In 2006:

February 21 Richard Haass, President of the CFR, openly published (in the Taiwan-based Taipei Times) a call to "alter" national sovereignty in a "globalized era," argued Haass, "must be prepared to cede some sovereignty to world bodies if the international system is to function. This is already taking place in the trade realm." The U.S. has already ceded some of its sovereignty through NAFTA and the WTO. It is nice of Haass to imply this.

March 29 President Bush met with Mexico's President Vicente Fox, and new Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, in Cancun for their second North American Summit to further the SPP. More working groups, more public-private partnerships.

May 15 President Bush addressed the nation, trying to sell his idea of a "temporary guest worker" program. He did not look at all comfortable speaking words, we can be reasonably sure he doesn't really believe: "the United States must secure its borders. This is a basic responsibility of a sovereign nation." To be sure, no one – neither Bush, nor anyone else associated with the super-elite – wanted illegal aliens to move to the front-burner. The American people deserve some kudos for forcing their "leaders" to address this issue.

May 25 The Senate passed its amnesty-for-illegals bill. Now, of course, the ball bounces back to the House. The House earlier passed a bill that, while far from perfect, is not as offensive as what the Senate just passed.
This journey through just some of the specifics of the past 17 months ought to bring some perspective to the current crisis, and shed light on the debate. The crisis is of super-elite manufacture. The debate will be meaningless, unless it takes as its starting point the recognition of the super-elite goal to create a regional entity, the North American Union. (Whether it will be called that or not, is anybody's guess.) This would destroy the sovereignty of all three nations, and in particular, would end whatever is left of Constitutional government in these United States.

Once unplugged from the Real Matrix, we recognize, given these specifics (unreported in any mainstream media source) why Bush's speech of May 15 – at just 17 minutes, the shortest of his career – was as banal as banal gets. From the recognition of a hidden agenda at work, we see that Bush's speech was contrived as an appearance of intent to do something to protect our Southern border, when in fact, Bush wants to do nothing. Thus, Bush makes observations like: "For decades, the United States has not been in complete control of its borders..." Well, duh!

And:

"Illegal immigration puts pressure on public schools and hospitals, strains state and local budgets, and brings crime to our communities. These are real problems, yet we must remember that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are decent people, who work hard, support their families, practice their faith, and lead responsible lives. They are a part of American life, but they are beyond the reach and protection of American law."

Uh-huh! Yes, they 'put pressure' on government schools. When kids can't speak English, the result is classroom chaos. They 'put pressure' on hospitals by forcing them to close, when the hospitals cannot afford the freebies. Yes, I suppose they 'work hard [and] support their families' – by sending money back to Mexico. I don't know about 'practicing their faith,' and don't know how Bush can know this, either. As for 'leading responsible lives,' what part of illegal does Bush not understand? "They are part of American life?" Many illegals' first loyalty both is, and will remain, to Mexico. Fully 10 percent of Mexico's work force now lives in the U.S. Many Mexicans have already declared California a 'Hispanic state,' and have basically told the "gringos" living there, "if you don't like it, leave!" Some illegals are followers of La Raza, the radical-left cult that wants to reclaim the entire American Southwest for Mexico, and form a communist state called Aztlan. (The super-elite won't let this happen, of course, but if enough Mexicans believe it will happen and act accordingly, their actions will continue weakening the cultural fabric of a unified U.S. Hence, La Raza serves a purpose; it is something the super-elite can use. Lenin's term "useful idiots" applies.)

I could deconstruct Bush's speech, paragraph by paragraph, but that would miss the point; I cannot reiterate enough. Illegal aliens are colonizing America, because the super-elite wants them here. Bush, a globalist (not a 'conservative'), works for the super-elite, not for the American people (otherwise, he would have been considered 'not-electable,' or some such). So, whatever 'proposals' he offers, whether to safeguard our Southern border, or to do anything else, are bound to be as contentless and full of doubletalk as what I've quoted above. Any attempt to put them into practice will be effectively gutted by excessive regulations and stipulations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steven Yates, Ph.D., teaches philosophy at the University of South Carolina Upstate and Greenville Technical College.

Source: eco.freedom.org/el/20060602/stevenyates.shtml

[michelle]

CFR Making Moves on American Sovereignty

Council on Foreign Relations has influence on Bush & Fox; group suggests the ‘Amero’ be the new money of the Americas

By Ralph Forbes

President Bush’s publicity stunt pretending to protect our borders is worse than a transparent ploy.

Washington bureaucrats, backed by prominent think tanks, are now proposing the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), which will give you “a safer and more prosperous North America” with “freedom, economic opportunity, and strong democratic institutions.” That’s what the neo-cons promised they’d do to Iraq.

The SPP “trilateral effort to increase security and enhance prosperity” they have planned for us is even worse than what they’ve done for Iraq. Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the SPP is the blueprint to drive the last nail into what once was a sovereign constitutional republic. It is NAFTA on steroids.

El Presidente Bush and his amigo Vicente Fox are merging Social Security so that illegal fraudsters can loot the trust fund. While the CFR stooges in Washington export American jobs and our manufacturing foundation to potential foes worldwide, Fox is exporting Mexico’s problems—poverty, crime, drugs and disease—to his colony north of the border.

Apparently unprotected borders aren’t bringing in millions of invaders fast enough for the globalists; they are putting NAFTA on growth hormone by building Interstate 69, a planned 1,600 mile international highway stabbing through America’s heartland from Mexico to Canada.

Bush and Fox are following globalist marching orders to erase the borders; eradicate the American middle class; abolish the Bill of Rights and eliminate even the pretense of constitutional government; to steal what little wealth and security you have left by replacing worthless federal reserve notes with Ameros—that will be worth even less—and to reduce the American people to serfs.

The “Amero,” is the name of the new currency proposed by Robert Pastor, a vice chairman of the CFR task force that produced the report “Building a North American Union.” It will replace the U.S. dollar, the Canadian dollar and the Mexican peso.

Last year, Pastor, the director of the Center for North American Studies at American University, and author of the book, Toward a North American Community, testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in favor of limiting the power and sovereignty of the United States in deference to the CFR’s desired super-regional entity.

Building a North American Union is the blueprint contrived by globalist groups like the CFR and Bilderberg. The North American Union is proposed to supplant the sovereign governments of the United States, Canada and Mexico with a “super-regional governance board.”

Under the North American Union, Congress is to be superseded by a North American Parliamentary Group. As corrupt as Congress is, an unelected “parliamentary group” would be infinitely worse.

As bad as many court rulings are, the North American Union’s Permanent Tribunal on Trade and Investment would have supremacy over the U.S. Supreme Court, amassing entangling precedents and laying the groundwork for North American business law. It would make Americans nostalgic for even the Warren court.

As ineffectual as “Homeland Security,” FEMA, and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been in securing our borders, do Americans really want them replaced by the North American Union’s North American Customs and Immigration Service, which would have authority over American immigration policy and trade issues?

Pastor wants the trilateral SPP institutionalized in a new North American Advisory Council [NAAC]. NAAC would be composed of 15 distinguished individuals, five from each nation, to prepare a North American agenda for biannual summits and to supervise the implementation of the integration of the United States and Canada into Mex-America Nuevo Supremo.

(Issue #26, June 26, 2006)
SOURCE: www.americanfreepress.net/html/cfr_making_moves.html

[michelle]

Mexico vote recount demanded
Lopez Obrador says 3 million votes are missing

Wednesday 05 July 2006, 6:22 Makka Time, 3:22 GMT

Mexico's leading left-leaning party has called for a complete recount of votes from the recent presidential election.

The demand was made on Tuesday by Jesus Ortega, the campaign manager for the candidate from the Democratic Revolution Party, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Supporters of Lopez Obrador say that preliminary results giving victory to Felipe Calderon, his conservative rival, by about 400,000 votes were manipulated.

The official count by the autonomous Federal Electoral Institute starts on Wednesday and could take days. Even if a winner is declared, those results can be challenged in court.

Calderon's apparent win caused financial markets and the peso to rally for a second day on Tuesday.

The former energy secretary, representing the National Action Party of Vicente Fox, the president, told Radio Formula that "the people are right, the markets are right" in assuming that he has won.

High tension

Mexico must focus on the future, he said in an interview with the station. "The problems are big, but Mexico is bigger than its problems," he said.

"We are going to employ whatever legal means"

There were some fears that Lopez Obrador's refusal to accept Calderon's apparent victory could send the country into turmoil. Allegations of irregularities threaten to drag out the process for weeks.

Tensions were high on Tuesday in the southern state of Oaxaca, where striking teachers occupied businesses, boarded buses and blocked roads despite pledges to halt their sometimes violent campaign until the presidency had been decided.

Speaking to reporters at his campaign headquarters on Monday night, Lopez Obrador said: "There are about three million votes missing."

"Irregularities"

The former mayor of Mexico City said officials had estimated a voter turnout of 41 million or 42 million, yet preliminary vote tallies by the electoral institute showed only about 38 million ballots cast.

As a result, the institute's first count is something that "we cannot accept", he said.

Both candidates had declared victory on Sunday night, but representatives of Roberto Madrazo, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, conceded defeat on Monday night.

Lopez Obrador continued to claim victory, saying: "We have a commitment to the citizens to defend the will of millions of Mexicans.

"We are going to employ whatever legal means."

Review

He said there were "many irregularities" in the election, including badly reported results and the double-counting of votes. He also asked how it was possible that his party won 155 of 300 electoral districts without winning the presidency.

In an interview on Tuesday with the Televisa network, Luis Carlos Ugalde, the electoral institue's president, said officials would review any problems during the official count.

After 98.45% of the polling stations had reported, Calderon had 36.38% and Lopez Obrador had 35.34%. Madrazo had 21.57%.

Source: Aljazeera.Net: tinyurl.com/g6ssr

[michelle]

SHAME on Harper!

Harper joins Canada to Israeli-U.S. axis
PM opts for hostility rather than justice for Palestinians, says Haroon Siddiqui

Jul. 23, 2006. 01:00 AM
HAROON SIDDIQUI

T he voluminous coverage and commentary on Stephen Harper's stand on the Middle East hasn't quite conveyed the full extent of his Americanized and Israelized foreign policy.

The Israeli military offensive on Lebanon that he considered "measured" has been condemned by no less a moral authority than Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for human rights, as a possible war crime, a violation of international humanitarian as well as criminal law.

When was the last time a sitting prime minister was so thoroughly contradicted on the international stage by another Canadian — in this case, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, who indicted Slobodan Milosevic?

Bill Graham has also raised the illegality of killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure. More than opposition leader and former foreign minister, he is one of Canada's leading experts on international law.

The leaders of the European Union, Russia and Japan, as well as the International Red Cross, have said that Israel has a right to defend itself but that it may be violating the principle of proportionality provided for under the Geneva Conventions.

Yet here's Harper in the logically lopsided and morally obtuse position of defending the foreign aggression that killed eight Canadians and destroyed the airport, roads and major exit routes in a country from which Canada is trying to rescue thousands of its stranded citizens.

He has joined Israel and the United States in resisting worldwide calls for a ceasefire that would facilitate that rescue.

Israel wants to continue the war until it has eliminated or weakened Hezbollah. If there's more civilian carnage and the country continues to be "torn to shreds," as the Lebanese prime minister put it, so be it. The U.S. concurs. So does Harper.

He has also balked at the G-8 idea, advocated by Tony Blair and Angela Merkel, of a beefed-up UN force in southern Lebanon. Like George W. Bush and Ehud Olmert, Harper would rather have the Lebanese army there.

A 2004 UN resolution did call for just that and the dismantling of Hezbollah. But the Lebanese government has been too weak to implement it and is now destabilized by the Israeli siege.

Calling on it to deploy its army in the bombed-out ruins of the south and take on Hezbollah, thereby inviting a civil war, is to be naïve, or a compliant propagandist.

Augmenting that conclusion is Harper's deafening silence, as that of Bush and Olmert, on the implementation of other, more long-standing UN resolutions calling for Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Territories.

Harper also believes, like Bush and Olmert, that the way forward in Lebanon and the Occupied Territories is for Western allies Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to pressure Syria and Iran to pressure Hezbollah and Hamas. It is, but only in part.

Those moderate states, as also Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, have never been weaker and the militants never stronger, thanks to the Israeli-American axis, to which Harper has now joined Canada.

Hezbollah was born after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and won plaudits for resisting, and eventually helping end, Israel's 18-year occupation. Hamas came into existence with the reported approval of Israel as a counterweight to the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Both enjoy popular support for not only standing up to Israel but for being honest in a sea of Arab corruption and for providing food, medicine, education and social services better than the Lebanese government and the Palestinian Authority have.

The supply of Iranian and Syrian rockets and missiles to Hezbollah and Hamas is indeed an issue. So is the supply of far more lethal U.S. armaments to Israel, with the licence to use them indiscriminately, which is what the current debate on Lebanon is all about.

Harper also peddles the half-truth that Hamas is what's holding up the peace process. The road map to peace was dead long before Hamas got elected, with Israel ignoring Abbas's repeated pleas for negotiations. In fact, that's one reason Hamas won.

The way to undercut Hezbollah and Hamas, and their terrorism, is to advance peace and prosperity, not increase oppression, economic deprivation and military assaults. If those tactics worked, they would have done so long ago.

The peace that Israelis crave and deserve won't come from Israeli military muscle but through justice for the Palestinians. This long-standing Canadian position has now been abandoned by Harper.

Haroon Siddiqui, editorial page editor emeritus, writes Thursday and Sunday. [e-mail]

SOURCE: tinyurl.com/rr27m

[michelle]

Pope Benedict XVI has invited Henry Kissinger, former adviser to Richard Nixon, to be a political consultant and he accepted! Here's a hot one. Pope Benedict XVI has never sat well with me. Benedict’s recent Regensburg speech was one of the biggest blunders I ever heard; I had wondered if it had been contrived. If one wanted to stir up religious tensions then it was a successful spoonerism. What if Benedict has ties to the 'dark' ones, the Illuminati? Kissinger, Illuminati king pin, as Papal Adviser?!! Feel free to comment or add information on this one.....Michelle

Kissinger to Serve As Papal Adviser?
Pope Benedict XVI has invited Henry Kissinger, former adviser to Richard Nixon, to be a political consultant and he accepted.

National Catholic Register
BY EDWARD PENTIN
November 26-December 2, 2006 Issue
Posted 11/22/06 at 8:00 AM

VATICAN CITY — Over the course of his long and controversial career, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has had many titles. Now he reportedly has one more — adviser to the Pope.

According to the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Pope Benedict XVI has invited the 83-year-old former adviser to Richard Nixon to be a political consultant, and Kissinger has accepted.

Quoting an “authoritative” diplomatic source at the Holy See, the paper reported Nov. 4 that the Nobel laureate was asked at a recent private audience with the Holy Father to form part of a papal “advisory board” on foreign and political affairs.

As the Register went to press, Kissinger’s office was unable to confirm or deny the report. La Stampa stood by its story, although the Italian press is less rigorous in its authentication of stories as is the United States Press.

If true, there is speculation on which issues Kissinger would advise the Holy Father. Relations with Islam, Palestine and Israel, and Iraq — Kissinger has been critical of the conduct of the war but opposes a quick withdrawal — are likely to be high up on the agenda.

It has also been speculated that, in view of the Muslim hostility to Benedict’s recent Regensburg speech, Kissinger might provide advice on dealing with an increasingly fractious Islamic world.

Furthermore, like the Pope, Kissinger has analyzed the challenges of globalization and might provide advice in this area as well.

“The idea [of his appointment] sounds like a good one,” said veteran Vatican journalist Sandro Magister. “But so would it also be to consult other experts on geopolitics with different orientations.”

As possible expert advisers with different perspectives, Magister listed Catholic philosopher and former diplomat Michael Novak; Bernard Lewis, professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University; and foreign policy experts such as Charles Kupchan and G. John Ikenberry.

Expert Advice

The recruitment of Kissinger would not be unprecedented. Experts from a variety of disciplines, including the realm of economics, politics and philosophy, are regularly invited to advise popes and Vatican officials on current affairs.

Pope John Paul II was close friends with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Polish-born national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, partly because both had a common Polish heritage (though this caused the Soviets to suspect the Vatican of “fixing” the election of Karol Wojtyla, which occurred during the Carter presidency).

Similarly to John Paul and Brzezinski, Benedict and Kissinger are close in age and were both born in Bavaria (a Jew, Kissinger and his family fled Nazi Germany before World War II).

In recent years, other figures invited to share their expertise with the Holy See have included Paul Wolfowitz, a former President Bush adviser and now president of the World Bank; Michel Camdessus, the former director of the International Monetary Fund; American economist Jeffrey Sachs and Hans Tietmeyer, former governor of Germany’s central bank.

The pontifical academies also regularly call on academic luminaries as consultants, such as Nobel laureates Gary Becker, the successor to Milton Friedman at the Chicago School of Economics, and Italian medical researcher Rita Levi-Montalcini.

In comments to the Register, Novak said that “many, maybe most” of these experts are not Catholic, but that the Pope “can call in certain experts he wants to talk to, or hear a paper from, with discussion in a small group.”

Novak said this is true of both Benedict XVI and John Paul II, whom he described as having “very curious and searching minds.”

Any appointment of Kissinger is likely to cause some unease, however. One Iranian radio station is already reporting the news as a “papal-Jewish conspiracy,” while others object to the Pope consulting with someone who has been widely identified with the realpolitik school of political analysis, an approach that places practical considerations before morality.

‘Different Voices’

Yet like Pope John Paul II, Benedict XVI is winning recognition for his intellectual ability and his capacity to discuss international issues with a diverse spectrum of world figures, ranging from the Dalai Lama to the late atheist polemicist Oriana Fallaci and to Mustapha Cherif, an Algerian Muslim philosopher whom he met this month.

“Such an appointment would really show Benedict XVI to be contrary to his media image, as someone who’s willing to listen to other voices not in accordance with his views,” said one Holy See diplomat about the reported enlistment of Kissinger as a papal adviser. “It’s always helpful to hear different voices offering different views.”

Edward Pentin writes from Rome.

Source: ncregister.com/site/article/1370/

[michelle]

U.S launches new air strike in Somalia
Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:04 AM GMT
By Sahal Abdulle

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - U.S. forces hunting al Qaeda suspects launched a new air strike on southern Somalia on Wednesday, a Somali government source said, as international criticism mounted over Washington's military intervention.

"As we speak now, the area is being bombarded by the American air force," the source told Reuters.

The attack hit an area close to Ras Kamboni, a coastal village near the Kenyan border where many fugitive Islamists were believed holed up after being ousted by Ethiopian troops defending Somalia's interim government, he said.

Pentagon officials confirmed one air attack on Monday, as part of a wider offensive involving Ethiopian planes aimed at an al Qaeda cell said by Washington to include suspects in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in east Africa and a hotel in Kenya.

Somali officials said many died in that attack -- the first overt U.S. military action in Somalia since a disastrous humanitarian mission ended in 1994.

A Somali clan elder reported a second U.S. air strike on Tuesday, but that was not confirmed by other sources.

The U.S. actions were defended by Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, but criticised by others including new U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, the European Union, and former colonial power Italy.

Continued at: tinyurl.com/yx93qd
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US air strike on Somali village
Published: 9 Jan 2007
By: Jonathan Miller

US air strikes on a southern Somali village are reported to have left many people dead.

Many people are reported to have been killed by the US warplanes in air strikes on southern Somalia.

The attack, on the village of Hayo, is thought to have targeted al-Qaida members in the area.

A Somali government source said today that the US believed a leading member of al-Qaida in east Africa was based in the area.

The US Navy deployed off the Somali coast last week to prevent leaders of the country's Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) from fleeing the country.

It followed the recapture from the UIC of Mogadishu and areas of southern Somalia at the end of 2006 by Somali government and Ethiopian troops.

US intelligence officials say suspects in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania have used Somalia as a base. Somali Islamists deny any al-Qaida links.

The United States said today that its first overt military action in Somalia since 1994 was based on "credible intelligence".

The attacks were launched from the US base in neighbouring Djibouti.

Gunships destroyed targets near Ras Kamboni in Southern Somalia and the village of Hayo, as well as two other locations.

Source: www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=4309

Note: How can they tell who's al-CIAduh and who's not from a warplane??!?....M