Timely advice: Ease world anger with good example, not sermon

UN General Assembly
192 nations Hall

More thoughts on Middle Eastern risings against West

Editing, brief comment by Carolyn Bennett

Arab anger… Where is the gratitude from “saved” to “savior,” from the “liberated” to “liberator”? 

Children should be grateful to their parents? How much more insult will the new world heap onto the very old and wise world?

The questioning of anger and the expectation of gratitude “is predicated on three propositions,” says analyst Andrew Bacevich, propositions which are sacred to U.S. policymakers and would-be policymakers who get together and exchange business cards.

Proposition 1: humanity yearns for liberation ─ as defined in Western (i.e., predominantly liberal, secular) terms. 

Proposition 2: the United States [by divine guidance or godly edict] has an assigned role of nurturing and promoting this liberation ─ advancing what George W. Bush termed the ‘Freedom Agenda.’

Proposition 3: as U.S. intentions are righteous and benign … the exercise of U.S. power on a global scale merits respect, and ought to command compliance.

“Belief in these three propositions,” Bacevich says, “depends on viewing history as ultimately a good-news story. [And] if the good news appears mingled with bad, the imperative for the faithful is to try harder. Forget Baghdad and Kabul ─ onward to Damascus and Tehran.”

But real life is neither fairy tale nor delusion.

History is not a good-news story, the author points out. “Its destination and purpose remain indecipherable, even (or especially) to an ‘intelligence community’ that purports to peer into the future but cannot provide adequate warning of attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities.” Civilian thinkers do noticeably no better.

“The ‘Big Idea’” these days is “marketed as explaining everything in three words or less — ‘Unipolar Moment,’ ‘End of History,’ ‘Clash of Civilizations,’ ‘Indispensable Nation’ ─ [and boasts] a shelf life of about six months.”

West’s “freedom” rejected

“The notion that American power can be counted on to deliver American-style freedom is particularly wrongheaded when applied to the Muslim world. The problem is not that Arabs, Iranians, Afghans or Pakistanis have an aversion to freedom,” Bacevich notes. “On the contrary, they have provided abundant evidence that they hunger for it.”

The problem, rather, “is that twenty-first century Muslims do not necessarily buy America’s twenty-first century definition of freedom—a definition increasingly devoid of moral content.  The varied inhabitants of a dauntingly complex Islamic world want to decide for themselves what the exercise of freedom should entail.

“Many of them believe freedom should consist of something more than individual autonomy and conspicuous consumption.”

Self-determination embraced, projected

On both sides of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, protesters in the Middle Eastern region and beyond, “are demanding their collective right to self-determination,” he observes. “That desire has made them seem stubbornly unreceptive to outside tutelage and painfully sensitive to perceived expressions of disrespect, no matter how insignificant [or significant] the source…”

… Collides with intractable, entrenched, flawed foreign relations model

“The United States,” Bacevich recalls, “has aligned itself all too often with forces of despotism and oppression.” On Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s watch, the tendency persists: Consider the year-long protests of dictatorial rule in Bahrain, authoritarian clampdown on nonviolent protesters, physicians and human rights workers with help from the Saudis; the U.S. Fifth Fleet occupies; the U.S. government remains silent as Bahrainis cry for “freedom.”

Solution: change U.S. foreign relations paradigm

Ease Middle Easterners’ justifiable anger

“Sometimes the only remedy for a badly damaged relationship,” Bacevich says, “is to give it a protracted cooling-off period.… Such a breathing spell is very much in order for America’s dealings with nations of the Islamic world.

“No preaching. No invasion. No ‘nation building.’ … Given the poisonous nature of existing relations, an intermission, a breathing spell, of something like a century sounds about right.”

To be effective in the world, to walk in peace and nonviolence, Bacevich suggests that Americans must be “willing to close the yawning gap between the values we loudly profess and the way we actually behave.…

“If we Americans think we have something to teach others ─ let us do it as exemplars.”

As a fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, I expect Professor Andrew Bacevich is not talking about continuing the U.S. example of terrorizing the world with threat, intimidation and chaos, missiles, bombs and drones, contractors and other killers; makers of violence, conflict, destabilization and displacement, particularly but not only in the Middle Eastern region.

Sources and notes

“Bacevich: What the Arab Movie Riots Mean for U.S. Foreign Policy ─ Death of a U.S. ambassador raises questions about America’s foreign-policy assumptions” (Andrew J. Bacevich), September 17, 2012, http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/09/16/bacevich-what-the-arab-movie-riots-mean-for-u-s-foreign-policy.html

Andrew J. Bacevich

Public intellectual and analyst on U.S. foreign and military policies, Andrew J. Bacevich is author of Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War; The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism; The Long War: A New History of U.S. National Security Policy since World War II (editor); The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War; and American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy.

He is professor of international relations and history at Boston University and a visiting fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies on its website says it is “a leading center for the study of the causes of violent conflict and strategies for sustainable peace.” Its faculty “conduct research, teach undergraduate and graduate-level peace studies courses, and contribute to peace building worldwide.” http://kroc.nd.edu/aboutus

Bacevich holds a doctorate in American diplomatic history from Princeton University.  In 2004, Bacevich was a Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin and has held fellowships at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the Council on Foreign Relations. He writes widely for general interest and scholarly publications. http://kroc.nd.edu/facultystaff/visiting-fellows

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U.S. commits, conceals high crime

Lectures Libya

Compiled and edited, re-reporting with brief comment by Carolyn Bennett

Notes from week’s wars and impunity

U.S.-led

WAR DEAD

Casualty sites reporting July 16, 2011

(Accurate totals unknown)

Anti-war dot com Casualties in Iraq since March 19, 2003

[U.S. war dead since the Obama inauguration January 20,

2009: 245] Information out of date

•

Wounded 33,105-100,000

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000

Suicides estimated: 18 a day

Latest update on this site: July 15, 2011

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

•

Iraq Body Count

The worldwide update on civilians killed in the Iraq war and occupation

Documented civilian deaths from violence

101, 837 – 111,294

Full analysis of the WikiLeaks’ Iraq War Logs may add 15,000 civilian deaths.  http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

•

ICasualties figures:

AFGHANISTAN:

1,665 United States

2,592 Coalition

IRAQ: 4,473 United States

4,791 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/

Human Rights Watch wants the world to remember what Washington wants the world to forget. In a 107-page report ‘Getting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees,’ released this week, the rights group found “substantial information warranting criminal investigations of [George W.] Bush and senior administration officials, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and CIA Director George Tenet, for ordering practices such as ‘waterboarding,’ the use of secret CIA prisons, and the transfer of detainees to countries where they were tortured.”

In media interviews, Human Rights Watch recounts, “Bush has sought to justify his authorization of waterboarding on the ground that Justice Department lawyers said it was legal. While Bush should have recognized that waterboarding constituted torture without consulting a lawyer, there is also substantial information that senior administration officials, including Cheney, sought to influence the lawyers’ judgment.” The report highlights these facts in evidence. 

President George W. Bush publicly admitted that in two cases he approved the use of waterboarding, a form of mock execution involving near drowning that the United States has long prosecuted as a type of torture. [Then-President George W.] Bush also authorized the illegal CIA secret detention and renditions programs under which detainees were held incommunicado and frequently transferred to countries such as Egypt and Syria where they were likely to be tortured;

Vice President [Richard] Cheney was the driving force behind the establishment of illegal detention and interrogation policies, chairing key meetings at which specific CIA operations were discussed, including the waterboarding of one detainee Abu Zubaydah in 2002;

Defense Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld approved illegal interrogation methods and closely followed the interrogation of Mohamed al-Qahtani, who was subjected to a six-week regime of coercive interrogation at Guantanamo that cumulatively appears to have amounted to torture;

CIA Director [George] Tenet authorized and oversaw the CIA’s use of waterboarding, stress positions, light and noise bombardment, sleep deprivation, and other abusive interrogation methods, as well as the CIA rendition program.

Executive Director Kenneth Roth concludes, “The U.S. has a legal obligation to investigate these crimes [and] if the U.S. does not act on them [then] other countries should.”

U.S. officials continued to ignore the rule of law. The were busy lecturing, punishing, overthrowing and planning the overthrow of foreign governments and cleansing indigenous peoples.

While meeting in Turkey this week, the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton threatened of “contradictory signals” from Libyan President Muammar “Qaddafi’s camp” and that Libya’s head of state “has yet to meet the red lines that are set by the international community to cease violence against his people, withdraw his forces, and step down from power.” She went on to bully that “neither of us can predict … the exact day or hour that [Libya’s president] will leave power, we do understand and agree that his days are numbered.”

An article this week in Global Research citing Human Rights Investigations (HRI) asked, “Is NATO actually ‘protecting civilians’ — or is it rather supporting rebels, some of whom intend to harm dark-skinned Libyans and ethnically cleanse areas over which they take control?”

Evidence “has emerged,” the article said, “that there is a strong racist element within the rebel forces [this week recognized by the U.S. administration as the legitimate government of Libya] including at command level, and it is the stated intention of these forces to ethnically cleanse areas they capture of their dark-skinned inhabitants.”

Referencing a recent Wall Street Journal, “journalist Sam Dagher pointed out the obvious fact that the Libyan war is aggravating ethnic tensions in that country.” An example is “the fate of Tawergha, a small town 25 miles to the south of Misrata, inhabited mostly by black Libyans, a legacy of its 19th-century origins as a transit town in the slave trade.” Rebel leaders have reportedly “[called] for drastic measures like banning Tawergha natives from ever working, living or sending their children to schools in Misrata.” There is also “evidence of massacres of black people, including incidents of lynching and murder of black soldiers of the Libyan army.”

Dispatches from the ground this week said, “Since the beginning [March 31, 2011] of the [U.S.-led] NATO operation against Libya, a total of 15,061 sorties, including 5,673 strike sorties have been conducted.” July 13 alone saw 130 sorties and 50 strike sorties.

Michel Chossudovsky wrote this week, “The size of this military operation under a UN sponsored ‘humanitarian mandate’ is mind boggling.… In bitter irony, Western public opinion broadly supports this humanitarian endeavor carried out under the principle ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P); yet each of the strike sorties results in countless deaths and injuries of civilians; and the media have largely obfuscated the causes and consequences of this war.”

Fifteen thousand sixty-one sorties including 5,673 strike sorties since March 31

NATO's ‘war crimes’

Libya’s prosecutor general, Mohamed Zekri Mahjubi, on Wednesday reportedly made the charge that “NATO airstrikes have killed more than 1,100 civilians and injured thousands of others since March 31.” Mahjubi told foreign reporters “he intends to prosecute NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Libyan courts for ‘war crimes.’”

The Libyan prosecutor charges that, as “NATO secretary general, Rasmussen is responsible for the actions of this organization, which has attacked an unarmed people, killing 1,108 civilians and wounding 4,537 others in bombardment of Tripoli and other cities and villages.” In addition, the prosecutor general has pressed murder charges against Rasmussen, saying, “the NATO chief sought to murder Libyan [President] Muammar Qaddafi.”

RULE OF LAWLESSNESS

Is it that only “some” people are subject to law?

 “Some” in the United States and elsewhere are put to death

“Some” in foreign lands are hunted down, murdered in cold blood at the whim of Western power

“Some” are herded before international criminal courts

If only some are subject to law, can we continue to say in truth or in fact that we the peoples of the world live under the rule of law? Is it not accurate to say we live under the rule of lawlessness?

If that is so, is it not time to end the lawlessness in high places?

Who will seat and who will sit on that tribunal of international law?

Even in the forest laws are understood and obeyed by wildlife in order to subsist in forest society.  

We must ponder these critical questions. If at this moment we do not have answers, we had better find some answers, the right answers very soon indeed before we self-destruct.

AFRICA

U.S. war on LIBYA

“Very close to Brega (oil) —

“Most of the casualties were now caused by landmines rather than Qaddafi’s heavy artillery, as earlier on in the offensive,” said a doctor today at a hospital in nearby Ajdabiya. “We have had five more injuries this morning, all of them from mine explosions.”

Africa’s Horn in perpetual misery — the camels are dying

SOMALIA/HORN OF AFRICA

 “Six months of strict rule by the Islamists in 2006 brought relative peace to the Somalia of Mogadishu,”  AlertNet reports.

“That rule ended when troops from key U.S. ally Ethiopia helped restore the transitional government.

“Foreign involvement fuelled opposition locally and internationally and appeared to boost support for the Islamists, with some analysts saying U.S. accusations of al Qaeda involvement became a self-fulfilling prophesy.”

Today Somalia and the Horn of Africa are experiencing unspeakably unbearable suffering and the land and peoples are still under U.S. and Western aggression, occupation and repression.

“The drought situation in the horn of Africa has reached crisis levels — the worst in 60 years.

Alertnet reports the UN OCHA Eastern Africa saying “more than 9 million people are in need of humanitarian aid: 3.2 million in Ethiopia, 117,000 in Djibouti, 2.6 million in Somalia and 3.2 million in Kenya”

The impact of the drought is seen everywhere. The price of food and maize grain skyrockets. Livestock are dying in large numbers. Massive numbers of people arrive daily in Dadaab camp on the Kenya/Somalia border.  By September, famine is being predicted for some of the worst drought affected local areas of the Horn.

An insurgency that has been raging since the start of 2007 has forced large numbers of Somalis out of their homes. Much of the fighting now is between government forces and gunmen loyal to hard-line Islamist group al Shabaab. Conflict combined with frequent drought and rampant inflation has turned Somalia into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

More than 2.8 million need aid

More than 2.2 million displaced

Infrastructure in tatters

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Mogadishu since the end of 2006. Aid agencies say the 15 km (10 mile) stretch of road between the capital and the town of Afgoye is probably the largest concentration of displaced people on the planet. Conflict, high inflation and frequent drought cause food shortages. Somalia has the highest malnutrition rates in the world.

AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN

AFGHANISTAN
New Great Game evolving

“Afghanistan and Central Asia are abundant with natural resources worth billions,” this week’s Deutsche Welle news recalls. These resources so far “are largely untapped, but the battle is raging for who will be able to exploit them in the 21st century….

“While the United States and China want an especially large slice…, neighboring states Iran, Pakistan, India and Russia have their eyes on [the game]. Most experts agree that a battle for natural resources is underway, alongside the war against terrorism.”

Quoting Jürgen Stetten, head of Asia at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the article says, “It is difficult to predict the outcome of the new Great Game in Afghanistan.” However, “Stetten believes it could very likely be catastrophic for Afghanistan — ‘A return of the Taliban, or proxy wars between the region’s big rivals, China or India, or the U.S. could land the country in a conflict that it will not get out of for some time.’”

Violence grows

Civilian and foreign casualties are at record levels despite the presence of around 150,000 US-led foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Since the U.S.-led invasion of the country in 2001, violence in Afghanistan has been at its worst, Al Jazeera and other news sources report. “The security situation remains fragile.”

Today “an individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Force service members in southern Afghanistan.” One of the foreign troops died. So far this year, violence in Afghanistan has claimed the lives of at least 311 foreign soldiers. Most of them have been U.S. forces.  More than 2,591 U.S.-led soldiers have died  in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion of  the country in 2001.

The bodyguard who assassinated Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s half-brother “had worked closely with U.S. Special Forces and the CIA before being recruited by the Taliban.” The shooter of the president’s brother also reportedly “attended regular meetings with British officials” and “had two brothers-in-law serving in a CIA-run paramilitary unit in Kandahar.”

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan on the pretext of curbing militancy and bringing peace and stability to the region; however, after nine years the region remains unstable and militancy has expanded into Pakistan.

PAKISTAN

Several NATO fighter jets have violated Pakistani airspace, making low flights into the country’s troubled tribal northwestern regions, Press TV reports. “Local sources say the aircraft crossed over into Pakistan’s Kurram Agency through the Afghan border and flew up to five-kilometers across the border.

Pakistan strongly condemned the violation of its airspace by US-led forces stationed in Afghanistan. Washington claims the airstrikes target militants but most of the attacks kill civilians.

Thousands of Pakistanis have staged a protest sit-in this weekend to condemn what they call increasing U.S. interference in the affairs of the Muslim world.

Supporters of Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami religious party held a sit-in Friday in Pakistan’s Gujranwala city, northwest of Punjab’s provincial capital of Lahore, to demand that the government review its relations with Washington.

Press TV reports Jamaat-e-Islami leader Syed Wasim Akhter saying that before 9/11 and before the presence of American forces in the region, the area was quite peaceful. “There were no blasts, no bombers. As Americans came into this region, the whole region turned into such a mess.”

 PERSIA

IRAQ

Annual Karbala pilgrimage bombed

A sticky bomb attached to a police officer’s car exploded today near a checkpoint. Three people died, 15 suffered wounds in eastern Karbala, 80km southwest of Baghdad.

Several bombs have gone off in Iraqi cities, including Baghdad, killing at least five people and wounding several. Last year, car bombs killed and wounded scores of people during the Imam Mahdi observance

The incident today in Karbala was the third attack in the past two days on the holy city, as Shia pilgrims were going to visit the Imam al-Hussein shrine to commemorate the birth of Imam Mohammed al-Mahdi.

A car bomb had also exploded on Friday in a garage near a hospital west of Karbala. In that explosion, four people died and 20 sustained wounds. In northern Karbala, three people died and 23 sustained injuries when a bomb placed under a parked car exploded.

 GULF

YEMEN

This country’s head of state, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, has been in power since 1978. Since January of this year, protesters have been calling for Saleh to leave office. On June 3, the president suffered wounds in a bomb attack on his palace in Sana’a. After the attack, he went to Saudi Arabia for treatment. He remains in U.S.–allied Saudi Arabia.

This week a coalition of protest groups announced the formation of a transitional presidential council comprised of 17 Yemeni figures of different political affiliations, from inside Yemen and abroad, to “prepare to run the country when President Ali Abdullah Saleh is fully and finally toppled.”

A leader of the anti-Saleh movement told the press today that “the council ‘is charged with leading the country during a transition period not to exceed nine months and with forming a government of technocrats.’ The council will also announce a 501-member ‘national assembly’ that will draft a new constitution.’” This council will work “to ‘protect the unity of the country.’”

Sources and notes

U.S. global war on terror

Human Rights Watch report “Getting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees”

“United States: Investigate Bush, Other Top Officials for Torture Inquiry Into 2 Deaths in CIA Custody Insufficient,” July 11, 2011, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/07/11/united-states-investigate-bush-other-top-officials-torture

“A Debate on Human Rights Watch’s Call for Bush Administration Officials to be Tried for Torture,” July 12, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/12/a_debate_on_human_rights_watchs

Kenneth Roth is U.S. attorney who has been executive director of Human Rights Watch since 1993.

U.S. against Libya

Human Rights Watch: Libyan Rebels Attacking Gaddafi Supporters Libyan rebels are facing calls to halt alleged abuses in a number of seized towns. In a statement, Human Rights Watch cited allegations of attacks on Gaddafi supporters, as well as looting and arson. Meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister in Washington, D.C., U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed reports of Gaddafi’s talks with France in a bid to end the violence. Democracy Now Headlines, July 14, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/14/headlines

NATO enabling Human Rights Abuses: Libyan Rebel Ethnic Cleansing and Lynching of Black People (Human Rights Investigations, HRI), Global Research, July 14, 2011, humanrightsinvestigations.org 

Copyright Human Rights Investigations (HRI), humanrightsinvestigations.org, 2011, www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=25622 

Allied Joint Force Command NAPLES, SHAPE, NATO HQ  July 14, 2011, (more information: www.jfcnaples.nato.int

“NATO’s ‘Operation Unified Protector’: More than 15,000 sorties directed against the Libyan People” (Michel Chossudovsky), Global Research, July 14, 2011, 

NATO took control of all military operations for Libya under United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973 on March 2011 with the purported “aim of ‘Operation UNIFIED PROTECTOR’ to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas under attack or threat of attack. The mission consists of three elements: an arms embargo, a no-fly-zone and actions to protect civilians from attack or the threat of attack.”

“1,108 Libyans killed in NATO attacks— Tripoli to prosecute NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen for ‘war crimes’ (Global Research, Press TV), July 14, 2011, www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=25625 

SORTIE

[sor·tie \'sȯr-tē, sȯr-'tē\ n [F, fr. MF, fr. sortir to go out, leave] (1778)
1 : a sudden issuing of troops from a defensive position against the enemy
2 : one mission or attack by a single plane
3 a : foray raid b : excursion expedition ‹diving ~s›
— sortie vi ] Britannica note

LIBYA

“Libya rebels killed trying to retake Brega — Opposition forces are poised to regain control of eastern oil town that has switched hands multiple times since March,” July 16, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/07/201171610179115527.html

“The final statement by the so-called Contact Group on Libya, meeting in the Turkish city of Istanbul, said the ‘Qaddafi regime no longer has any legitimate authority in Libya", and Gaddafi and certain members of his family must go.’

“Gaddafi rejected the Contact Group’s decision on Libyan television— In an audio speech, he told thousands of supporters in the town of Zlitan: ‘Trample on those recognitions, trample on them under your feet ... They are worthless.’

“U.S. recognizes Libyan opposition group  — Decision by 32-nation Contact Group expected to free up money for fighters seeking to end Muammar Gaddafi’s rule,” July 15, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/07/20117151507338126.html

“Western, Arab and African countries, plus international organizations, meeting in Istanbul on Friday, have agreed to formally recognize Libyan rebels fighting to topple Muammar Qaddafi, designating them the country's legitimate rulers.”

‘Libya Contact Group recognizes rebel council,” July 15, 2011, http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15238302,00.html

HORN OF AFRICA

“Somalia in turmoil — delivering aid in a lawless state,” http://www.trust.org/alertnet/crisis-centre/crisis/somalia-in-turmoil

“ACT Alert: Horn of Africa hit by worst drought in 60 years” (Source: member // Elisabeth Gouel), July 6. 2011, Somalia: The LWF/DWS Programme Coordinator for the Somali Refugee Program who was in Dadaab refugee camp yesterday communicated that ‘Here, things are changing by the hour and the situation has never been this bad,’ AlertNet: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/act-alert-horn-of-africa-hit-by-worst-drought-in-60-years/

AFGHANISTAN and PAKISTAN

A new Great Game is evolving in Afghanistan,” July 15, 2011, http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6573071,00.html

“Afghan soldier kills U.S.-led soldier,” July 16, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/189375.html

“Karzai brother assassin ‘close U.S. ally’” [source The Washington Post, Sardar Mohammad] July 16, 2011,  http://www.presstv.ir/detail/189378.html

“NATO jets violate Pakistani airspace,” July 16, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/189222.html

“Pakistanis protest US ‘meddling’ July 16, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/189303.html

“Clash in Pakistan leaves seven dead — Militant attacks in Pakistan are on the rise as pro-Taliban elements in the country have vowed to avenge the death of former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who the U.S. claims to have killed in an unauthorized military operation in Pakistan in early May,” July 15, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/189193.html

IRAQ

“Deadly blasts target Iraqi cities — Explosion during Shia pilgrimage in Karbala kills three, while another blast wounds six in Baghdad,” July 16, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/07/2011716728707355.html

YEMEN

“Yemen protesters form council to run country — Coalition of anti-government protesters says presidential council to run affairs until Saleh’s government is toppled,” July 16, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/07/2011716134720701985.html

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AIPAC’s Manchurian Candidate opposes UN, international law

Re-reported, compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett

U.S.’s unconscionably lawless allegiance in Middle East

OBAMA/MARR INTERVIEW

“I … believe that the notion that you can solve this problem [of the Occupied Territories] in the United Nations is simply unrealistic,” President Barack Obama said in BBC interview aired today.

Kill or capture? — “What would [Osama bin Laden] have had to do to be captured? Andrew Marr asked in that interview with President Barack Obama. The president ducked and chanted, “Our job is to secure the United States.” Marr pushed gently: “It would have been very difficult to have to have put this man [bin Laden] on trial? The president answers: “That wasn’t our number one consideration.” He goes on to brag: “I’ve made no secret; I said this when running for office: if I got a shot at bin Laden, I’d take it.”

In that interview with Marr, Mr. Obama also offered that he knows better what is best for Pakistan than the Pakistanis know what best for their country. “Pakistan obsessed with India,” he said, but the “biggest threat to Pakistan is homegrown.”

The president had not finished his weekend. Before flying off to England, and in the fallout of his Thursday Middle East performance, he addressed the annual policy meeting of the main pro-Israel lobby in the United States, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC. Again, the U.S. president attacked Palestinian plans to seek statehood at the United Nations and declared his/U.S. allegiance, an “‘ironclad’ Washington commitment, to Israel.”

Driving the nail in the coffin, news came today that “Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has approved the construction of 294 new illegal Jewish settler units in the occupied Palestinian land,” according to a Reuters report sourcing AFP. “The settlements are to go up in the Beitar Ilit settlement in the occupied West Bank…

“The Israeli regime occupied the West Bank alongside the other Palestinian territory of East al-Quds (Jerusalem) in 1967 and later annexed both.

“The international community has refused to recognize either the capture or the annexation. The United Nations and the European Union call the settlements illegal as they are constructed on the occupied territories. The UN also considers the settlement expansion to be illegal under the international law.”

 Last word will not be written by 

United States or Britain

Palestinian human rights activist Merna Alazzeh remembers, in a May 19 article, “The young will never forget, will one day return.”  

“… Having lived in al-Azzeh refugee camp for most of my life,” Alazzeh says, “there has always been, as far as I know, much space, even in the narrow alleys of the camp, for the collective memory of Israeli massacres, systematic displacement and ethnic cleansing. These images [imprint] in the minds of Palestinian refugees both young and old.”

Spring 2003 return

“… My grandmother and I ‘went back’ to our destroyed village, Beit Jibrin. We managed to get there despite the checkpoints and the high level of Israeli security; it wasn’t easy even though the actual distance that separates my refugee camp from the village is less than an hour’s drive.…

“I walked behind her climbing up a hill in the village. She seemed much stronger and able to walk faster than I remembered. She knew where exactly we were going, as if she [had been] there yesterday.

“Her memories dated back to 1948” and despite her young age at the time, “she remembered. She remembered her school, the lovely summer evenings she spent with her family in the village. She remembered the harvest time and traveling to Haifa and Yaffa (Jaffa) with her dad to sell their produce. 

“She also remembered the nights when the peaceful village was first attacked. ‘We never saw a fighter jet before,’ she said. … This was the same year [1948] that witnessed the expulsion of approximately 750,000 of the native Palestinian population from their homes and villages. To this day, they have never been able to return.

 “Sixty-three years on and despite the numerous United Nations resolutions and world condemnations, Israel’s impunity prevails.”

No justice

“…Palestinian refugees are yet to see implementation of UN Resolution 242, which clearly affirms ‘a just settlement of the refugee problem’; and Resolution 194, which states that ‘refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.’ These resolutions have been alive in my grandmother’s memory [and] imprint in the consciousness of refugees whether they are acquainted with international law or not.

“Every Palestinian refugee resolutely believes in the right to live in the town or village from where they originate — indeed, from which they and their families have been uprooted by force.”

Never forget

“My grandmother passed away last year in March in the refugee camp but her dream of returning to Beit Jibrin is alive… Her dreams of return are alive. I will never forget her nor will I forget her passion when talking about the village. I will always make sure I pass her dreams and aspirations to the coming generations. I believe this is a promise that each refugee has made consciously or unconsciously until the return and the full realization of our rights.”

As the memory remains in the heart and soul of all Palestinians, “we will never forget my village and all the ethnically-cleansed Palestinian villages. For us, the old may well die, but the young will never forget.”

Tragic failure of foreign policy 

In an opinion piece this weekend on Al Jazeera, political science professor John J. Mearsheimer wrote, “The remarkably powerful Israel lobby makes it virtually impossible for [President Obama] to put meaningful pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is committed to creating a Greater Israel in which the Palestinians are restricted to a handful of disconnected and impoverished enclaves.” With the 2012 presidential election looming larger every day, “Obama is certainly not going to buck the lobby.

“In addition to his problems with Israel and the lobby, Obama has little influence over events in the broader Middle East. The Arab Spring… happened in spite of U.S. foreign policy, not because of it.

“…Washington has played a key role for decades in keeping friendly dictators such as Hosni Mubarak in power; and, not surprisingly, the Obama administration has remained quiet while Saudi and Bahrain's security forces have been crushing the protesters in Bahrain… The U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain and [the U.S. has] excellent relations with its authoritarian leaders.” Topping off a foreign policy in inevitable free fall, is, Mearsheimer says, the U.S. quagmire in Afghanistan [also Pakistan], Iraq and Libya. “The administration’s hard-nosed policy for dealing with Iran’s nuclear enrichment program [also] is not working but the president seems unwilling — or unable because of pressure from Israel and its lobbyists — to countenance a new approach for dealing with Tehran.

“The bottom line is that the U.S. is in deep trouble in the Middle East and needs new policies for that region. Regrettably there is little prospect of that happening anytime soon.…”

Not the last word

“[President] Obama’s State Department speech should be understood as merely the latest in a long series of disguised confessions of geopolitical impotence; [and] of one thing we can be sure, it will not be the last.…”

International Law expert and UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights Richard Falk was also writing in the post-Middle East speech weekend. “In their long and tormented journey to realize a just and sustainable destiny for themselves,’ he wrote, “Palestinians should not look to sovereign states, or even the United Nations, and certainly not the United States.…

“Their future will depend on the outcome of their struggle increasingly assuming the character of a nonviolent legitimacy [and] abetted and supported by people of good will around the world.…It is Palestinian populism — not great power diplomacy — that offers the best current hope of achieving a sustainable and just peace on behalf of the Palestinian people.”

◊

Other U.S. Theaters of War

U.S.-led

WAR DEAD

Casualty sites reporting May 22, 2011

(Accurate totals unknown)

Anti-war dot com Casualties in Iraq since March 19, 2003

[U.S. war dead since the Obama inauguration January 20,

2009: 224]

•

Wounded 33,041-100,000

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000

Suicides estimated: 18 a day

Latest update on this site: May 1, 2011

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

•

Iraq Body Count

The worldwide update on civilians killed in the Iraq war and occupation

Documented civilian deaths from violence

100,971 – 110,279 

Full analysis of the WikiLeaks’ Iraq War Logs may add 15,000 civilian deaths.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

•

ICasualties figures:

AFGHANISTAN:

1,582 United States

2,463 Coalition

IRAQ:

4,452 United States

4,770 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/

◊

Perhaps this was the week of Palestine, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but other U.S. wars, Aden to Iraq, continued.

YEMEN

European, U.S. and Arab ambassadors “pressing Saleh to sign the accord were trapped for hours in an embassy surrounded by armed government supporters.” They stayed there until “Yemeni army helicopters ferried the diplomats out to the palace.”

Tens of thousands of people in the past few months have demonstrated in the streets of the Yemini capital. Taiz and the port city of Aden have also been scenes of mass protests — demanding the immediate end of the 32-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. However, the president seems to agree to step down then moves the post, thus thwarting Gulf efforts to resolve the country’s political crisis.

Today’s press reports say President Saleh “laid down new conditions for signing a power transition deal”  resulting in secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Abdullatif al-Zayani’s leaving “without getting the signature of the president.”

Protesters have taken the position that the Gulf-brokered deal falls short of their demands for Saleh’s immediate departure and the dismantling of his regime. They reject any immunity for Saleh and say that the opposition parties do not speak for their demands.

PAKISTAN

Four people died today and many suffered wounds when an armed group of 15 to 20 people attacked a military base in the Pakistani city of Karachi. Pakistani Express TV reported five explosions preceded the attack.

IRAQ

Apparent sectarian/anti-police attacks continued in U.S.-occupied Iraq.

Sixteen people died Sunday and dozens suffered wounds in “a wave of apparently coordinated bombings.” Areas taking most damage were central Iraq’s Shiite areas.

Al Jazeera gave this tally of the Sunday incidents:

Taji: Suicide bomber strikes Iraqi police responding to car comb on U.S. convoy — seven police killed, 10 others injured.

Sadr City: One car bomb (targeting colonel in Interior Ministry), one roadside bomb hidden in pile of garbage, one bomb in parking lot near a market — two people killed, 19 injured at least 19

Amal/Bayaa, west Baghdad: Five roadside bombs and one parked car bomb (police patrol and busy intersection among targets) — two people killed, 15 injured

West Baghdad (Saidiyya and Wathiq Square): bomb in each place — one person killed, 16 injured (among the injured six security troops)

East Baghdad (Beirut Square and area of Canal Street): bomb in each place — complete number of injuries (above the six in one location) unknown

A double bombing on Thursday reportedly left 27 police officers dead in the northern city of Kirkuk. Another eight officers suffered wounds when a roadside bomb hit their convoy as they responded to the scene of the first incident.

“Two U.S. soldiers died in central Iraq today, according to Press TV, “capping a day of violence that left more than a dozen Iraqis dead and more than 80 others wounded in and around Baghdad.”

An Iraqi interior ministry official reportedly said two more U.S. soldiers died and three suffered injuries “when the convoy they were in was struck by a roadside bomb in Baghdad’s western outskirts.”

LIBYA

Shortages furthering unrest

Reuters reported on Saturday, “Libyans armed with guns and a knife stormed a bus carrying foreign journalists and a soldier fired volleys of gunfire into the air to disperse the crowd.”

“The attack reflected Libyan anger at severe petrol shortages, a two-month-old NATO bombing campaign against President Muammar Qaddafi’s government, and state media reports that foreign journalists misrepresent the news.”

Sources and notes

“Barack Obama: No Palestinian state via UN” (Politico staff) May 22, 2011, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55429.html

“President Obama, in a far-ranging interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr, made it clear that he couldn’t and wouldn’t back the efforts of Palestinians to get ‘formal recognition of statehood’ from the United Nations. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55429.html

Ahead of Barack Obama's state visit, Andrew Marr [talked] to the president in an exclusive interview inside the White House. They discussed the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Arab Spring and the killing of Bin Laden; plus the Queen, the monarchy and the royal wedding.  Broadcast on BBC One, May 22, 2011; available until Sunday May 29, 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011kn34/The_Andrew_Marr_Show_22_05_2011/

“Obama: US support for Israel ‘ironclad’ — U.S. president rejects Palestinian moves to seek statehood through United Nations in speech to American pro-Israel lobby,” May 22, 2011,

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/05/201152214281951998.html

“Israel approves nearly 300 settlements,” May 22, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/181178.html

“The young will never forget, and will one day return (Merna Alazzeh, The Electronic Intifada May 19, 2011, http://electronicintifada.net/content/young-will-never-forget-and-will-one-day-return/9989

Merna Alazzeh is a Palestinian human rights activist, community and international development professional living in London. Alazzeh holds academic credentials in human rights from the London School of Economics

“Obama: Doomed to disappoint  — In his speech on the Middle East, the U.S. president failed to break the chains of the status quo and set a new path” (John J. Mearsheimer) May 21, 2011,

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/2011521165854325150.html

John J. Mearsheimer is R.Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

“Israel and Palestine: Obama’s flawed approach — U.S. president’s speech showed a lack of will and capacity to pressure Israel into striking compromise with Palestinians” (Richard Falk), May 21, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/201152191452474596.html

Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Research Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California-Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades. His most recent book is Achieving Human Rights (2009). Falk is currently serving his fourth year of a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.

“Yemen’s Saleh refuses to sign exit deal  — Mediator leaves empty-handed as president says opposition must be present if he is to sign power transition deal,” May 22, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/201152216373928689.html

“Gunmen attack Pakistani naval base  — Four reported dead and Pakistani special forces deployed following assault on key military facility in Karachi,” May 22, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/05/201152218582675282.html

“Wave of bombings strike across Iraq — More than a dozen blasts across mostly Shia areas in Baghdad target government and police, leaving at least 16 dead,” May 22, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/20115227927371346.html

“Two US soldiers killed in Iraq,” May 22, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/181236.html

“Libya crowd attacks bus carrying foreign journalists,” May 22, 2011, http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE74L05M20110522

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