Gaullist fights “Tooth and Nail” for Sovereignty

Sophie&Co’s June 9 Interview with Marine Le Pen

Minor edit for TIN by Carolyn Bennett

Marine Le Pen is a French lawyer and politician, a Member of the European Parliament, and Leader of France’s Front Nacional Party (the National Front). I was interested particularly in her insightful comments on sovereignty because I believe them to be instructive of U.S. domestic and foreign policy, its plutocracy over democracy, and its seriously flawed character and practice in international relations.

“Sovereignty is the foundation of democracy,” Marine Le Pen said. “Without sovereignty, there is no democracy. Having the freedom to cast a ballot in a ballot box is one thing; but if the people you elected with your ballot have no power because the actual power was transferred to a supranational body, then we are no longer in a democratic process. … ‘There are two ways of establishing totalitarianism – either all of the powers are united together, or we transfer all the power to a supranational body.’ …”

Marine Le Pen’s Gaullist foreign policy

… [W]e are for leaving NATO, for France leaving NATO, we have a [Gaullist] vision of what international politics must be like. 

We are for developing our relations with Russia, without breaking ties with the United States. 

We believe that France must maintain its relations with all of the world’s great nations, and we do not want [imposed on us] a way of seeing things by anybody. 

We aspire to have the freedom to determine the quality and the level of our international relations.

Defend ourselves against whom? Defense against China? Le Pen is asked and answers, The suggestion “almost makes you laugh.” 

De Gaulle, 1961, at Wikipedia

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (November 22, 1890 – November 9, 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II and in 1945 secured a seat for France on the United Nations Security Council. De Gaulle led the writing of a new constitution founding the Fifth Republic (1958) and served as its first president (1959 to 1969). 

Charles de Gaulle’s foreign policy strategy as president (Gaullism) asserted France as a major power “independent of ‘Anglo Saxon’ (American and British) influences. He withdrew France from NATO military command—although remaining a member of the Western alliance—and twice vetoed Britain's entry into the European Community. [Wikipedia note] 

Marine Le Pen’s Danger warning of Singular Voice

“[S]uch and such decides who is on the good side and who is on the bad side, and this can change at any moment. 

The good guys of today will be the bad guys of tomorrow, and maybe the bad guys of today will become good tomorrow── if Washington decides that it is to their advantage to make them good.

 It is a shame, since there is a substantial amount of mistakes that have been made at an international level under Washington’s influence, especially in Syria. 

“We were the only ones among the French political parties to oppose intervention in Syria, the first and only ones who, from the beginning, said that we were arming Islamic fundamentalists, who would, if they did win, implement a reign of terror like they did in Libya. This was, once again, because of us. We helped them come to power.

“This is the American method, the international American method: they defend their interests, or they think that they are defending them, since sometimes they make serious mistakes. What is terrible is that European countries no longer have a say in things. There are no more sovereign nations in Europe that can be the voice of reason for peaceful settlement of conflicts, the voice of balance between different interests of different nations.”

Marine Le Pen’s pro-Sovereignty, anti-Trans-Atlantic Free Trade scheme

“[T]his is an opportunity for the United States to carry out military integration, and maybe tomorrow, economic integration, to extend the scope of its influence. The free-trade agreement that the United States want to sign at any price is really just another way to tie the European Union, in a quasi-definitive way, to the United States.

“This is, once again, a loss of independence, not to mention the catastrophic consequences that this free-trade agreement would have for us in terms of agriculture, industry, defense, etc. So this is much more a geopolitical treaty than a purely commercial or economic treaty.”

If within the theoretical concept of a free trade agreement (FTA) ── in addition to eliminating tariffs, import quotas, and preferences on most (if not all) goods and services traded among trade bloc signatories ── people are free to move across countries, it would also be considered an open border” agreement. It may also be considered the second stage of economic integration. [Wikipedia note]

Le Pen says the National Front “formally contests and will fight tooth and nail the “ultra-liberal policy,” the “transfer of sovereignty” implicit in the signing of “the Trans-Atlantic treaty with the United States.” She says she believes the trade agreement “goes against the sovereignty of the people and the economic, social, and international interests of France.”

Something to think about. 

Sources and notes 

“Marine Le Pen: ‘EU robbed us of all liberties; we should fight to get them back’”

Sophie Shevardnadze, SophieCo,_RT, June 9, 2014, http://rt.com/shows/sophieco/164660-europe-politicans-victims-ukraine

Elections to the European Parliament have brought groundbreaking changes in the structure of EU’s most powerful body: right wing parties along with Eurosceptics, and outsiders just a few years ago, have now taken the political scene.

Front Nacional party in France gets the majority - signifying that people want change; the same with other nations.

What now? Is the European change of course inevitable? What will happen to the Union itself?  [Sophie Shevardnadze asks]

Sophie&Co spoke with special guest Marine Le Pen, leader of the France’s Front Nacional Party.

Also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade_agreement

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Le_Pen

“Eric Cantor loses U.S. House seat in shock upset” AFP Michael Mathes reporting, June 10, 2014 10:36 PM:

Economics professor at a Richmond, Virginia, college David Brat defeats powerful party insider and U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the former reportedly backed by the Tea Party, the latter the Republican Party. Primary election all 243 precincts reported 55.5 percent Brat, 44.5 percent Cantor. Brat “barely received media airtime, was outspent by Cantor by more than 25 to one.”

http://news.yahoo.com/cantor-loses-us-house-seat-shock-upset-005050699.html;_ylt=AwrBJR4zBJpTo2cAeYrQtDMD

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy


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Crimes against Humanity: Whose lives count, whose do not?

Against Humanity

International affairs expert ponders most-told history

An article worth reading in full

Excerpt, editing, brief comment by
Carolyn Bennett

Drones on Pakistanis

Why have the Western media and academia placed such importance and focus on Jewish deaths in World War II? Are Jewish deaths more tragic than non-Jewish deaths? Does Jewish suffering trump that of non-Jewish peoples? Are Jewish lives worth more than non-Jews’ lives? Canada-based international affairs specialist Brandon Martinez ponders these questions in an article published today at Press TV. “Whether they realize it or not,” Martinez says, “commentators who advance the primacy of Jewish suffering are enabling the Zionists’ continued genocidal subjugation of the Palestinians.”

Whose numbers?

Decades of intense Zionist propaganda on the subject of “The Holocaust” blinds most people, including media personalities, and prevents them from “overcom[ing] their brainwashing; or they are just too proud to admit they were wrong. …For 45 years, the standard histories told us [that] four million people died at Auschwitz. When the communist iron curtain disintegrated in 1990, the figure was revised downwards to 1.5 million; but the real death total remains a mystery. 

“Some historians estimate less than 100,000 people died in that [Auschwitz] camp, primarily from disease and starvation caused by Allied bombing.  Official sources have likewise reduced significantly the death totals at other major German camps.

“The Majdanek and Mauthausen camps were at one time claimed to be the resting places of 3.5 million Jews and others. Establishment sources now contend that around 74,000 Jews died in those two facilities combined.”

Soviet

Palestinians

“Genocidal policies of the Soviet Bolsheviks, a large portion of whom were Jewish, led to the deaths of at least 40 million people, a number far exceeding even the greatest myths about the Jewish holocaust.

Pakistan

Palestinian woman and child

“In 1932 alone, the Soviet secret police (the Cheka) orchestrated the demise of more than seven million Ukrainians in what is now known as the Holodomor, an artificial famine-genocide sponsored by Moscow.  In 2009, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that Ukraine’s security service ‘is pressing the case against a list of former Soviet officials accused of committing the Holodomor, which caused the deaths of millions in Ukraine in 1932-33 … (most names on the list Jewish).’”

American

This “country founded upon ethnic cleansing and genocide,” Martinez recalls, “committed egregious war crimes against Germany and Japan during the Second World War, starving to death more than 1.5 million German POWs in concentration camps after the end of the war, and dropping two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” This added to “the Allied carpet-bombing of German cities during the war, killing hundreds of thousands of German civilians in a matter of hours.

Syria

“The Allied Powers fully aided and abetted Stalin’s crimes against humanity and took part in post-war massive ethnic cleansing of Germans from territory stripped from Germany and given to surrounding countries. …” Between 1944 and 1950, more than nine million Germans died because of “deliberate Allied-Soviet expulsion and starvation tactics.”  Invading Soviet Red Army troops “mass raped and tortured…more than two million German women” [Ref. historian James Baque].

 Labor or homicide camps

“In reality,” Martinez writes, “Auschwitz was a labour camp. “Arbeit macht frei (Work makes you free),” read the sign over the gated entrance to the camp. Inmates worked in the nearby factories to produce armaments, synthetic rubber and other materials for the German war effort.

Guantanamo

“It makes no practical sense [that] the German government would waste so much time and resources [killing] off their labour force, especially when they were fighting a war on two fronts against formidable enemies.” Acknowledging that the labor camps were reprehensible, Martinez continues, “but when put into context, the practice was not particularly unusual. The Soviets established a vast network of forced labour camps (known as the Gulag) long before the Germans set up their labour facilities during the war; yet there is far less criticism or condemnation of the Soviets, even though their camps were far more inhumane than those of their German counterparts.”

Refugees
Syria

 Gulag Russian ‘Chief Administration of Corrective Labour Camps’), system of Soviet labour camps and accompanying detention and transit camps and prisons that, from the 1920s to the mid-1950s, housed the political prisoners and criminals of the Soviet Union. Inmates filled the Gulag in three major waves: 1929–32, the years of the collectivization of Soviet agriculture; 1936–38, at the height of Stalin’s purges; and in the years immediately following World War II. Solzhenitsyn reported ‘some forty to fifty million people served long sentences in the Archipelago between 1928 and 1953.’ The Gulag administration’s supposedly compiled figures (released by Soviet historians in 1989) showed they has sent 10 million people to the camps in the years 1934 to 1947. The true figures remain unknown [Britannica Deluxe Edition 2013]

Martinez continues citing studies

Leuchter Report challenge 

“The gassing stories form the foundational myths of the holocaust,” he writes, but… “Experts contend that gassing is the most inefficient and dangerous method for executions.” Researcher Ernst Zundel in 1988 “commissioned an expert to examine the rooms in Auschwitz and Majdanek which were claimed to have functioned as gas chambers for killing mass amounts of people.

“Fred Leuchter, a specialist who designed execution equipment including gas chambers for American prisons, did a forensic examination of these facilities. Going into the endeavor, Leuchter fully believed the official story about gassings but was quickly amazed at how implausible it would have been for these rooms to function as mass execution gas chambers.…

"Leuchter took brick samples of the walls of the alleged gas chambers and sent them to a chemical laboratory in Massachusetts. The test results revealed the brick samples contained negligible traces of cyanide residue, these results contrasted with other samples taken from walls of delousing chambers (rooms where Zyklon B was sprayed on clothing and mattresses to kill lice), and found these samples contained high traces of cyanide residue.” Leuchter writes in his 1988 Leuchter Report, Martinez quotes:

‘It is the best engineering opinion of this author that the alleged gas chambers at the inspected sites could not have [been] utilized or seriously considered to function as execution gas chambers.’

Afghanistan

Rudolf Report challenge

“Another problem with the gassing story,” Martinez references chemist Germar Rudolf in a 1993 Rudolf Report, “is the issue of blue staining caused by Zyklon B. ‘[T]he walls within the buildings in which Zyklon B is proved to have been used to delouse inmate clothing exhibit massive, blotchy, bluish discoloration… Massive blue staining is visibly present in rooms used for delousing, but no such stains are visible in any of the rooms claimed to have been ‘homicidal gas chambers. For chemical-physical reasons, the claimed mass gassings with hydrocyanic acid in the alleged gas chambers in Auschwitz did not take place.…. …The supposed gas chambers in Auschwitz and Birkenau did not come into contact with Zyklon B. In legal language: the weapon was not loaded.’”

Britannica Deluxe Edition 2013: Beginning in June 1941 with the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Jews in the newly conquered areas were rounded up and taken to nearby execution sites, such as Baby Yar, in Ukraine, and killed. Initially, mobile killing units were used. This process was disquieting to local populations and also difficult for the units to sustain. The idea of the extermination camp was to reverse the process and have mobile victims—transported by rail to the camps—and stationary killing centres where large numbers of victims could be murdered by a greatly reduced number of personnel: e.g., the staff of Treblinka was 120, with only 20–30 personnel belonging to the SS, the Nazi paramilitary corps. The staff of Belzec was 104, with about 20 SS personnel. Killing at each of the centres was by poison gas. Chelmno, the first of the extermination camps, where gassing began on December 8, 1941, employed gas vans whose carbon-monoxide exhaust asphyxiated passengers. Auschwitz, the largest and most lethal of the camps, used Zyklon-B.

Majdanek and Auschwitz were also slave-labour centres, while Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor were devoted solely to killing.

The Nazis murdered between 1.1 million and 1.5 million people at Auschwitz, 750,000–900,000 at Treblinka, and at least 600,000 at Belzec during its 10 months of operation. The overwhelming majority of the victims were Jews. Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzec were closed in 1943, their task completed as the ghettos of Poland were emptied and their Jews killed. Auschwitz continued to receive victims from throughout Europe until Soviet troops approached in 1945.

U.S. foreign policy: FDR –

Martinez resumes

“The pressure of the Jews on [U.S.] President [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt (1933-1945) and on the State Department is becoming ever more powerful,” Martinez references then-Polish Ambassador in Washington Count Jerzy Potocki’s pre-war warnings that the American public was being subjected to increasingly alarming propaganda that was ‘feverishly inciting war with Germany….’ He continues Potocki’s comments:

‘The Jews are right now the leaders in creating a war psychosis which would plunge the entire world into war. … This international Jewry exploits every means of propaganda to oppose any tendency towards any kind of consolidation and understanding between nations.

‘…I have repeatedly come up against the inexorable and convinced view that war is inevitable.

‘…Roosevelt has been given the foundation for activating American foreign policy, and simultaneously has been procuring enormous military stocks for the coming war….’

T

World War II

he “good guys” caused the deaths of  “40,000,000–50,000,000 in that war.” According to a Britannica article, World War II was the "bloodiest conflict, as well as the largest war, in history.” However, the full record of wars executed and deaths (crimes against humanity) caused by war powers in the years from World War II forward has not yet been written.  

Martinez concludes 

Fast forward to today. “The media’s obsession with the holocaust is part and parcel of the Zionist campaign to cast a spell over the collective consciousness of the Western world in order to desensitize the public to the suffering of the Palestinians and shield Israel from criticism. The Orwellian attempt to stifle unfettered debate about questionable aspects of the holocaust story and censor skeptics by enshrining laws that punish dissenting opinions only fortifies the revisionist position.

War on Iraq

I

'm in no position to critique Zionists or historians, but I do agree that the mind of Americans is being warped using a variety of pretexts and non-stop government and mass media propaganda. The tactic has been in force ever since and likely before World War II. It has fueled U.S. wars and animosities from Southeast Asia to Southwest Asia, the Near East, north into the Caucasus, Central and Eastern Europe, and right the way across Africa. In these wars, invasions, provocations, and occupations, crimes against human beings have been committed constantly and with impunity and the mass media have been essentially mum. If you don't think there is something seriously wrong with this, you are living on some terribly distant planet. .



Sources and notes

“Zionist exceptionalism, fears WW2 truth,” February 24, 2014, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/02/24/352028/zionist-exceptionalism-fears-ww2-truth/

Brandon Martinez is a freelance writer and journalist from Canada. His areas of expertise are foreign policy, international affairs, and 20th and 21st century history. His writings focus on subjects such as Zionism, Israel-Palestine, American and Canadian foreign policy, war, terrorism, and deception in media and politics.

Britannica Deluxe Edition 2013 Articles notes

Majdanek (also spelled  Maidanek , also called  Lublin-Majdanek): Nazi German concentration and extermination camp on the southeastern outskirts of the city of Lublin, Poland. In October 1941, it received its first prisoners, mainly Soviet prisoners of war, virtually all of whom died of hunger and exposure. Within a year, however, it was converted into a death camp for Jews, transported first from Bohemia and Moravia (now in the Czech Republic) and then from Poland, The Netherlands, and Greece. Like Auschwitz, Majdanek was not a death camp alone but also a prison camp and a work camp. With seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, and some 227 structures in all, it was among the largest camps. In September 1943, the Nazis added a large crematorium containing five ovens.

Mauthausen: one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps, located near the village of Mauthausen, on the Danube River, 12 miles (20 km) east of Linz, Austria. It was established in April 1938, shortly after Austria was annexed to Nazi Germany. Starting as a satellite of Dachau, in Germany, it became an independent camp in the spring of 1939, operated by the SS (the Nazi paramilitary corps) and acquiring satellite camps of its own throughout Austria, all collectively called Mauthausen. The camp provided slave labour to work previously abandoned stone quarries nearby. During its first year, the camp received prisoners transferred from Dachau—mainly convicted criminals, but also so-called ‘asocial elements,’ including political prisoners, homosexuals, and others. The camp later became a detention centre for anti-Nazis from all over Europe, including 10,000 Spanish Republicans. In November 1941, Soviet prisoners of war began arriving. The first Jews arrived in May 1941, but Jews were a small minority of the camp prisoners until 1944, when Jews from Poland (especially from Plaszow) and Hungary greatly increased the camp population. Still later, Mauthausen absorbed survivors of the infamous death marches from evacuated extermination camps.

The images I compiled to offer an enlightening post-World War II counterpoint or supplemental to Martinez's Holocaust Nazi era focus.

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Fix flawed relations with Cuba

Voice from the Americas sees what U.S. Americans won’t see

Excerpting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

Today on the Democracy Now program a daughter of Cuba gave further evidence of a severely impaired U.S. foreign relations model perpetuated by entrenched leadership.

Cuban activist Mariela Castro Espín is president of the Cuban Multidisciplinary Center for the Study of Sexuality, president of the National Commission for Treatment of Disturbances of Gender Identity, and a member of the Direct Action Group for Preventing, Confronting, and Combating AIDS. She is an executive member of the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS) and the director of the journal Sexología y Sociedad, a magazine of Sexology edited by an organization she directs, the Cuban National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX).

This human rights advocate and campaigner for effective AIDS prevention, scholar and author  is also the daughter of Cuban president Raúl Castro and Vilma Espín; niece of Cuba’s former president Fidel Castro; and is married to Italian Paolo Titolo, General Manager of Amorim Negocios Internacionais, S.A. in Cuba.

In answering questions posed by Democracy Now interviewer Amy Goodman, this is some of what Mariela Castro Espín had to say. [Democracy Now translation]

U.S. presidency, agent of imperialism

“I … prefer a president who responds to the interests of the American people,” she said; one who protects the poor from the arbitrary actions of the rich and who respects international law.”

However, while holding the office of president …of the United States, “it difficult to be just… [in that a president] represents an imperialist government and policy.…”

Cuban Five imprisoned in the United States

Prosecution of the Cuban Five was “a kind of political vendetta … [and] as part of the Cuban population, I am committed to fighting for the liberation of the five Cubans,” Mariela Castro Espín said. “In this case, four Cubans who are imprisoned and one who is out on probation in Miami are serving very severe sentences that do not correspond with the evidence.

“There is no evidence for such severe sentences. If they had been tried justly, they would have already completed their sentences. Yet, they are still prisoners.”

The Cuban Five (or Miami Five: Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González) are Cuban intelligence officers who were arrested in Miami, on September 12, 1998, and indicted by the U.S. government on 25 different counts, including charges of false identification and conspiracy to commit espionage.

After seven months and much public and media ranting and pressure from Miami Cubans in exile, an additional indictment, conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the shoot-down of the Brothers to the Rescue aircraft, was added against Gerardo Hernández.

The Cuban Five trial began in November 2000 and ended in 2001 after a few hours’ jury deliberation. In June 2001, the group was convicted of 26 counts in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami. The verdict included a charge of first-degree murder against Gerardo Hernandez which the prosecution had applied to withdraw.

The prosecution had tried to withdraw the case when it became clear that the judge’s jury instructions would specify that the murder charge required that the deaths occurred within U.S. jurisdiction, which it had been unable to show.

The prosecution also applied for an emergency writ, which was denied, that the instructions should exclude reference to jurisdiction.

U. S. terrorism in Cuba

In 1960s and 1970s, the United States-based counterrevolutionary exile groups such as Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), Alpha 66, and Omega 7 committed many acts of terrorism against Cuba.

A 2001 report by Cuba’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations covered four decades and highlighted attacks such as the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 by men trained by the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA-supported Bay of Pigs invasion, and the War against the Bandits between the government and anti-communist rebels in the Escambray Mountains.

Catalogued by the Cuban government in this report were 3,478 deaths as a result of “terrorism,” “aggression,” “acts of piracy and other actions.”

Alan Gross imprisoned in Cuba

Alan Phillip Gross was a U.S. government contractor with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) working in Cuba. While in Cuba in 2009, he was arrested as a spy.

In 2011, he was prosecuted for committing crimes against the Cuban state and is serving a 15-year prison sentence in Cuba.

Fix relations

Mariela Castro Espín 
Wikipedia image

Mariela Castro Espín ended her discussion on this subject by calling for return of the Cuban Five to Cuba and return of Alan Gross to the United States.

Concerning relations in general between the United States and Cuba, she said, “I want an end to the financial, commercial and economic blockade that violates the human rights of the Cuban people and the normalization of relations between both countries.”

Sources and notes

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/11/mariela_castro_on_ending_the_embargo#transcript

Mariela Castro on Ending the Embargo and Swapping Cuban Five for Jailed U.S. Contractor Alan Gross, June 11, 2012, http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/11/mar

Wikipedia notes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariela_Castro

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Gross

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_five

Image

Obama, give me five now ... la que asistirá Mariela Castro, hija del gobernante cubano Raúl Castro, cubanet.org

Wikipedia image of Mariela Castro Espín

Worldatlas map images, http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/namerica/caribb/cu.htm

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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U.S. Character in east-west Asia — unmasking dark side

 “U.S. Foreign Policy, Deniability, and the Political ‘Utility’ of State Terror” by Terry Lynn Karl in Marjorie Cohn’s United States and Torture

Excerpt, minor edit, italics by Carolyn Bennett

Torture breeds terrorism http://torturebreedsterrorism.wordpress.com/

“State terror, including torture, is widely used for both interrogation and social control. Its purpose is to destroy the voice, the self, the reality, and the existence of its victims, their families, friends, and supporters and to instill fear in opposition movements.

“Citizens of democracies tend to rest comfortably in the belief that liberal democratic states use repression and torture against their own citizens much less often than other states. But democracies have not only tortured, as the Bush administration’s orders and practices in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo so vividly demonstrate, but those with colonial histories or expansive ambitions have set the international standard in the development of the doctrines and techniques of repression.

“In fact, some democracies have taken the lead in pioneering and exporting methods of torture that ‘leave no marks’ as well as theories of ‘limited war’ that can sweep away civilian protections. Not only have they trained other military and state authorities in the science of coercive interrogation, but they and their allies have also used methods of torture and repression extensively in foreign wars … the French in Algeria, the British in Northern Ireland, and the Americans in Vietnam.

“These practices pose an enormous dilemma for the conduct of foreign policy in democracies that extend themselves abroad, especially the United States.

On the one hand, U.S. foreign policy embeds itself in notions of American exceptionalism with the concomitant belief that actions abroad should reflect the self-image of a people who stand for freedom everywhere. Although most governments (even dictatorships) attribute some sort of virtue to their actions abroad, the United States sees itself as blessed by a unique goodness. This strong moral streak in political culture, perhaps best captured by the oft-cited vision of a ‘city on a hill,’ as well as the desire to serve as a model to the world, would seem to preclude the adoption of policies that can be widely perceived as morally deficient.

Yet from its first efforts to establish dominance beyond its borders to its newer status as the sole superpower, the United States has developed a template for its operations abroad that conflicts with the self-image.”

RHETORIC v. REALITY

“Beginning with its first efforts to assert control over the Philippines in 1899, government rhetoric and reality clashed. In the Philippines, some U.S. troops tortured prisoners of war (most frequently with the ‘water cure’ currently known as waterboarding) and some commanders ‘took no prisoners’ even if this meant killing every male capable of bearing arms…. In Vietnam, tiger cages, waterboarding, electric shocks, assassinations, abuses, kidnapping, and the summary executions in the Phoenix program of more than 20,000 suspected Viet Cong operatives without trial or due process were prominent features of a war the American public eventually repudiated for its brutality. These same practices migrated to Latin America, largely through the teachings of U.S. advisers, where they helped keep military dictatorships in power.…

“For the United States, making palatable its support for the often-unpalatable actions of its own officials or its allies has been a central problem from Vietnam to the current conflicts in the Middle East.…

“[Though] every president since [Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon] has made rhetorical support for human rights and/or democratization a cornerstone of foreign policy — [and] however reassuring and popular the rhetoric has been — it seldom stands up against the primary goal of defending certain visions of national security. Nor has it ever been enough in situations in which allies or … rogue U.S. officials and advisers might be running amok. Under these circumstances, the temptation to dissemble [put on a false appearance: conceal facts, intentions, or feelings under some pretense] is not only enormous; it also can appear vital for protecting what an administration chooses to define as the ‘national interest.’”

UnMASKING TRUE FACE

Torture breeds terrorism http://torturebreedsterrorism.wordpress.com/

“Deniability is a collusive business. Allies use ‘deniability’ to hide or downplay (as much as possible) the extent of human rights violations. U.S. officials, in turn, use deceptive rhetoric to ‘reshape’ their allies into ‘freedom fighters’ in order to win and retain support from U.S. citizens. Together their actions produce a form of ‘double deniability.’”

Sources and notes

Notes from The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse edited by Marjorie Cohn. New York: New York University Press, 2011, pp. 70-71

Chapter 3: “U.S. Foreign Policy, Deniability, and the Political ‘Utility’ of State Terror— Case of El Salvador” by Terry Lynn Karl

Marjorie Cohn is a Professor of Law at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego, California, and a former president of the National Lawyers Guild, http://www.marjoriecohn.com/index.html

Terry Lynn Karl is Gildred Professor of Latin American Studies, Stanford University, Professor of Political Science, Stanford University, http://iis-db.stanford.edu/staff/2128/Terry_Karl-CV.pdf.

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • Articles also at World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire

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WAR Boomerang worsens

Editing, re-reporting by Carolyn Bennett

Globe Britannica image

“The ‘war on terror’ has definitely contributed to the decline of the United States,” political analyst and artist Robert Shetterly was speaking this week with Press TV.

U.S. Government-directed energy focused on what “we perceive, what is played up in the United States as attacks by ‘terrorists’ resentful of  U.S. freedoms and wealth — without examining original causes, real causes present in U.S. foreign policy and imperialism and military bases,” Shetterly said, “[has done] enormous damage to the United States and aided its decline.…”

Supporting his view, Shetterly recounted facts on record. We are continuing to torture people. We are continuing extraordinary rendition. We have the USA Patriot Act, which makes expendable a lot of private security and freedom.

“… We have lost — because the ‘war on terrorism’ has caused us to eradicate our values, our own freedoms.”

September 15, 2011

sites reporting (estimates only)

U.S.-led WAR DEAD

Iraq Body Count

Documented civilian deaths from violence

102,417 – 111,938

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

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

Icasualties dot org

AFGHANISTAN

1769 U.S. • 2715 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/OEF/Index.aspx

IRAQ

4474 U.S. • 4792 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx

United States’ “911-pretext WARS”

AFRICA

Africa Britannica image

Libya

Six months of aggression, their leader has gone to ground and most of his family has fled the country, and Qaddafi forces hold out in a few Libyan towns. Libya’s interim leadership also “has rejected the idea of deploying any kind of international military force or observers.”

National Transitional Council (NTC) chair Mustafa Abdel Jalil told Reuters that Libya did not need outside help to maintain security.

UN’s weapons’ concern

Hundreds of armed groups patrol the streets of Tripoli and United Nations special adviser on Libya, Ian Martin, told Reuters the UN is concerned about weapons proliferation.

A six-month war and with it the disintegration of the Qaddafi government has left a security vacuum in Libya: no state security forces, rebel fighters not part of any formal structure, and huge quantities of unsecured weapons.

Sub-Saharan Africa Britannica image

EU’s sub-Saharan concern

In light of an Amnesty report, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said, “The situation of non-combatant sub-Saharan populations and black Libyans is especially worrying.” In a statement yesterday, the EU expressed concern about reports of extra-judicial killings and arbitrary detentions by both sides in the Libyan conflict, especially by the victimization of sub-Saharan Africans.

Libya Britannica image

The European Union has backed the NTC in the conflict.

The National Transitional Council of Libya (sometimes known as the Transitional National Council, the Interim National Council or the Libyan National Council) is a political body formed by anti-Qaddafi forces to represent Libya during the 2011 Libyan civil war, which has pitted these forces against the government of Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi.

The Council formed on February 27, 2011, in the city of Benghazi with the intent of acting “as the ‘political face of the revolution.’” On March 5, 2011, the council issued a statement declaring itself “the ‘only legitimate body representing the people of Libya and the Libyan state.’”

AFRICA

The Horn

More than 11.6 million people are suffering • more than 3.7 million in Somalia • more than 4.56 million are Ethiopians • more than 2.4 million are Kenyans. Close to 150,000 are in Djibouti and potentially many more in Eritrea.

Somalia

Horn of Africa UN image

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said in an update last week that nearly a million more people are in need of humanitarian aid across the Horn of Africa — bringing the total to 13.3 million.

“Tens of thousands of Somalis are estimated to have died and more than 3.2 million are facing severe food shortages following one of the most devastating droughts in the Horn of Africa in six decades.” Relief agencies say, “Conflict and high food prices exacerbated the plight of those affected.”

The UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said the September-to-December wet spell constitutes an important rainy season after the March-May rains in southern Somalia and other equatorial parts of the region, including Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and northern Tanzania; but rainfall in northern Somalia during this period is typically lower than in the south.

The risk of below-normal rainfall remains in northern Somalia and adjoining regions.

Djibouti

After Somalia, Djibouti is the second most affected by the current crisis in the Horn of Africa.  One in five Djiboutian children, UNICEF reports, suffers malnourishment.

With an average of just 150 millimeters of rainfall each year and frequent droughts, Djibouti is one of the world’s most arid countries. A UNICEF representative in Djibouti says needs this year have been particularly acute so the agency has made providing safe drinking water for children and their families in vulnerable communities among its top priorities.

Inhuman, selective punishment

Eritrea-Ethiopia-Saudi Arabia-Yemen-Somalia Britannica image

Eritrea v. Ethiopia

All the while, over four years, United States officials and their allies at the UN were charging  Eritrea with “supporting ‘Al Queda linked Al Shabab’ fighters in Somalia, the U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia was saying in documents stamped ‘Top Secret’ that ‘The role Eritrea plays in Somalia, for instance, is probably insignificant.’”

Recent WikiLeaks releases on Ethiopia expose erroneous statements used to justify UN Security Council Sanctions in force against Eritrea, a little Horn of Africa country [WikiLeaks file ‘Ogaden: Counterinsurgency Operations Hitting a Wall,’ part 2. sect. 7].

“From the voluminous charges made by the UN Eritrea-Somalia Monitoring Group to the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa and including just about every western funded think tank — ranging from the International Crisis Group to Chatham House — it was all bunkum.” 

As Colombia does for the United States in South America, Israel in the Middle East, Nigeria in West Africa — Ethiopia has provided much muscle for what passes as U.S. foreign policy in East Africa. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, his army and paramilitary death squads do the dirty work so the U.S. and its Western allies can hold up their hands before the world and proclaim them clean.”

“Behind the scenes, U.S. Ambassador Donald Yamamoto is the man in charge, top gun on the ground in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa”; and the WikiLeaks website releases expose, in secret testimony of the U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia, the inaccuracy of so-called ‘evidence’ claiming linkage between Eritrea and terrorism in Somalia.”

EASTERN EUROPE/ASIA

Black Sea region Romania-Turkey-Russia Britannica image

World dominion — U.S. missile defense deployment

What does the emergence of a chain of objects of a U.S. missile defense system at the Russian borders mean? Pravda asks this week and military expert and senior vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Issues Konstantin Sivkov answers in an interview with Pravda.ru.


“The U.S. and NATO continue the policy of encirclement of Russia with their bases in the framework of the project ‘Loop of Anaconda,’” he said. “Our country is still perceived by the Americans as the main strategic adversary, and they do not even make any secret of it. Their task is to neutralize our nuclear weapons and push us out of the major areas of the world’s oceans. In this case — even from the Black Sea.


“Turkey, of course, has its own views on the missile defense system but Romania is a pawn in the hands of the United States, and its elite exist only because of U.S. support. The same can be said about Poland. As a result, there is a chain of U.S. missile defense sites along the Russian border, stretching from Turkey through Romania and Poland to Norway.”


“The U.S. and Romania signed an agreement on deployment of the elements of a U.S. missile defense system.” This follows reports “that some elements of EUROPRO system will appear in Turkey.

“Everything indicates that the U.S. military machine and NATO are inexorably approaching the Russian borders.


“The U.S.-Romanian agreement was signed during Romanian President Traian Basescu’s September 13 visit to Washington. The signers of the document were U.S. and Romanian foreign ministers Hillary Clinton and Theodore Baconschi. President Barack Obama met with the participants of the talks, although initially he had not planned to meet with Basescu.”

EAST ASIA

U.S. Provocation — North Korea

Asia east to west Britannica image

Senior U.S. intelligence officers reportedly are saying Washington is talking with Seoul, South Korea, about the United States flying “a Global Hawk drone near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)” that separates South and North Korea.

North Korea -South Korea Britannica image

Quoting the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes, “The United States is reportedly prepared to deploy an advanced unmanned spy plane over South Korea that could provide in-depth intelligence on the military activities of North Korea.”

The United States deploys an estimated 28,500 soldiers in South Korea and South Korea’s military and defense procurement officials declined to comment on the report.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Domestic neglect while at war abroad — Poverty

As top officials in Federal Washington this week continued to drive the country more deeply into foreign aggression and distracted the public with headlines criticizing China and Iran, Pravda highlighted U.S. domestic decline evidenced in a new U.S. Census Bureau report.

46.2 million Americans now live in poverty. 

In the past 12 months, the number living in poverty has grown by 2.6 million — the largest rise since 1959 when the U.S. government began calculating poverty figures.

The median household income fell three times, consecutively, in three years.

Personal incomes have fallen, and in 2010, record numbers slipped into poverty. The economic pie shrinks commensurate with rising personal debt.

USA Britannica image

Unemployment rises. Competition for the lowest paying jobs is brutal. Good jobs have become unavailable.  No longer can a person wanting a job “go out and get one.” The inability to get a good job pushes large numbers of Americans into poverty.

While the number of high-income jobs falls, low-income jobs rise; ‘the working poor’ skyrockets. 

Health care is one of the top causes of the push into poverty. Health insurance companies lack care about human health and many people are one major medical problem away from financial ruin. Millions of American families are financially crippled by health care costs.

USA

As seen from afar

Creating false images of Muslims then attacking Muslims

Reports are saying the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation “has been teaching its ‘counter-terrorism’ agents that ‘mainstream’ Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers and the more devout a Muslim is, the more likely [this person] is to be ‘violent.’”

An FBI whistleblower has reportedly released documents showing “agents are instructed that the Islamic practice of giving charity is a ‘funding mechanism for combat.’”

ASIA SOUTHWEST/CENTRAL —
Afghanistan, Pakistan

The U.S invaded Afghanistan with the official objective of curbing militancy and bringing peace and stability to the region but nine years later the region remains unstable and militancy expands into Pakistan.

:Asia west to east Britannica image

“‘Militants’ have stepped up attacks on NATO supply convoys in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan over the past months.” Large numbers of NATO trucks have been torched in Pakistan.

Afghanistan

DETERIORATING

The security situation has been deteriorating across Afghanistan over the past few years. From Afghanistan’s volatile south, violence has spread to relatively peaceful areas — despite the presence of some 150,000 foreign troops.

Yesterday, Taliban ‘militants’ attacked 15 NATO supply vehicles transporting fuel destined for U.S.-led forces and set the tankers alight in Afghanistan’s western province of Farah. Two drivers and a security guard escorting the convoy died and five others including security guards suffered injuries.

Afghanistan - Pakistan Britannica image 

Close to the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Wednesday an attack left 27 people dead.  Among the injured were six NATO troops of which three were U.S. soldiers. Among the dead were 11 Afghan civilians: more than half of them children, five were Afghan police officers.

Pakistan

Plagued by air and ground bombings, slander, disease

This country has lost more than 35,000 people in militant attacks and bomb explosions since 2007, according to the Associated Press. Millions more have been displaced by the wave of violence and militancy across the country.

Today, 200 kilometers (124 miles) northwest of the capital Islamabad, at least 27 people died and dozens suffered injuries (the death toll expected to rise) when “a bomber targeted the funeral procession of a local tribal elder in Pakistan’s troubled northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.”

Mourners had been “offering funeral prayers.”

Analysts say the United States is looking for an excuse to expand its military operations in the troubled South and Central Asian region to secure bases near Russia and China. This week the unauthorized U.S. drone attacks have drawn strong criticism from the Pakistani people and officials.

An pathological disregard of human life, land, sovereignty, culture

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said yesterday that the United States would do whatever it took to defend American forces in Afghanistan from Pakistan-based militants — indicating that Washington could give a go-ahead to a [deepening] military operation inside Pakistan.

The Pakistani government responded by denouncing the U.S. warning to retaliate against pro-Taliban militants based in Pakistan’s troubled tribal region along the Afghan border.

Agence France Presse quoted Pakistani Foreign Ministry representative Tehmina Janjua saying the remarks were “‘out of line with the kind of cooperation that exists between the two countries.’”

The issue of “terrorism and militancy is a complex issue,” she said. “It requires cooperation between all the countries concerned [and] Pakistan’s cooperation in this regard has been persistent’” in identifying Pakistan’s position on all these issues. “‘Pakistan and U.S. are strategic partners and both sides need to discuss all issues in a cooperative manner.’”

Pakistan also suffers a health crisis — dengue fever

The provincial capital of Lahore is facing an increasing public panic and hundreds of people are visiting hospitals daily for medical tests for dengue fever. The Punjab government says 4,118 out of 4,989 reported cases of dengue fever are in Lahore.  Pakistan’s Army has set up medical camps (separate form those for hundreds of thousands of flood victims) to help civilian hospitals deal with the crisis.

This week, Pakistani authorities closed educational institutions in Punjab to control the outbreak of dengue fever, which has infected nearly 5,000 people. Following reports of suspected cases among the students, the Punjab government on Wednesday announced that schools, colleges and universities across the central Pakistani province would close for 10 days. Officials will fumigate all educational institutes with anti-mosquitoes sprays during the 10-day period.

MIDDLE EAST – PERSIA - PALESTINE

September 15, 2011

Palestine

Jerusalem Britannica image

Despite U.S. threats and a planned visit to the West Bank by a senior U.S. diplomatic team, the Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki announced today that Palestine plans to proceed with its petition to the UN Security Council for statehood recognition and acceptance of Palestine as a full UN member.

Palestine Britannica image

“Maliki said acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas will submit the Palestinian request for membership to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon after addressing the General Assembly on September 23, and that the Palestinians would listen to suggested alternatives in the meantime.”

The last round of Israel- Palestinian Authority talks broke down in 2010 shortly after the U.S.-sponsored talks were launched in Washington over Israel’s refusal to freeze its illegal settlement expansions on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and the illegally annexed East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

Palestinians say their decision to petition the United Nations comes in frustration after years of failed negotiations with Israel.

Sources and notes

U.S. GLOBAL WAR N TERROR

“‘War on terror contributed to U.S. decline,’” September 13, 2011,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/198878.html

Political analyst and artist Robert Shetterly, founder of Americans Who Tell the Truth, said Monday in interview with Press TV — The U.S. war on terror in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks has been a major factor causing the decline of the United States [Press TV's US Desk]

Europe-Africa-Asia Britannica image

911 U.S. WARS

AFRICA — Libya

“Libya interim rulers don’t want U.N. forces - envoy (Source: Reuters), August 30, 2011,

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/libya-interim-rulers-dont-want-un-forces-envoy/

“UN says Libya weapons a major concern” (By Christian Lowe, Reuters), September 4, 2011,

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/un-says-libya-weapons-a-major-concern/

“EU worried by abuses by both sides in Libya” (Reuters) September 14, 2011, http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/eu-worried-by-abuses-by-both-sides-in-libya/

NTC NOTE

The National Transitional Council of Libya (sometimes known as the Transitional National Council, the Interim National Council or the Libyan National Council) is a political body formed by anti-Qaddafi forces to represent Libya during the 2011 Libyan civil war, which has pitted these forces against the government of Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi.

The Council formed on February 27, 2011, in the city of Benghazi with the intent of acting “as the ‘political face of the revolution.’” On March 5, 2011, the council issued a statement declaring itself “the ‘only legitimate body representing the people of Libya and the Libyan state.’” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Transitional_Council]

AFRICA — Horn

Djibouti Britannica image

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Remarks of the emergency relief coordinator and Under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs Drought emergency meeting in Rome, July 25, 2011 … OCHA press releases are at www.unocha.org and www.reliefweb.int.

The mission of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is to mobilize and coordinate effective and principled humanitarian action in partnership with national and international actors.  Further information: OCHA-New York: Amanda Pitt, +1 917 367 5126, mobile +1 917 442 1810, pitta@un.org; Mark Turner, +1-917-367-5707, mobile +1 917 628 4192, turner5@un.org

Somalia

“UNICEF pledges continued assistance to drought-affected Somalis, September 14, 2011,

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39552&Cr=horn+of+africa&Cr1=

Djibouti

“Djibouti: UNICEF launches scheme to provide safe drinking water,” September 7, 2011,

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39472&Cr=Horn+of+Africa&Cr1=

Eritrea

“WikiLeaks Exposes UN Eritrean sanction lies,” September 9, 2011,  http://english.pravda.ru/world/africa/09-09-2011/119012-WikiLeaks_Exposes_UN_Eritrean_sanction_lies-0/

EASTERN EUROPE/ASIA

“USA and NATO tighten Anaconda loop around Russia” (Vadim Trukhachev, Pravda.Ru)September 15, 2011,

http://english.pravda.ru/world/europe/15-09-2011/119052-romania_usa_missile_defense-0/

EAST ASIA
“‘US to deploy drones near N Korea,’” September 15, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/199237.html

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

As seen from afar

“Poverty in America: Special report” (Michael Snyder), September 15, 2011 

http://english.pravda.ru/business/finance/15-09-2011/119059-america_poverty-0/#

“FBI prejudice against Islam unveiled” (Huffington Post), September 15, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/199312.html

ASIA SOUTHWEST/CENTRAL — Afghanistan, Pakistan

“15 NATO tankers torched in Afghanistan,” September 15, 2011,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/199295.html

“Kabul clashes injure three U.S. soldiers,” September 14, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/199119.html

“Bomb attack kills 27 in NW Pakistan,” September 15, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/section/3510204.html

“Pakistan hits back at US over war threat,” September 15, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/199322.html

“Pakistan closes schools to contain fever,” September 15, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/199287.html

MIDDLE EAST – PERSIA - PALESTINE

September 15, 2011

“Palestinians to push ahead with UN bid,” September 15, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/199328.html

Also:

“Turkey vows to control Israel at sea — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the country’s navy will patrol the Mediterranean to prevent Israel from assaulting ships in the international waters”

“Yemeni forces attack protesters in Taizz — Yemeni security forces open fire on anti-government protesters in the southern city of Taizz as the nation renew calls for an end to the rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh” [Press TV]

“‘Israeli spy admits anti-Syria plots’ — Syrian security forces have arrested an Israeli spy who has confessed to plots hatched by the Tel Aviv regime against the country [Syrian media report]”

“Israeli ambassador flees Jordan — The Israeli ambassador to Jordan has reportedly fled the Jordanian capital of Amman amid fears of massive anti-Israel demonstrations near its embassy over the weekend”

“‘Israel, cluster munitions inseparable’ — Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri says the Israeli regime and fatal cluster bombs cannot be separated from one another [Press TV reports]”

“3 civilians killed in Yemeni violence — Three civilians have been killed and five others injured in explosions and exchange of gunfire in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a and the southern city of Aden [Press TV reports]”

“Saudi prince charged with rape — Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a nephew of King Abdullah, has landed in hot waters as a Spanish court reopens a three-year-old rape case against him”

http://www.presstv.ir/section/3510202.html

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY] • Articles also at World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire