World must deny legitimacy to Israel - Mail & Guardian Online: T. The world worked together to help bring apartheid to an end, writes Kader Asmal. So why allow it to live on in Israel/Palestine? In 1980, I served on a commission of enquiry into reported violations of international law by Israel following its invasion of Lebanon. We spent 22 days in Lebanon, Israel and the surrounding areas.
The devastation in Lebanon was quite overwhelming. Bombings were carried on while we were there; whole new blocks of flats in Beirut were destroyed simply because they were there. The noise, the dust and the sound of bullets were ceaseless. And then, after our preliminary work had been done, there were the Sabra and Shatila massacres of hundreds of defenceless refugees, shot dead by the Israeli surrogates, the Phalange.
The Palestinians have been betrayed by those who believe in the legal system that holds the world together and they have been betrayed by their neighbours, who bought peace from Israel. It is time to delegitimise this entity. Israel faces new war crime headache | War On You: Breaking Alter. Israel faces new war crime headache Thu, 24 Jun 2010 04:35:45 GMT Israeli leaders are facing more legal action from rights activists who are filing new lawsuits in connection with Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza. Two Belgian lawyers filed an indictment on Wednesday on behalf of more than a dozen Palestinians, calling for some 14 Israeli officials to stand trial for crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed during Tel Aviv’s December 2008-January 2009 offensive against the Gaza Strip.
The list comprises of various politicians and military and intelligence officials — including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, then Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert — who had a role in the deadly onslaught The Jerusalem Post quoted Hungarian News Agency MTI as saying. Belgium’s “Universal Jurisdiction” law allows for the trial of war criminals in Belgium while the events in question took place elsewhere. Related Posts: Democratic governors defend health care overhaul. How lessons in the dark arts of special ops led McChrystal to th. Busted: McChrystal Was a Big Show, Cover for War Vote | WarIsACr. As we hear more of the breathless fallout over the McChrystal interview and his staff's foot-in-mouth, you might want to keep in mind the following fact: McChrystal was given the chance to voice objections to the controversial parts of the Rolling Stone article in which drunken aides were quoted, but he signed off anyway.
GlobeNews24.com reports: "Eric Bates, the magazine’s editor, said during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that McChrystal was informed of the quotes prior to its publication as part of Rolling Stone's standard fact-checking process — and that the general did not object to or dispute any of the reporting. Asked if McChrystal pushed back on the story, Bates responded: “No, absolutely not.” “We ran everything by them in the fact-checking process as we always do,” the Rolling Stone editor said. McChrytal then offered his resignation before Obama ever asked for it, and headed for the White House after being summoned by the reportedly "angry" president.
Nope. Obama Disavows July 2011 Afghan Drawdown Date -- News from Antiw. Though it is hard to imagine that eight and a half years in anything the Obama Administration could do with regards to the Afghan War would constitute a “hasty exit,” President Obama attempted to reassure again today that this would not happen, in comments which formally disavowed the July 2011 drawdown date he set himself in December. “We didn’t say we’d be switching off the lights,” Obama insisted, adding that “we said we’d begin a transition phase that would allow the Afghan government to take more and more responsibility.”
Officials have been dismissing the July 2011 date as largely meaningless in the first place, but President Obama has avoided comment on it, since his announcement of the most recent escalation in December. Actually what President Obama said was that the US would begin to “start the pullout” in July 2011 at the time, and Vice President Biden was sticking with that story as recently as last week, saying that a “whole lot of people” would be moving out in July. Taliban endorses General Petraeus, say new US Afghanistan war ch. The Politico Opens the Kimono. And then Pretends it. June 24, 2010 The Politico Opens the Kimono. And then Pretends it Never Happened.
"Think about what the Politico is saying: an experienced beat reporter would probably not want to 'burn bridges' with key sources by telling the world what happens when those sources let their guard down. " As everyone who pays attention to the news knows by now, an article appeared in Rolling Stone this week by freelance reporter Michael Hastings that wound up forcing the resignation of General Stanley A. McChrystal as commander of American troops in Afghanistan.
The Politico was so hopped up about the story that it took the extraordinary step of posting on its site a PDF of Rolling Stone’s article because Rolling Stone had not put it online fast enough. McChrystal, an expert on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, has long been thought to be uniquely qualified to lead in Afghanistan. Now this seemed to several observers—and I was one—a reveal. Let me enumerate why this is worth noting: 1.) 2.) 3.) 4.)
BanksterUSA. The people's shareholders This spring, in coordinated actions across the country, retirees who lost their pensions, families whose homes are underwater, students with impossible debt, the unemployed and underemployed, family farmers, immigrants, vets and more will be knocking on the doors of corporate boardrooms, holding CEOs of major American firms responsible for crashing the economy then turning their backs on their fellow Americans. With hundreds of shareholders on the inside and thousands of folks on the outside, the largest shareholder demonstrations in U.S. history are underway and spreading across the land. Their goal is nothing short of transformational: to wrest control of our democracy back from the robber barons and CEOs that systematically block any effort to create an economy and a body politic that serves the needs of the vast majority of Americans and not the elite few.
Right Wing Leftovers. Michael J.W. Stickings: Just How Crazy is Sharron Angle? TPM's Justin Elliott looks at the Nevada Republican's past party allegiance: The far-right third party that Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle called home in the 1990s supported abolishing "the debt money system" and ran a vitriolic anti-gay insert in state newspapers that portrays LGBT people -- or, as Angle's party called them, "sodomites" -- as child-molesting, HIV-carrying, Hell-bound freaks, according to documents obtained by TPM.
As we reported earlier this month, Angle was a member of Nevada's Independent American Party, a Christian conservative-cum-libertarian third party, for at least six years while she was getting her feet wet in politics in the 1990s. Independent American Party members told us that Angle switched to be a Republican in 1997 out of political expediency as she was preparing to make a run for state-level office. Obviously, one is not necessarily required or expected to support every single one of one's party's views. Right-Wing Assholes of the Month: Glenn Beck and M. Stanton Evan. The Plum Line - Sarah Palin tells followers to read article comp. As you know, this blog tends to be dismissive of the idea that Sarah Palin's Tweets are newsworthy. But it really is news that Palin has now used her Twitter feed to instruct her followers to read Thomas Sowell's now-notorious article comparing the BP escrow fund to Nazism.
Late last night, Palin Tweeted the following about the escrow fund: That's unequivocal: Palin is endorsing the substance of Sowell's piece, and telling her followers that they should read it. Sowell's piece asks: "Is U.S. Now On Slippery Slope To Tyranny? " And it compares Hitler's use of the financial crisis to give himself "dictatorial powers" to Obama's use of the spill to force creation of the BP escrow fund: [D]uring the worldwide Great Depression, the German Reichstag passed a law "for the relief of the German people.
" In response to Palin's reading recommendation, Jake Tapper Tweeted a good question for Palin: "Respectfully, are you comfortable w/ his references to Hitler and the Reichstag? Obviously, she is. Why Is Dick Cheney Silent on the Oil Spill? Diary: Did BP Cheney Deliberately Cause the Oil Spill to Cripple. Was the oil spill in the gulf of Mexico an accident, an act of negligence or intentional, planned and deliberate?
Dick Cheney During the Democratic debates, Senator Mike Gravel said to Hillary Clinton, "Hillary, why did you stay with that shmuck? You know full well that the Congress is owned lock, stock and barrel by the military industrial complex. " Today the oil industry is telling us that the pelicans are adapting quite well to the oil. Camelot died on Friday, Nov. 22, 1963. The topic of who killed John F. Replace the word environmentalist with antipoisoner. The obvious answer is money. Adolf Hitler wrote his manifesto, "Mein Kampf. " Dick Cheney and Tony Hayward both took "Lying 101" from the Prince of Lies. Many Americans believe that 9/11 was orchestrated by Dick Cheney and PNAC.
The goals of President Obama are the opposite of the goals of Halliburton and BP. While he was the President, Dick Cheney set up a White House Council on Environmental Quality. Fox's "straight news" falsely reports federal agencies are boyco. June 25, 2010 11:16 am ET — 40 Comments Fox News' America's Newsroom falsely reported that "two federal agencies are joining the push to boycott Arizona" by cancelling "conventions" there. In fact, the Department of Education says it will be holding a conference in Arizona next week, and the Border Patrol said they did not cancel any conferences in Arizona. Fox reports that federal gov't has "aim[ed] an economic boycott" against Arizona From the June 25 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom : MACCALLUM: Have you heard this story? Two federal agencies are joining the push to boycott Arizona.
This is a very unusual development. Fox ignores agencies' statements disputing the claim Education Department is reportedly holding a conference in Arizona next week. The Education Department says it moved a joint event held with Mexican and Canadian partners in a student exchange program because the Mexicans asked that it be moved. Border Patrol says it "has not canceled any conferences in Arizona. " The Young Turks: Is Fascism On The Rise? Wash. Times compiles its distortions and falsehoods into one mas. Times myth: Kagan is unqualified to be a justice Times claim: "Kagan is remarkably lacking in courtroom experience. " From the editorial : We know she is remarkably lacking in courtroom experience. Until Ms. Kagan became solicitor general, she not only had never been a judge, but she also had not even argued a single appeals case in her entire career. Her few arguments as solicitor general have been undistinguished.
FACT: ABA gave Kagan its highest rating: well qualified. FACT: NPR reports Justice Scalia "likes" Kagan and her performance in Citizens United oral argument. [Kagan] knew she likely had a losing hand, and was grim about it in private. Justice Antonin Scalia replied that the court may never have questioned the ban, but it had never approved it, either.
"I doubt that one can expect a body of incumbents to draw election restrictions that do not favor incumbents," he said, to which Kagan said he was simply "wrong. " IMUS: How has she done when she argued herself?