Hypocrisy: Thy Name Is Bush

Related
A terrorist walks
Luis Posada Carriles has boasted of bombing Havana hotels, yet American justice lets him go free.
LUIS POSADA CARRILES - THE DECLASSIFIED RECORD
---
consortiumnews.com

By Robert Parry (A Special Report)

George W. Bush likes to present the “war on terror” as a clear-cut moral crusade in which evildoers who kill innocent civilians must be brought harshly to justice, along with the leaders of countries that harbor terrorists. There are no grays, only blacks and whites.

But evenhanded justice is not the true core principle of the Bush Doctrine. The real consistency is hypocrisy: violence which Bush favors – no matter how wanton the slaughter of innocents – is justifiable, while violence that goes against Bush’s interests – even an insurgency against a foreign military occupation – must be punished without remorse as “terrorism.”

In other words, if Bush hates the perpetrators, they are locked up indefinitely without charge and, at his discretion, can be subjected to “alternative interrogation techniques,” what most of the world considers torture. The rule of law is out the window. Wild West hangin' justice is in. Even the ancient fair trial right of habeas corpus is discarded.

However, when the killers of civilians are on Bush’s side, they get the full panoply of legal protections – and every benefit of the doubt. Under this Bush double standard, therefore, right-wing Cuban terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, though implicated in a string of murderous attacks on civilians, get the see-no-evil treatment.

On April 19, the 79-year-old Posada was released on bail from federal custody for an immigration violation and allowed to fly to Miami where he will live at home while his case winds its way through the U.S. courts. Bosch, too, has been allowed to live out his golden years in south Florida with the help and protection of the Bush family.

But the evidence in U.S. government files is overwhelming that Posada and Bosch were the architects of the 1976 mid-air bombing of a civilian Cubana airliner, killing 73 people, including young members of the Cuban national fencing team.

Since the conspiracy was hatched in Caracas, Venezuela, where Posada worked as a Venezuelan intelligence officer, the Venezuelan government has sought Posada’s extradition. However, when a Posada friend testified at Posada’s immigration hearing that Venezuela practices torture, Bush administration lawyers let the unverified claim go unchallenged, leading the judge to forbid Posada’s deportation there.

So, the Bush administration, which has subjected its own terrorism suspects to such practices as painful stress positions and simulated drowning by “water-boarding,” wasn’t willing to take the chance that Posada might be abused in Venezuela, even though there was no real evidence that he would be.

Justifying Terrorism

The Bush administration also took no note a year ago when Bosch publicly justified the 1976 mid-air bombing. The stunning TV interview of Bosch by reporter Juan Manuel Cao on Miami’s Channel 41 was cited in articles on the Internet by José Pertierra, a lawyer for the Venezuelan government. But Bosch’s comments caused him no further difficulty. [For Pertierra’s story, see Counterpunch, April 11, 2006]

“Did you down that plane in 1976?” Cao asked Bosch.

“If I tell you that I was involved, I will be inculpating myself,” Bosch answered, “and if I tell you that I did not participate in that action, you would say that I am lying. I am therefore not going to answer one thing or the other.”

But when Cao asked Bosch to comment on the civilians who died when the plane crashed off the coast of Barbados, Bosch responded, “In a war such as us Cubans who love liberty wage against the tyrant [Fidel Castro], you have to down planes, you have to sink ships, you have to be prepared to attack anything that is within your reach.”

“But don’t you feel a little bit for those who were killed there, for their families?” Cao asked.

“Who was on board that plane?” Bosch responded. “Four members of the Communist Party, five North Koreans, five Guyanese.” [Officials tallies actually put the Guyanese dead at 11.]

Bosch added, “Four members of the Communist Party, chico! Who was there? Our enemies…”

“And the fencers?” Cao asked about Cuba’s amateur fencing team that had just won gold, silver and bronze medals at a youth fencing competition in Caracas. “The young people on board?”

Bosch replied, “I was in Caracas. I saw the young girls on television. There were six of them. After the end of the competition, the leader of the six dedicated their triumph to the tyrant. … She gave a speech filled with praise for the tyrant.

“We had already agreed in Santo Domingo, that everyone who comes from Cuba to glorify the tyrant had to run the same risks as those men and women that fight alongside the tyranny.” [The comment about Santo Domingo was an apparent reference to a strategy meeting by a right-wing terrorist organization, CORU, which took place in the Dominican Republic in 1976.]

“If you ran into the family members who were killed in that plane, wouldn’t you think it difficult?” Cao asked.

“No, because in the end those who were there had to know that they were cooperating with the tyranny in Cuba,” Bosch answered.

In an article about Bosch’s remarks, lawyer Pertierra said the answers “give us a glimpse into the mind of the kind of terrorist that the United States government harbors and protects in Miami; terrorists that for the last 47 years have waged a bloody and ruthless war against the Cuban people.”

CIA Files

Beyond Bosch’s incriminating statements, the evidence of his and Posada’s guilt is overwhelming. Declassified U.S. documents show that soon after the Cubana Airlines plane was blown out of the sky on Oct. 6, 1976, the CIA, then under the direction of George H.W. Bush, identified Posada and Bosch as the masterminds of the bombing.

But in fall 1976, Bush’s boss, President Gerald Ford, was in a tight election battle with Democrat Jimmy Carter and the Ford administration wanted to keep intelligence scandals out of the newspapers. So Bush and other officials kept the lid on the investigations. [For details, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]

Still, inside the U.S. government, the facts were known. According to a secret CIA cable dated Oct. 14, 1976, intelligence sources in Venezuela relayed information about the Cubana Airlines bombing that tied in anti-communist Cuban extremists Bosch, who had been visiting Venezuela, and Posada, who then served as a senior officer in Venezuela’s intelligence agency, DISIP.

The Oct. 14 cable said Bosch arrived in Venezuela in late September 1976 under the protection of Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, a close Washington ally who assigned his intelligence adviser Orlando Garcia “to protect and assist Bosch during his stay in Venezuela.”

On his arrival, Bosch was met by Garcia and Posada, according to the report. Later, a fundraising dinner was held in Bosch’s honor during which Bosch requested cash from the Venezuelan government in exchange for assurances that Cuban exiles wouldn’t demonstrate during Andres Perez’s planned trip to the United Nations.

“A few days following the fund-raising dinner, Posada was overheard to say that, ‘we are going to hit a Cuban airplane,’ and that ‘Orlando has the details,’” the CIA report said.

“Following the 6 October Cubana Airline crash off the coast of Barbados, Bosch, Garcia and Posada agreed that it would be best for Bosch to leave Venezuela. Therefore, on 9 October, Posada and Garcia escorted Bosch to the Colombian border, where he crossed into Colombian territory.”

The CIA report was sent to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, as well as to the FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies, according to markings on the cable.

In South America, police began rounding up suspects. Two Cuban exiles, Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo, who got off the Cubana plane in Barbados, confessed that they had planted the bomb. They named Bosch and Posada as the architects of the attack.

A search of Posada’s apartment in Venezuela turned up Cubana Airlines timetables and other incriminating documents.

Posada and Bosch were charged in Venezuela for the Cubana Airlines bombing, but the men denied the accusations. The case soon became a political tug-of-war, since the suspects were in possession of sensitive Venezuelan government secrets that could embarrass President Andres Perez.

Lost Interest

After the Reagan-Bush administration took power in Washington in 1981, the momentum for fully unraveling the mysteries of anti-communist terrorist plots dissipated. The Cold War trumped any concern about right-wing terrorism.

In 1985, Posada escaped from a Venezuelan prison, reportedly with the help of Cuban exiles. In his autobiography, Posada thanked Miami-based Cuban activist Jorge Mas Canosa for providing the $25,000 that was used to bribe guards who allowed Posada to walk out of prison.

Another Cuban exile who aided Posada was former CIA officer Felix Rodriguez, who was close to then-Vice President George H.W. Bush and who was overseeing secret supply shipments to the Nicaraguan contra rebels, a pet project of President Ronald Reagan.

After fleeing Venezuela, Posada joined Rodriguez in Central America and was assigned the job of paymaster for pilots in the White House-run contra-supply operation. When one of the contra-supply planes was shot down inside Nicaragua in October 1986, Posada was responsible for alerting U.S. officials to the crisis and then shutting down the operation’s safe houses in El Salvador.

Even after the exposure of Posada’s role in the contra-supply operation, the U.S. government made no effort to bring the accused terrorist to justice.

By the late 1980s, Orlando Bosch also was out of Venezuela’s jails and back in Miami. But Bosch, who had been implicated in about 30 violent attacks, was facing possible deportation by U.S. officials who warned that Washington couldn’t credibly lecture other countries about terrorism while protecting a terrorist like Bosch.

But Bosch got lucky. Jeb Bush, then an aspiring Florida politician, led a lobbying drive to prevent the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service from expelling Bosch. In 1990, the lobbying paid dividends when Jeb's dad, President George H.W. Bush, blocked proceedings against Bosch, letting the unapologetic terrorist stay in the United States.

In 1992, also during George H.W. Bush’s presidency, the FBI interviewed Posada about the Iran-Contra scandal for 6 ½ hours at the U.S. Embassy in Honduras.

Posada filled in some blanks about the role of Bush’s vice presidential office in the secret contra operation. According to a 31-page summary of the FBI interview, Posada said Bush’s national security adviser, Donald Gregg, was in frequent contact with Felix Rodriguez.

“Posada … recalls that Rodriguez was always calling Gregg,” the FBI summary said. “Posada knows this because he’s the one who paid Rodriguez’ phone bill.” After the interview, the FBI agents let Posada walk out of the embassy to freedom. [For details, see Parry’s Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & Project Truth.]

More Attacks

Posada soon returned to his anti-Castro plotting.

In 1994, Posada set out to kill Castro during a trip to Cartagena, Colombia. Posada and five cohorts reached Cartagena, but the plan flopped when security cordons prevented the would-be assassins from getting a clean shot at Castro, according to a Miami Herald account. [Miami Herald, June 7, 1998]

The Herald also described Posada’s role in a lethal 1997 bombing campaign against popular hotels and restaurants inside Cuba that killed an Italian tourist. The story cited documentary evidence that Posada arranged payments to conspirators from accounts in the United States.

“This afternoon you will receive via Western Union four transfers of $800 each … from New Jersey,” said one fax signed by SOLO, a Posada alias.

Posada landed back in jail in 2000 after Cuban intelligence uncovered a plot to assassinate Castro by planting a bomb at a meeting the Cuban leader planned with university students in Panama.

Panamanian authorities arrested Posada and other alleged co-conspirators in November 2000. In April 2004, they were sentenced to eight or nine years in prison for endangering public safety.

Four months after the sentencing, however, lame-duck Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso – who lives in Key Biscayne, Florida, and has close ties to the Cuban-American community and to George W. Bush’s administration – pardoned the convicts.

Despite press reports saying Moscoso had been in contact with U.S. officials about the pardons, the State Department denied that it pressured Moscoso to release the Cuban exiles. After the pardons and just two months before Election 2004, three of Posada’s co-conspirators – Guillermo Novo Sampol, Pedro Remon and Gaspar Jimenez – arrived in Miami to a hero’s welcome, flashing victory signs at their supporters.

While the terrorists celebrated, U.S. authorities watched the men – also implicated in bombings in New York, New Jersey and Florida – alight on U.S. soil. As Washington Post writer Marcela Sanchez noted in a September 2004 article about the Panamanian pardons, “there is something terribly wrong when the United States, after Sept. 11 (2001), fails to condemn the pardoning of terrorists and instead allows them to walk free on U.S. streets.” [Washington Post, Sept. 3, 2004]

Posada Arrives

Posada reportedly sneaked into the United States in early 2005 and his presence was an open secret in Miami for weeks before U.S. authorities did anything. The New York Times summed up Bush’s dilemma if Posada decided to seek U.S. asylum.

“A grant of asylum could invite charges that the Bush administration is compromising its principle that no nation should harbor suspected terrorists,” the Times wrote. “But to turn Mr. Posada away could provoke political wrath in the conservative Cuban-American communities of South Florida, deep sources of support and campaign money for President Bush and his brother, Jeb.” [NYT, May 9, 2005]

Only after Posada called a news conference to announce his presence was the Bush administration shamed into arresting him. But even then, the administration balked at sending Posada back to Venezuela where the government of Hugo Chavez – unlike some of its predecessors – was eager to prosecute.

At a U.S. immigration hearing in 2005, Posada’s defense attorney called as a witness a Posada friend who alleged that Venezuela’s government practices torture. Bush administration lawyers didn’t challenge the claim, leading the immigration judge to bar Posada’s deportation to Venezuela.

Venezuela’s Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez accused the Bush administration of applying “a cynical double standard” in the “war on terror.”

“The United States presents itself as a leader against terrorism, invades countries, restricts the civil rights of Americans in order to fight terrorism, but when it is about its own terrorists, it denies that they be tried,” Alvarez said.

As for the claim that Venezuela practices torture, Alvarez said, “There isn’t a shred of evidence that Posada would be tortured in Venezuela.” Alvarez added that the claim was particularly ironic given widespread press accounts that the Bush administration has abused prisoners at the U.S. military base in Guatanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Posada-Bosch cases point to one unavoidable and unpleasant conclusion: that the Bush family regards terrorism – defined as killing civilians for a political reason – as justified or at least tolerable in cases when their interests match those of the terrorists.

Terrorism is only a moral evil to the Bushes when the violence against civilians clashes with the Bush family’s interests.

This blatant hypocrisy often has been aided and abetted by the U.S. news media, which intuitively understands the double standard and acts accordingly. The U.S. press corps downplays or ignores cases in which terrorism has connections to U.S. government officials – and especially to the Bush family.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com.

Another side of terrorism in the Middle East

By Gary Fields

April 6, 2007

The art of political language, as George Orwell observed, is to make falsehoods sound truthful and to deny voice to those without power. There are few practitioners of this art more highly skilled than the government of Israel.

As the military occupier of the Palestinian territories for the past 40 years, Israel has managed to represent itself as the beleaguered victim of terrorism in its conflict with the Palestinian people. At the same time, the Israeli government, through its influence in America, has discredited and even silenced those voices inside the Palestinian territories with a far different story about terrorism and its victims. Truth, however, is sometimes able to prevail despite the efforts of those with power to prevent truth from gaining voice.The art of political language, as George Orwell observed, is to make falsehoods sound truthful and to deny voice to those without power. There are few practitioners of this art more highly skilled than the government of Israel.

Last August on these pages, I was able to tell such a story about a Palestinian farmer, Mohammed Abdel Aziz Sabatin. What had been happening to Sabatin, in facing daily harassment from Israeli settlers from Bettar Illit, I insisted, went to the essence of the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. Contrary to popular mythology, this conflict is not a clash of civilizations. It is a conflict about land – and the power of one group of people to seize and control the land of another. Sabatin personifies this conflict, while at the same time his situation gives a very different set of meanings to the idea of terrorism and its purveyors.

Sabatin owns land directly next to the Jewish settlement of Bettar Illit, a town built on land confiscated in 1989 from the Sabatin family and from numerous other Palestinian families from the town of Husan. All told, about 5,000 dunums (1,250 acres) was forcibly taken from farmers in Husan to build the settlement.

After construction, Sabatin was left with a small portion of his former property and has since tried to cultivate olives, figs and almonds on this land. In order to access his farmland, however, Sabatin now has to get a permit from the Israeli military authorities who administer the Occupied Territory of Palestine, and he must pass though the security gate of Betar Illit even though his family has owned this land for 200 years. In owning land in the shadow of the settlement, Sabatin is in a precarious predicament.

Last year, Sabatin took me on a tour of his land and told me how settlers from Bettar Illit burn and vandalize his remaining olive and fruit trees on a daily basis. As we walked through his fields, I was able to see olive and fig tree branches shorn from their trunks and scattered on the ground. I also saw several still-smoldering piles of ash, olive trees burned just that morning. “What can I do” Sabatin asked me repeatedly. I never knew what to say.

These settlers from Bettar Illit actually want Sabatin to take flight from his land. They are trying to force him to make a “choice” about whether it is worth it to remain. With enough pressure, perhaps he will finally relent and give it up.

Now, it appears that the settlement has handed Sabatin an ultimatum. Two weeks ago settlers again set fire to some of his olive trees, but this time the fire burned out of control. The firefighting unit from the settlement had to extinguish the blaze. What they did next, however, is befitting of the term Orwellian.

The governing council of Bettar Illit informed Sabatin that it would charge him 7,000 Israeli shekels ($1,600) for the cost of extinguishing the fires since they occurred on his land. This is an amount of money well beyond his means. They gave him until today to remit the money and informed him that failure to pay would result in the settlement confiscating the rest of his land. Sabatin was frantically and desperately trying to find a way to keep his land as the deadline given to him by the settlement approached. Even if he pays the amount, however, what is to prevent extortion such as this from occurring again?

This time, however, after years of abuse at the hands of these settlers, Sabatin has vowed to resist. With help from numerous individuals in the San Diego area and beyond, Sabatin has obtained the services of a well-known Israeli human rights lawyer and is preparing to contest the confiscation order. Today's date may very well mark a turning point in his own personal saga.

In truth, Sabatin is the personification of a much bigger campaign that has been going on since 1947-48 when Palestinians owned about 90 percent of the land in historic Palestine. Now Palestinians own about 12 percent of the land in their historic homeland and this amount continues to decrease as land policies, including the activities of settlements, continue to encroach on, and confiscate, Palestinian land and property while transferring Palestinians into ever-smaller territorial spaces. Ariel Sharon, the former prime minister of Israel and the architect of the settlement policy, described this campaign as a policy of taking Palestinian land “dunum by dunum.”

These policies raise questions about the real purveyors of terror and its victims. The occupation of Palestine by Israel has removed all rights of Palestinians to land and has undermined their capacity to make a living where they have existed for centuries. Palestinians have no security when their land and livelihood can be taken at any time. Until the occupier recognizes these rights, the tragedy of Mohammed Sabatin will continue – and the conflict will not rest.

---

Fields, author of “Territories of Profit: Communications, Capitalist Development and Innovation at G.F. Swift and Dell Computer” (Stanford University Press, January, 2004), currently is writing a book on “The Wall” in the Palestinian territories. He teaches in the Department of Communication at the University of California San Diego.

Coddling of terrorists continues...in the United States

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

In the latest development in the case of Luis Posada Carriles, a judge has set bail to allow him to be freed in advance of his immigration trial in May. The U.S. continues to defy international law and various treaties it has signed, which obligate the U.S. to either extradite Posada to Venezuela, where he is wanted for the murder of 73 people in connection with the 1976 mid-air bombing of a Cubana airliner, or to try him themselves for that crime. It's worth remembering why they refuse to do so - because they claim Posada might be tortured in Venezuela. And why are they able to make that claim? Because at a preliminary hearing, Posada's lawyer and former partner (and fellow torturer) in the (old) Venezuelan secret police, Joaquin Chaffardet, testified that Posada might be tortured in Venezuela, and the U.S. government presented no testimony to counter that baseless claim, allowing it to stand unchallenged.

The news coverage of the latest development is infuriating. The Judge describes Posada as having ""a controversial past," and the Reuters reporter writes, "his past activities are viewed as terrorism by his opponents." Let's review, shall we? Posada is strongly implicated in the murder of 73 people in an airplane bombing. He admitted to a New York Times reporter that he was the mastermind behind a string of hotel bombings in Havana in the late 90's which killed one Italian tourist and injured many others. He was convicted of entering Panama in 2000 with 20 pounds of C-4 and a plan to blow up an auditorium where Fidel Castro was addressing hundreds of Panamanian students (and pardoned several months later by the outgoing Panamanian President who is now living, where else, in the United States). This is just part of the record of someone which Reuters thinks is "viewed as terrorism by his opponents," and the Judge thinks is "controversial." Do you really have to be an "opponent" of Luis Posada Carriles to think that blowing up an airplane in mid-flight is an act of terrorism? Is there really any "controversy" over how to characterize an attempt to blow up an auditorium full of people?

On May 11, Posada (if he hasn't fled the country by then or gone into hiding) will go on trial in El Paso. A demonstration demanding his extradition to stand trial in Venezuela will greet the trial - be there if you can.

// posted @ 4/10/2007 07:51:00 AM // Comment (0)

Government Report: Bio-Weapons Could Be Used To Combat Overpopulation

A grim vision of the future: MoD predicts a world of revolution, neutron weapons and brain chips

Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future Richard Norton-Taylor

Monday April 9, 2007

US Judge Orders Posada Released

US judge orders anti-Castro activist Posada released

Apr 6 04:31 PM US/Eastern

A federal judge Friday ordered that former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles, wanted by Cuba and Venezuela for the deadly downing of a Cuban jet, be released pending a hearing on immigration fraud charges.

The ruling, made by a federal judge in Texas, does not necessarily mean Posada Carriles, 79, will leave jail immediately, since he could be arrested by immigration officials that have a deportation order for him.

The judge ordered the Cuban-born Venezuelan national released on a 350,000 dollars bail on condition that he remain confined to his Miami home and submit to "electronic monitoring," according to the text of the order by the federal court in El Paso, Texas.

Posada Carriles, a fierce opponent of Cuban President Fidel Castro, is accused of masterminding the downing of a Cuban jet off Barbados in 1976 in which 73 people were killed.

He was detained in Venezuela in 1976 and convicted in the case, but fled prison in 1985.

He was also sentenced to eight years' jail in Panama in a bomb plot to assassinate Castro during an Ibero-American summit there in 2000, but was pardoned by outgoing president Mireya Moscoso.

Posada Carriles was detained by US immigration officials in May 2005 for entering the United States illegally. He is currently held in a federal prison in the southwestern state of New Mexico.

US officials refuse to release Posada Carriles to Venezuela or Cuba, claiming he might be tortured. But they have also refused to free him, calling him a threat to national security.

Havana and Caracas accuse Washington of harboring a known terrorist.

US immigration authorities criticized the judge's release order, and said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials would arrest Posada Carriles.

"We are disappointed with the ruling. We remind you there is an immigration detainer pending against Mr Posada," the ICE spokesman Michael Keegan told AFP.

"This detainer means Mr Posada will remain in federal custody although he will be transferred from the custody of the US marshals to that of" the ICE.

Declassified US documents show that Posada Carriles worked for the CIA from 1965 to June 1976. He reportedly helped the US government ferry supplies to the Contra rebels that waged a bloody campaign to topple the socialist Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

Police target group blog for criticizing Israel

Note to cops: FUCK YOU. Check it out mutherfuckers.
Related
Fuck the NYC Police State Terror Cops
---

Zionists target WUFYS for criticizing israel

When you make waves, you make enemies . . .

extremely malicious ones.

I was expecting a baseless attack on my reputation, a warantless smear of anti-semitism or otherwise, but I was not expecting two anti-terrorism detectives to come knocking at my door to investigate an accusation that my site is funded by or funds Hamas.

Not only is the accusation outrageous because it's a LIE, but also far from a routine cry of anti-semitism, the 'anonymous female caller from Brooklyn' who claimed to be 'a former friend of mine' was aiming to land me in federal prison for a very, very long time.

This was a very malicious plot. But, also a stupid one, as the accusation is obviously patently false.

As a 'former friend,' she knows enough about me to be absolutely certain that her accusations are false, and that a few dozen years in prison would destroy not only my life but the lives of those dependant on me.

But, then again, 'anonymous tips' are the perfect avenue for cowards to launch their malicious attacks on political victims, without fear of being held accountable for their lies.

Of course, I have no way of knowing for certain 'who' this anonymous caller is. But, suffice it to say that I have strong suspicions about who 'she' might be.

And if I ever come across evidence that the person I suspect indeed made these accusations, then she will be staring at a major defamation lawsuit, not unlike the one that the Wiesenthal Center lost in Paris recently.

Finally, I have one last thing to say to this 'former friend' of mine and anyone else who seeks to silence critics of israel through smears, defamation, and threats of physical violence and imprisonment - for every critic that you silence, a thousand more will follow in their footsteps.

We have remained silent for too long.

We will not give up.

The Truth is Eternal.

And you cannot prevail.

Posted in

• anonymous tips
• betrayal
• Censorship
• cowards
• defamation
• false accusations
• free speech
• intimidation
• Israel
• police state
• smear

Submitted by qrswave on Mon, 2007-03-12 01:57. qrswave's blog

Surge and Destroy: Iraq a Cauldron of State Terrorism

Tomgram: Schwartz, Iraq as a Cauldron of State Terrorism

When it comes to surging in Iraq, it's "encouraging" out there. So the President tells us ("Yet even at this early hour, there are some encouraging signs…"); so Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, the surge commander in Baghdad, tells us ("[It's] too early to discern significant trends, [but] there have been a few encouraging signs…"). No, they're not talking about what Juan Cole calls the "new spate of massive and deadly bombings [that] has spread insecurity and further compromised the Iraqi government… right in downtown Baghdad, within spitting distance of the Green Zone, where the U.S. and the Iraqi government planned out the new security arrangements"; they're referring to some weapons caches found, some under-strength Iraqi units deployed to the capital, a possible small drop in deaths from sectarian violence.

Still, if surge success isn't exactly looming on the horizon, it's clear enough what is: Call it "surge creep." In a way, surge creep has been the story of the Iraq War since the beginning.

Numbers creep: As Tom Ricks has reported in his book Fiasco,when the Bush administration first invaded Iraq in March 2003, its top officials believed that, by August, most American troops would be withdrawn. Only 30,000 or so would remain to garrison a grateful country. That, of course, was four years ago. Today, American troop totals in Iraq are heading back towards 160,000-plus.

The forces for the surge plan alone, announced at 21,500 by the President in January, are already creeping toward 30,000. Recently, the administration "clarified" all this in a piecemeal sort of way. Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England explained to Congress that the surge combat units might well need up to 7,000 more support troops. He suggested this in rejecting "a recent estimate by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office that the surge would require an additional 15,000-28,000 support personnel." (Keep that figure in the back of your mind, as surge creep continues.) Then Lt. Gen. Petraeus requested 2,200 extra military police for all the detainees he plans to pick up in sweeps of Baghdad neighborhoods. The President signed off on them this week. Whether they are part of those up to 7,000 support troops or not remains foggy; meanwhile Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, the commander of American forces outside the surge zone in Northern Iraq, just called for reinforcements for Diyala Province where attacks have risen 30%.

Money creep: The administration supposedly budgeted $5.6 billion for the new surge plan in the capital and al-Anbar Province. But that was January, this is March. Another billion dollars or so has already been added on for those extra "support troops" (that no one had evidently given a thought to a month and a half ago) and -- among easy predictions -- look for real costs to creep ever higher, as they have done since March 2003.

Time creep: When the surge plan was first proposed in January, then-commanding general George W. Casey Jr. suggested that it might be successfully completed, with Baghdadis "feeling safe" in their neighborhoods, by "the summer, late summer." Soon enough, new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates let it be known that the time estimate had crept into the fall, when, he felt sure, the surge might begin to be "reversed." Now, Petraeus is talking about extending the (rising) surge troop levels into the winter; his second-in-command, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, is already floating the idea of surging into February 2008; and, according to the Washington Post, some commanders under them in Baghdad are "predicting that U.S. troop levels in the Iraqi capital will have to remain elevated until at least the spring of 2008." This sort of time creep -- like the numbers creep and the money creep -- has been an ongoing aspect of the administration's Iraq for years now.

Blame creep: Finally, we can already see the first little surge of blame creep out of Baghdad. Petraeus, not even a month in the Iraqi capital, has evidently taken a good hard look around and found things not exactly to his liking. He's just held his first news conference and offered his mantra for saving the capital (or at least his own rep): "There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq, to the insurgency of Iraq... Military action is necessary to help improve security... but it is not sufficient." Such comments are already getting him headlines like: "U.S. commander says no military solution in Iraq." Think of the general as carefully beginning to signal his future explanation for the failure of the surge plan. (Those dopes in Washington couldn't handle the politics of the situation.) Remember: If you're going to blame someone convincingly, you have to plant your story early.

In the meantime, what will the President's surge plan actually do? Let Michael Schwartz -- who has regularly managed to prove more accurate in his Iraqi assessments from thousands of miles away than a bevy of reporters on the scene -- fill you in. Tom

Surge and Destroy

The Brutality Escalates in Iraq
By Michael Schwartz

If you are trying to figure out how the new Bush strategy is progressing, or just trying to figure out what is happening in Iraq, here is a diagnosis and a bit of a prognosis.

In his speech, Bush promised three prongs to his new strategy: (1) attacking and neutralizing Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia; (2) confronting Iran; and (3) a new offensive against the Sunni insurgents.

Neutralizing the Mahdi Army: Since 2004, cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has been the Shiite the Bush administration has most loved to hate. Early in the war, occupation officials tried to have him arrested and fought three large battles (two in Najaf, one in the vast Baghdad slum of Sadr City) in an attempt to suppress his guerrilla militia, the Mahdi Army. Each time, he and his forces, deeply entrenched in Sadr City, have bounced back stronger and more popular than ever. In its fourth manifestation, the intention to dislodge, disrupt, or destroy the Mahdi Army appears guaranteed to fail. It is just a matter of what sort of failure the U.S. will choose.

As the new strategy has so far been implemented, American military tactics seem designed to yield a relatively modest failure, though one that may prove indirectly responsible for significant Iraqi civilian casualties. U.S. troops have begun operations in Sadrist strongholds (notably Sadr City), which were, until late last year, American "no-go zones." But they are not attempting to pacify them, as they have been Sunni neighborhoods in the capital. Instead they are mounting raids designed to arrest specific Sadrist leaders, while leaving the rest of the community alone. So far, Sadr's men have decided to lay low and not resist the American intrusions (though the targeted individuals are frequently gone when the Americans arrive, often resulting, evidently, in the arrest of any fighting age man in the vicinity). There are even rumors that Sadr is cooperating with at least some of the arrests, allowing the Americans to apprehend "rogue" Mahdi Army leaders who have not been following his orders.

Whatever the story may be, this strategy will leave the strength of the Mahdis, -- who are not just a militia but, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, a social movement with deep and complex ties to, and support from, poor Shiite communities -- unimpaired. It cannot generate sufficient arrests to decapitate the militia; nor can its "hit and run" tactics undermine the political and military domination exercised by the Sadrists in these neighborhoods. At best, it is a kind of ongoing harassment, a symbolic denial of Sadrist power.

It will not be surprising, therefore, if the U.S. escalates these raids into larger-scale attacks on Sadrist strongholds. If this were done, it would involve the sort of brutal invasions currently being undertaken in Sunni neighborhoods. Typically these attacks begin when U.S. troops close off an area, demand that all women and children leave, and then initiate a house-to-house sweep, treating the community, in essence, as a "free fire zone." Each house is inspected for lurking insurgents or other suspicious characters (sometimes simply any men of fighting age) and searched for arms caches (which are plentiful). Anyone that evades the invaders, hinders the search, or offers any sort of resistance may be considered an enemy combatant. The level of destruction can be quite awesome.

If the U.S. tries this in Sadrist strongholds, the Mahdis will have no choice but to fight back; they will not sit by while their communities are savaged. This could trigger a guerrilla confrontation in Shiite communities much like the ferocious fighting that has been seen in Sunni areas. The battle of Tal Afar, which, in 2005, turned parts of that city into ghost neighborhoods and reduced a quarter of it to rubble (still not cleared away), has been explicitly mentioned as a "model" for these sorts of offensives.

It is one thing to mount such attacks against Iraq's Sunni minority. Used against the 60% majority Shia community, these tactics would likely spur a response that would spread around the country and prove disastrous for American plans, which are already in tatters. The Mahdis would certainly retaliate in other neighborhoods; wherever, in fact, the Americans are vulnerable. If the U.S. military is already almost drowning in the Sunni insurgency, imagine the predicament of American troops should they suddenly have to fight any significant number of Shia as well.

Such a development would have two clear consequences: an exponential growth in the strain on an already overstretched American military and a dramatic increase in the use of air power to back up embattled troops on the ground. Together, these could result not just in massacres, but in the rubble-ization of significant parts of Baghdad and possibly other Iraqi cities.

If the U.S. military stays with its current strategy of surgical incursions, it might escape with only a modest defeat. If it escalates, it is courting unmitigated disaster in the wake of unprecedented brutality.

Confronting Iran: There are all sorts of symptoms of the new approach to Iran, including the (mostly trumped up) accusations about that country supplying Iraqi insurgents with advanced weaponry, the arrests of accused Iranian infiltrators and their Iraqi allies, and the stationing of a second aircraft-carrier task force in the Persian Gulf (with possibly two more on the way). And the U.S. and foreign media have been carrying a constant stream of reports about possible U.S. or Israeli air attacks on Iran itself.

Bush administration accusations of Iranian "interference" in the Iraqi political and military situation are particularly ironic, and not just because the idea of the U.S. accusing anyone else of "outside interference" in Iraq is so absurd. The added irony derives from the administration's most dramatic claim -- that the Iranians are supplying the insurgency with a new type of IED that can pierce armor.

There is plenty of dispute over the accuracy of this charge, but if the Iranians are supplying sophisticated IEDs, it's to the Shia insurgents (even the U.S. military admits to that); and the U.S. is not (currently) fighting the Shia insurgents, it's fighting Sunni insurgents, who hate Iran just as much as -- possibly more than -- the U.S. However, this accusation is most often stripped of this critical "detail" in the media (especially on the TV news). Therefore, the impression is left that a large proportion of American casualties are somehow being caused by Iranian technology. That, too, is absurd.

The same can be said about most other administration claims against Iran, including those about that country's possible nuclear-weapons program. The latest U.S. intelligence reports indicate that the Iranians could develop a bomb in perhaps five to ten years, hardly the sort of immediate threat that might provide a handy justification for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

But the fact that these accusations are so spindly only adds to fears that the administration is constructing a web of lies, half-truths, and cherry-picked intelligence in order to justify an already-planned attack -- just as its top officials did four years ago in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

There are, unfortunately, plenty of indications that the U.S. might indeed be preparing to attack Iran or have the Israelis do it. The presence of two aircraft carrier battle groups is but the most visible (with a third and even a fourth one rumored to be en route); the appointment of the first Navy man, Adm. William J. Fallon, to head Centcom -- and he has a background in naval aviation at that -- is another; and the recent reports of behind-the-scenes protests over a possible air assault on Iran from top military officers (including unprecedented threats of high-level resignations) are all tangible signs of serious intent.

But many similar indications were present last spring and no attack occurred, presumably because saner heads inside the Bush administration prevailed. This reflects the fact that, even from the point of view of many of those who embrace the goal of American preeminence in the Middle East (which might indeed call for reversing the upward trajectory of Iranian regional power), such an attack might well appear to be counterproductive.

Instead of stabilizing the situation in Iraq and reducing Iranian leverage in the region, it would likely destabilize Iraq further (because Iran's Shia allies there would certainly respond forcefully and violently), and it might even undermine the viability of Saudi Arabia (because Shia rebellions could spread to the oil-rich areas of that country). Most significantly, instead of dislodging the Iranian regime, an American attack, no matter how powerful, would probably entrench it -- and at a terrible cost. Instead of restoring American credibility as an indomitable military presence in the Middle East, the failure of such an attack would further undermine it (as Israel's fruitless attack on Lebanon did for it last summer).

The logic of the situation suggests that all this is saber-rattling; an attempt to use the threat of war to wrest concessions from the Iranians. But we are dealing with the Bush administration, which has a habit of pursuing "counterproductive" policies. We must watch the events of the coming months, particularly the current talk about actual negotiations between the administration and the Iranian regime, carefully. This one could tip either way.

Attacking the Sunni insurgents: What might happen sooner or later in Shia neighborhoods is already the reality in Sunni communities and cities. For the most part, the new strategy in Sunni areas of Baghdad is the same old strategy, seen not only in major battles like those of Falluja and Tal Afar, but in various neighborhoods of cities like Ramadi, Mosul, or Samarra. There is, however, a new twist: The Americans now intend to keep troops at fortified mini-bases in many of Baghdad's Sunni neighborhoods -- supposedly to establish long-term stability and facilitate reconstruction -- after (and sometimes even before) they are "cleared of insurgents." The small forward bases -- really glorified police stations -- will be placed in the middle of Baghdad "hot spots."

The first prong of this new policy is doomed. No area in Baghdad, or for that matter in Iraq, has been successfully pacified in this manner. That includes Falluja and Tal Afar, where this very strategy has been applied and has failed. About 1,000 American soldiers, supplemented by Iraqi (Shia) troops, have been in Falluja for 27 months since the city was "cleared" (that is, largely destroyed). They have established a particularly harsh form of martial law and yet the insurgency in the city, without ever having disappeared, has slowly grown again in strength. Falluja is not pacified and the Americans have never actually initiated a real program of reconstruction there. In other cities, with less comprehensive occupations, the insurgency is even more robust, and there isn't even talk of reconstruction.

American implementation of this plan in Baghdad has already begun, with a devastating offensive in the Haifa Street area, near the heavily fortified Green Zone, which quickly escalated into the wholesale destruction of the neighborhood. Once the initial onslaught was over, the offensive devolved into a case of Shiite ethnic cleansing; Sunni residents who left during the heavy fighting are not being allowed back in by the Shia police and troops who arrived with the Americans. We can expect a regular diet of such clashes, possibly marked by the liberal use of air power, guaranteed to devastate neighborhoods, followed by sectarian struggles over who will repossess the destroyed buildings, usually resolved in favor of the Shia allies of the American troops.

The second prong of the new policy -- the creation of a permanent U.S. presence in insurgent strongholds, is only now beginning to be implemented. Besides the fact that the planned number of outposts (not more than 50 in any published estimates), could not hope to purge the city of Sunni insurgents, this tactic will provide stationary targets for guerrilla fighters -- invitations for well-planned attacks. In Ramadi, where this strategy is being implemented, there has already been a successful car-bombing at the most important of the American posts, and it seems likely that this is only the beginning. We should expect reports of various forms of attacks against these bases as soon as the Sunni insurgents get their bearings and develop their strategic plans.

The Bottom Line: We are looking at desperate measures aimed at reversing the decline of American power in the Middle East. In all three areas designated by the surge plan, this desperation has led to the consideration of, or even the embrace of, more destructive strategies.

The immediate results on the ground already look disastrous in ways that -- though they shouldn't -- invariably seem to catch Americans officials off-guard. For instance, when they focus the limited forces available to them on Baghdad, the guerillas begin to look for less well guarded targets elsewhere as seems now to be happening in the city of Samarra. In addition, even the so far modest American incursions into Shia areas of the capital have had the horrifying effect of facilitating some of the most horrendous suicide car-bombings yet recorded. One instance of this was succinctly described by New York Times reporters James Wong and Wassam Habeeb:

"On Feb. 18, just two days after Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki called the opening stage of the security drive a 'dazzling success,' two bombs ripped through a market in the New Baghdad neighborhood, where American soldiers had been on patrol just minutes earlier, killing at least 60 people."

The way an American patrol and a car bombing coincided was no accident. The New Baghdad neighborhood, like almost all Shia communities in the capital, has been policed by the Mahdi Army on an ongoing basis. Besides enforcing all manner of local law, the Mahdis are also vigilant about possible suicide bombers, quickly recognizing strange people or vehicles that enter their neighborhoods. At the same time, wary citizens are also on the look-out, alerting the local Mahdis whenever they see someone who looks suspicious.

When the Americans come through on patrol or -- even worse -- when they set up permanent checkpoints (either U.S. or Iraqi-manned), the Mahdis have to lie low, since the Americans (or their Iraqi sidekicks) will arrest or kill them. The community is then essentially left unprotected and open to intruders.

The Sunni jihadists know this, and they also know that the Americans (and their Iraqi sidekicks) have neither the ability nor the inclination to spot and interdict suspicious looking outsiders. So they target precisely those Shia neighborhoods that the Americans are busy "pacifying." Very often, as in the case of the New Baghdad bombing, they time their attacks just after the Americans pass through, and before the Mahdis can return to the streets.

Since the surge policy began, there have been a rash of these almost coordinated bombings, including the sequential car bombs in Sadr City that killed 215, the demolition of the Baghdad booksellers market that killed at least 38, and the attack on Shiite pilgrims outside of Hilla that killed at least 70. In each of these cases, the bombings coincided with U.S. patrols that virtually "ran interference" (to use an unfortunately appropriate football term) for terrorist attacks. And in each case, local residents registered furious complaints that the Mahdi Army had been forced to "stand down."

All of this is unsettling enough. Worse yet, in the confrontation with the Sadrists, the Bush administration appears to be edging toward search-and-destroy operations that will rubble-ize Shia neighborhoods; in the confrontation with Iran, it appears to be lurching toward a possible air assault on a remarkably wide range of targets inside that country, guaranteeing staggering levels of civilian casualties; in the confrontation with the Sunni insurgents, it is already mobilizing its ground and air power with the promise of the subsequent imposition of an extreme form of martial law. The hallmark of all these new strategies is the high level of destruction and mayhem they promise.

There is a larger pattern that should, by now, be clear in these developments, and all that have come before. The architects of American policy in the Middle East tend to keep escalating the level of brutality in search of a way to convince the Iraqis (and now the Iranians) that the only path that avoids indiscriminate slaughter is submission to a Pax Americana. Put another way, American policy in the Middle East has devolved into unadorned state terrorism.

Michael Schwartz, Professor of Sociology and Faculty Director of the Undergraduate College of Global Studies at Stony Brook University, has written extensively on popular protest and insurgency, and on American business and government dynamics. His books include Radical Protest and Social Structure, and Social Policy and the Conservative Agenda (edited, with Clarence Lo). His work on Iraq has appeared on numerous internet sites, including Tomdispatch, Asia Times , Mother Jones, and ZNet; and in print in Contexts, Against the Current, and Z Magazine. His email address is Ms42@optonline.net.

Copyright 2007 Michael Schwartz

Five year old girl terrified to death after Israeli forces arrest her father

Child Ebtisam was terrified to death

Sunday February 25, 2007 07:2
Palestine News Network
saed at imemc dot org

Late last night a five year old girl died in the southern West Bank after a struggle in the hospital. The Palestinian Prisoner Society's Hebron branch issued the details on Saturday that cite the cause of her death as terror.

As is a common occurrence during arrest campaigns, Israeli forces raided the family home as they slept. The soldiers were loud and violent, tearing through personal belongings, throwing furniture, shoving family members, holding them all at gunpoint.

PPS reports that during arrests Israeli forces generally use jeeps or tanks, break down doors, fire tear gas and bullets, bring in dogs and beat people.

The Director of PPS in Hebron, Amjad Najjar, is following the case. “The conduct of occupation soldiers is that of pirates. They engage in persecution and violate international law, human rights and religious values. These hostile operations crush people, particularly children.”

The invasions frighten the toughest of adults who know they may not live through them. And it is well documented how psychologically damaging the midnight raids are for children.

At the beginning of the month Israeli forces broke into the Al Tardh family home. Five and a half year old Ebtisam was terrified as soldiers screamed at her and her siblings, forcing them all outside into the cold. In front of the children, Israeli forces arrested their father. The young girl went into an apparent shock and was taken to the hospital. She never recovered.

And although his daughter is dead, Ibrahim Al Tardh remains in Israeli prison, suffering himself from heart disease and in urgent need of health care.

hebron | human rights | human interest

Evidence against Muslim charity appears fabricated

An official summary of an FBI-wiretapped conversation contains anti-Semitic slurs that do not appear in the actual transcript.

By Greg Krikorian, Times Staff Writer

February 25, 2007

When the Bush administration shut down the nation's largest Muslim charity five years ago, officials of the Dallas-based foundation denied allegations it was linked to terrorists and insisted that a number of accusations were fabricated by the government.

Now, attorneys for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development say the government's own documents provide evidence of that claim.

In recent court filings, defense lawyers disclosed striking discrepancies between an official summary and the verbatim transcripts of an FBI-wiretapped conversation in 1996 involving Holy Land officials.

The summary attributes inflammatory, anti-Semitic comments to Holy Land officials that are not found in a 13-page transcript of the recorded conversation. It recently was turned over to the defense by the government in an exchange of evidence.

Citing the unexplained discrepancies, defense lawyers have asked U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish in Dallas to declassify thousands of hours of FBI surveillance recordings, so that full transcripts would replace government summaries as evidence.

The demand could force government prosecutors to either declassify evidence it has fought to keep secret or risk losing a critical portion of evidence in its case.

In December, the judge denied a defense request to declassify the documents so they could be examined by defendants in the case. Seven former foundation officials, six of them U.S. citizens, have been charged with funneling money to overseas charities controlled by Hamas, which the U.S. has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The defendants have denied the charges.

Though defense attorneys already have government clearances that allow them to review the material, under the federal Classified Information Procedures Act they have been prohibited from sharing it with their clients. And unless the act's rules are declared unconstitutional in the case, defense attorneys argue, the defendants will have no way of proving that the statements attributed to them were misconstrued or never made.

The recently declassified summary of surveillance on April 15, 1996, asserts that during a conversation wiretapped by the FBI, Holy Land's former executive director Shukri Abu Baker told two associates there was no need to worry about the foundation being unfairly targeted because U.S. courts were not under the control of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or its sponsor, "the government of the demons of Israel."

The summary portrays Baker as raging against "the Jews of the world" and as claiming that Jews have no allegiance to anything but "their pockets and to preserving the illegal Zionist state of Israel."

Additional anti-Semitic comments the FBI summary attributed to Baker or Ghassan Elashi, Holy Land's former board chairman, included:

• "Their [Jews'] only purpose here in the U.S. is to purchase as many politicians as possible and to warp the way the American Christians feel and think not just about the Christian religion but mainly about the Palestinian people … and to rob as much money as possible from American taxpayers for the illegitimate excuse of protecting and preserving the chosen people of God."

• "Even Jesus Christ had called the Jews and their high priests … the sons of snakes and scorpions."

• "I am confident that in the end justice, and not the Jews, will prevail. I believe that there is still justice in America."

None of those quotes was contained in a 13-page transcript of the conversation, defense lawyers said in their motion to expand access to classified evidence.

"Throughout the run-up to trial, the government has insisted that the defendants can learn what is contained in the [surveillance] intercepts by reading the so-called 'summaries' of those intercepts," defense attorneys said in their papers.

But the recently disclosed transcript, attorneys said, shows that "not only are the summaries so inaccurate and misleading as to be useless," but that the "author of the attached summary has cynically and maliciously attributed to the defendants racist invective and inculpatory remarks the defendants never uttered."

"It is appalling that such summaries even exist, much less that the government represented that this is all our clients need to know in order to defend themselves."

Defense lawyers declined to comment about their motion. A federal prosecutor said the government would respond with its own filings to the court.

How the summary and transcript could be so different was unclear, though experts in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act arena theorized that its top-secret nature may have led some analysts to believe that the work product would never be publicly disclosed, much less entered into evidence in a trial.

Because the court records are heavily redacted, it could not be determined who provided the summaries of the FBI wiretaps.

Other alleged discrepancies also have dogged the case. Holy Land lawyers challenged the accuracy of an FBI memo, for example, that quoted a foundation office manager as telling Israeli authorities that charitable funds were "channeled to Hamas."

But defense lawyers told the court the translation from Arabic to Hebrew to English distorted the official's original statement, and that he should have been quoted as saying, "We have no connection to Hamas."

The Holy Land Foundation was closed weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The action followed years of efforts by Israel and many pro-Israeli groups in the U.S. to close the foundation on the grounds that it was a fundraising front for Hamas.

The former Holy Land officials facing trial are charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists by sending money, goods and services to Palestinian charities controlled by Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group since 1995.

---

greg.krikorian@latimes.com