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You are here: Home / Archives for USA

Ex-Pentagon chief predicts 30-year ISIS war

October 8, 2014 by Nasheman

Panetta says Obama now has an opportunity to 'repair the damage' by showing leadership after having 'lost his way' in the fight against ISIS. (File Photo: AFP)

Panetta says Obama now has an opportunity to ‘repair the damage’ by showing leadership after having ‘lost his way’ in the fight against ISIS. (File Photo: AFP)

– by Al Arabiya News

The war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) could go on for decades because of poor decision-making on the part of the U.S. administration, the former chief of the Pentagon Leon Panetta said in an interview published Monday.

In the interview with USA Today, Panetta also criticized Obama for a deciding not the arm the moderate Syrian rebels in the early stages of the conflict in Syria.

“I think we’re looking at kind of a 30-year war” that could extend to threats in Libya, Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen, Panetta told the newspaper.

Panetta, a respected policymaker who served under Obama, blamed the challenges on decisions the president made over the past three years.

Among those decisions, he cited Obama’s failure to push the Iraqi government hard enough to allow a residual U.S. force to stay in the country after troops withdrew in 2011, saying that created a security “vacuum.”

The former defense secretary also pointed to Obama’s rejection of advice in 2012 from Panetta and then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton to begin arming Syrian rebels fighting against President Bashar al-Assad.

“I do think we would be in a better position to kind of know whether or not there is some moderate element in the rebel forces that are confronting Assad,” Panetta said.

And Panetta said Obama lost credibility when he warned Assad not to use chemical weapons against his own people and then failed to act when the Syrian leader crossed that “red line” last year.

Panetta says Obama now has an opportunity to “repair the damage” by showing leadership after having “lost his way” in the fight against the extremist group that has seized chunks of territory in Iraq and Syria.

The former Pentagon chief was speaking ahead of the release of his new book, “Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace,” set for Tuesday by Penguin Press.

USA Today said that Panetta is explicitly critical Obama in his book, writing that his “most conspicuous weakness” was “a frustrating reticence to engage his opponents and rally support for his cause.”

The president too often “relies on the logic of a law professor rather than the passion of a leader,” the former defense chief added, saying that approach means Obama “avoids the battle, complains and misses opportunities.”

At times, Obama “gets so discouraged by the process” that he sometimes stops fighting, Panetta told USA Today.

But Panetta also expressed hope Obama would change course during his last two years in office and recover from his mistakes.

“My hope is that the president, recognizing that we are at a kind of critical point in his administration, will take the bit in his teeth and will say, ‘We have got to solve these problems,’” Panetta said.

(With AFP)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Barack Obama, Iraq, IS, ISIS, Islamic State, Leon Panetta, Syria, USA

Black flags over Kobane as Islamic State forces move in

October 8, 2014 by Nasheman

Islamic State Kobane

– by John Beck, Vice

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that a ground operation would be needed to stop Kobane falling to the Islamic State (IS) after the jihadists overran parts of the Syrian border town in heavy street to street fighting.

Erdogan warned that the series of air strikes launched by a US-led coalition on IS targets around the city would not be enough to halt the militants’ advance and that Kobane could be seized by IS soon. “The terror will not be over… unless we cooperate for a ground operation,” Erdogan said, speaking at a Syrian refugee camp in Gazientep, according to a translation by AFP. “I am telling the West — dropping bombs from the air will not provide a solution.”

He went on to reiterate calls for a no-fly zone above Syria, introduction of a buffer zone for refugees and for more moderate rebel groups battling the Syrian government to be armed and trained for the fight against IS.

IS moved into Kobane on Monday, seizing one neighborhood, the city’s industrial area and part of the countryside east of the city, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). The group previously took control of Mistenur Hill, which overlooks Kobane from the south-east.

The observatory, which collects information from a network of local activists, reported on Tuesday morning that a relative quiet had fallen over Kobane, also known by its Arabic name of Ayn al- Arab, after heavy fighting forced IS to pull back somewhat. SOHR also said that five huge explosions had been heard east and south-east of the city, and were thought to be caused by airstrikes. US Central Command confirmed that aircraft from the American-led anti-IS coalition had “destroyed two IS fighting positions” south of Kobane on Monday.

Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius also urged action on Tueday to defend Kobane, telling parliament “everything must be done so that the Daesh terrorists are stopped and pushed back,” using the Arabic slang for IS.

Fabius added that he had spoken with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and that French President Francois Hollande would talk with Erdogan on Tuesday.

Turkey has previously said that it would stop Kobane falling to IS and last week, the country’s parliament passed a motion which would allow military action against IS in Iraq and Syria and allow foreign forces to launch missions against the jihadists from Turkish soil. However, no further details have been announced. Ankara is wary of the idea of a powerful Kurdish presence on its doorstep, especially the YPG, which has links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group that fought for more than 30 years for greater autonomy within Turkey and is considered by authorities to be a terrorist organization.

IS has effectively surrounded Kobane on three sides for well over a year but launched a large-scale offensive more than three weeks ago. It would be a major prize for IS and allow the extremist group to connect territory held in the Syrian province of Aleppo with its stronghold of Raqqa further east. It would also destroy the threat to their rear posed by the Kurds and give the group full control of a large stretch of the Turkish border, aiding the passage of fighters and oil in and out of the country.

Kurdish activists and military officials in Kobane have been warning that it could fall to IS at any moment, but this now looks closer than ever. Nevertheless, the Kurdish YPG fighters defending the city have remained defiant.

Idris Nassan, a senior official in Kobane, insisted to BBC Radio that Kurdish fighters had the advantage over IS in the city.

He said: “Kobane is not going to fall. Kobane resists and the resisting will be for a long time.

“They know the geography, they know how to fight in the streets and even tanks and other heavy weapons will not work in the small and narrow streets of Kobane,” Nassan said.

However Cahit Storm, a computer engineer who left Kobane for the Turkish border five days ago but remains in close contact with those left behind, said the city was about to fall. He said Turkey needed to allow access to Kobane in order to get provisions such as water, food and ammunition to the Kurdish fighters.

“Now that the city is completely locked by IS in the south and the Turks to the north it’s probably already lost,” he told the BBC. “Kobane right now is about to fall in one, maybe two days. Nothing more.”

Kurdish forces have arguably been the most effective force facing off against IS on the ground. However, the jihadists have modern weapons and armor, much of it looted from the Iraqi army during a shock advance in June. As a result they are hard to stop, especially for the YPG, which is mainly armed with elderly Soviet guns and RPGs and unable to access heavier ordnance.

Security forces in border regions have clashed with Turkish Kurds and refugees who believe that Turkey is backing IS and are infuriated that it has closed the border to those wishing to join the YPG in defending Kobane.

One man was killed and at least two others were reportedly injured during protests on Tuesday. Hakan Buksur, 25, was shot with live ammunition as police moved on demonstrators in the eastern Mu? Province, the English language Hurriyet Daily reported. Authorities declared a curfew at 5 pm in southeastern Mardin and eastern Van.

The fighting in Kobane has been clearly visible from the Turkish border and in some cases even spilled over. Five people were wounded when a mortar round hit a house in Turkey on Sunday, prompting authorities to evacuate part of the area.

Turkish Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz said on Monday that NATO had prepared a strategy to defend Turkey, a NATO member, if it is attacked along its border with Syria.

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Iraq, IS, ISIS, Islamic State, Kobane, NATO, SOHR, Syria, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Tayyip Erdogan, USA

The Anglo-American Empire’s war of conquest. The war on the Islamic State (ISIL) is a lie

October 7, 2014 by Nasheman

There is no reasoning with an empire waging a world war of deception

cameron_obama

– by Larry Chin

On September 24, 2014, the United Nations passed a resolution paving the way to open-ended “anti-terror” warfare against the Islamic State (IS), the “network of death”, promising a war that will “last for years”.  

The “war on the Islamic State” is a lie. It is the same fetid Big Lie that is the “war on terrorism”, reheated and updated with new, bloodier special effects, new propaganda, a familiar but revised cast of demonic villains and a new military attack calendar.  

Three thousand lives were sacrificed on 9/11 for the fabricated “war on terrorism” against “Al-Qaeda” and Osama bin Laden.  Now, thirteen years of continuous imperial onslaught and tens of thousands of deaths and atrocities later,  the “Islamic State” escalation will topple Syria, Iran, transform Iraq, and provide yet another pretext to wreak havoc anywhere else the empire wishes.

But it is the same lie, built on the same propaganda cornerstones: the myth of the “outside enemy”, the threat of “Islamic terror”, eternal pretexts to galvanize public opinion behind an Anglo-American agenda of conquest and war that will never end.

It is the same lie, founded upon the idea that “Islamic terrorists” are enemies of the West, when, in amply documented fact, these terrorists are the West’s finest foot soldiers and military-intelligence assets.

The Islamic State, like Al-Qaeda and all entities that comprise the “Islamic Jihad” is a creation of the CIA and Anglo-American intelligence (Pakistan’s ISI, Saudi intelligence, British MI6, the Israeli Mossad, etc.). The various jihadist militias and military-intelligence assets and fronts—IS, Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusrah, etc. are  “American made”,  openly supported and utilized by the United States and its allies, as they have been continuously from the Cold War to this very second. These forces are carefully manipulated and guided weapons for US-NATO. Terrorists are instrumental to the ongoing US-led covert and overt operations in Syria.  Terrorists run by the US and CIA destabilized and toppled Libya, are integral to coming regime changes.  Under both direct and indirect orders of US-NATO sponsors and handlers, these “demon hordes” are, and will continue to be, the leading military-intelligence assets behind every major geostrategic action in the region.

The IS joins Al-Qaeda as today’s favorite “boogeyman” target. The war masks the true intent, which is the toppling of Syria and Iran, and onward.

The “terrorists” are depicted in propaganda as either villains or “freedom fighters”, depending on the day and the military theater. The horrific acts of the death squads, including beheadings and other atrocities, are standard operating procedure in CIA black operations, terror techniques going back to the Vietnam War and the Phoenix Program, and are done upon orders of US and US-allied military-intelligence. Decapitations of Syrian civilians have been ongoing for years, to media silence. The recent spate of beheadings of Americans and British have been selectively carried out (and in some cases staged) for propaganda purposes. Political theater designed to galvanize the dimwitted, ignorant masses to support massive retaliatory war.

According to recent polls, four out of five registered American voters overwhelmingly support military attacks against the Islamic State. The acquiescent, ignorant American masses, still irretrievably pacified by the propaganda “shock and fear” effect of 9/11, enthusiastically back any “retaliation” against “bad guys who cut off heads” and “threaten America”, and have no problem sending American youth to the front lines to be cannon fodder. They are “defending freedom”. The American sheeple believe—even love to believe—the Big Lie.  Whereas the citizens of Hong Kong and in other countries take passionately to the streets to fight for their democracy,  the average American has long abdicated his and her duty as an informed, vigilant citizen.  Far too busy shooting nude selfies on handheld gadgets—their brains addled by inane entertainment, and Hollywood celebrations of the national security apparatus—to care.

So-called liberals and progressives also back action against the Islamic State. The few who have any inkling that Islamic terror is a product of the US war machine wind up wringing their sweaty hands over the red herring of “blowback”: the tired idea that the US created but lost control of a Jihadist force that it now must contain. It is bogus. These militias are the American empire’s key foot soldiers and operatives, the leading force behind plans to topple Syria, just as they were in Libya. This is not blowback, but a well orchestrated military-intelligence operation, cloaked beneath a criminal conspiracy that is maintained by an ironclad elite consensus.

Islamic terrorism “stops” the minute that its sponsors at CIA, MI, ISI, etc. stop using it. The war itself stops when the elites who have planned this Final Solution to seize control of the last remaining oil supplies on the planet—the very life blood of the Anglo-American empire—stop, and give up their war of conquest and greed.  The entire apparatus collapses. But this will not happen in this lifetime. Not even in the event of planetary calamity.

To threaten humanity, to pretend to wage war against boogeyman that they themselves created, and continue to support and use: only those of world class evil could conceive of and carry out this horror.

The American network of death goose-steps to the abyss

With each passing day, more of the Anglo-American empire’s veneer falls away, revealing the violence at its core.

Leading the charge in front of the United Nations, the mendacious President Barack Obama thundered:

“No God condones this terror. There can be no reasoning—no negotiation—with this brand of evil. The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force.”

Here was a performance directly out of the playbook of the Third Reich and Bush/Cheney, brimming with threats, false morality, pseudo-religious claptrap, and invective directed against the perceived enemies. Here was Obama being who he really is, a war criminal.  The ghost of Hitler has to be envious.

No God condones deceit. No God condones the terror of the Anglo-American empire’s war of conquest. No God condones the extermination of tens of thousands of lives in more than a decade of imperial conquest for oil.

There is no reasoning—no negotiation—with the criminal leadership of an empire that will thrash and kill to the brink of extinction. There is no reasoning—no negotiation—warmongers who have wiped out entire swaths of humanity.

There is no reasoning—no negotiation— with an empire so desperate and out of answers that gangsterism replaces the rule of law, and false flag operations constitute foreign policy.There is no reasoning with those who could, in the span of just a few months, set off false flag destabilizations in Syria, false flag operations in support of a neo-Nazi cabal in Ukraine, plan and cover up the false flag shootdown of Flight MH-17 (blamed on Russia), support the bombing and conquest of Gaza by Israel (blamed on Hamas, in the wake of the murder of Israeli teenagers by ISIL terrorists), and set off the “sudden” rise of the Islamic State.

There is no reasoning—no negotiation— with an empire that must and will stop at nothing to control every inch of the Eurasian subcontinent, and destroy all opposition along the way, including potential nuclear confrontations with Russia and China.

There is no reasoning—no negotiation— with the functionaries and enablers of this empire—in governments, in media, everywhere. There is also no reasoning—no negotiation— with the cognitively impaired sheeple.

There is no reasoning—no negotiation— with the killers, the world planning orchestrators speaking the “language of force”; these “great men and women” who hold humanity in contempt.

There is, indeed, no reasoning—no negotiation—with this brand of evil.

Source

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: American Empire, Britain, Iraq, IS, ISIL, ISIS, Islamic State, Syria, UK, United Nations, USA

U.S praises Australia for air strike move against Islamic State

October 4, 2014 by Nasheman

Barack Obama, Oslo, Norway Photo: Sandy Young/Getty Images

Barack Obama, Oslo, Norway Photo: Sandy Young/Getty Images

Washington: The White House has praised Australia over its decision to join air strikes in Iraq and to send special forces military trainers to the country.

“With these deployments, Australia demonstrates its continued leadership and resolve in addressing the urgent and critical security challenges that threaten Australia, its people, and the broader international community,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Air Force One.

“Australians and Americans have fought alongside each other in every major conflict over the past century, and we are grateful for Australia’s further contribution,” Earnest said on Friday.

Australia’s cabinet earlier approved Super Hornets to start bombing raids against Islamic State extremists in coming days, supported by 400 RAAF personnel.

The RAAF will deploy six Super Hornets, a Wedgetail surveillance aircraft and a refueller.

About 200 special forces members will train and advise Iraqi forces, but are awaiting final legal approval before deploying.

Source

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Australia, IS, ISIS, Islamic State, Super Hornet, USA, White House

America's deadly double tap drone attacks are 'killing 49 people for every known terrorist in Pakistan'

October 2, 2014 by Nasheman

The site of a missile attack in Tappi, a village 12 miles east of Miranshah, near the Afghan border after a U.S. missile attack by a pilotless drone aircraft in 2008. At least six people were killed

The site of a missile attack in Tappi, a village 12 miles east of Miranshah, near the Afghan border after a U.S. missile attack by a pilotless drone aircraft in 2008. At least six people were killed

– by Leon Watson, Daily Mail

Just one in 50 victims of America’s deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists – while the rest are innocent civilians, a new report claimed today.

The authoritative joint study, by Stanford and New York Universities, concludes that men, women and children are being terrorised by the operations ’24 hours-a-day’.

And the authors lay much of the blame on the use of the ‘double-tap’ strike where a drone fires one missile – and then a second as rescuers try to drag victims from the rubble. One aid agency said they had a six-hour delay before going to the scene.

The tactic has cast such a shadow of fear over strike zones that people often wait for hours before daring to visit the scene of an attack. Investigators also discovered that communities living in fear of the drones were suffering severe stress and related illnesses. Many parents had taken their children out of school because they were so afraid of a missile-strike.

Bombardment: More than 345 strikes have hit Pakistan’s tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan in the past eight years

Today campaigners savaged the use of drones, claiming that they were destroying a way of life.

Clive Stafford Smith, director of the charity Reprieve which helped interview people for the report, said: ‘This shows that drone strikes go much further than simply killing innocent civilians. An entire region is being terrorised by the constant threat of death from the skies.’

There have been at least 345 strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan in the past eight years.

‘These strikes are becoming much more common,’ Mirza Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer who represents victims of drone strikes, told The Independent.

‘In the past it used to be a one-off, every now and then. Now almost every other attack is a double tap. There is no justification for it.’

The study is the product of nine months’ research and more than 130 interviews, it is one of the most exhaustive attempts by academics to understand – and evaluate – Washington’s drone wars.

Tribesmen gather near a damaged car outside a house after a missile struck in Dandi Darpakheil village on the outskirts of Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region

Despite assurances the attacks are ‘surgical’, researchers found barely two per cent of their victims are known militants and that the idea that the strikes make the world a safer place for the U.S. is ‘ambiguous at best’.

Researchers added that traumatic effects of the strikes go far beyond fatalities, psychologically battering a population which lives under the daily threat of annihilation from the air, and ruining the local economy.

They conclude by calling on Washington completely to reassess its drone-strike programme or risk alienating the very people they hope to win over.

They also observe that the strikes set worrying precedents for extra-judicial killings at a time when many nations are building up their unmanned weapon arsenals.

The Obama administration is unlikely to heed their demands given the zeal with which America has expanded its drone programme over the past two years.

Washington says the drone program is vital to combating militants that threaten the U.S. and who use Pakistan’s tribal regions as a safe haven.

The number of attacks have fallen since a Nato strike in 2011 killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and strained U.S.-Pakistan relations.

Pakistan wants the drone strikes stopped – or it wants to control the drones directly – something the U.S. refuses.

Reapers and Predators are now active over the skies of Somalia and Yemen as well as Pakistan and – less covertly – Afghanistan.

But campaigners like Mr Akbar hope the Stanford/New York University research may start to make an impact on the American public.

‘It’s an important piece of work,’ he told The Independent. ‘No one in the U.S. wants to listen to a Pakistani lawyer saying these strikes are wrong. But they might listen to American academics.’

Today, Pakistani intelligence officials revealed a pair of missiles fired from an unmanned American spy aircraft slammed into a militant hideout in northwestern Pakistan last night.

The two officials said missiles from the drone aircraft hit the village of Dawar Musaki in the North Waziristan region, which borders Afghanistan to the west.

Some of the dead were believed to be foreign fighters but the officials did not know how many or where they were from.

The Monday strike was the second in three days. On Saturday a U.S. drone fired two missiles at a vehicle in northwest Pakistan, killing four suspected militants.

That attack took place in the village of Mohammed Khel, also in North Waziristan.

North Waziristan is the last tribal region in which the Pakistan military has not launched an operation against militants, although the U.S. has been continually pushing for such a move.

The Pakistanis contend that their military is already overstretched fighting operations in other areas but many in the U.S. believe they are reluctant to carry out an operation because of their longstanding ties to some of the militants operating there such as the Haqqani network.

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Afghanistan, Drone, NATO, North Waziristan, Pakistan, Reprieve, USA

More Washington lies on Hong Kong, ISIS, and more

October 2, 2014 by Nasheman

Barack Obama, Oslo, Norway Photo: Sandy Young/Getty Images

Barack Obama, Oslo, Norway Photo: Sandy Young/Getty Images

– by Paul Craig Roberts

Hong Kong:

Whatever is occurring in Hong Kong, it bears no relation to what is being reported about it in the Western print and TV media. These reports spin the protests as a conflict between the demand for democracy and a tyrannical Chinese government

Ming Chun Tang in the alternative media CounterPunch says that the protests are against the neoliberal economic policies that are destroying the prospects of everyone but the one percent. In other words, the protests are akin to the American occupy movement.

Another explanation is that once again, as in Kiev, gullible westernized students have been organized by the CIA and US-financed NGOs to take to the streets in hopes that the protests will spread from Hong Kong to other Chinese cities. The Chinese, like the Russians, have been extremely careless in permitting Washington to operate within their countries and to develop fifth columns.

ISIS:

Americans are forever deceived. Remember the bullshit about “Mission Accomplished!”

The only mission that has been accomplished is the enrichment of the military/security complex and the creation of the American Police State. After eight years of the US military battering Iraq, Patrick Cockburn, one of the last front line reporters, tells us: “ISIS at the Gates of Baghdad.”

What is ISIS? There are a number of offered explanations. One from Washington and its puppet states is that it is a demonic threat to the West that cuts off people’s heads.

Another is that it is a CIA recruited and funded operation that is carrying out the neoconservatives plan to overthrow the governments in the Middle East.

My tentative explanation is that ISIS consists of Sunnis who are tired of existing in artificial states created by the British and French after World War I when the Western colonialists seized the territories of the Ottoman Empire. They are tired of being suppressed by Shia majorities or by secular dictators who use suppression to control conflict between Sunni and Shia. They are tired of being murdered, plundered, and raped by the Americans and Europeans. They are tired of being displaced and dispossessed. They are tired of the immoral Western culture imposed on them by modern technology. The Islamic State is redrawing the artificial boundaries that the Europeans created, and they are establishing an Islamic government free of the moral corruption of Western materialism and sexual promiscuity.

In short, they are tired of being dictated to and having their culture suppressed.

The huge sums of money taken from the gullible American taxpayers, people who, unlike ISIS, are willing to accept any imposition, for training the Iraqi army went entirely into the coffers of the American firms that got the training contracts. As Patrick Cockburn reports, the American trained and equipped Iraqi Army defending Mosul nominally numbered 60,000, much larger than the attacking force, but only one-third were actually present. The rest had kick-backed half their salaries to their officers in order to stay at home or to work a better paying job. When the Islamic State attacked, the Iraq army collapsed.

Afghanistan:

The new “president” of Afghanistan has agreed to Washington’s demands to which even the corrupt Karzai would not agree. The new bought-and-paid-for-puppet president has agreed for US troops to remain in Afghanistan. We will see what the Taliban have to say about this.

Ebola:

We now have the first ebola case in the US. A person in a hospital in Dallas, Texas, has brought ebola from Liberia to the US. The CDC says that the virus can be contained, like ISIS, and that no one is in danger. This remains to be seen. Because of the years of transparent lies emanating from Washington, many Americans already believe that the importation of ebola is part of the one percent’s plan to destroy the rest of us so that they have the country to themselves.

This is what comes of a government and a media that serves only the One Percent and that inflicts endless lies and disinformation on the rest of us.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Afghanistan, China, CIA, Ebola, Hong Kong, Imperialism, IS, ISIS, Islamic State, Middle East, USA

U.S citizens court indicts Modi for Gujarat Pogrom

October 1, 2014 by Nasheman

The Citizens’ Court in session at Lafayette Park in front of the White House, Washington DC.

The Citizens’ Court in session at Lafayette Park in front of the White House, Washington DC.

– by Kaleem Kawaja

Washington, D.C: The US-based Sikh Foundation for Justice (SFJ) in coordination with the American Gurudwara Prabhandak Committee (AGPC), Tuesday held a citizens’ court in Lafayette Park, a small park in front of the White House to indict PM Narendra Modi for the human rights violations in 2002 in Gujarat. The hour-long trial was conducted following US legal procedures. SFJ organized a grand jury of 24 citizens comprising of people of various colors, white, black and Indian etc.

The proceedings began at 1:30 PM on Tuesday (Sept 30) when PM Modi was actually in the White House building, that is right in front of the citizens’ court and ended at 2:30 PM.

The prosecutor read out the charges against Modi and said that the charge sheet was handed over to an official of the Indian embassy in Washington DC a few days ago, and that Mr Modi has been given an opportunity to defend himself. But he has chosen not to attend even though right at this time he is in the White House building, just a couple of hundred yards away. The charges included abetting murder of more than 2000 Muslims, raping of a large number of Muslim women, destruction of their houses in February and March 2002.

The charge sheet filed in the Citizens’ court listed crimes of genocide; first degree murders; rapes and sexual assaults; torture; tempering with the witnesses, victims and informants; and obstruction of criminal investigations. The woman judge then turned the matter over to the grand jury and asked them to give their opinion by writing on pieces of paper in front of them.

The judge then polled the grand jury members and with their concurrence announced that Mr Modi has been indicted of all the charges leveled against him by the prosecutor.

The judge was a white American woman lawyer. An effigy of Mr Modi stood in the dock on the left side of the bench. The prosecutor was an Indian-American lawyer. The court was set up in the Lafayette park and it looked like a proper trial. The audience of about one thousand people consisting of men and women of all races and colors, but mostly Sikhs, stood behind the prosecutor’s desk in the park. Lots of TV cameras and media people were in attendance.

Explaining the reasons for the convening Citizens’ Court, attorney Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, legal adviser to SFJ stated that starting from 1984 political leaders in India have a long history of organizing massacres of religious minorities with impunity.

Pannun said that on the one hand, the Citizens’ Court indicted Indian judicial system for its failure to convict a known human rights violator and on the other hand, it highlighted the plight and concerns of religious minorities in India, particularly victims of 2002 Muslims massacre.

Pannun said that on the one hand, the Citizens’ Court indicted Indian judicial system for its failure to convict a known human rights violator and on the other hand, it highlighted the plight and concerns of religious minorities in India, particularly victims of 2002 Muslims massacre.

Kaleem Kawaja, is an Indian Muslim scientist and community activist. He lives in the US.

Filed Under: India, Indian Muslims Tagged With: American Gurudwara Prabhandak Committee, Gujarat, Hindutva, Muslims, Narendra Modi, Pogrom, Sikh Foundation for Justice, USA

White House exempts Syria airstrikes from tight standards on civilian deaths

October 1, 2014 by Nasheman

Amid reports of women and children killed in U.S. air offensive, official says the ‘near certainty’ policy doesn’t apply

Residents inspect damaged buildings in what activists say was a U.S. strike in Kafr Daryan, in Syria's Idlib Province, on Sept. 23, 2014. (REUTERS/Abdalghne Karoof)

Residents inspect damaged buildings in what activists say was a U.S. strike in Kafr Daryan, in Syria’s Idlib Province, on Sept. 23, 2014. (REUTERS/Abdalghne Karoof)

– by Michael Isikoff, Yahoo News

The White House has acknowledgedfor the first timethat strict standards President Obama imposed last year to prevent civilian deaths from U.S. drone strikes will not apply to U.S. military operations in Syria and Iraq.

A White House statement to Yahoo News confirming the looser policy came in response to questions about reports that as many as a dozen civilians, including women and young children, were killed when a Tomahawk missile struck the village of Kafr Daryan in Syria’s Idlib province on the morning of Sept. 23.

The village has been described by Syrian rebel commanders as a reported stronghold of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front where U.S officials believed members of the so-called Khorasan group were plotting attacks against international aircraft.

But at a briefing for members and staffers of the House Foreign Affairs Committee late last week, Syrian rebel commanders described women and children being hauled from the rubble after an errant cruise missile destroyed a home for displaced civilians. Images of badly injured children also appeared on YouTube, helping to fuel anti-U.S. protests in a number of Syrian villages last week.

“They were carrying bodies out of the rubble. … I saw seven or eight ambulances coming out of there,” said Abu Abdo Salabman, a political member of one of the Free Syria Army factions, who attended the briefing for Foreign Affairs Committee members and staff. “We believe this was a big mistake.”

Asked about the strike at Kafr Daryan, a U.S. Central Command spokesman said Tuesday that U.S. military “did target a Khorasan group compound near this location. However, we have seen no evidence at this time to corroborate claims of civilian casualties.” But Caitlin Hayden, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, told Yahoo News that Pentagon officials “take all credible allegations seriously and will investigate” the reports.

At the same time, however, Hayden said that a much-publicized White House policy that President Obama announced last year barring U.S. drone strikes unless there is a “near certainty” there will be no civilian casualties — “the highest standard we can meet,” he said at the time — does not cover the current U.S. airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.

The “near certainty” standard was intended to apply “only when we take direct action ‘outside areas of active hostilities,’ as we noted at the time,” Hayden said in an email. “That description — outside areas of active hostilities — simply does not fit what we are seeing on the ground in Iraq and Syria right now.”

Hayden added that U.S. military operations against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) in Syria, “like all U.S. military operations, are being conducted consistently with the laws of armed conflict, proportionality and distinction.”

The laws of armed conflict prohibit the deliberate targeting of civilian areas and require armed forces to take precautions to prevent inadvertent civilian deaths as much as possible.

But one former Obama administration official said the new White House statement raises questions about how the U.S. intends to proceed in the conflict in Syria and Iraq, and under what legal authorities.

“They seem to be creating this grey zone” for the conflict, said Harold Koh, who served as the State Department’s top lawyer during President Obama’s first term. “If we’re not applying the strict rules [to prevent civilian casualties] to Syria and Iraq, then they are of relatively limited value.”

Questions about civilian deaths from U.S. counterterrorism operations have confronted the Obama administration from the outset, after the president sharply ramped up drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, resulting in sometimes heated internal policy debates.  

Addressing the subject last year in a speech at the National Defense University, Obama acknowledged for the first time that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, adding: “For me and those in my chain of command, those deaths will haunt us as long as we live.”

Sources familiar with the new “near certainty” standard Obama announced at the time said that, as a practical matter, it meant that every drone strike had to be signed off on by the White House — first by Lisa Monaco, Obama’s chief homeland security adviser, and ultimately by the president himself. The policy, one source said, caused some Pentagon officials to chafe at the new restrictions — and led to a noticeable reduction in such strikes by the military and the CIA.

While the White House has said little about the standards it is using for strikes in Syria and Iraq, one former official who has been briefed on the matter said the looser policy gives more discretion to theater commanders at the U.S. Central Command to select targets without the same level of White House oversight.

The issue arose during last week’s briefing for two House Foreign Affairs Committee members and two staffers when rebel leaders associated with factions of the Free Syria Army, including Abu Abdo Salabman, complained about the civilian deaths — and the fact that the targets were in territory controlled by the Nusra Front, a sometimes ally of the U.S.-backed rebels in its war with the Islamic State and the Syrian regime.

But at least one of the House members present, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican who supports stronger U.S. action in Syria, said he was not overly concerned. “I did hear them say there were civilian casualties, but I didn’t get details,” Kinzinger said in an interview with Yahoo News. “But nothing is perfect,” and whatever civilian deaths resulted from the U.S. strikes are “much less than the brutality of the Assad regime.”

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Barack Obama, Civilians, Iraq, IS, ISIS, Islamic State, Syria, USA, White House

More than 230 killed in Syria since U.S. led attacks launch

October 1, 2014 by Nasheman

A still from a video from a plane camera shows smoke rising after an air strike near Kobani. Photograph: Reuters

A still from a video from a plane camera shows smoke rising after an air strike near Kobani. Photograph: Reuters

– by Latin American Herald Tribune

Beirut: At least 233 people have died in Syria since the start of airstrikes launched by the U.S.-led international coalition against positions of the Islamic State (IS), the manager of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Rami Abderrahman, told Efe on Tuesday.

Abderrahman said during the phone conversation that at least 211 jihadists had died since September 23 when the coalition started its bombardments in Syria.

The activist added that this figure includes at least 60 members of al- Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria.

Twenty-two civilians have also been killed by the coalition.

The attacks have targeted positions and bases of the IS in the northern Syrian provinces of Raqaa, Deir al-Zur, al-Hasakah, Aleppo, and Idleb, along with oil fields which had been seized by the radical jihadists.

According to U.S. officials, the target of the first airstrikes in Syria were members of the Khorasan group which includes veteran al-Qaeda fighters and is seen as a major threat by the United States.

The United States and its coalition allies began airstrikes last week on the IS in Syria, adding targets there to its weeks-old air campaign against the jihadists in Iraq.

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Iraq, IS, ISIS, Islamic State, Syria, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, USA

Hillary Clinton admits role in Honduran coup aftermath

October 1, 2014 by Nasheman

HILLARY-CLINTON-OEA

Clinton’s embrace of far-right narrative on Latin America is part of electoral strategy

– by Mark Weisbrot, Al Jazeera

In a recent op-ed in The Washington Post, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a review of Henry Kissinger’s latest book, “World Order,” to lay out her vision for “sustaining America’s leadership in the world.” In the midst of numerous global crises, she called for return to a foreign policy with purpose, strategy and pragmatism. She also highlighted some of these policy choices in her memoir “Hard Choices” and how they contributed to the challenges that Barack Obama’s administration now faces.

The chapter on Latin America, particularly the section on Honduras, a major source of the child migrants currently pouring into the United States, has gone largely unnoticed. In letters to Clinton and her successor, John Kerry, more than 100 members of Congress have repeatedly warned about the deteriorating security situation in Honduras, especially since the 2009 military coup that ousted the country’s democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. As Honduran scholar Dana Frank points out in Foreign Affairs, the U.S.-backed post-coup government “rewarded coup loyalists with top ministries,” opening the door for further “violence and anarchy.”

The homicide rate in Honduras, already the highest in the world, increased by 50 percent from 2008 to 2011; political repression, the murder of opposition political candidates, peasant organizers and LGBT activists increased and continue to this day. Femicides skyrocketed. The violence and insecurity were exacerbated by a generalized institutional collapse. Drug-related violence has worsened amid allegations of rampant corruption in Honduras’ police and government. While the gangs are responsible for much of the violence, Honduran security forces have engaged in a wave of killings and other human rights crimes with impunity.

Despite this, however, both under Clinton and Kerry, the State Department’s response to the violence and military and police impunity has largely been silence, along with continued U.S. aid to Honduran security forces. In “Hard Choices,” Clinton describes her role in the aftermath of the coup that brought about this dire situation. Her firsthand account is significant both for the confession of an important truth and for a crucial false testimony.

First, the confession: Clinton admits that she used the power of her office to make sure that Zelaya would not return to office. “In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa in Mexico,” Clinton writes. “We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot.”

This may not come as a surprise to those who followed the post-coup drama closely. (See my commentary from 2009 on Washington’s role in helping the coup succeed here, here and here.) But the official storyline, which was dutifully accepted by most in the media, was that the Obama administration actually opposed the coup and wanted Zelaya to return to office.

The question of Zelaya was anything but moot. Latin American leaders, theUnited Nations General Assembly and other international bodies vehemently demanded his immediate return to office. Clinton’s defiant and anti-democratic stance spurred a downward slide in U.S. relations with several Latin American countries, which has continued. It eroded the warm welcome and benefit of the doubt that even the leftist governments in region offered to the newly installed Obama administration a few months earlier.

Clinton’s false testimony is even more revealing. She reports that Zelaya was arrested amid “fears that he was preparing to circumvent the constitution and extend his term in office.” This is simply not true. As Clinton must know, when Zelaya was kidnapped by the military and flown out of the country in his pajamas on June 28, 2009, he was trying to put a consultative, nonbinding poll on the ballot to ask voters whether they wanted to have a real referendum on reforming the constitution during the scheduled election in November. It is important to note that Zelaya was not eligible to run in that election. Even if he had gotten everything he wanted, it was impossible for Zelaya to extend his term in office. But this did not stop the extreme right in Honduras and the United States from using false charges of tampering with the constitution to justify the coup.

In addition to her bold confession and Clinton’s embrace of the far-right narrative in the Honduran episode, the Latin America chapter is considerably to the right of even her own record on the region as secretary of state. This appears to be a political calculation. There is little risk of losing votes for admitting her role in making most of the hemisphere’s governments disgusted with the United States. On the other side of the equation, there are influential interest groups and significant campaign money to be raised from the right-wing Latin American lobby, including Floridian Cuban-Americans and their political fundraisers.

Like the 54-year-old failed embargo against Cuba, Clinton’s position on Latin America in her bid for the presidency is another example of how the far right exerts disproportionate influence on U.S. foreign policy in the hemisphere.

Mark Weisbrot is a co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He is also the president of Just Foreign Policy.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Coup, Henry Kissinger, Hillary Clinton, Honduras, Latin America, Manuel Zelaya, USA

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