A NOT so merry Christmas in occupied Bethlehem

Bethlehem's struggles continue
Taken from Al-Jazeera news Agency, DECEMBER 25, 2007

By Christian Porth in the West Bank

A normally empty Manger Square was filled beyond capacity on Christmas day as thousands of Palestinians, dignitaries and foreigners descended on the little town of Bethlehem to welcome Michel Sabah the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.



The Patriarch's yearly visit was meant to kick off Christmas festivities but this year, as in others, the spirit of the festive season is uniquely intertwined with the fate of all Palestinians, who say the city has suffered from years of Israeli occupation.

And like previous years, despite a boost in tourism, celebrations in Bethlehem have been marred by a poor economic and security situation.

While Bethlehem is the traditional birthplace of Jesus Christ atop a hill just 10km away from Jerusalem, the site of Christ's crucifixion, a 10-meter high concrete wall put up by Israel and several military checkpoints keep the two cities very much apart.

Fairy tale Christmas
It is such barriers and restrictions borne of Israeli occupation that has made Christmas bittersweet for Palestinians.

Maxim Sansour, founding board member of Open Bethlehem, an international campaign to address the state of emergency facing Bethlehem, said the city's greatest problems largely go unaddressed every Christmas.

He said: "Christmas comes and goes, but our problems remain."

Issues of growing Israeli settlements which lie immediately on the border of Bethlehem and demolitions of Palestinian homes on the outskirts of the city have made life difficult for Palestinians.

Sansour says Bethlehem will always continue to struggle as long as such Palestinian issues of statehood, economic viability and sustenance under occupation remain unaddressed.

Sansour also believes that visitors and pilgrims who do come show support but at the same time many are also in Bethlehem as part of "the fairy-tale story of Christmas".

Father Garret Edmonds, a Franciscan monk from California who works with pilgrim groups in Palestine and is spending his fifth Christmas in Bethlehem, said: "There are moments of hope but then everything returns to the status quo. It goes on and off like this all the time."

Father Edmonds also highlighted the increasing erosion of the Church and the increasing number of Christians choosing to emigrate from in Palestine.

"It's important to have a viable, living Church, but if things continue the way they are in 25 years there might not be a living church. Bethlehem could become one giant museum," he said.

Life under occupation
In 2006, Open Bethlehem released the results of a questionnaire which examined the reasons behind the high rate of Christian emigration from Bethlehem.

Of 2000 Palestinians surveyed in Bethlehem, 76 per cent said Israeli occupation was the main reason for leaving. Sixteen per cent of the Christians in the city said they are in the process of emigrating, compared to eight per cent of the Muslims.

Many Palestinians also said that foreigners and pilgrims coming to Bethlehem do not experience daily life under occupation.

Palestinians who have Israeli permission to travel between Bethlehem and the West Bank say they are subjected to fingerprint and document scanning, full body searches, and long waits before they are let through.

Some are not even allowed to visit friends and family simply because they live on the wrong side of the wall or in some cases the soldier manning a checkpoint might not feel like letting them through.

Brother Jack Curran, Vice President of Development for Bethlehem University, said: "I have colleagues who haven't been to Jerusalem in years and I can come and go as freely as I want. I feel ashamed of the privilege I have and it's easy to take for granted, I always have to remember that."

"But it is also a privilege that the Palestinians deserve."

Brother Curran, a member of the Lasallian order, felt that Christmas in Bethlehem is not truly reflected because of what he says are the injustices being heaped upon the Palestinians daily.

"The story can't be told without looking seriously at these things," he said.

"Without foreigners," Curran explained, "it would also be a lot worse. We must act as the witnesses and truth tellers, but not just once a year."

Sustain support

Christmas generates a great deal of positive media attention for both Bethlehem and Palestine every year. It is a chance for the world to show the Palestinians some sympathy and solidarity but Sansour said that it never carries on.



"We love good feelings and the Palestinian people deeply appreciate the show of support, but it must be a sustained kind of support."

Bethlehem is a small town; according to the Palestinian Central bureau of Statistics its population in 2006 stood just shy of 30000, and has a very small and localized economy which is dominated by the tourist industry.

According to Open Bethlehem, tourism accounts for 65 per cent of Bethlehem's economy. In November, 80,000 visitors arrived in the city. This was boosted by a further 20,000 in the days leading to Christmas.



Sansour said that while tourism represents a significant portion of Bethlehem's economy many of the tourist operators are Israeli which means that most of the tourists who do come stay for only a short time and promptly return to Jerusalem.

"They come here, take their Disneyland photos and drink some tea from a local shop and go back to Jerusalem," Sansour said.

"Maybe they'll stop by and buy some wood carvings from a shop where the Israeli operators get a commission, but that's about it," he added.

Christmas surge
Most of Bethlehem's local businessmen wait all year just for the Christmas season to come in hopes of boosting their incomes and providing for their families.

It's not surprising given that the poverty rate stands at 60 per cent while unemployment stands at 55 per cent, a slight increase from last year but not overly significant according to George Saadeh, Bethlehem's deputy mayor.

Abed Ibrahim, who works at a sweets shop, said: "Christmas [is] the only time of the year that anyone makes any money."

"It's good for now. But next year it will be bad again until the next Christmas. Nothing will change," he said

Ibrahim added: "Fast dollars won't solve our business problems."

Ameer Jaber, who operates a stall selling boiled corn and roasted peanuts, feels the Palestinians need the kind of media exposure they received for Christmas year-round and not just in Bethlehem, but all over Palestine.

He said: "You foreigners come and help us, but then you leave when you have your pictures and reports, but we're still here and you'll have the same story next year unless we get your help."

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People seem to think that it is only Palestinains Arabs (i.e Muslims) that are occupied and hence not give a second though, but the fact of the matter is that Arab Christians have been living in Palestine peacefully for centuries (well until it had been occupied illegally by Israel). Arab Muslims and Christians in occupied Palestine have been treated harshly, with boarder controls, illegal walls, controls of economic, social and religious activity by the Israelis, leading to many Arab Christians to leave their homes in Palestine and emigrate to another country. This has been happening for decades but you will not get a mention of their plight by the Pope or the archbishop of Canterbury. Maybe Arab Christians are not as important as European/ American Christians? Maybe Bethlehem is not important.

US is‘worst’ imperialist: archbishop

Taken from the Times, UK, November 25, 2007
By Abul Taher

THE Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the United States wields its power in a way that is worse than Britain during its imperial heyday.

Rowan Williams claimed that America’s attempt to intervene overseas by “clearing the decks” with a “quick burst of violent action” had led to “the worst of all worlds”.

In a wide-ranging interview with a British Muslim magazine, the Anglican leader linked criticism of the United States to one of his most pessimistic declarations about the state of western civilisation.

He said the crisis was caused not just by America’s actions but also by its misguided sense of its own mission. He poured scorn on the “chosen nation myth of America, meaning that what happens in America is very much at the heart of God’s purpose for humanity”.

Williams went beyond his previous critique of the conduct of the war on terror, saying the United States had lost the moral high ground since September 11. He urged it to launch a “generous and intelligent programme of aid directed to the societies that have been ravaged; a check on the economic exploitation of defeated territories; a demilitarisation of their presence”.

He went on to suggest that the West was fundamentally adrift: “Our modern western definition of humanity is clearly not working very well. There is something about western modernity which really does eat away at the soul.”

Williams suggested American leadership had broken down: “We have only one global hegemonic power. It is not accumulating territory: it is trying to accumulate influence and control. That’s not working.”

He contrasted it unfavourably with how the British Empire governed India. “It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly, that’s what the British Empire did — in India, for example.

“It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put it back together — Iraq, for example.”

In the interview in Emel, a Muslim lifestyle magazine, Williams makes only mild criticisms of the Islamic world. He said the Muslim world must acknowledge that its “political solutions were not the most impressive”.

He commends the Muslim practice of praying five times a day, which he says allows the remembrance of God to be “built in deeply in their daily rhythm”.

State of human rights in US 'appalling'

Former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak slams America's 'violations of human rights,' Israeli justice minister's attempt to limit High Court's powers

Taken from the YnetNews, Israel, 24/11/07
by Aviram Zino

Former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak slammed the state of human rights in the United States Saturday, calling it 'appalling' and saying the Israeli High Court is doing a far better job of upholding rights laws.

Speaking at a forum on law at the Natanya College Barak said: "The Americans were caught with their pants down after 9/11... They are committing unspeakable acts and that kind of human rights violations could cost them dearly.

"Our High Court is ready to defend human rights in times of war as well as in times of peace."

Speaking of Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann attempts to reform the High Court's powers, Barak said "there is no democracy without the segregation of authorities; there is no democracy without the judicial authority and no democracy without human rights.

"I was horrified when the government impertinently asked Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish where exactly it was written that it was she who held power over all the courts… in that moment, the line between the judicial authority and the executive authority was crossed," said Barak.

As for the connection between the legislative and judicial authorities, Barak said he sees the two as irrevocably intertwined: "There is no democracy without the Knesset and our laws are built to protect the Knesset."

But not everything, said Barak, can be made the subject of legal arbitration: "The question of what you can and cannot bring before a court of law will forever be debated on. The High Court is not above criticism, nor is it above being questioning. Nothing is."

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Aharon Barak is correct is assessing the Human rights record of the United States, perhaps now he will also assess the Human Rights record of Israel. Both countries have an equal appalling and shameful record that needs to be addressed. Israel needs to address its issue of occupying a foreign land that goes gainst many UN resolutions and also when it occupied Lebanon in the eighties it abducted thousands of Lebanese currently held in prisons for no reason at all and without given any trail. That is the only reason Hizbullah exists - to get the freedom of these people. It is not only the Lebanese that are held in Israeli prisons but also innocent Palestians whose land is illegally occupied. Even elected Palestinians were held in Israeli jails for no apparent reasons. SO where is the justice there Mr barak? Also wht about the descrimination that takes place against Muslims and Christians that currently live in Israel - Job prospects, healthcare and education is restricted to non Jews.

Corruption, bribes and trafficking: a cancer that is engulfing Afghanistan

Taken from The Times, UK, November 24, 2007
By Anthony Loyd in Kabul

The general made an elementary mistake. Told by his superiors that his new posting as chief of police in a drug-rich northern province would cost him “one hundred and fifty thousand”, he assumed the bribe to be in Afghan currency.

He paid the money to a go-between at a rendezvous in Kabul’s Najib Zarab carpet market. For two days he was lorded in the office of General Azzam, then Chief of Staff to the Interior Minister, helping himself to chocolate and biscuits. “I must have eaten a pound of the stuff,” he recalled.

But on the third day he received a different welcome. “Get this mother****** out of my office,” Azzam screamed, said the general. Hustled outside, he quickly discovered his error. He should have paid $150,000 (£73,000) rather than a paltry 150,000 Afghanis for the bung.

Now living in disgruntled internal exile in northern Afghanistan, his verdict on his former employers is succinct.

“Everyone in the Ministry of Interior is corrupt,” he told The Times. “They wouldn’t sleep with their wives without wanting a backhander first.”

He never, though, expressed surprise. Governmental corruption in Afghanistan has become endemic and bribes to secure police and administrative positions along provincial drug routes is an established procedure.

“The British public would be up in arms if they knew that the district appointments in the south for which British soldiers are dying are there just to protect drug routes,” said one analyst.

Western and Afghan officials are also alarmed at how narco-kleptocracy has extended its grip around President Karzai, a figure regarded by some as increasingly isolated by a cadre of corrupt officials.

“The people around him tell him of a cuckoo land,” said Shukria Barakzai, a Pashtun MP who is both a friend and critic of Karzai. “He circles within a small mafia ring who are supporting the destruction of the system. At the beginning there were only 10 to 15 of them but since then they have spread like a cancer in Afghanistan.”

The Ministry of Interior, key to establishing security in the country, remains the worst offender. Disaffected police officers have named, to The Times, General Azzam, recently appointed Chief of Operations after his stint as Chief of Staff, and his deputy General Reshad as the prime recipients of bribes.

The lawmen say they categorise Afghanistan’s 34 provinces as A, B or C states. ‘A’ denotes those with the highest potential profits for drug-running; ‘C’ states are the least remunerative.

The bribes to buy a position in an A-grade province can be vast, up to $300,000. The rewards are even bigger. One border police commander in eastern Afghanistan was estimated by counter-narcotic officials to take home $400,000 a month from heroin smuggling.

This summer a border police vehicle was stopped outside Kabul and found to have 123.5kg of heroin, with a value of nearly $300,000, bagged in the back. The five men inside, an officer, three policemen and a secretary, were under the command of Haji Zahir, formerly Border Police commander of Nangarhar province. Haji Zahir was questioned and removed from his post. He was never charged.

Even the lowlier posts in provinces free of poppy traffic have a price. “To buy a position as a detective in any province you pay $10,000,” explained one police colonel, now on indefinite leave because he refused to pay a bribe. “Then you pay your superior a cut of the money you make through bribes or trafficking.”

One former governor told The Times that every judge in his province had been corrupt. He claimed there were cases of the police handing detainees to the Taleban, or helping to transport Taleban commanders from one province to another.

“The Government has essentially collapsed,” he said. “It has lost its meaning in the provinces, it has lost the security situation and lost its grip on civil servants. Corruption is playing havoc with the country.”

The international community has played its own part in contributing to the crisis. One analyst in Kabul said: “It’s not Afghan culture. It’s a culture of impunity. We created it. We came in in 2001 with cases of cash and made certain people untouchables.”

The dozens of drug-funded villas — “narcotechture” in expat parlance — that have sprung up around foreign embassies in Kabul’s Sherpur district are a testament to the untouchable status of former warlords.

Corruption among police and local authorities is worst in southern Afghanistan, where drug profits are highest. Despite his repeated public denials, President Karzai’s half-brother Wali, head of Kandahar’s provincial council, continues to be accused by senior government sources, as well as foreign analysts and officials, as having a key role in orchestrating the movement of heroin from Kandahar eastward through Helmand and out across the Iranian border.

Britain has been keen for Kabul to begin arresting top drug smugglers in its ranks. Yet diplomats fear the country’s judicial system is so weak that the men would quickly be released or escape. Meanwhile, America has been lacklustre in lobbying for high-level arrests, fearing such detentions would further destabilise matters.

The Afghan Government fears that if corrupt officials in the south were replaced by staunch law enforcers, the huge profits from heroin trafficking would end up with the Taleban.

Kabul has, though, made efforts. A new agency, the directorate of local government (IDLG), was supposed to give the President rather than the Ministry of Interior more say over the appointment of provincial governors, a system notorious for its corrupt procedures. However, many of the IDLG staff were simply transferred from the Interior Ministry, tainting its potential from the start. Afghan anti-corruption agencies similarly lack cohesion and clout.

Izzatullah Wasifi, director of Afghanistan’s GIAAC anti-corrution force, said he had been unable to brief President Karzai even once during the past 11 months.

His own force is already under suspicion from rival anti-corruption players in the offices of the Attorney-General and the Ministry of Finance, who in turn face allegations of embezzlement and bribery. Wasifi did time in an American penitentiary 20 years ago for dealing heroin. “You expect my guys to be clean working for $200 a month versus the millions in drug bribes?” he asked. “I don’t see any serious measures being taken to solve the problem.”

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What do you expect when the UK and US install a Puppet government to run the country? Why cannot we destroy the poppy fields and help in providing alternative cash crops for the farmers and land owners? No wonder the Northern Allience wanted to get rid of the Taliban so that they could rebuild the drug trade. Why didn't the US (now NATO) get rid of the Northern Allience? Can they both be partners in crime?

This is a comment left on the talkback...

US military presence has served to restore rather than eradicate the drug trade. The Taliban government was instrumental in implementing a successful drug eradication program, with the support of the UN. The Taliban's drug eradication program in 2000 led to a 94 percent decline in opium cultivation. In 2001, according to UN figures, opium production fell to 185 tons. After the October 2001 US led invasion, production increased. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that the 2006 harvest was around 6,100 tonnes, 33 times its production levels in 2001 under the Taliban (3200 % increase in 5 years). Cultivation in 2006 reached a record 165,000 hectares compared with 104,000 in 2005 and 7,606 in 2001 under the Taliban. UN figures show Afghanistan supplied in 2006 some 92 percent of the world's supply of opium, which makes heroin. 3 billion USD in revenue, 95% of this goes to business syndicates, organized crime and banking and financial institution. - by mohsen, malaga, spain

Another War-monger bites the dust!

With Blair out of office and now Howard gone the count down to Bush's days in office has finally begun....

The article below is taken from Sydney Morning Herald, November 25, 2007
By Jason Koutsoukis

Rudd romps to historic win

As a triumphant Kevin Rudd last night led Labor to an historic landslide victory with a national swing of 5.7% giving him a likely majority of 24 seats, ousted prime minister John Howard suffered an ignominious end to his 33-year political career with the apparent loss of his seat of Bennelong.

Labor's victory means that for the first time in Australian history Labor now holds government in every state, territory and at Commonwealth level.

It also means that for the first time a woman, Julia Gillard, will hold the second-highest public office in the land.

John Howard conceded defeat at 10.35pm, admitting that Labor had won an emphatic victory and congratulated Mr Rudd on assuming the nation's top job.

"I want to say that there is no prouder job that anybody can occupy than the prime minister of this country," Mr Howard said.

"I wish him well in the task that he will undertake and I want to say on behalf of the Coalition that has governed this country for the last 111/2 years that we bequeath to him a nation that is stronger and prouder and more prosperous than it was."

Mr Rudd is only the third Labor leader in 60 years to win government from Opposition, and becomes Australia's 26th prime minister and Labor's 11th.

With a record 53.8% of the two-party preferred vote, Mr Rudd can claim an even greater victory than that of Bob Hawke, who won in 1983 with 53.2%.

He immediately declared his government would address with "great urgency" the pressing challenges of climate change and water, and would focus on creating fairness and flexibility in the workplace.

"We should celebrate and honour the way in which we conduct this great Australian democracy of ours and it's been on display again tonight," Mr Rudd told a cheering crowd in his home town of Brisbane.

He thanked Mr Howard for his immense contribution to public service over his political career.

By late last night it was apparent that Mr Howard had lost his seat of Bennelong to Labor's star recruit, former ABC journalist Maxine McKew, with a swing of almost 5%.

However, both Mr Howard and Ms McKew described the seat as being on a knife-edge.

Mr Howard will suffer the humiliation of becoming only the second sitting prime minister in history to lose his seat if Bennelong falls. But with a large number of postal votes set to favour Mr Howard, strategists on both sides agreed Bennelong remained too close to call.

Mr Howard, who said he took full responsibility for the Liberals' defeat, endorsed former treasurer Peter Costello as the party's next leader.

Taking the stage at Sydney's Wentworth Hotel, where he has celebrated his previous four election wins since 1996, Mr Howard paid tribute to his family, and the Liberal Party.

"I owe more to the Liberal Party than the Liberal Party owes to me," Mr Howard said.

"The Liberal Party has been unbelievably generous and loyal and forgiving and understanding to me over the 33 years that I've been in parliament, the 15 or more years that I've led it and the 111/2 years that I have been prime minister."

The routing leaves the Liberal Party depleted at every level of government across the nation - Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman now holds the Liberals' highest public office.

But Peter Costello, the man tipped to be charged with rebuilding the shattered party, declined to speculate on his future last night. Mr Costello, who comfortably retained the safe Melbourne seat of Higgins, said the party would "be very very proud of what it has achieved in government".

Late last night Labor looked to have won 82 seats, the Liberals 58, eight seats were in doubt and two went to other parties.

The battle between the Coalition and the Greens for the balance of power in the Senate was too close to call last night.

Pedophile allowed to work in kindergarten

Taken from Yahoo News, 15 Nov 07
By Reuters

BERLIN - A convicted pedophile sentenced to do community service in a German kindergarten will return to court next week to face charges of abusing two children there, a regional prosecutor's office said Thursday.

The man was allowed to work as a janitor at the Evangelical Kindergarten St Petri in Melle, near the northern city of Osnabrueck, because a court worker missed three prior pedophilia convictions on his record, said Alexander Retemeyer, spokesman for the Osnabrueck prosecutor's office.

The man, identified only as A.B., had been sentenced to 720 hours of community service earlier this year for working on the sly while collecting welfare payments.

"The colleague didn't pay attention and didn't see he had a sexual conviction, so she allowed him to serve in a kindergarten," Retemeyer said. "She didn't read the file."

The prior convictions date from 1988-1990, when the man was living in the former East Germany, Retemeyer said. Though the convictions are listed in the man's criminal record, the details are unclear because prosecutors cannot access his East German police file.

Police arrested the man in April after the head of the kindergarten reported he had fondled himself in front of two children.

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What kind of society do we live in when we cannot stop Paedophiles from operating within our schools? The Kindergarten should have done the necessary paperwork properly and lazyness in no excuse when protecting our children from societys nasty people. Where was the local MP or why didn't Angela Merkel Step in and take action?

100 arrests hit world paedophile ring

Taken from the Guardian, UK, November 5, 2007
By David Batty and agencies

More than 100 people in 19 countries have been arrested in an operation to dismantle a major international paedophile network, police said today.

The arrests follow an investigation into an Italian-based website that produced "tailor-made" child abuse images for 2,500 customers, according to the European police agency Europol.

In the past five months 46 people in the UK have been arrested in the operation, codenamed Koala, according to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop).

There have also been 21 arrests in France, 11 in Spain and eight in Sweden.

"We have identified 2,500 customers from around the world. School teachers, swimming instructors, lawyers, IT executives," said Europol investigator Menno Hagemeijer. Some customers even travelled to the studio to watch and record the abuse and make their own videos.

"These [videos] were tailor-made orders. We want this girl in this pose in this lingerie," said Belgian prosecutor Michele Coninsx.

Europol and the EU prosecution body Eurojust launched the operation last year following the arrest of Marzola Sergio, 42, who ran the website.

He produced most of his videos in Ukraine, where police have identified 21 victims so far.

One of the videos showed a father sexually abusing his daughters aged nine and 11, according to Ceop.

Jim Gamble, chief executive of Ceop, said there were likely to be further arrests from the global investigation.

He said: "Yet again we see the technology used by paedophiles to facilitate child abuse now turned against them as a result of co-ordinated and effective international law enforcement cooperation.

"Operation Koala uncovered the true meaning of 'online child abuse': in this case, the exchanging of images in which real children were subjected to horrific sexual abuse, often to order."

America suffers an epidemic of suicides among traumatised army veterans

Taken from the Times, UK, November 15, 2007
By Tom Baldwin in Washington

More American military veterans have been committing suicide than US soldiers have been dying in Iraq, it was claimed yesterday.

At least 6,256 US veterans took their lives in 2005, at an average of 17 a day, according to figures broadcast last night. Former servicemen are more than twice as likely than the rest of the population to commit suicide.

Such statistics compare to the total of 3,863 American military deaths in Iraq since the invasion in 2003 - an average of 2.4 a day, according to the website ICasualties.org.

The rate of suicides among veterans prompted claims that the US was suffering from a “mental health epidemic” – often linked to post-traumatic stress.

CBS News claimed that the figures represented the first attempt to conduct a nationwide count of veteran suicides. The tally was reached by collating suicide data from individual states for both veterans and the general population from 1995.

The suicide rate among Americans as a whole was 8.9 per 100,000, but the level among veterans was at least 18.7. That figure rose to a minimum of 22.9 among veterans aged 20 to 24 – almost four times the nonveteran average for people of the same age.

There are 25 million veterans in the United States, 1.6 million of whom served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Not everyone comes home from the war wounded, but the bottom line is nobody comes home unchanged,” said Paul Rieckhoff, a former Marine and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans for America.

CBS quoted the father of a 23-year-old soldier who shot himself in 2005 as suggesting that the military was covering up the scale of the problem. “Nobody wants to tally it up in the form of a government total,” Mike Bowman said. “They don’t want the true numbers of casualties to really be known.”

Mr Bowman’s son, Tim, was an army reservist who patrolled one of the most dangerous places in Baghdad, known as Airport Road. “His eyes when he came back were just dead. The light wasn’t there anymore,” said his mother, Kim Bowman. Eight months later, on Thanksgiving Day, Tim committed suicide.

A separate study published last week shows that US military veterans make up one in four homeless people in America, even though they represent just 11 per cent of the general adult population, and younger soldiers are already trickling into shelters and soup kitchens after completing tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While it took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless, at least 1,500 ex-servicemen from the present wars have already been identified.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, based the findings of its report on numbers from Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau. Data from 2005 estimated that 194,254 homeless people on any given night were veterans.

Daniel Akaka, the chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said: “For too many veterans, returning home from battle does not bring an end to conflict. There is no question that action is needed.”

The plight of US veterans is a matter of acute sensitivity for the Bush Administration which has set great store by standing up for – and support from – US troops. This year General Kevin Kiley, the US Army’s Surgeon General, was among senior military officials dismissed for his role in the mistreatment of wounded veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Newspaper revelations about conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington became a lightning rod for criticism of the war in general. The outpatient clinic was described as squalid and rat-infested; a maze of red tape left many outpatients – often with severe brain injuries – wandering the corridors without help.

Thatcher honours Commonwealth war dead

Today is Remembrance Sunday - when we read about the second world war, we usually hear about how Britain stood up and fought against Nazi Germany (and quite rightly so) and how after a while the Yanks would join in to save the butts of the British. We never get to read anything about the volunteers from other countries (such as India & Pakistan) who made great contibution in the fight against the Nazis in the media let alone from the British Monarch or her Government - so I was surprised to read this in the times online...

Taken from the Times, UK, November 9, 2007
By Jack Malvern

Baroness Thatcher attended a wreath-laying ceremony today to honour Commonwealth soldiers killed fighting for Britain.

Lady Thatcher was a guest alongside the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres and foreign dignitaries at the event held ahead of Remembrance Sunday at the Memorial Gates on Constitution Hill, London.




The Gates were completed five years ago, in remembrance of the five million volunteers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Africa and the Caribbean, who fought and died in the two world wars.



Dr Chartres and Lord Bilimoria, the chairman of the Memorial Gates Commemorative Trust, spoke to the assembled crowd of dignitaries and veterans before a two-minute silence.

The Bishop said: “This morning we particularly remember the men of the Commonwealth, and we remember and give thanks to those who spent themselves defending others.”

Baroness Thatcher, who helped raise money to build the Memorial Gates, did not make a speech at the event, but she laid a wreath of poppies at the foot of the gates.

Lord Bilimoria said: “Lady Thatcher played an instrumental role in helping to raise the money for these gates. To have her backing and for her to be here is just so special, I could see she was genuinely moved by the ceremony.”

Children from Westminster School were invited to watch the event, and organisers were keen to encourage younger people to learn about the events of the first and second world wars.

Peter Cleminson, national chairman of the Royal British Legion, said: “I think inevitably the public sometimes forgets the role that volunteers from other countries played. But we do our best to remind them, and an occasion like this helps to remind people of the great contribution made by the Sikhs, the the Nepalese, the Ghurkas, the Indian army and by Africans and Caribbeans in both world wars.”

Meanwhile, the insurers Lloyd’s of London held its annual wreath-laying ceremony this morning in the underwriting room of its City of London offices.

John Stuttard, the Lord Mayor of London and representatives from the Admiralty and the British Legion took part in the event, which included a two-minute silence and the annual ringing of the Lutine Bell, which is only otherwise tolled to mark disasters.

Living as a veteran of the streets after 25th anniversary of the Vietnam Memorial

Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the Vietnam Memorial. Thousands of Veterans Join in March to Mark the Anniversary Of the Wall's Dedication and to Honor Those Named on It. The Wall bears the names of those killed or missing during the war. It was dedicated Nov. 13, 1982, with ceremonies and an emotional parade of tens of thousands of veterans from across the country. There were initially 57,939 names inscribed on the memorial. But 317 names have been added for various reasons, and the total now is 58,256, according to the memorial fund.

But what about the Veterans today? We hear in the media, on films, in songs how upon their return they were mistreated by their communities and Governments - so it was sad to read thier fates in this newspiece...

This is an interesting article taken from the BBC, Friday, 9 November 2007

One in four homeless people in the US is a military veteran, a report has found, even though veterans make up only 11% of the adult population. One former soldier told his story to the BBC's Vincent Dowd in Washington.

Only a year ago, Ben Israel could have been forgiven for thinking nothing would ever go right with his life again.

He had been mainly homeless since his early 30s, living either on the streets of the richest nation in the world or in a selection of public shelters. Sometimes he lived in his car.

Ben was born on an army base in the US state of North Carolina, where his father was a soldier.
When he was 18 months old he swallowed - or maybe was given - furniture polish. He was in a coma for days.


A disproportionate number of the homeless are military veterans

He blames this for his occasionally hesitant speech and some of the problems he has had throughout life. "It caused me issues," he says simply.

Yet today you only need to spend a few minutes with him to recognise a keen intelligence too.

Soup kitchens

In 1973, conscription ended in America - but that year Ben volunteered for the US Army artillery corps anyway.

He was just 17 and says he feared winding up in prison otherwise, because there was so little money around.

He just missed Vietnam but saw service, less dramatically, in Panama. He was only in the army for three years.

I ask if he has ever married. "Not officially," he says.

After the US Army, mainly he travelled and worked and he studied a little. From the late 1980s to November 2006 he was usually homeless - although there were brief periods here and there with a roof over his head.

He tries to recall the cities whose soup kitchens he got to know too well: "Dallas, Texas. Miami, Florida. Atlanta, Georgia - twice. Fayetteville, North Carolina. Portland, Oregon..."

He acknowledges there were others he may have forgotten. "What I would mainly do was move."

Charity salvation

Ben, at 51, is honest enough to acknowledge that some problems of his thirties and forties were of his own making.

But he also believes his middle years showed how badly America's Department of Veterans Affairs - the VA - has sometimes focused its resources.

"They are a giant cash-cow but they are spending their money in the wrong areas. If they put more emphasis on housing their charges that would solve most of their issues out on the street."
Ben's life has improved - more than he ever expected it might. But ultimately salvation came from a charity, not the VA.

He was in line at one more soup kitchen when he was approached by someone from Pathways to Housing.

It is a New York-based charity which, for 17 years, has helped the homeless who have psychiatric problems.

Important for Ben was that, as Pathway's mission statement makes clear, they do not require treatment or sobriety as a pre-condition of getting someone into an apartment.

Their philosophy is that the path to recovery starts with getting off the street and under a roof.

Watching squirrels

Ben's apartment in Marshall Heights in Washington DC is not big but it is clean and well kept.

Ben intends to find a job again and get off Social Security Disability Insurance. He dreams of being an electrician. "But I want a career - not a job," he says.

We get in a cab and travel to Franklin Square, in downtown Washington.

It's where a lot of still homeless veterans hang out during the day - some of Ben Israel's age, some a little younger. There is not much to do but watch the squirrels.

Ben passes on the phone number of the people who after almost two decades helped him escape his wasted life.

He is a middle-aged man who found a sort of salvation when all hope seemed gone. He wants others to share in the same good fortune.

Rabbis warn Bush: Annapolis will bring destruction to US

Taken from YnetNews, Israel, 06.11.07
By Neta Sela

Group of right-wing rabbis writes open letter to US president demanding he cancel Annapolis summit or risk provoking 'wrath of the almighty.' Rabbis assert Katrina disaster a result of America's support of 2005 disengagement, say California fires a warning

A fringe group of prominent ultranationalist rabbis issued a harshly-worded letter to United States President George W. Bush earlier this week, warning him that the upcoming Annapolis peace conference would bring destruction upon America.

The rabbis evoke their previous prediction in 2005, when they published an open letter to Bush in the New York Times, demanding the US rescind its support of the disengagement plan.

"We wrote to President Bush, a man who believes in the Bible, to warn him against the terrible danger to which he is exposing his country by hosting such a conference," said Rabbi Meir Druckman, one of signatories to the letter.

"The land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel. God punishes anyone who coerces Israel to give up its land," he said.

"There is no doubt the New Orleans flood from the Katrina hurricane was God's punishment for evicting the settlements," said Druckman, "with hundreds of thousands left homeless, hundreds killed or wounded and billions of dollars sent down the drain – can we really ignore God's hand collecting an eye for an eye?"

The disengagement from Gaza and the northern West Bank was completed August 23rd, 2005 – which was also the date Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas.

"Despite those consequences, yet again we find ourselves facing an initiative to expel Jews from Judea and Samaria and cede their cities to terror organizations. And once again the patrons of the event are President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"This time the Almighty is warning the US in advance: if the plague of water was not enough now he shall send flames. While hundreds of thousands of families have already fled the terrible fires in California, and we ask you, will you really forge ahead with this malevolent plan?" added Druckman.

The letter was authored by SOS Israel, a right-wing movement which earlier this year distributed citations to IDF soldiers who disobeyed orders and refused to take part in the disengagement.

The rabbis urged Bush's administration to back down from the current direction of the peace process, saying that not an inch of Israeli land should be ceded. "Be merciful to yourselves and the beloved America and its citizens. Lay down the hand you have raised against the Creator in war. Help the people of Israel fight without compromise against the terrorists who rise against it, and then, with a pure heart, you will truly be able to pray: May God bless America," the rabbis said.

Among the rabbis who signed the letter are several leading religious figures, including Rabbis Dov Wolfa, Yekutiel Rap, Gedalia Axelrod as well as the chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba and Hebron, Dov Lior and the son of former Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Yaakov Yosef.

AFP contributed to this article

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This is facism at its worst. Who would of thought that Rabbies would be quoting the bible to advise the president of the United States on this Christian duties to do unChristian acts? Has ne not done enough damage?

As someone said in a talkback on the Ynetwebsite: Why dont the God of this lunatic rabbis punish the actual people that harm Israel and the Jews, ie the arabs If your God is so good, why then dont he bring hurricane to the Palestinians or fire to Hizbalaah or flooding to the Syrians or whatever to the Iranians, why does you cleaver God punishes the Americans? Your way of thinking is so stupid it is beyond belief, especially rabbi Gedalia and rabbi Yekutiel . By Avi , Israel (11.06.07)

US accused of using aid to sway votes in UN security council

This is an old article that I completely forgot to post but is very relevant on how the United States operates at the United Nations...

Taken from The Observer, UK, Sunday December 17, 2006
Heather Stewart, economics correspondent

The US uses its aid budget to bribe those countries which have a vote in the United Nations security council, giving them 59 per cent more cash in years when they have a seat, according to research by economists.

Kofi Annan, the outgoing UN Secretary-General, expressed his frustration at the power the US wields over the UN in his parting speech last week. In a detailed analysis of 50 years of data, Harvard University's Ilyana Kuziemko and Eric Werker provide the clearest evidence yet that money is used by the council's richest member to grease the wheels of diplomacy.

Anti-poverty campaigners reacted angrily to the findings. 'Aid should go to the people who need it, not as a political sweetener,' said Duncan Green of Oxfam. 'In recent years most rich countries have been making progress on this, but showering bribes on developing countries just because they sit on the UN security council is clearly a step backwards.'

Charities often complain that the US uses its aid as a political tool, and this new evidence of what the authors call 'vote-buying' will raise fears about whether the surge of aid money that was promised at last year's Gleneagles G8 summit will be fairly spent.

Ten of the 15 seats on the security council are filled for two years at a time, by rotation.

Kuziemko and Werker found that, in years when they have a seat, countries get an average of more than £8m extra in foreign aid from the US.

'I don't think it's surprising this goes on; but I wonder whether countries being aware that it goes on might have some salutary effect,' Kuziemko said.

Countries with a security council seat also receive an average of £500m extra from the UN itself, most of it channelled through its children's fund, Unicef, over which the US traditionally has been able to exert control. President George Bush recently provoked controversy by appointing a close political ally, former Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, as Unicef's chief.

When there is a controversial vote in prospect, the premium for countries with a security council seat is even higher. US aid surges by as much as 170 per cent, bringing in a £23m windfall, while the UN spends an extra £4m.

'Some countries serve on the security council during relatively calm years, whereas others, by chance, are fortunate enough to serve during a year in which a key resolution is debated and their vote becomes more valuable,' the authors say. They highlight controversial resolutions over issues including the Korean War, Suez, the Falklands and Kosovo - though the period they study does not include the notorious 'second resolution' over the invasion of Iraq, which never came to a vote.

David Woodward, of the New Economics Foundation, who is writing about the paper for a forthcoming edition of the Lancet, said the findings suggest the UN should be radically reformed.
'As long as one country wields such influence, there will always have a degree of control over what goes on, and they will be likely to abuse that.'

'The biggest obstacle, in both the IMF and the World Bank, as well as the UN, is that the countries that now have power can use that power to block reform - and they do.'

Only Christian TV station in Holy Land closes

Taken from The Guardian, UKm Friday November 2, 2007
By Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem

The only Christian television station in the Holy Land has closed after 11 years because of a lack of funding.

Nativity television, or al-Mahed as it was known in Arabic, broadcast a mix of church services, films and discussion programmes 24 hours a day from a small studio in Bethlehem, not far from the Church of the Nativity.

Samir Qumsieh, the Greek Orthodox owner and director of the channel, said it had lost around $800,000, half of which were his own personal debts. "I have hundreds of letters thanking me and gratitude shields thanking us from all the churches but nobody translated this into financial support," he said. The station closed yesterday.

"I reached the point where I couldn't continue any more," he said.

The channel broadcast mostly in Arabic, and Mr Qumsieh said he sometimes had Muslims and Jews phoning in to talk on discussion programmes.

Mr Qumsieh has been an often outspoken advocate for the shrinking Christian community in Bethlehem.

He said Christians were leaving the city in large part because of the sharp economic slowdown brought about by the Israeli occupation and the effect of the concrete West Bank wall that runs nearby.

Some Christians have also said they feel under pressure from conservative Islamist groups which are on the rise across the Palestinian territories.

"Emigration is our great nightmare," Mr Qumsieh said. He believes the Christian community was likely to shrink drastically within the next two decades and he said he too would now be looking for work abroad. He said his family was typical of Bethlehem's Christians, with four grown-up brothers who live and work abroad.

Unemployment runs as high as 65% in Bethlehem and farmers complain that large areas of their land have been taken up by the West Bank barrier and the several Jewish settlements that have been built nearby. The Christian population of the town of Bethlehem is thought to be around 40% today, down from around 90% in the 1940s.

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The occupation of Palestine by the Zionists have made it difficult for Christian Arabs as well as Muslims. The worst thing of all is that almost every Christian majority country throughout the world continues to support the Zionist regime whilst Christains suffer. Some Christian organisations from these countries even advocate assisting in financial aid for settlers, whilst fellow Christians suffer. No one wants to leave thier homeland but the Zionist are winning thier battle by making it difficult for the Palestinians (Christain and Muslim) by keeping them oppressed in thier homeland. It has been noted that US visas have in the past been provided to Christain Arabs but most of the Christains refuse these bribes and want to live in Palestine.

SarCRAZY - the imbecile from France

It's been a bad few weeks for Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France. Last Monday, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Sarkozy telling Israeli Prime Minister Ehud that "Palestinian refugees should be resettled in a Palestinian state, not in Israel"

"Each side should have its own nation-state," he said, according to Israeli officials who were present at the two leaders' meeting. "It is not reasonable for the Palestinians to demand both an independent state and also the refugees' return to the state of Israel, which even today has a minority of one million Arabs."



There are the about three generations of Palestinians that reside in refugee camps in Lebanon and other neighbouring countries of Israel. These are the people that had to flee whilst terrorists took over their country whilst the British Mandate ruled over Palestine. People were killed, women and children were raped by these terrorists, homes, mosques, coffee shops, libraries ever aspects of society were destroyed by these terrorists - some of these terrorists later became Prime Ministers of Israel.

Here are the quotes from David Ben-Gurion, Israels First Prime Minister [1949 – 1954 and 1955 – 1963]

"We must expel Arabs and take their places." -- David Ben Gurion, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.


"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population." -- David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.

"There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?" -- Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp. 121-122.

"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." -- David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99.

"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country." -- David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan's "Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.

THESE REFUGEES SHOULD BE ABLE TO RETURN TO THEIR HOMES AND BE COMPENSATED BY THE ISRAELI REGIME AND IT'S SUPPORTERS.

It is ironic that Jews from London, Moscow, New York (who have no ties to the state of Israel) can live in Israel but those who were born in Israel are prevented from returning to their homes - why should they suffer? Israel's policy of bringing just about anyone that has Jewish links has caused them embarrassment recently when it was found out that a few neo-Nazis (that have Jewish roots) have been causing mayhem in Israel (destroying Jewish cemeteries, placing Swastika everywhere, abducting people and beating them up and much more).

Sarkozy, who hosted Olmert at the Elysee Palace, expressed strong support for Israel, describing its establishment as "a miracle" and "the most significant event of the 20th century." "They say that I support Israel because my grandfather was Jewish, but this isn't a personal matter," he continued, according to the Israeli sources.

"Israel introduces diversity and democracy to the Middle East. It's a miracle that out of the remnants of the ... scattered Jewish people, such a state has arisen." "Israel's security is a clear red line, which is not up for negotiation," he added. "That is an inviolable condition, which we will never concede."

The only miracle is that American Taxpayers have not stopped funding billions of dollars into Israel (reported to be over $100billion since it's creation). With funding like that anyone can be successful, yet Israel is not a democracy. Human rights group such as btselem expose these myths. There is also a hierarchy amongst citizens. Jews from the United States and Europe are considered to be intellectual, with all the wealth are first class citizens, Jews from the Arab region (those whose generations of families have lived in the Middle East) are treated as second class citizens, followed by Arab Christians and Ethiopian Jews as third class, followed by the Druze community then Muslims and so on.

Non Jews such as Muslims are discriminated when applying for jobs, studying, getting medical almost everything. It was only recently that employment laws were changed to stop dissemination against Muslims but that hasn't changed anything. It is much worse in occupied Palestine where taxes (Palestinian government money) are withheld by Israeli government preventing the economy from running and causing hardship for everyone: Teachers, civil servants, schools, hospitals staff were sometimes not being paid for long periods, even money from foreign countries in terms of grants and aid were sometimes blocked by Israel making necessities such as food - water and electricity being rationed - that is a Miracle Mr Sarkozy, a miracle that all these people are alive against the most severe conditions placed by an illegal occupier that no one condemns.

The miracle as Sarkozy states is nothing but a well co-ordinated plan by the Zionist to wipe Palestine off the Map and have a poodle doing the dirty work for the colonials superpowers. The genocide that took place is clearly emphasised by Ilan Pappe (Jewish Historian from Israel) in his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - this book is a must read!

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This week, France's president abruptly ended a "60 Minutes" interview aimed at introducing him to U.S. audiences, dubbing it "stupid" and a "big mistake" and refusing to answer questions about his wife.

Before the CBS news show interview in Paris even began, Sarkozy called his press secretary "an imbecile" for arranging the session on a busy day.

"I don't have the time. I have a big job to do, I have a schedule," Sarkozy said through a translator before the interview began. In English, he added: "Very busy. Very busy."

Before he left he said his Hungarian father had worried that his surname would be an obstacle in France, "That's what he thought. That a name like Sarkozy was a handicap," the president said. "That's the reason why I like the United States. You can have a name like Schwarzenegger and be governor of California. You can be called Madeleine Albright and be secretary of state. You can be called Colin Powell or Condi Rice, and succeed."

The truth of the matter is that you can do well in America if you support the policies of the Christian right, The Zionists or you have Jewish roots - these are the simple FACTS!

We must bomb Iran, says US Republican guru

Taken from Daily Telegraph, UK, 27/10/2007
By Toby Harnden in New York

A senior foreign policy adviser to the Republican frontrunner Rudy Giuliani has urged that Iran be bombed using cruise missiles and "bunker busters" to set back Teheran’s nuclear programme by at least five years.


Podhoretz is a founder of neoconservatism

The tough message at a time of crisis between the United States and Iraq was delivered by Norman Podhoretz, one of the founders of neoconservatism, who has also imparted his stark advice personally to a receptive President George W. Bush.

"None of the alternatives to military action - negotiations, sanctions, provoking an internal insurrection - can possibly work," said Mr Podhoretz."They’re all ways of evading the terrible choice we have to make which is to either let them get the bomb or to bomb them."In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Podhoretz said he was certain that bombing raids could be successful."People I’ve talked to have no doubt we could set it back five or 10 years. There are those who believe we can get the underground facilities as well with these highly sophisticated bunker-busting munitions."

Although Mr Podhoretz said he did not speak for Mr Giuliani, the former New York mayor whom he briefs daily appears to have embraced at least the logic of his hard-line views.

During a visit to London last month, Mr Giuliani said Iran should be given "an absolute assurance that, if they get to the point that they are going to become a nuclear power, we will prevent them or we will set them back five or 10 years".

Mr Podhoretz said: "I was very pleased to see him say that. I was even surprised he went that far. I’m sure some of his political people were telling him to go slow ... I wouldn’t advise any candidate to come out and say we have to bomb - it’s not a prudent thing to say at this stage of the campaign."

But Mr Podhoretz’s 77 years and his position as a pre-eminent conservative foreign policy intellectual means he can not only think the unthinkable but say the unsayable.

"My role has simply been to say what I think," he said, explaining that he takes part in weekly conference calls and is in daily email contact with the Giuliani campaign.

He is the most eminent of a clutch of uncompromisingly hawkish aides assembled by Mr Giuliani. They include Daniel Pipes, who opposes a Palestinian state and believes America should "inspire fear, not affection", and Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official who has argued that Condoleezza Rice’s diplomacy is "dangerous" and signals American "weakness" to Teheran.

"Does Rudy agree with me?" Mr Podhoretz asked rhetorically. "I don’t know and I don’t wish to know." But he added that "Rudy’s view of the war is very similar to mine."

Mr Podhoretz’s thesis is that the war on terror is in fact World War Four and that the 42-year-long Cold War should be more properly described as World War Three.

Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest honour, by President George W. Bush in 2004, Mr Podhoretz later sought a rare one-on-on audience with the US commander-in-chief. They met in New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel in the spring.

The author of the recent World War IV: the Long Struggle Against Islamofacsism spent about 35 minutes outlining his case for air strikes against Iran as Mr Bush’s then chief adviser Karl Rove took notes.

"Whether I had any effect on him I truly don’t know but I sure tried my best to persuade him," he said.

"He was very cordial. He was warm. He listened. He occasionally asked a question as I made the case but he was truly poker faced."

Mr Podhoretz left the meeting unshaken in his belief that Mr Bush would attack Iran before he leaves office.

"The spirit of the questions was not to try to refute or contradict what I was saying. I didn’t get any negative vibes."

He said that now "the debate [over Iran] is secretly over and the people who are against military action are now preparing to make the case that we can live with an Iranian bomb".

Neither Mr Bush nor Mr Giuliani, however, would countenance Teheran acquiring a nuclear weapon and either one would authorise military action once they were convinced Iran had passed the point of no return with its uranium enrichment programme.

"Unlike a ground invasion where you’ve got to mass hundreds of thousands of troops, it takes six months and everybody knows you’re mobilising, with air strikes, we’ve got three carriers in the region and a lot of submarines," Mr Podhoretz said.

"I would say it would take five minutes. You’d wake up one morning and the strikes would have been ordered and carried out during the night. All the president has to do is say go."

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So what do we know about this neo-con warmonger? Podhoretz was said to be born on January 16, 1930, in a working-class section of Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish immigrants Julius and Helen Podhoretz. He received an A.B. degree in literature and criticism in 1950 at Columbia University and concurrently earned a degree in Hebrew literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary. I wonder if he is a member of AIPAC?

Why is he wanting to bomb Iran? (apart from the obvious reasons) Have we forgotten what happened in Iraq - Where were the Weapons of Mass Destruction? The only WMD were in the hands of the US military as it destroyed Iraqi infrastructure when there was no threat from the Iraqi regime of Saddan Hussein. The only chemical weapons used in Iraq came from US troops against Iraqi civilians. So do we really want to bomb Iran? WHY NOT ASK THE EXPERTS? Dr Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an inter-governmental organization under the auspices of the United Nations is such an expert. He has repeatedly stated that Iran does not have any Nuclear weapons. Who do we believe an expert or a crazy warmonger?

There are currently 189 states party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty including Iran. Countries that don't abide by the rules are the likes of India, Pakistan, and Israel - all so called friends of the USA. Who is the only country in the world to use real Weapons of Mass Destruction? Well it would be easy to ask the citizens of the city of Hiroshima unfortunately I belive most of those are all dead.

With regards to the crazy Podhoretz, Dr ElBaradei gave one of his sternest warnings against using military action against Iran -Referring to "the extreme people who have extreme views" he said: "...You do not want to give additional argument to some of the 'new crazies' who want to say let us go and bomb Iran" -

SO with Iran NOT having anu Nuclear weapons and experts believe it will take 3 to 8 years to make any weapons why are we so worried? And even if they did have any weapons so what? (has Pakistan ever attacked India and vice versa even though they are perseved to be enemies?) Who are Iran going to attack considering the other Superpower that exists in the Middle East? (It was only because brave Mordechai Vanunu exposed this Israel secret in the Sunday times in 1986) It is belived Isreal has over 200 Nuclear weapons.

So my queston is shouldn't we be reducig our own weapons before dictating to others what they could do? Shouldn't we trying to get Pakistan, India and Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? The only threat to the world comes from these neo-cons, these fools should be banished to Siberia, their only goal is to make money and they will do whatever it takes to achieve that.

Guantanamo military lawyer breaks ranks to condemn 'unconscionable' detention

Taken from the Independent, UK, 27 October 2007
By Leonard Doyle in Washington

An American military lawyer and veteran of dozens of secret Guantanamo tribunals has made a devastating attack on the legal process for determining whether Guantanamo prisoners are "enemy combatants".

The whistleblower, an army major inside the military court system which the United States has established at Guantanamo Bay, has described the detention of one prisoner, a hospital administrator from Sudan, as "unconscionable".

His critique will be the centrepiece of a hearing on 5 December before the US Supreme Court when another attempt is made to shut the prison down. So nervous is the Bush administration of the latest attack – and another Supreme Court ruling against it – that it is preparing a whole new system of military courts to deal with those still imprisoned.

The whistleblower's testimony is the most serious attack to date on the military panels, which were meant to give a fig- leaf of legitimacy to the interrogation and detention policies at Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. The major has taken part in 49 status review panels.

"It's a kangaroo court system and completely corrupt," said Michael Ratner, the president of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, which is co-ordinating investigations and appeals lawsuits against the government by some 1,000 lawyers. "Stalin had show trials, but at Guantanamo they are not even show trials because it all takes place in secret."

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held for 558 detainees at the Guantanamo in 2004 and 2005. All but 38 detainees were determined to be "enemy combatants" who could be held indefinitely without charges. Detainees were not represented by a lawyer and had no access to evidence. The only witnesses they could call were other so-called "enemy combatants".

The army major has said that in the rare circumstances in which it was decided that the detainees were no longer enemy combatants, senior commanders ordered another panel to reverse the decision. The major also described "acrimony" during a "heated conference" call from Admiral McGarragh, who reports to the Secretary of the US Navy, when a the panel refused to describe several Uighur detainees as enemy combatants. Senior military commanders wanted to know why some panels considering the same evidence would come to different findings on the Uighurs, members of a Muslim minority in China.

When the whistleblower suggested over the phone that inconsistent results were "good for the system ... and would show that the system was working correctly", Admiral McGarragh, he said, had no response. The latest criticism emerged when lawyers investigating the case of a Sudanese hospital administrator, Adel Hamad, who has been held for five years, came across a "stunning" sworn statement from a member of the military panel. The officer they interviewed was so frightened of retaliation from the military that they would not allow their name to be used in the statement, nor to reveal whether the person was a man or woman.

Two other military lawyers have also gone public. In June, Army Lt-Col Stephen Abraham, a 26-year veteran in US military intelligence, became the first insider to publicly fault the proceedings. In May last year, Lt-Com Matthew Diaz was sentenced to six months in prison and dismissed from the military after he sent the names of all 551 men at the prison to a human rights group.

William Teesdale, a British-born lawyer investigating Mr Hadad's case, said he was certain of his client's innocence, having tracked down doctors who worked with him at an Afghan hospital. "Mr Hamad is an innocent man, and he is not the only one in Guantanamo."

Palestinian inmate dies of wounds

Extracted from BBC, Tuesday, 23 October 2007

A Palestinian prisoner has died of wounds he suffered in a riot at a jail in southern Israel.

Israeli prison officials said the man had been hit by what they called non-lethal objects fired by guards during Monday's riot.

They did not disclose the precise devices used on security grounds.

Palestinians say the guards provoked the riot by searching sleeping quarters at night, and then used unacceptably violent methods to regain control.

The Israeli authorities described the search as routine and said guards had used the correct response in view of the danger to their lives.

Fifteen Palestinians and 15 guards were hurt in Monday's riot, Israeli officials said.

More than 2,000 Palestinians are held in Ketziot Prison, in the Negev desert in southern Israel.

There are more than 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, many being held without ever having faced trial, the BBC's correspondent in Ramallah, Aleem Maqbool, says. While some have been charged with security offences, most here consider them all to be political prisoners and their release is a key Palestinian demand in the negotiations aimed at ending the conflict, he adds.

Angry demonstrations
Prison authorities identified the man dead inmate only as a 30-year-old male serving a two-year sentence.

Ashraf Ajrami, the Palestinian Authority's minister for prisoner affairs, identified him as Mohammad al-Ashkar, a member of the Islamic Jihad militant group.

Hundreds of Palestinians have come out in protest in the West Bank and Gaza against Ashkar's death and calling for Palestinian prisoners to be released.

At one point early on Monday, some of the prison was on fire as inmates battled with their guards.

Palestinian officials say they believe the number of wounded is far higher and that 10 of the injured prisoners needed hospital treatment.

Gujarat riots a genocide; Modi sanctioned it: Tehelka

Taken from rediff.com, October 25, 2007 21:19 IST
By Onkar Singh in New Delhi

Investigative weekly Tehelka on Thursday claimed to have unravelled the truth behind the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Tehelka claimed it had 'irrefutable' evidence that the killings of Muslims post-Godhra train carnage in Gujarat was 'not a spontaneous swell of anger but a genocide' planned and executed by top functionaries of the Sangh Parivar and state authorities 'with the sanction' of Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Tehelka Editor-in-Chief Tarun Tejpal claimed that the magazine had carried out a sting operation over the last six months by talking to a number of Sangh Parivar leaders, including Godhra BJP MLA Haresh Bhatt, Shiv Sena leader Babu Bajrangi, who was earlier in the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and VHP leaders Anil Patel and Dhawal Jayanti Patel, to bring out the truth.

"We have evidence that bombs were being made in the VHP office premises," Harinder Baweja, Editor (Investigations), told rediff.com.

"In Tehelka's ground breaking investigations, for the first time, hear the truth of the genocidal killings from the men who actually did it. In shocking disclosures, Chief Minister Narendra Modi came and patted the back of criminals, and told them that they had done a good job," Baweja said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has reacted sharply to the magazine's report stating that Tehelka was acting as CIA (Congress Investigating Agency) and it was a collusive sting, which could hardly be called investigative journalism.

Party spokesman Prakash Javedekar said the 'dirty tricks department' of the Congress was at work again in view of the assembly elections in Gujarat.

None of the leaders caught on camera in the expose was available for comments, except Gujarat VHP leader Dhawal Jayanti Patel who said Bajrangi had not talked to him during the riots and that he had not seen the sting operation.

Bhatt was purportedly caught on tape saying he was present in a meeting in which Modi allegedly gave him three days time 'to do whatever they wanted.'

"After three days, he (Modi) asked to stop and everything came to a halt," Bhatt said, adding that the chief minister thanked them after the Naroda Patiya masssacre.

The magazine claimed that Dhawal Jayanti Patel told its undercover reporter that the VHP activists made lots of bombs in a factory owned by him. A BJP MLA was shown as saying they even made rocket launchers, which were used in the pogrom.

It also claimed that it has exposed 'a trail of lies and coercions' that establishes the fire in coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express in Godhra on February 27, 2002 was a case of spontaneous mob fury and not a pre-meditated conspiracy as stated by the Gujarat government.

Additional Reportage: PTI

Shin Bet prevented medical care to Palestinian cancer patient

Taken from Haaretz, Israel, 24/10/2007
By Amira Hass

The Shin Bet is refusing to allow a 21-year-old Rafiah man who is sick with cancer and in need of immediate medical care to come to Israel, even though he obtained permission from the Israeli Defense Forces' Coordination and Liaison Administration.

The Shin Bet also arrested the patient's father, who accompanied him to the hospital. Mahmoud Abu Taha was diagnosed with cancer of the small intestine in August 2007. Treatment in Gaza was unsuccessful, and he lost a third of his body weight. In addition, he is not taking all of the vitamins he needs because of the shortage of medications in Gazan hospitals.

Because of his serious condition, the doctors decided to postpone chemotherapy and send him to Tel HaShomer hospital in Ramat Gan. According to Mahmoud's brother, Hanni Abu Taleh, on October 18, they received permission shortly after they filed a request with the IDF. The father and his sick son drove in an ambulance to Erez Crossing, and after a half-hour wait, the father's name was called on the loudspeaker. According to the brother, the patient continued to wait in the ambulance, lying on a stretcher and attached to an oxygen tank and an infusion. After two hours, it was announced on the loudspeaker that he was denied entrance into Israel.

They returned to the hospital in Khan Yunis. At the same time, a person who identified himself as an officer with the Shin Bet called Hanni and told him that his father had been arrested. The family filed another request for Mahmoud to come for medical treatment at Tel HaShomer, but they still have not received a reply. The Shin Bet maintains that "Abu Taha arrived at the Erez Crossing during a specific warning of a terror attack at the border crossing. Due to the fact that it was not allowed to carry out a security check on him, he was prevented from exiting to Israel." The Shin Bet also said that the father of Mahmoud was arrested on suspicion of involvement in terror acitivites.

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The Shin Bet security service have a history of preventing medication going into occupied Palestine as well as allowing medical treatment of Palestinians into Israel. Only a few weeks ago Israeli rights group - Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) reported due to the the Shin Bet organization, in many cases, patients have been denied urgent, life-saving treatment. The report says that the Shin Bet automatically refuses entry permits, and reconsiders its decisions only if legal action is begun. SO why is healt care so rubbish in Occupied Palestine? Could it be that Israel refuses to hand over Palestinian tax payers money so that Palestinians cannot finance themselves? Maybe. Here is a good talkback found in

A jewish racise on the website talkback asked "Give one example of a Jew treated in an Arab WB or Gaza hospital"

Here was a good reply from a sensible person...
Title: #17 Pt 1 - No Israeli would need it,
Name: Rebekah S, City:Washington DC
because Israeli healthcare has not been systematically undermined as it has for Palestinians under Israeli rule. In contrast, healthcare in Gaza was stripped so bare between 1967 and the Oslo Accords, that the PA - which cannot possibly afford to build from scratch an advanced health care system, and which in the case of cancer patients would not be able to do so anyway seeing as Israel refuses to allow radiotherapy equipment into Gaza for "security reasons" - has to pay for advanced treatments abroad. About one-sixth go to Israel, and the PA pays for it. About two-thirds go to Egypt, but the Rafah crossing to Egypt remains closed as long as Israel does not allow the EU monitors based in Ashqelon to enter the Strip and reach the crossing. So a cancer patient today cannot get advanced treatment in Gaza because the Israelis say that would be a security risk, he cannot go to Egypt for it because Israel keeps Rafah closed to punish the Gaza coup, and now he cannot enter Israel either.


LATEST UPDATE: 30 OCTOBER 2007
This week it has been reveale dthat Prime Minister Olmert is to undergo operation for prostate cancer but at the same time the Cancer patient that was prevented from entering the hospital has died.

6 soldiers suspected of beating Druze comrades

Soldiers repeatedly kick Druze soldier who was late for guard duty; his friend also beaten up. Military judge: Incident has racist overtones

Taken from Ynet news, Israel, Hanan Greenberg
20.10.07,

Six IDF soldiers have been detained by Military Police over the past few days on suspicion of beating two of their Druze comrades at the Samaria Division headquarters in the West Bank, Ynet learned Saturday.

One of the Druze soldiers testified that he sustained blows to his entire body and that his friend was also beaten after trying to come to his aid.

"I'm very scared, because I believe they will try and take their revenge; they are very dangerous," the soldier told army investigators.

During a court hearing on the extension of five of the six soldiers' remand, Jaffa Military Court President Colonel Avi Levy described the incident as "a vile act" and said it had "racist overtones."

In the next few weeks Military Police will apparently file an indictment against the five soldiers whose remand was extended.

'Stab him, stab him already'
The scuffle broke out following an argument over guard duty. Apparently, one of the Druze soldiers was late in replacing one of his comrades and hurled insults at another soldier who confronted him on the matter.

A few hours later, one of the soldiers on the base approached the Druze soldier as he was coming out of the shower. According to the Druze soldier, the soldier who approached him summoned one of his friends and then said to him, "Is this how you talk to my brother?"

"Then he cursed me and headbutted me," the Druze soldier told army investigators. "I felt dizzy and then fell to the ground; I was kicked in the neck, back, stomach, hips – wherever – they kept kicking me all over."

The soldier said the assailants spewed racial epithets and threatened to "butcher" him.

Eventually the battered soldier managed to run toward the base's commissary while screaming for help, but the soldiers chased after him.

At a certain point one of the soldiers who took part in the beginning of the fight appeared and proceeded to throw the Druze soldier down on the ground and beat him along with the others.

"They continued to kick me, and one of them said 'stab him; stab him already'," the Druze soldier recounted.

The Druze soldier then fled to a nearby Border Guard base, where he informed an officer of what had transpired.

Immediately following the incident an impromptu lineup was set up, during which the Druze soldier identified his attackers. He was then transferred to a hospital for treatment.

"I'm still in need of additional medical treatment; I have nightmares," he told Military Police.

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Well it was only a few months ago that Senior IDF officers & Israeli government officials gatherd in Carmiel to honor IDF's Druze soldiers (there are currently 110,000 Druze soldiers in its ranks). The truth of the matter is that anyone that is not a Jew in Israel is considered an outsider even those who have lived there (includes occupied areas) for centuries. Non jews are prevented from proper medical, eduction and even jobs in the state. They have little hope in a country where European and American jews are First Class Citizens, followed by Jews who have lived in the Middle East for centuries (second class citizens), then Christians are third class, then follwed by Eithopean black jews, then Druze, then Muslims are the lowest class. So much for Democracy in the Middle East and all that!

Palestinians: Settlers hurling stones at us

Dozens of right-wing activists living in illegal West Bank outpost constantly harassing local residents, Palestinians say

Taken from YNetnews Israel, 13.10.07
By Amit Schneider

Dozens of settlers living in the illegal West Bank outpost of Shvut Ami have been harassing Palestinians and hurling stones at their cars, local residents told Ynet on Saturday.

Shvut Ami is one of the five outposts built by right-wing activists during the holiday of Sukkot. About 200 people arrived at the area on the day of construction, but most of them left.

The following day, IDF forces began evacuating the outposts, but the soldiers were forced to return to Shvut Ami the week later after a number of right-wing activists returned to the area.
It appears, however, that there are several settlers still living in the illegal outpost and disrupting the lives of the local residents traveling on nearby roads.

"The road goes under the outpost, and the settlers throw stones from 5 meters above, "said Zakaria Seda, a resident of the village of Jit, near Kedumim. "Palestinians from the Qalqilya and Nablus area who pass by are harassed by the settlers."

Seda said that many drivers were injured on the road as their car windows were shattered by the stones, and that a settler even caused a road accident this week by hurling a stone at a moving car.

"The driver had to suddenly brake, and was hit in the back by another car."

'Police looking into incident'
According to Seda, he filed four different complaints with the local District Coordination Office (DCO) this week, but was ignored.

"There were many complaints to the Israel Police and the DCO, and no solution was provided.

They told me they were working on it and that they would be evacuated, but unfortunately this has not happened. The Palestinians here live in fear. We seek a solution and wish to live in peace with the Israelis."

According to Seda, this was not the first time settlers disrupted Palestinians' lives in the area.

"The Palestinian residents are harassed, mainly by residents of the Havat Gilad outpost who uproot trees or set fire to their property," he claimed.

The Judea and Samaria police said in response that a report filed by a Palestinian claiming that stones were hurled at moving cars near the Jit junction was received on Friday through the DCO, and that the incident was being looked into by the police.

Efrat Weiss and Roee Nahmias contributed to this report

End olive harvest attacks

If understanding with PA to be reached, settler rioters at olive groves should be dealt with

Taken from Ynetnews, israel, 10.10.07
By Yehuda Litani

"A Palestinian farmer residing in the Tal village adjacent to Kedumim was stoned by settlers from the Gilad outpost while harvesting olives. The man was treated at the site and evacuated to hospital. The Rabbis for Human Rights organization lodged a complaint with the IDF and the Coordination and Liaison Authority."

This laconic report by the French news agency Tuesday is just the opening shot ahead of another season of trouble at West Bank olive groves.

Each year during this season the harsh events carried out by settlers attacking the Palestinian olive harvesters are repeated, and each year security officials repeatedly assure they will do their utmost to prevent such attacks. However, both the Palestinian farmers and the settlers know how "serious" these assurances are.

The olive tree was selected this year as Israel's "national tree." Some 8,800 Ynet surfers voted for it ahead of the Olympics in Beijing next year. However, similar to several other matters, the Olive tree is also the national tree of our Palestinian neighbors-enemies. They didn’t select it in an online competition ahead of the Olympics: Since the 1950s the majority of Palestinians have regarded the olive tree as their national emblem. Being torn from their olive trees is a motif that is repeated in Palestinian literature and poetry in the past 10 years.

Each year skirmishes between Jewish settlers and Palestinian farmers take place adjacent to these trees in the West Bank. The farmers blame the settlers for attempting to steal their "single prized possession" – the olive and oil yield on which the livelihood of tens of thousands of families are dependent throughout the long winter months.

In the eyes of the farmers, these attacks are the continuation of another harsh abuse: During the construction of the separation fence in recent years, construction contractors uprooted thousands of olive trees, the vast majority of which were sold to Israeli nurseries.

The attack on harvesters, the damage to the olive groves and the uprooting of trees are perceived by the Palestinian public as an attempt to uproot them from their land. Moreover, the security forces are exhibiting an unfathomable helplessness wherever protecting the Palestinian farmers and in warding off settler aggression is concerned.

The incumbent government is seeking to reach understandings with the Palestinian Authority regarding the West Bank and Jerusalem. The prime minister is seeking to strengthen the heads of the Authority so that the Hamas takeover of Gaza will not be repeated in the West Bank.

Yet while secret understandings are being reached at the covert meetings between Olmert and Abbas, life goes on as usual at the West Bank olive groves.

It is worth noting that this year very low yields are expected (last year there was an abundance of olives, and this year the opposite is expected due to the trees' biennial cycle), and each yield harvested is rare and its price set accordingly.

If this year the security establishment does not show some determination in its handling of the attacks, cabinet representatives will find it difficult to convince Palestinians that their intentions are indeed serious in more critical matters such as establishing a Palestinian state, transfer of land and reaching an agreement on Jerusalem.

Despite the matter being seemingly marginal, perhaps our cabinet leaders should remember that which is written in the bible: A good name is better than precious oil.