Thursday, September 29, 2005

US owes it to the world








PV Vivekanand

NONE of the findings of various investigations, official and unofficial, into the Sept.11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington has satisfactorily and logically provided answers to the multitude of questions that were raised immediately after the unprecedented terrorist attack against the US. Washington has not released the full report of the findings of the official investigation.
The key question had always been: How could a group of Middle Eastern Arab Muslims penetrate the high-security American aviation system, mislead the country's air defences into inaction despite reported hijackings and then slam the aircraft into landmarks in New York and Washington?
There had to help from within. Who provided that help, why and how?
It had to someone or an organisation or group that stood to benefit from the fallout of the attacks. There is no doubt that Israel was the sole beneficiary of the attacks, which resulted in a deep schism between the Arab/Muslim worlds and the US and were used as a pretext for the invasion of Iraq and ouster of a regime which was deemed to be a hurdle in Israel's quest for regional domination. Next targets in the US-led war against terror that was launched post-9/11 are two other sworn enemies of Israel — Iran and Syria. It is only a matter of time and method before the US destabilises both countries and thus remove them as potential threats or challenges to Israel.
As such, it is only natural that one would look a bit closer at the scenario and realise that the Israelis possess the cunningness, intelligence, technology, and expertise and, above all, the right connections in the corridors of power in Washington to have carried out of a false flag operation and ensured that Arabs and Muslims were blamed for it.
It would not be the first of last time Israel carried out such an operation.
The meticulously recorded facts — supported by American official documents and intelligence findings accepted as accurate by the US establishment — presented in the memorandum drawn up by respected lawyer Gerald Shea give a massive boost to the suspicion — indeed conviction of many — that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks.
The Bush administration owes it not only to the Americans but also the entire international community to conduct a public inquiry into the issues raised in the Shea memorandum and let is findings be known to the world if only because the 9/11 attacks changed the face of the world forever, with the developing world paying the highest price.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Divine retribution?

pv vivekanand
Christian evangelists and many ordinary Americans say Katrina and Rita are divine retribution to the aggressive US policies, particularly the invasion of Iraq, and Washington's almost unlimited support for Israel's brutality, arrogance, intrasigence and stubbornness against the Palestinian independence struggle. This is the impression one gets from the thousands of messages flying across the Internet.
Anti-war activists agree and assert that the Bush administration was damaged badly as a result of Katrina and Rita because it had lied through its teeth to justify the invasion of Iraq, produced false witnesses and testimonies and broke God's commandments for the sake of global dominance, control of oil and Israeli interests.
Other say Hurricane Katrina particularly targeted New Orleans because of what they see as the debauchery of life there, including the free-wheeling gay and lesbian movements as well as the abortionists there.
Hardline Jews contend that God punished the US for pressuring Israel into withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, and there is more to come.
Many others say that the real targets of God's wrath are the neoconservatives behind President George W Bush. Their political and bureaucratic careers are poised to collapse when the nation takes account of Katrina and Rita sooner or later, and few would be able to escape the net.
Critics note that Katrina and Rita targeted some of the most economically sensitive areas of the US; the Gulf Coast which has America's largest seaport and is the country's key route for imports and exports, and Texas, which houses the country's oil resources. Some 20 oil refineries are located in the path of Rita, and if they are damaged, then the cost of a gallon of patrol would rise to upto $5, thus fuelling public resentment against the government.
The argument of divine retribution becomes all the more significant beause Texas is Bush's homestate.
Salon magazine took particular pleasure in pointing out that Bush himself used the pulpit at a national prayer service to shed personal responsibility for New Orleans by pointing his finger at God. 
However, it all falls back into politics, and particularly the Middle East.
British Member of Parliament George Galloway, who was targeted by the neocons for political elimination because of his criticism of the war against Iraq, seemed to have summarised the feeling of many when he said after hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans:
"The scenes from the stricken city almost defy belief. Many, many thousands of people left to die in what is the richest, most powerful country on Earth. This obscenity is as far from a natural disaster as George Bush and the US elite are from the suffering masses of New Orleans. The images of Bush luxuriating at his ranch and of his secretary of state shopping for $7,000 shoes while disaster swamped the US Gulf Coast will haunt this administration.
"In the most terrible way imaginable they show to the whole world that it is not only the lives of people in Baghdad, Fallujah and Palestine that Bush holds cheap. It is also his own citizens — the black and poor people left behind with no food, water or shelter. This is not simply manslaughter through incompetence, though the White House's incompetence abounds. It is murder — for Bush was warned four years ago of the threat to New Orleans, as surely as he was warned of the disaster that would come of his war on Iraq. ...
"His is the America of Halliburton, the M-16 rifle, the cluster bomb, the gated communities of the rich and of the billionaires he grew up with in Texas. There is another America. It is the land of the poor of Louisiana, it is the land of the young men and women economically conscripted into the military. It is the land of the glorious multiethnic mix that was New Orleans, it is the land of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and of great struggles for justice."
It might indeed be rhetoric, but it is the kind of language most Americans understand without difficulty, particularly now that the shortcomings of the Bush administration in handling the hurricane crisis have been exposed to the American public.
Adding fuel to the fire was an assertion by a tabloid quoting a doctor that raised questions about the president's personal life.
The National Inquirer, a tabloid better known for devoting its front pages to gossip about celebrity divorces, quoed Dr. Justin Frank, a Washington D.C. psychiatrist and author of Bush On The Couch: Inside The Mind Of The President, as saying that Bush is drinking again.
“I do think that Bush is drinking again. Alcoholics who are not in any programme, like the president, have a hard time when stress gets to be great," Dr Frank was quoted as saying. "I think it's a concern that Bush disappears during times of stress. He spends so much time on his ranch. It's very frightening.”
Frank is described as a highly-respected psychiatrist at George Washington University and his book about the president’s problems has been praised by other psychiatric experts.
White House rumours about the president’s drinking began circulating last year in the West Wing along with questions about possible abuse of prescription drugs. They report wide mood swings, cancelled meetings and an ever-decreasing number of aides with direct access to Bush.
Bush had admitted to be an alcoholic earlier but he said he quit drinking without help from any organised programme.
The president's problems do not end there.
A massive anti-war demonstration was taking place in Washington on Saturday with organisers expecting more than 100,000 marchers amid growing public concern about the course of the Iraq war.
Cindy Sheehan, who lost her 24-year old son in Iraq and whose protests have galvanised the anti-war movement, was leading the protesters.
Sheehan, who camped outside Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas for 25 days demanding a meeting with the president that was never granted, organised peace caravans driving through the US before converging on Washington on Saturday.
The movement has triggered intense debate across the US about the war and how the administration misled the US Congress and people that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the US and therefore he had to be ousted through invasion and occupation of Iraq.
It is not simply Sheehan who motivated the anti-war movement into taking the cause against war to the streets of America. There has been a marked change in the approach of many (non-corporate) television channels, radios and newspapers in their coverage of the Iraq war and vivid images from Iraq are now brought home to the Americans unlike the first year of the war when only "positive" news were broadcast by most channels.
Whether Americans are now concerned about the deception of the administration that set the ground for the war, they are now asking for a timetable for calling the American troops home from Iraq, something the administration is unable or is not willing to provide (mainly because ending the US military presence in Iraq is not in the schedule during the Bush administration's term in office).
The anti-administration build-up is growing, and it would only gather strength, given the almost impossible situations facing Bush at home and in Iraq. The president could do with a major diversion somewhere and his critics are speculating what it would be.

Friday, September 23, 2005

Tip of an iceberg

PV Vivekanand

IT IS no secret that some of the people who wield influential positions in post-war Iraq are not exactly known for keeping their paws to themselves when it comes to money, particularly when it belongs to someone else. Reports that up to $1 billion were siphoned away from funds earmarked to equip the Iraqi security forces do not come as a surprise. Surely, it is only the tip of an iceberg. If one cares to dig deeper, then there would be much more worse scandals waiting to be uncovered.
That might indeed be the case, but the US could not escape from its responsibility and share of blame for the mess-up in Iraq. The ill-planned and misguided military action has led to untold suffering for the people of Iraq, one of the richest oil countries in the region. They live in a perpetual state of terror and deprived of a decent level of amenities in life. They were promised the sky at one point, and today they have gone deep into an abysss of uncertainty and fear. And now they are told that money that should have been spent on improving their security has gone missing, thus sparking further frustration and despair over themselves and the fate of their country.
A close review of American administration of funds allocated for Iraq, whether coming from American taxpayers or from the sales of Iraqi oil, since the invasion of that country in March 2003 shows a we-could-not-care-less approach. Tens of billions of dollars have been spent in Iraq, and the bulk of the money going to certain favoured destinations. There has always been a grossly inflated version of spending in Iraq on the American side, and this has definitely contributed to a confidence in Baghdad that anyone could get away with anything.
Had the Bush administration took the early signs of mismanagement and corruption seriously enough to launch a thorough and transparent investigation, pinpointed the blame and took to task those responsible, then it would have been the best message that Washington does take things seriously and has the best of interests of Iraq and its people at heart.
It did not happen, and even audited reports of Iraq accounts that brought out gross irregularities and violations were shelved aside. The people named in the audit reports were not even questioned, as far as the international community knows today.
What better example could the US set for those in a position to dip their hands into the Iraqi honeypot?

Taken for a ride

PV Vivekanand

IF the American invasion and occupation of Iraq carried out through a web of lies and deception has led to a total mess-up, taking the country to the point of disintegration along sectarian lines, much worse is the Washington-guided financial management of both American and Iraqi funds. Evidence is mounting that the commercial interests of a few American corporate giants played an equal role in whatever other considerations that the administration of President George W Bush had in charting and implementing the grand design to seek absolute control of oil-rich Iraq. Today, having spent — at least on paper — billions of dollars for reconstructing Iraq, the US or the people of Iraq have little to show in terms of improved living conditions. But then, bettering the life of Iraqis through spending American money was never a consideration in Washington and the prime objective, it would definitely seem, was to reap billions for friends of the neoconservative camp in the corridors of American power, writes PV Vivekanand.
APART FROM the US quest to turn Iraq into a key pillar of its empire of bases and remove a potential threat to Israel's domination of the Middle East, the invasion and occupation of Iraq had another dimension: Allowing hand-picked American corporates to earn billion of dollars, whether through supply of weapons and military equipment as well as fuel and food to the US military, or through control of the oil resources of Iraq. True, no American oil company has been able to serve its long-term interests in Iraq so far, if only because of the intensity of the insurgeny there. However, US firms, most of them linked to the Republican Party and leading members of the neoconservative camp in Washington, have been reaping a rich harvest from the tens of billions of dollars of US money being spent in Iraq. Indeed, it is the business of the American people and government to decide who should get what from American taxpayers' money, but not so when it comes to the natural resources that belong to the people of Iraq.
As allegations fly that someone, somewhere siphoned off $1 billion that were supposed to have been spent on building Iraq's security forces, the reality is also emerging that someone, someone had also channelled away billions of dollars of Iraqi oil money that should have been spent on rebuilding the shattered country.
As looting erupted in Baghdad and cities and towns elsewhere in the country following the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime in April 2003, the favourite  term used to describe the looters was "Ali Baba," the Arabian tales character who stole from the loot of a gang of thieves. Few gave a second thought that the name was perhaps misused since Ali Baba could not be described as a thief in a broader sense.
Indeed, that is so symptomatic of Iraq. Few, least of all the Americans, took the trouble of understanding the country and its people. The US-led coalition went to Iraq with an agenda that had little do with democracy and human rights or the welfare of the people of that country, and more to do with American/Israeli strategic interests, and, in the bargain, nudging aside billions of dollars in the way of corporates like Halliburton and Bechtel.
Again, that money was mostly American. And today, US officials have confirmed that key rebuilding projects in Iraq are grinding to a halt because American money is running out and security has diverted funds intended for electricity, water and sanitation.
As a result, according to James Jeffrey, a senior state department adviser on Iraq, projects to rebuild the country's infrastructure have been downsized, postponed or abandoned because the $24 billion budget approved by Congress has been dwarfed by the scale of the task.
"We have scaled back our projects in many areas," Jeffrey told a congressional committee in Washington this month. "We do not have the money."
The net sum of conclusions emerging from various auditing reports, official and unofficial, about the American funds spent, both for continuing the war and to rebuild Iraq, is that there had been a systematic pattern of spending that benefited none other than private American companies which are given no-bid contracts.
It was reported as far back as October 2003 that basic reconstruction in Iraq would cost less than half the amount requested by the Bush administration from the US Congress.
A joint report prepared by the United Nations and World Bank estimated that $9 billion were needed for reconstruction in Iraq in 2004 where as the amount that the US government had sought from Congress was $18.6 billion.
In every sector, the US estimate was double that of the UN estimate, clearly indicating that figures were purposely inflated to benefit the corporates.
. For example, while the Bush administration sought $5.7 billion for rebuilding the country’s electricity system, the UN-World Bank report put the price tag at $2.38 billion. Similarly, for rebuilding the water and sanitation infrastructure, the administration hd asked for $3.77 billion, while the joint report estimates that less than $1.9 billion is needed.
Beyond that, the Bush administration had estimated that $55 billion will be needed for Iraqi reconstruction between 2004 and 2007. While there was no comparable UN/World Bank estimate, independent think-tanks estimated the requirement at less than half that amount.
Where did the money disappear?
Today, very few people actually seem to know how much was actually spent in reconstructing Iraq although there is little sign of any reconstruction. Iraqis continue to suffer from water and power shortages and there is little in the way of employment opportunities except perhaps in the high-risk security forces.
The pattern of mismanagement of funds was established in the audit reports of the accounts of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) that was disbanded on June 28, 2004.
But that was not American money. It was Iraqi money, and no one seems to be bothered anymore to hold to account those who misappropriated it.
Paul Bremer, who headed the CPA, left behind what turned out to be a gross misuse of proceeds of Iraqi oil exports to benefit American contractors, with the major beneficiary being Halliburton.
There were three sources of funding for the war and occupation of Iraq. The first was $65 billion directly allocated as military spending by the US Congress and administered by the US Defence Department. It was American taxpayer's money.
The second was $18.4 billion, also approved by the US Congress, but administered by the CPA. Again, it was American taxpayer's money and supposed to be spent on reconstruction of Iraq along with $16 billion or so pledged by other countries.
The third was the Development Fund for Iraq, which represented proceeds from Iraq's oil exports and leftover money from the oil-for-food programme that the UN ran in co-ordination with the Saddam Hussein regime. The fund handled about $20 billion by the time the CPA was disbanded when the US handed over "sovereignty" to the interim government in June 2004.
The first war chest was further replished by another $87 billion, but the bulk of it was earmarked for direct military spending.
From the $18.4 billion allocation for reconstructing Iraq, the CPA spent only two per cent since allocating American funds for reconstruction projects in Iraq had many riders and it was easier to dipping into the Development of Iraq Fund — which was strictly Iraqi money.
The Pentagon has not yet explain just how Halliburton gained possession of Iraqi funds when neither the US Congress nor the Iraqi government authorised their transfer to Halliburton in the first place. But no one is asking for an explanation either.

Saddam's 'billions'

Iyad Allawi, the first post-Saddam Iraqi prime minister, and several other Iraqi officials and politicians said shortly after Saddam was captured in late 2003 that British and American intelligence had located up to $40 billion in secret funds stashed away from the toppled president.
The clues to the "secret funds," they said at that time, were provided by none other than Saddam, who revealed details of secret accounts in international banks during questioning.
The assertion immediately drew scepticism. It was elementary that it was
impossible to hide that kind of money for anyone, let alone Saddam, who was under the tightest-ever monitoring since 1990.
Let us, for argument's sake, agree that Saddam had stashed away such money and had given clues to where it was, then the US should have definitely located it. What happened to that money then?
We have heard scant little about the "Saddam billions"in the last 20 months.
Or was it that the same people or at least some of them who were behind the massive cash scam in Iraq did recover the money and then decided "finders keepers?"

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Destination Damascus

pv vivekanand

WASHINGTON is cranking up pressure on Syria on several fronts, and many in the Middle East see it as heralding an Iraq-style scenario for that country regardless of whatever it does to ward off the threat.
The thrust of the American campaign is the charge that the Syrian government is not only doing enough to check the flow of international jihadists into Iraq through the borders but also that it is actually encouraging guerrillas to enter Iraq and fight the US-led coalition forces and their allies there.
Parallel to that is the diplomatic pressure stemming from allegations that the Syrian regime was responsible for the February assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister, Rafiq Al Hariri.
Another charge against Damascus is linked to the Palestinian war of resistance against Israel. Washington insists that Syria-based leaders of militant groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and leftist factions are plotting and implementing anti-Israeli attacks, and this amounts to Syrian support for "international terrorism."
Yet another assault is coming through human rights groups as well as the State Department which accuse the Syrian authorities of gross violations of human rights — by continued detention of "political prisoners," denying the civil rights and freedoms of the Syrian people and arbitrary jailing and torture of dissidents.
Syria is also accused of harbouring Nazi war criminals and refusing to surrender them for trial, presumably in Israel, for "crime against humanity" (read Jews).
The US is also working on the internal political front in Syria by offering assistance to Syrian activists living in exile and within the country to stir unrest among Syrians. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is spearheading that effort through meetings and contacts with leaders of the Syrian community living in the US and elsewhere who do not agree with the policies of the government of President Bashar Al Assad.
The pressure has been stepped up in recent weeks and many observers see a link between the mounting insurgency in Iraq and Washington's efforts to spark serious developments in the Syrian context. They believe that the US is seeking to to divert world attention and possibly create a strategy to alleviate the pressure the US faces from Iraqi and international jihadist groups resisting the American military presence in post-war Iraq while also building a case for "regime change" in Damascus.
An overwhelming number of Arabs, in the Gulf and elsewhere, believe that it is only a matter of time before the US arrives at a point where it feels that it has built enough pressure and through it an international consensus that Syria should be "punished" for its alleged role in the Iraqi insurgency, in the Hariri assassination and in supporting international terrorism.
They liken the situation to the build-up to the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. Many of them had foreseen as far back as December 2001 — when the US was waging war in Afghanistan — that it was Iraq's turn next and there was nothing Saddam Hussein could have done to pre-empt the American invasion that followed more than 15 months later.
It has since been established that all justifications that the Bush administration cited for action against Saddam Hussein had any substance. If anything, it has more or less been proved that the US government doctored intelligence reports to convince the international Congress and people that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was somehow linked to the Sept.11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.
A similar situation is unfolding now for Syria, they say.
They do not believe that the Syrian leadership was naive enough to think that it could get away with murdering Hariri and to overlook that Damascus was emerging as a top priority target for an American-engineered "regime change" because Israel-specific considerations.
As such, Damascus could not have undertaken an action that was sure to be exploited by hostile forces into launching anti-Syrian action on the regional and international action.
Therefore, they argue, Syria is being set up through "planted" evidence and doctored intelligence finds that would be placed in the way of the UN investigations into the Hariri murder. They are convinced that the UN inquiries would soon reach the conclusion that "orders" for assassinating Hariri had come from the "top ranks" of power in Syria and this would be followed by UN Security Council sanctions against Damascus, setting the ground for eventual action that would destabilise the Bashar Al Assad regime.
What is subject to conjecture at this point is whether such action would involve outright military intervention or whether the pro-Israeli neoconservative camp in Washington would wait until they feel they have built enough internal challenges to the Syrian regime before supporting a revolt against Bashar Al Assad.
Not many believe that the Bush administration would engage itself in another military adventure in the region as long as the Iraqi crisis rages out of control. Washington could not but be aware that the "strategic alliance" between Syria and Iran would automatically bring the Iranians into the equation in the event of an American military intervention in Syria. The US has also to make allowances for unpredictable anti-American action by Lebanon's Hizbollah and other factions allied with Syria.
People in the Middle East have no doubts over the American motivation for action against Syria. They have a rather simplified view of the situation: There is no possibility of an Israeli-Syrian peace agreement under the given geopolitical imperatives for the two sides. Israel, which occupies Syria's Golan Heights and counts on it as the key source of its water, would never relinquish the area. No Syrian government, least of all the Bashar regime, would ever accept a peace deal that does not involve the return of the Golan to Syrian sovereignty and hope to survive in power in Damascus.
As such, the only way out of the impasse is to destabilise Syria and create an American-friendly regime in Damascus that could be pressed into making compromises accept a peace deal on Israel's terms. That is where ultimate objective of the mounting pressure against Damascus, and, it has become embedded in the Arab mind that the only question is when the US would launch action on the ground.

Saturday, September 17, 2005

'US using Zarqawi name'





A prominent Shiite religious leader of Iraq has said that Jordanian militant Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, an associate of Osama Bin Laden and said to be the mastermind of the rising insurgency in Iraq, was killed sometime ago and that the US forces are using his name to justify the occupation of the country.
Sheikh Jawad Al Khalessi, imam of the Shiite mosque Al Kadhemiya in Baghdad and a senior religious leader, made the comment in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde.
Khalessi is currently in France to attend an inter-faith meeting in Sant' Egidio, in Lyon.
He told Le Monde that the US forces were trying to terrify the Shiites into moving closer to the US and therefore they were citing Zarqawi's name — and not that of Iraqi Sunnis — so that they could stay in the country citing a need to stay to fight Zarqawi.
Khalessi also said laid out a three-point proposal for the US to get out of the crisis in Iraq.

Following is the Le Monde interview in a question and answer format:

Question: Abu Musab Al Zarqawi declared the "all-out war" with the Shiites and perpetrated the bloodiest massacre in Baghda on Wednesday Sep. 14, since the beginning of the war in Iraq. What do you think of this declaration?

ANSWER: I do not think that Abu Musab Al Zarqawi exists as such. He is only one invention of the occupants to divide the people because he was killed in the north of Iraq at the beginning of the war when he was with the group of Ansar Al Isla in Kurdistan (in northern Iraq). His family in Jordan even conducted a funeral service for him. Abu Musab AL Zarqawi is thus a toy used by the Americans, an excuse to continue the occupation.


QUESTION: It is a pretext not to leave Iraq. But why declare an "all-out war" with the Shiites?

QUESTION: In order to bring them closer the occupying forces. In this manner, the Shiites will find refuge near the Americans rather than join resistance. The Shiites are takin part in resistance to the south, as the recent made attacks testify, in particular, in Basra.

QUESTION: However, it has been just announced that Najaf had passed under the control of the Iraqi forces and that other cities of the South were going to follow?

ANSWER: It is not true. In reality, it is propaganda aimed at the media. Actually, the Iraqi forces do not control the situation and the troops of occupation remain with the periphery to intervene as soon as there are problems.

QUESTION: The draft Constitution adopted will be subjected to a referendum on Oct.15. What do you think about it?

ANSWER: It is a text adopted with haste to answer the agenda of the Americans. It does not reflect the hopes of the Iraqi people, who are worried more over their daily survival and safety. The project was concocted in the "green zone" in Baghdad under the instructions of the American ambassador. A British specialist in Iraq has said: "The draft constitution is like one arranging the deckchairs on the bridge of Titanic... and (like Titanic) Iraq is also sinking.

QUESTION: : Will the referendum be a success, like the elections of Jan. 30?

ANSWER: Personally, I call for boycotting it, but if my fellow-citizens decide to go to vote "no" we will not oppose it. In any event, George Bush has prepared a declaration affirming that this consultation was a success and progress on the way of the democracy. But what will that change for Iraq?

QUESTION: In your opinion, what are the solutions to save Iraq?

ANSWER: First there should be a timetable for withdrawal of foreign troops. Secondly Iraq's national resources should be placed under the supervision of the UN and used for in the service of the country. Thirdl a national dialogue should be launched for elections to be continued under international supervision. If the occupation continues, the situation only will only worsen and more Iraqis will join resistance.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Half full or half empty?

PV Vivekanand

ISRAEL has completed its much-heralded withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and sent out a message that its government had taken a major political risk by dragging out many of the Jewish settlers who were living there. The next logical step is for Israel to relax its stranglehold on life in Gaza and also follow up with similar measures in the West Bank. However, Israel itself has created realities on the ground as well as political conditions designed to create deadlocks and forestall any meaningful moves towards ending its occupation of the West Bank. This is in line with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's deceptive designs aimed at freezing the "peace process" with the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
The scenes that erupted in the Gaza Strip after the last Israeli soldier left the area on Monday after 38 years of brutal occupation were described as chaotic by the Israeli and international media while the Arab and Third World media called them celebrations.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, thousands of people crossed the Israel-free crossing point between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Again, the Israeli media raised concerns that the people coming in were "terrorists carrying arms and explosives" whereas most of them they were actually using their first opportunity to cross into Gaza and vice-versa to meet their family members for the first time in five years, and taste the air of freedom.
Indeed, for many of them it would have been their first visit to Gaza since 1967, when Israel occupied the area; and many Egyptians also crossed into the Gaza Strip to voice their solidarity with the Palestinians.
This kind of contrasting depictions of developments in Palestine will only continue, with Israel trying to highlight "failures" of the Palestinian leadership to administer the Gaza Strip. These "failures" will be cited in the future as a key Israeli argument against returning the West Bank to the Palestinians if negotiations would ever reach that crucial point — a prospect which remains doubtful at this juncture.
Egypt is not spared either. For weeks, the Israeli media had been steadily referring to the July 2005 and October 2004 bombings in Sharm Al Sheikh and Taba and suggesting that Egyptian forces were not capable of ensuring the security of the border with Gaza. Again, that was a build-up that culminated in Israeli accusations that the Egyptian government failed to live up to delivering on its "obligations" under accords worked out by American mediators for co-ordination on post-evacuation security in the area.
The Israeli build-up also included assertions that the Al Qaeda group had set up presence in the region and it was planning Iraq-style attacks in Israel as well as against Palestinians involved in efforts to find a negotiated settlement with the Jewish state.
Most notable was an Israeli suggestion on Wednesday that the spontaneity of Palestinian celebrations "was exploited if not generated by the Hamas and Jihad Islami... groups...
"With the help of Egyptian troops, they used the tide of people to cover the illegal transfer from northern Sinai into the Gaza Strip of hundreds of terrorists with sidearms, Qassam missiles, long-range rockets, and anti-tank and ground-air missiles," it said.
There are two ways of looking at Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which had always been a source of troubles for Israel.
It was good riddance for Israel to quit Gaza and evacuate the 8,000 and plus settlers from the strip since it no longer has to maintain an army presence there at a high cost. It was also an opportunity for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to tell the world that he was unilaterally withdrawing from an area which was seized in war and it was a gesture that highlighted his "commitment to work out peace" with the Palestinians.
It was known that all Israeli governments since the 70s wanted to quit the Gaza Strip because they had no advantages in continuing to occupy it. Nor did Gaza have any "nationalist" or "religious" importance that prompted Israel not to let it go whereas most Israelis consider the West Bank is part of the "promised land" and would not want to return it to the Palestinians.

Crossroads in Palestine

PV Vivekanand



Israel is out of the Gaza Strip after occupying the area for 38 years. For all technical purposes, the Israeli departure from Gaza should herald an end to the Jewish state's occupation of the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, and make way for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state there. That was what was envisaged when the Arab-Israeli peace process was launched in Madrid in late 1991 under international auspices and co-sponsorship of the US and the then Soviet Union. It was clearly understood that the relevant UN Security Council resolutions would be the basis for an eventual Arab-Israeli peace agreement involving the Palestinains, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
A lot of water has flown under the bridge since then, with the key players being replaced and that leading to a scrambling of the process, mainly because of Israel's refusal to abide by agreements and the principle of land in exchange for peace. Gone are any reference to the UN Security Council resolutions.
Today, we stand at crossroads. Israel left the Gaza Strip only because it was not in its interests to continue its occupation of the Mediterranen costal strip which was a hotbed of Palestinian resistance and it was proving too costly for the Jewish state to maintain its military and civilian presence there.
What we do suspect is that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wants to put a fullstop to here and consider the evacuation of the Gaza Strip an end in itself and refuse to apply the same criteria to the West Bank. He has created situations that would create uncertainties and conditions that he could cite as obstacles to any effort to discussing the future status of the West Bank and Jerusalem and thus deadlock the process.
Keeping the Gazans as virtual prisoners and denying them access to the outside world, including the West Bank, is a central pillar of Sharon's strategy to frustrate the Palestinians against their leadership and turn them away from expecting anything positive from negotiations. That is the kind of game the Israelis have always played and there is no reason to expect Sharon to be any different.
At this juncture, the various Palestinian factions face the challenge of unifying their positions and presenting a common front that overrides all Israeli designs and leaves Sharon with no option but to negotiate peace based on Israeli departure from the West Bank. Some compromises would have to be made on both sides, but the essence of land for peace should remain undiluted.
This is the challenge facing the Palestinians today if they were to call Sharon's bluff and foil his plans to close the door on reliquishing the West Bank.
Without the Palestinians rising to the challenge, the so-called peace process would breathe its last at the borders of Gaza.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Terrorist or freedom fighter?

by pv vivekanand


"The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organised group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons." This is how the American Heritage Dictionary defines terrorism.
The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics defines terrorism with a note that it is a term with "no agreement amongst government or academic analysts," but that "(it is) almost invariably used in a pejorative sense, most frequently to describe life-threatening actions perpetrated by politically motivated self-appointed sub-state groups. But if such actions are carried out on behalf of a widely approved cause, say the Maquis seeking to destabilise the government of Vichy France then the term 'terrorism' is avoided and something more friendly is substituted. In short, one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter."
This is precisely what is snagging ongoing efforts at the United Nations to come with a universally acceptable definition for terrorism.
For many years, diplomats at the UN have been grappling with the question, often with the United States pitted against Arab countries' efforts not to allow the "terrorism" label to be attached to legitimate Palestinian resistance against Israel's occupation of Palestinian land.
The debate was particularly sharp during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, where Washington described the mujahedeen and their supporters — including Osama Bin Laden — fighting the Red Army as freedom fighters. The US refused to accord the same status to the Palestinian groups waging a war of resistance to liberate their land from Israel.
How does the US itself define terrorism?
The US National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) describes a terrorist act as one which is "premeditated; perpetrated by a subnational or clandestine agent; politically motivated, potentially including religious, philosophical, or culturally symbolic motivations; violent; and perpetrated against a noncombatant target."
However, there is some small print attached to this definition that is designed to ward off accusations of terror against the US and its allies, particularly Israel. That says terrorism could never be inflicted by a state. Again, keeping in mind that this could be used by states hostile to the US, the American definition also adds that there are states which "sponsor" terrorism but not directly engaged in acts of terror.
Appearing in the US State Department's list of countries "sponsoring" terrorism are Syria and Sudan as well as Libya, which is expected to be removed from the list as part of an American-Libyan deal over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
Groups listed as terrorist include Al Qaeda Hizbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad and several other Middle East-based organisations.
A British list of 21 "terrorist organisations" prepared in the last 1990s included six Islamic groups, four anti-Israel groups, eight separatist groups and three opposition groups. The list included Hizbollah, which though armed, is a legal political party in Lebanon and its member are elected to parliament.
Again, the discrimination in approach is further highlighted when it is noted that the Kurdistan Workers Party, which is active in Turkey, was in the list, but other Iraqi groups such as the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which were active in Iraq against Saddam Hussein, were excluded.
Similarly, the Mujahedeen e-Khalaq, an Iranian dissident group then based in Iraq with Saddam's blessing, was outlawed, but not the Iraqi National Council based in London and similar to the Mujahedeen e-Khalq in concept was not if only because the US supported the anti-Saddam group.
Until now, the United Nations has not accepted any definition of terrorism as being authoritative. A 1988 document titled "academic consensus definition," written by terrorism expert AP Schmid and widely used by social scientists, says:
"Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby — in contrast to assassination — the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organisation), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to man's terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought."
The debate at the UN was reported to have produced a draft resolution on Monday. It calls on all UN states to take steps to "prohibit by law incitement to commit a terrorism act or acts."
Governments will also be committed to "deny safe haven to any persons with respect to whom there is credible and relevant information giving serious reasons for considering that they have been guilty of such conduct."

Friday, September 09, 2005

Mystery apartment

pv vivekanand

THE Feb.14 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Al Hariri was masterminded from a luxury apartment in the heart of Beirut equipped with some of the most advanced equipment that overrode all electronic safety and security measures installed in the convoy carrying Hariri. Also found in the apartment were fingerprints of two former Lebanese security officers and two unnamed Syrian army generals. This is part of the finding of the UN investigations into the Hariri assassination that changed the shape of the Lebanese-Syrian relationship to the benefit of Israel and its allies.
According to sources familar with the UN investigation, the discovery of the advanced gear in the apartment, located in the posh Hamra neighbourhood of Beirut, raises a key question:
The advance jamming gear found inside the apartment as well as the equipment installed in Hariri's vehicles were made in the US and included many key components manufactured and supplied by Israel under secret contracts with the US. Such equipment could not be bought by Lebanon or Syria under American export regulations. That meant the involvement of a third party (or Israel itself. Israel is the only other country which manufacturers such equipment).
Implictly it also suggests that Israel was behind setting up the apartment that was used to control and carry out the bombing that killed Hariri and 20 others, and that Israeli agents the fingerprints of the suspects and planted them inside the premises.
How did the apartment remain intact with all the equipment in position months after the Hariri killing and particularly that it was also known that the pro-Syrian Lebanese generals were under investigation? Someone could have easily removed the equipment and destroyed all evidence that the apartment existed. No one did so, and for all anyone knows those accused in the case were not even aware of the existence of the apartment. Unless of course, the apartment was located and sealed before anyone could tamper with it.
The UN investigation team led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis is said to have "discovered" the secret apartment. It is not clear when, but the UN team had arrived in Beirut in a few days after the blast that blew up Hariri's convoy and killed the former prime minister and 20 others.
The more than 15 vehicles with darkened windscreens that accompanied Hariri wherever he went in Lebanon — with few people knowing which vehicle carried him — were equipped with the latest state-of-the art security equipment. The security level of the convoy was as good as that of the US president.
It had electronic hardware for detecting and defusing explosives, locating suicide bombers or other armed men in the path of the convoy and jamming their firing mechanisms. The equipment could pick up electronic signals emitted from the immediate vicinity of the convoy and listen to telephone calls, including from mobiles and block listening devices homing in on phone or communications devices operating from the convoy.
In July 2001, the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin had reported, “When Lebanon's billionaire prime minister travels around Beirut, everyone takes notice. His limousine is equipped with a device designed to thwart would-be carbombers by deactivating nearby cell phones, leaving a continuous trail of irritated bystanders in its wake.”
The equipment found in the Beirut apartment is said to be more advanced. It was customised to override all the devices fitted in Hariri's convoy as if the same manufacturer had produced it since whoever designed it had to have the right co-ordinates of the Hariri security gear.
This is said to the be the finding of electronic experts the UN investigator requested from the US and France.
How did such equipment end up in Lebanon?
Without official co-operation from Washington and help from US intelligence agencies, the UN team would never be able to get to the bottom of the affair.
It is unlikely that the Bush administration or US intelligence agencies would offer such help to the UN team unless with the predetermined objective of implicating Syria. If the indications are otherwise, then Mhelis, the investigator, would have to leave the question unanswered.
In the meantime, the fingerprints found in the Beirut apartment allowed the Lebanese prosecutor to file a formal case charging four pro-Syrian Lebanese officers, former chief of public security Jamil Al Sayyed, the former head of internal security Ali Al Hajj, former chief of military intelligence Raymond Azar and commander of the Republican Guard Mustafa Hamdan.
Also found were fingerprints identified as belonging to unidentified Syrian generals and linking them directly to the assassination.
However, that is in no way conclusive evidence since technology allows the replanting of fingerprints.
That is the argument of many regional experts who are convinced that Syria was framed and implicated in the killing.

Trap is closing on Syria





September 7, 2005
Trap is closing on Syria

The scenario scripted with the UN Security Council demand issued in September 2004 for Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon and launched with the February 2005 killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri is running to the letter, and the noose is tightening around Syria. The question is only peripheral whether Israel alone spurn the rope or whether the US was party to the plot to evict Syria from Lebanon and set it up for regime change, one of the key goals of US President George W Bush's second term. It is not as much of Lebanon that is in play in the scenario. It has more to do with removing Syria as a hurdle in the way of Israeli designs in the region, and the unfolding events, although different in specifics, are very similar to the way Iraq's Saddam Hussein was rail-roaded into the US-led invasion of his country and his ouster. Hariri simply happened to be picked as the sacrificial goat.
On the surface, everything fits in into the jigsaw puzzle, and few could challenge at this juncture the allegation that Syria was behind the Hariri assassination in light of the motivation, circumstances and evidence cited so far. However, these are too pat and convincing that they appear to be orchestrated in a manner similar to the way that the US dealt with Iraq with a bulldozing approach that brushed aside anything and everything that did not fit into its designs and resorted to gross deception in order to justify the invasion of that country in March 2003.
In the case of Syria, the concept is not much different. If Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were the justification for the war against Iraq, it is Syria's alleged role in the Hariri assassination that is providing the pretext for action against Damascus.
The scenario goes: Hariri, once Syria's ally, was turning against Damascus's domination of his country and he revolted and quit office when the Syrian leadership intervened to forcibly extend the term of President Emile Lahoud against the wishes of a majority of Lebanese politicians in late last year.
From that point, Hariri was marked for "elimination." Add to that, carefully placed "leaks" from Israel that it was in secret contacts with Hariri through Washington and that the Lebanese billionaire politician was inclined towards cutting Lebanon away from Syria and enter a separate peace agreement with the Jewish state.
For all technical purposes, it provided all the more reason for Syria to remove Hariri from the scene, especially that he had resigned as prime minister after the row over Lahoud and appeared to be headed for a landslide victory in elections this year.
So, the motive was established. Then came the task of creating the circumstances. It was relatively easy since many people in senior positions in Lebanese security and intelligence agencies were pro-Syrian and all one needed was to pick some them and build a case against them by planting evidence.
It could not be ruled out that some of them might have worked for Israel without them even being aware of it. Or they were bought or persuaded under some pretext. Anyway, it is a safe bet that some of the top people who were handling Hariri's security and Lebanese security and intelligence officers were picked and set up as the culprits even before the assassination was carried out.
On Feb.14, the curtains went up. The multi-vehicle security convoy carrying Hariri exploded in Beirut, killing the former prime minister and 20 others.
It was not even clear whether it was a suicide bombing or someone had set off up to 600 kilogrammes of remote-controlled explosives. First reports that Hariri was killed by a car bomb were challenged by evidence that the explosives could have been buried beneath the seafront avenue where the blasts took place.. A unique photograph handed to The Independent newspaper of London, which was purportedly taken about 36 hours before the bombing. It shows a drain cover in the road at the exact spot where the explosives went off.
One thing was clear: The operation went like a precision surgery and had all the hallmarks of a professional group supported by the resources and intelligence information that would be available only to a government. The description fit on Syria like a glove (if only because it was designed and tailor-made to fit Syria).
Then, it appeared that the chief of Hariri's security was not travelling in the convoy, and that he also removed key evidence — wreckage of the vehicles —  from the scene, or at least that what we have been told. Simultaneously, unsourced reports suggested that the man was a Syrian spy and was passing on information about Hariri's movements to Syrian intelligence and that Hariri had known about it and used to keep him away from key events.
Demonstrations erupted immediately after Hariri's death calling for Syrian departure from Lebanon, the resignation of the pro-Syrian government, including the president himself, and an international investigation into the Hariri killing.
Parallel to that the US and France — the former colonial power which ruled Lebanon and Syria — stepped up international pressure, and eventually Syria had no choice but to withdraw from Lebanon in April in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1569 of September 2004.
Then came stories of how Syrian security and intelligence agents had the run of Lebanon and how brutally they used to treat the Lebanese people and how Damascus dominated every facet of life in Lebanon; and, of course, how the Syrian regime was gaining billions of dollars through its occupation of Lebanon and domination of the business scene plus remittances of hundreds of thousands of Syrian expatriate workers.
All of these came to an end when the last Syrian soldier left Lebanon, ending 29 years of Syrian military presence launched under an Arab League mandate at the height of a civil war in Lebanon.
Under nudging from Washington and Paris, the UN launched an investigation into the Hariri assassination, but the predetermination that Syria was behind the killing was and remains the backdrop to the inquiry.
It reached a decisive point last month when the Lebanese prosecutor filed a formal case charging four pro-Syrian Lebanese officers, former chief of public security Jamil Al Sayyed, the former head of internal security Ali Al Hajj, former chief of military intelligence Raymond Azar and commander of the presidential guard Mustafa Hamdan, with complicity in the Feb.14 bombing.
Parallel to the UN investigations, charges were regularly levelled that Syria was not co-operating with the investigators, led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis.
Damascus, which has rejected allegations that it had engineered the killing and said it was always ready to co-operate with the investigations, has now invited Mehlis to Syria to possibly question Syrian military officers who served in Lebanon and perhaps others too.
Mehlis' UN mandate runs out on Sept.15 but this is expected to be extended.
That is where the story rests at this juncture in time.
For most observers of the Middle Eastern scene, it never made sense that Syria was behind the Hariri assassination because Damascus could not have but been aware that it stood to lose everything by Hariri's death.
And in fact, it did lose much. As already noted, it had to withdraw its military from Lebanon under humiliating circumstances; several hundred thousand Syrians lost their jobs in Lebanon and the Syrian government was deprived of several billion dollars in annual earnings through Lebanon; and Damascus was internationally condemned and the American allegation that it supports international terrorism was strengthened. Damascus also lost Lebanon as leverage in potential dealings with Israel.
And a staunchly anti-Syrian government has taken office in Beirut after a coalition led by Hariri's family swept elections held in May.
Surely, Syria would have known the repercussions and consequences of assassinating Hariri, particularly at a time when the US was intensifying pressure on Damascus citing the alleged Syrian role in the Iraqi insurgency and its support for Palestinian "terrorism" (read legitimate resistance against occupation).
Most definitely, Syria is the biggest loser in the bargain, and, apart from the people of Lebanon who are now free to exercise their right to self-determination, the only other beneficiaries from the Hariri assassination are Israel and the US.
Therefore, the conclusion of many is that Israel, which has the strongest and sophisticated intelligence network and advanced spying, surveillance and communication equipment, carried out the killing and created and planted evidence that pointed the accusing finger at Syria.
Under this scenario, many believe that Washington had at least known about the plot and endorsed it but might not have played a direct role in it.
While the Israeli motivation was clear — it wanted to separate Lebanon and Syria so that it could work on the former for a separate peace agreement with no Syrian say in it, the US had a military objective, according to Wayne Madsen is a Washington-based journalist and columnist and the co-author of "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II."
Madsen wrote in March that the US wanted to build a military base in northern Lebanon but it would not have been possible while Syria called the shots in Beirut and Hariri himself was opposed to the idea.
Israel and the US were also upset that Hariri was joining hands with the Lebanese Hizbollah movement ahead of the elections that were held in June this year. Hariri had held a series of meetings with Hizbollah meetings since late last year and had appeared to be closing an election deal with the group, an avowed enemy of Israel. So the former prime minister was picked as the sacrifical goat.
Shortly after Hariri's death, it was reported that even without a formal agreement with Lebanon, the contract for the proposed northern Lebanese air base had been granted by the Pentagon to Jacobs Engineering Group of Pasadena, California. Other construction support will be provided by Bechtel Corporation.
The air base — said to be the size of massive American Al Udeid air base in Qatar — is reportedly to be used as a transit and logistics hub for US forces in the region and to monitor movements in the Mediterranean.
There is indeed the chance that someone in the Syria regime, for reasons best known to himself (and definitely not in the service of Syrian interests), had played a role in the Hariri assassination. But, as many veterans in the region observe, in the murky cloak-and-dagger business of intelligence work one could never say who bought whom and when and what elements were at play.
However, that changes little on the ground. The original script-writers are steering the events in Lebanon by the nose towards destabilising Syria and add further to the already fearsome uncertainties in the region.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Corporate media enemy #1




pv vivekanand

HAD a catastrophe like hurrican Katrina hit any part of the ancient Roman empire, it would have taken months for the news to reach other parts of the world and, even at that, the truth about the extent of the disaster would not have been known. It might have taken weeks for the empire to order help for the victims (if indeed if it chose to bother about its subjects). After all, messages had to sent on horseback and only on a need-to-know basis. Such was the status of communications, say 2,000 years ago, and that was perhaps one of the reasons that the Roman empire lasted for about 500 years (BC27-AD476).
In today's era of the American empire, it takes nanoseconds for news to travel. The world knew that a hurricane was expected to hit the US Gulf Coast, saw it when it happened and witnessed the chaos it unleashed, causing thousands of deaths and wreaking havoc in one of the most sensitive area of the American empire within minutes after it occurred.
However, it was not the mainstream media of the US which brought the realities and magnitude of the disaster to the Americans and international community at large. It was through the thousands of blog sites in cyberspace that millions of people realised the gravity of the situation.
Indeed, the mainstream media did have their role, but it could not be compared with the effect that the messages that appeared on the blogsites that raised demands that the US government answer why rescue and relief work was delayed for three days and an array of related questions directly linked the American invasion and occupation of Iraq.
It is no secret that the mainstream or corporate media in the US did not live up to their professional obligations to the public during the build-up to the Iraq war or even after the invasion. If anything, they played along with the administration's campaign to build a case for invading Iraq on false pretexts and many Americans see them even as a party to the war itself because they misled the people by focusing on administration claims and downplaying or simply ignoring facts that belied the government's claims.
That grave shortcoming was highlighted during the Katrina crisis, and it was an opportunity for the "accused" to make amends. And a few of them did grab the chance and started reporting the truth and asking the right questions — for the first time since Sept.11, 2001.
Well, they could not have done otherwise in only becasue the evidence was so clear to everyone.
For the first time since Sept.11, 2001 a handful of reporters from the corporate media institutions — newspapers, radios and television channels — started carrying criticism of the Bush administration that it was being inept, dangerous and deceptive. They refused to play the public relations and spin game organised by the White House.
And those who refused to continue to prop up the smoke-screen for the administration were widely praised, if only because they were seen as doing what they should have been doing since Sept.11, 2001.
However, there is hesitation and reluctance on the part of many others to live up to their professional obligations and they are targeted in a campaign mounted in cyberspace: They are being called the worst name in the US:  Corporate Media — America's #1 Enemy.
"The corprate media have been complicit in criminally deceiving the American people. Never before have Americans been so uninformed and misinformed about so many vital issues," says a comment on www.tvnewslies.com. "It's time to call a spade a spade. This is no laughing matter. The corporate media are undermining democracy by failing to inform the American people of the harm being done to our environment, to our economy, to our rights as citizens and to our humanity. They distract us with trivial stories that we used to have to read about in the supermarket tabloids.
"They have not only failed to inform us, they have actively deceived us. They are our enemy."
In April 2003, one month into the US invasion of Iraq, Kanak Mani Dixit wrote from Nepal:" One casualty of the war on Iraq has been the image of Western media as the exemplar of journalistic accomplishment.....
"It started after September 11, 2001, when television, press and radio began to ply the American public with what it wanted to hear about the rest of the world. This was then force-fed to the rest of the world. In the run-up to Gulf War II, the American press did not question or caution, at one with the weak-kneed representatives and senators who gave George W. Bush carte blanche to misrepresent his way to war.
"Perhaps the worst hour of Western journalism is when its embeds or operatives — hardly journalists — reported on heroics on the desert road to Baghdad, while displaying an unwillingness to present any direct connection between the blazing night sky on television and the death and maiming of civilians on the ground."
Although many have welcomed the newfound "courage" of some corporate media journalists to question the official versions coming out of the White House in the wake of the Katrina disaster, the change is nowhere near the desired level, some others argue.
"The momentary outcry in New Orleans was an anomaly, not a trend," says www.tvnewslies.com. "It was an emotional response to unimaginable suffering that could not be denied by those who saw it up close. That’s all it was."
The article argues: "Even as this is being written, the blame is already shifting in aftermath of Katrina. The Bush administration is throwing the onus of ineptitude onto the local authorities in Louisiana and many in the corporate media are going along with the ruse. At this very moment some reporters have taken to drawn military press releases rather than filing
firsthand reports."
"Had the corporate media shamed the devil from day one, so many people might be alive today. The war against Iraq, like flooding of New Orleans, need never have happened.  So much suffering, so much death and so much destruction might have been avoided if questions had been asked in time and if truthful answers had been demanded.  But they were not asked, and even the simplest truth has yet to emerge.
"The task then, is up to us.  We, alone, must try to shame the devil. At this very moment, because there has been a crack in the wall of silence, we have an opening to do just that. For the first time ever, there was outrage, there was horror, and there was rebellion in the ranks of the corporate media.  Surely it was impulsive and unplanned, but it was real. We can take advantage of this momentary glitch in their armour and storm the media Bastille in its moment of weakness."
And how to go about doing it?
The writer suggests that the American people confront the corporate media.
When and where is the forum to do so?
"The time is September 24, 2005," says the writer referring to the date where tens of thousands of anti-war protesters are expected to converge on the US capital in response to a call made by Cindy Sheehan, an American woman who lost her son in the Iraq war.
"The goal is to show the nation and the world that we will no longer allow this administration, with the complicity of the media, to continue on its path of failure and destruction. The corporate news media will be in attendance, and we can challenge them wherever we see them.
"Ask them the questions they should have asked. Record their answers, or their evasions. Film the media as they film the protesters. Challenge their silence. Challenge their betrayal.  Carry signs that expose the media for the culprits they are. Accuse them of their betrayal and demand that they start asking the questions they have avoided for all this time. Let then know you know what they are and let the nation and world know what they have done. We can do it.  We really can."

Monday, September 05, 2005

Waterloo in Lousiana?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.