Indonesia’s president on Thursday urged Barack Obama to intervene and stop a Florida church carrying out a planned holy Quran burning. India also condemned the plan, calling on US authorities to take “strong action” and for Indian media to impose a blackout on images of the event. UN also took similar position as Florida Church’s pastor shrugged off global outrage and vowed to go ahead with the Quran burning ceremony.

Presidential spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had written to the US president to express his concerns. “In the letter, President Yudhoyono wrote that Indonesia and the US are building or bridging relations between the Western world and Islam. If the Quran burning occurs, then those efforts will be useless,” he said. “There is a deep concern over the planned Quran burning ceremony as it could spark conflict among religions,” Faizasyah said.

“The US authorities have strongly condemned the statement of the pastor, religious leaders all over the world have condemned this proposed action, we too condemn the proposed actions of the pastor,” Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram said. “We hope the US authorities will take strong action to prevent such an outrage being committed. “While we await the actions of the US authorities we appeal to the media, both print and visual media, to refrain from telecasting visuals or publishing photographs of this deplorable act.”

The United Nations has expressed deep concern over this plan. “The secretary general is deeply disturbed by reports of a small religious group which plans to burn copies of the Quran,” Farhan Haq, a UN spokesman, said in a statement on Wednesday. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon believes insulting holy books of other faiths cannot be tolerated by any religion, the spokesman added. “Such actions cannot be condoned by any religion,” AFP quoted Haq as saying.

A senior Islamic leader in France urged Muslims to resist being provoked by US church’s plan. “I call on my fellow faithful not to succumb to provocation, and to respond wisely by expressing their compassion” in reaction to the plan, the rector of Paris’s Grand Mosque, Dalil Boubakeur, said on RMC radio.

Boubakeur pointed out that the date also coincided this year with the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He branded the Quran-burning “provocative” and “medieval.” “It is a date that causes pain and sadness for all of humanity,” said Boubakeur. “Why stigmatize Muslims? The attackers were terrorists, despicable people who have nothing to do with representing Muslim opinion.”

Kuwait strongly condemned this plan as lawmakers expressed outrage and called for action. “This bizarre plan … undermines our faith … is a flagrant insult to the feelings of Muslims worldwide and would ruin efforts to preach understanding amongst faiths,” said a foreign ministry official cited by KUNA news agency. A statement came after MPs of various groups expressed outrage at the Quran burning plan. The head of the Christian churches league in Kuwait, pastor Emmanuel Benjamen al-Ghareeb, condemned the plan in a statement and stressed it does not represent Christ’s teachings of tolerance.

Despite the chorus of condemnations, US officials have failed so far to take a legal step to stop the sacrilegious action, which is viewed by many as a sign of Islamophobia and racism in the United States.

Despite the global outrage, the Dove World Outreach Center’s pastor Terry Jones said he will go ahead with his plan.

Condemnation rained down from top US officials, the military, the Vatican and other religious and world leaders, but the church refused to halt plans to torch the Islamic holy book on Saturday.

Pastor Terry Jones had indicated he was praying for guidance on whether to go ahead with the incendiary event after warnings from US Afghanistan commander General David Petraeus that US and allied troops could be targeted in revenge.

Lebanese President Sleiman Condemns Plans to Burn Holy Qur’an

President Michel Sleiman (a Maronite Christian) on Wednesday denounced plans by a Florida pastor to burn copies of the Holy Quran, saying it contradicted Christian teachings.

Sleiman insisted that Christianity teaches “love and respect for one another” and said people should reflect on that.

American Pastor Terry Jones has vowed to burn Qur’an copies on Saturday at the Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville, Florida regardless of pressure from the White House, religious leaders and others to call the action off.

Notes/Sources:

The above article was written by Al Manar Staff; entitled: “More Condemnations Rise against Burning Holy Quran”

Five peace activists successfully blockaded six buses carrying Fort Hood Soldiers deploying to Iraq outside Fort Hood’s Clarke gate on August 23rd at around 4 a.m. While the activists took the width of Clarke Rd. and slowed the buses to a halt, police made no arrests, but instead beat the activists out of the streets using automatic weapons and police dogs so the deploying Soldiers could proceed.

Among those blockading were three veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and one military spouse. (See attached bios) The action, organized by a group calling themselves “Fort Hood Disobeys,” was aimed at preventing the deployment of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment Soldiers to what the veterans termed an illegal and immoral occupation.

While standing in the street, the activists held banners reading “Occupation is a Crime” and “Please Don’t Make the Same Mistake We Did”. “RESIST NOW.” From the TX HW-190 overpass, additional supporters attempted to hang larger banners that read, “Tell the Brass: ‘KISS MY ASS’ – “Your family needs you more”  - “Sick of Fighting Your Wars” and “Col. Allen [3 ACR Commander]: Do not deploy wounded Soldiers.”

This latest deployment comes less than two weeks after President Obama announced the second end to combat operations in Iraq. FHD organizers denounced this as a lie, and pointed to the deployment of the 3rd ACR, a combat regiment, to Iraq as clear proof. They have stated they will continue to organize direct action in the Fort Hood community to oppose the wars as long as troops continue to deploy.

The action organizers have established a website at forthooddisobeys.blogspot.com where they will be posting statements, photographs and video from the actions as they become available during the next 48 hours. As well, for the length of the day, FHD ran live webcasts updating their supporters and depicting portions of the direct action. All live broadcasts from the day are archived at http://bit.ly/b1WEyv.

For more information or to arrange coverage of today’s events, call 347-613-8964 or write to forthooddisobeys@hushmail.com. See attached bios for more information on those who participated in today’s action.

Participant Bios:

I am Bobby Whittenberg-James, a Marine veteran of the war against the people of Iraq, a Purple Heart recipient and a third generation military service member. I joined the Marines in June of 2003, believing the lies about weapons of mass destruction and an imminent threat to our safety. I have since come to learn that these wars and occupations do not keep the people of the United States or the Middle East safe, but instead serve the interests of politicians, capitalists and corporations; the ruling elite.

These unjust wars and occupations rob the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen of their dignity and their right to self-determination and serve to make the people of both the Middle East and the United States less safe. They also serve to further destabilize a region that has suffered under the boot-heel of western colonialism for over a century. The US Empire also supports both financially and militarily the brutal apartheid regime that occupies Palestine. All of this is done in our name with our money, and I am here to say “Not in my name!”

The recent information leaks about the US Empire’s wars lay bare their war crimes and crimes against humanity. We must face the truth, even if it makes us uncomfortable or shows us something about ourselves that we don’t want to see. When we find the truth, we must respond accordingly. I will not be complicit in the killing of people. Since I do not believe that the government or the capitalists will end these wars, I will vote with my body.

Bobby Whittenberg-James
Disobedient
——————————

I am Crystal Colon. I was a sergeant in the Army for five years, stationed at Fort Hood the entire time, save two deployments to Iraq totaling 26 months. I was a Signal Support Systems Noncommissioned Officer, coordinating communications for various commands. I was honorably discharged in Jan., 2010, and have been organizing in the veterans peace movement ever since.

I first began to question the war in Iraq during my first deployment in ’05-’06. After my friend Robbie was killed, I was very deeply affected. I started questioning why we were in Iraq. It felt like he had died for nothing. After returning from Iraq, I planned to leave the military. I was stop-lossed and forced to return to Iraq for 15 months, in total held beyond the length of my enlistment more than 450 days. Since leaving the military, I have been active with the veterans peace movement, speaking out about my experiences and supporting troops who refuse to fight.

I am doing this today because I can’t allow this war in which I have fought to continue. I can’t allow other Soldiers to make the same mistake I did, deploying in support of a war crime. As a veteran of Iraq, how could I not do this today? For the people I helped occupy, for the friends I lost and stilI have over there, for the Soldiers on those buses. How could I not do this today? I should have disobeyed. I should have never boarded those buses to Iraq. I wish someone had tried to stop me.

Crystal Colon
Disobedient
———————-

I am Matthis Chiroux, former Army sergeant and War Resister. I was press-ganged into the Army by the Alabama Juvenile “Justice” System in 2002. While in the military, I occupied the nations of Japan and Germany for more than four years, with shorter tours in the Philippines and Afghanistan. I was a Public Affairs Noncommissioned Officer specializing in strategic communications. In reality, I was a propaganda artist. I was discharged honorably to the Individual Ready Reserve in 2007.

While I have always been against the war in Iraq, I began resisting it actively in 2008, after I received mobilization orders for a year-long deployment to Iraq. I refused those orders in Congress in May of 2008, calling my orders illegal and unconstitutional. I believed appealing to Congress would end the war. When 13 Members signed a letter of support for my decision and sent it to Bush, I thought we had won a victory for peace. This was more than two years ago. The president has changed, and the wars and destruction drag on.

Today, I am blocking the deployment of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment with my fellow vets and military family members because the wars will continue to victimize our communities until we halt this bloody machine from within. I am putting my body on the line in solidarity with the people of the Middle East, whose bodies have been shot, burned, tortured, raped and violated by our men and women in and out of uniform. I cannot willfully allow Americans in uniform to put their lives and the lives of Iraqis in jeopardy for a crime. We are here because we have a responsibility to ourselves as veterans and as humans of the world. I will not rest until my people, ALL PEOPLE, are free.

In Struggle and Solidarity,
Matthis Chiroux
Disobedient
——————————

I am Cynthia Thomas, and I have been an Army Wife for 18 years. My husband has been deployed three times since the wars began. During his second deployment, he was severley wounded and medevaced to Walter Reed Army Hospital on Life Support. Even though he had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injury, suffered three fractures in his back, three fractures on his pelvis and countless other injuries, the Army deployed him a third time. This was devastating to our two daughters, our step-son and to me.

Three months after my husband deployed for the third time, our step-son called to inform me he was joining the Marines. That was the exact moment I realized that our children would be fighting these endless wars. I decided that I needed to start resisting.

The reason I am doing this today is because for the past 3 years that I have been speaking out and advocating for Soldiers, things have only gotten worse. I have heard countless stories from Vets and Active Duty Soldiers that give people nightmares. I have heard stories from family members that would shock people awake if they would just listen! Our military community is being destroyed!

If these wars are destroying our Soldiers and military families with 12 to 15-month, often repeat deployments, how do you think the Iraqi and Afghan people doing? They have been living these wars 24/7, 365 days a year for nearly a decade! My youngest daughter is an Operation Iraqi Freedom baby. She was less than one-year-old when her father left to invade Iraq. I look at her, and I see an Iraqi or Afghan child having to live in constant fear with no end in sight! I am doing this for our community, for my girls, for my husband and our Marine. I am doing this for the Iraqi and Afghan People. Enough is enough. If Soldiers really want to go fight, they’ll have to go through me.

Cynthia Thomas
Disobedient

Video Of The Blockade:

The 1979 revolution which put an end to 2,500 years of imperial monarchy in Iran was pivoted on theocratic and ideological values which the sumptuous, thrilling West usually tends to dislike and rebuff. Under the spiritual leadership of Imam Khomeini, Iranians declared that they wouldn’t need the support of Western and Eastern superpowers, will stand on their own feet and only seek to realize a political regime which establishes its bases and principles in accordance with morality and Islamic solidarity.

Iran’s ideological disagreement with the West and its efforts to fulfill independence as an Islamic state, however, cost for the Iranian people heavily. First of all, the United States spurred its regional puppet, the late dictator Saddam Hussein, on to launch a massive, crushing war against Iran so as to push the country’s newly-established political regime to annihilation. The 8-year war demolished Iran’s infrastructures irreversibly, caused irreparable damages to country’s economy and left more than 350,000 Iranians dead.

The 8-year resistance of the Iranian people, however, rendered the plans of the U.S. and its Baathist ally futile. Iran rose from the rubbles of 8-year war with Iraq and set out to emerge as a regional superpower gradually. Iranians recreated the country’s war-torn economy once again, renewed the obliterated infrastructures, appeased the pains of the families of 350,000 martyrs with compassion and brought hopes to the hearts of those who had come to think that a political state with the ideological pillars of Islam would be impossible to survive.

The animosity of the United States and its cronies, however, didn’t seem to be ending. In 1984, the United States approved its first set of sanctions against Iran which would prohibit Washington from selling American weapons to Tehran. During the presidency of Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, the sanctions got tougher and broader. In April 1995, President Bill Clinton issued a total embargo on U.S. dealings with Iran, banning every kind of financial transaction with the war-hit country. In 1996, the United States Congress passed the Iran–Libya Sanctions Act under which all the foreign firms and companies that provide investments over $20 million for the development of petrochemical projects in Iran would be penalized. The most inequitable and unreasonable sanctions against Iran, however, were those which would were endorsed in 1995 and disallowed the aviation companies around the world to sell aircrafts and repair parts to the Iranian airlines directly.

Iran’s aviation fleet which is chiefly comprised of Russian low-quality Tupelov and outdated Airbus and Fokker planes is one of the most vulnerable fleets in the world which suffers from increasing dilapidation and is considered to be highly at risk due to the unjust sanctions which are imposed against the country.

In December 2005, BBC World published a report in which it was expressively stated that Iran’s civil and military aviation fleet is undergoing intense safety setbacks. The report came after an Iranian Air Force C-130E military transport aircraft crashed into a residential complex in Tehran, killing 128 people including 68 reporters and journalists that were supposed to cover a military drill off the country’s southern coast on the Persian Gulf.

Two years earlier, a Russian-manufactured Ilyushin Il-76 transporter plane crashed in southeastern Iran, killing 302 passengers and cabin crew.

Iran has experienced several deadly air accidents in which hundreds of innocent civilians lost their lives. On July 15, 2009, the Caspian Airlines Flight 7908 heading from Tehran to Yerevan crashed near the village of Jannatabad in northern Iran, killing 168 passengers and cabin crews. Among the dead were all members of Iran’s national youth judo team members and several other prominent persons including a former parliament member and the wife of Georgian Ambassador to Tehran.

On July 24, 2009, another deadly plane crash happened in Iran which cost the life of 16 people. While attempting to land, the plane skidded off the runway and broke into a wall, killing 16 out of 153 passengers and crew members who were aboard the plane.

Unfortunately, the frequency of deadly plane crashes in Iran has been so high that made Iran’s aviation fleets one of the most insecure and unsafe ones in the world. Tens of people die each year as a result of a childish altercation which seems to have no rational basis. The United States has failed to dictate its political will to Iran and resorts to this failure as a pretext for punishing its people.

The United States and its European allies who boast of themselves as being the harbingers of human rights and liberty have obliviously forgotten that they are simply human beings who lose their lives as a result of the sanctions which they’ve devised. The civilian passengers who are destined to die in the insecure flights of Iran’s aviation fleet are the victims of those who have long trumpeted in our ears that they’re the sole defenders of human rights. If the life of each human being is respectable, then who is responsible for the lives of these hundreds of people who pass away before the eyes of the so-called international community which is always alert to caution about the violation of human rights in Iran and other independent countries? Isn’t the life of these people who get in the dilapidated Russian planes of Iran’s fleet and embrace death to the most extreme point of imagination respectable that you’ve deprived them of having the opportunity to experience a safe and secure trip? If you’re at loggerheads with the government of Iran, what’s the fault of its innocent civilians whom you’re punishing collectively?

Kourosh Ziabari is a young Iranian journalist, media correspondent and literary author. He was born in Rasht, the capital city of Guilan province, a littoral state of South Caspian Sea.

The flotilla is being organized by a coalition of NGOs from Europe and the United States, including a group calling itself European Jews for a Just Peace.

“We hope to have a broad coalition from European countries, and also maybe the United States,” Dror Feiler, an Israeli-Swedish musician and artist who lives in Stockholm – and one of the organizers behind the flotilla – told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. “We would like it to be double the size of the last flotilla, with at least a dozen ships and more than thousand people.”

The Israeli occupation forces said it is closely tracking the planned flotilla and is preparing for a wide-range of scenarios, including the possibility that due the large number of ships, it will need to stop the flotilla far from the occupied Palestinian shores.

“The Israeli army can stop 12 or 50 ships if it wants,” Feiler said. “There are so many ships since so many people want to get together to stop the siege, which is a collective punishment of the people of Gaza and is unacceptable.”

The coalition behind the new blockade-busting effort includes the Turkish IHH and the Free Gaza Movement, both of which were involved in the May flotilla. It is demanding “an immediate and complete lifting of the closure, including a lifting of the travel ban as well as the ban on exports from Gaza.”

The last flotilla to Gaza was stopped by the navy at the end of May martyring nine Turkish passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara passenger ship.

Turkey renewed threat of severing its relations with Israel, should Tel Aviv fail to redeem itself over its bloody attack the Mavi Marmara ship.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Sunday that “Israelis have three options: They will either apologize or acknowledge an international-impartial inquiry and its conclusion. Otherwise, our diplomatic ties will be cut off,” Turkish daily Hurriyet reported.

The United Nations has launched a probe into the incident. A report by the Israeli website Ynetnews, however, has pointed to Tel Aviv’s intentions to prevent the international team from questioning Israelis.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman have insisted that Tel Aviv will not be apologetic about the attack.

Notes/Sources:

The above article was written by Al Manar Staff; entitled: “Israel Says Preparing for “Mother of All Flotillas””

In her new book “Dirty Sexy Politics,” Meghan McCain, daughter of Senator McCain, says that Katie Couric’s interview with Palin before the vice presidential debate had been disastrous. Meghan writes, “Unhappy with her performance, Palin seemed to blame the interview on the campaign. And she continued to blame other poor interviews and snafus on the campaign too.”

The selection of Palin as a running mate for McCain itself was a blunder and shocked many voters and pundits. McCain’s daughter reveals the choice caused plenty of behind-the-scenes drama, too. She says that Palin brought “stress, drama, complications, panic and loads of uncertainty” to the campaign, and “she was turning out to be somebody who leaves a wake of confusion and chaos – to the point of dizziness – wherever she went.”

With such dismal performances in interviews which only highlighted how little she knew on anything, and how dull she was, it is a miracle that Palin did not have her political Waterloo. She is alive and kicking. In the post-election era, thanks to the media, she has been transformed into an iconoclastic voice within the neo-conservative and disgruntled section of the population, including the so-called Tea Party movement, and has emerged as the de facto Republican leader to resurrect the party. She endorses candidates, who appear to be winning. She’s got her own TV show. She appears in the Fox News. In November, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” is set to premiere on TLC. Her daughter Bristol Palin, who gave birth to a child out-of-wedlock, will be competing on “Dancing With the Stars” this fall. Sarah is also going to Iowa to be the headliner at a Republican fundraiser. That state will be the first state to hold a contest in the 2012 presidential campaign.

Obviously, Sarah Palin has become a celebrity these days. In her spare time, she is charging $75,000 for each speaking engagement, to which she must be flown first class, as per her standard contract, or in a private plane that “must be a Lear 60 or larger.” And excuse her typos, she even Twitters!

Just as with any celebrity, people are interested to learn more about this former Miss Congeniality from Alaska. In a recent Vanity Fair profile, Michael Joseph Gross provides more than a glimpse to satiate people’s cravings. The author says he wanted to write a positive piece, but was shocked by what he learned as he researched his story on Sarah Palin.

“The worst stuff isn’t even in there,” Gross said on “Morning Joe” Thursday; “I couldn’t believe these stories either when I first heard them, and I started this story with a prejudice in her favor.” In the profile, Gross paints Palin as an abusive, retaliatory figure with an extreme ability to lie. “Her on-the-record statements about herself amount to a litany of untruths and half-truths… This is a person for whom there is no topic too small to lie about,” he said. “She lies about everything.”

Gross says, “Warm and effusive in public, indifferent or angry in private: this is the pattern of Palin’s behavior toward the people who make her life possible.” A onetime gubernatorial aide to Palin said to Gross, “The people who have worked for her—they’re broken, used, stepped on, down in the dust.” During the campaign, Palin lashed out at the slightest provocation, sometimes screaming at staff members and throwing objects. When a campaign aide gingerly asked her husband Todd whether Sarah should consider taking psychiatric medication to control her moods, Todd responded that she “just needed to run and work out more.” Her anger kept boiling over, however, and eventually the fits of rage came every day. Then, just as suddenly, her temper would be gone.

Palin gives the impression she is serious about family and promotes family values. According to Gross, some details of the Palins’ private life, however, suggest a reality at odds with Sarah’s image. In speeches, Palin pays tribute to the man she still calls “the First Dude” (husband Todd), but the reality is that the couple has considered a divorce.
Sarah Palin is nasty with everyone including her husband Todd with whom she had fought many times. Quoting a frequent houseguest of the Palins,’ Gross says that the couple began many mornings with screaming fights, a fusillade of curses. According to Gross, whatever the nature of the relationship, “Todd is now as much a part of Sarah as Hillary Clinton is of Bill. Whether they like it or not, the Palins, like the Clintons, are probably stuck with each other.”

Palin presents her family as a religious family that finds strength in the teachings of the Bible. Of course, we know better from her teenage daughter’s sinful life! Levi Johnston, the father of the kid, trashed Palin for her hypocrisy. Gross tells us that even her children saw hypocrisy in her. A campaign aide is quoted by Gross as saying that one of the Palin children found her mother’s public displays of piety especially annoying. “You’re just putting on a show. You’re so fake,” one of the children said when Palin made a point of praying in front of other people. “This is not who you are. Why are you pretending to be something you’re not?”

Gross is not alone in unmasking Palin who is not the hockey-mom that people heard about during the last presidential election campaign. In an October 2009 issue, Levi Johnston mentioned, “The Palin house was much different from what many people expect of a normal family, even before she was nominated for vice president. There wasn’t much parenting in that house. Sarah doesn’t cook, Todd doesn’t cook—the kids would do it all themselves: cook, clean, do the laundry, and get ready for school. Most of the time Bristol, now 18, would help her youngest sister, Piper, 8, with her homework, and I’d barbecue chicken or steak on the grill. I only saw Sarah help Piper—the youngest before Trig—with homework a few times, and I’ve only seen her read a book to her once. I actually never saw Sarah reading much at all—once in a blue moon, I’d see her reading a book, and I’ve never seen her read a newspaper. The Frontiersman and the Anchorage Daily News were always there in the morning, but the only one who looked through them was Todd. The Palins didn’t have dinner together and they didn’t talk much as a family… They’re good on television, but once the cameras would leave they didn’t talk to each other… If Sarah and Todd did talk—they really don’t communicate at all—they were fighting… Sarah Palin has said she’s a hockey mom and a hunter, but that’s really not the case. She pays no attention to her kids when the cameras aren’t around.”

If you think that you have heard enough about Sarah Palin’s personal life, here are some more gems from Levi: “After Tripp was born, Sarah would pay more attention to our son than she would to her own baby, Trig. Sarah has a weird sense of humor. When she came home from work, Bristol and I would be holding Trig and Tripp. Sarah would call Trig—who was born with Down syndrome — “my little Down’s baby.” But I couldn’t believe it when she would come over to us and sometimes say, playing around, “No, I don’t want the retarded baby—I want the other one,” and pick up Tripp. That was just her—even her kids were used to it.”

Sarah Palin is vindictive and mean. Gross informs us that when Palin was mayor, she made life for one low-level municipal employee so miserable that the woman quit her job, sought psychiatric counseling, and then left the state altogether to escape Palin’s sphere of influence—this according to one person with firsthand knowledge of the situation. The woman did not want to be found.

This latest revelation from Gross should not come as a surprise to anyone who is familiar with the Troopgate – when Palin dismissed Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. Monegan’s crime: he had resisted persistent pressure from Palin, her husband, and her staff, including State Attorney General Talis Colberg, to fire Palin’s ex-brother-in-law, Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten; Wooten was involved in a child custody battle with Palin’s sister after a bitter divorce that included an alleged death threat against Palin’s father.

For any politician, such true narratives in the Vanity Fair should have been enough to commit a political hara-kiri. But don’t expect such hara-kiri from Palin. She is a perennial politician who continues to amuse and amaze gullible voters. As I have noted earlier about the near-Ground Zero Muslim cultural center controversy, with the right-wing media, morons, bigots and extremists behind her, she can transform a local issue into a national issue, and who knows may be an international one into making!

Like Gingrich, Giuliani, Lazio, and many Republican leaders today, Sarah Palin is a political opportunist who knows how to stoke fear and bank on fear-mongering. Politics with racism and bigotry is always easy by painting the “other” group (often a minority) as sub-humans or harmful beings that are bent on taking “control”. But as every student of history knows by now fear-mongering is a way of the fascists and Nazis. It does not lead to peace and security. It does not belong in a society that claims to be open, plural and forward-looking, a model of a modern liberal democracy that integrates and not divides. The likes of Sarah Palin are an anathema to that very principle and must, therefore, be defeated.

Notes/Sources:

The above article was written by Dr. Habib Siddiqui; entitled: “Sarah Palin – A Modern-Day Medusa?”

All this tells me that any nation that can elect such inept people president can also elect other people that appear to have no right or chance to be president of the United States just as Bush and Obama once appeared before they were sold to the public. That is what is so frightening about the future of this nation. The two-party plutocracy with its stranglehold on the American political system has the power to elect presidents that are an insult to the great ones that once served the nation with pride and competence.

I keep searching for explanations why millions of American voters make such bad electoral decisions. Are they just so stupid, uninformed and distracted that they fall for endless political lies? Have Americans become so easily manipulated and fooled by advertising and brilliant political campaigns that they can be sold terrible presidents as easily as unneeded, low quality and unhealthy products?

Yes, all this seems too true. Delusional voters have produced our delusional democracy which strongly favors corporate, wealthy and elitist interests over ordinary Americans. This explains frightening economic inequality and the demise of the middle class. In the late 1970s, the richest 1 percent of American families took in about 9 percent of the nation’s total income; by 2007, the top 1 percent took in 23.5 percent of total income (less than 5 million people). Two-thirds of the nation’s total income gains from 2002 to 2007 flowed to this sliver of households, which saw a rise of 62 percent, compared to 4 percent for the bottom 90 percent of households. Today, the median male worker earns less, adjusted for inflation, than he did 30 years ago. A corrupt bipartisan system gave us this. Is this the change you were waiting for?

Considering Bush and Obama from a right-left perspective misses their several critical commonalities. Both have wasted the nation’s wealth and lives on two ludicrous, unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both turned out to be pretty good communicators during their presidential campaigns but quite lousy after they became president. The more intelligent and articulate Obama is particularly striking in being totally lackluster when it comes to addressing major issues and crises and building public support for his policies, which now explains his very low approval ratings.

Both pursued public policies and government programs that preferentially benefit corporate and other special interests, especially the financial sector. This is no surprise because both depended on huge amounts of corporate money to get elected. They both have responsibility for the economic meltdown that still exists for a large fraction of the nation. A large majority of Americans correctly see the nation on the wrong track, but more importantly it is hurtling down the wrong track, which President Obama ignores, because he lacks solutions.

What may turn out to be the most disturbing similarity is that Obama may get elected for a second term just like Bush accomplished despite uninspiring performance. If there is anything more disturbing than electing awful politicians with no real record of accomplishments it is reelecting them for a second term! More than anything else this demonstrates the absence of true, effective political competition and the ability to brainwash and manipulate voters.

For years I hoped that some third party presidential candidate would emerge, capture public confidence and offer a true reform program to repair our nation. But sadly the political system has been so corrupted that no third party presidential candidate stands a chance against the two-party plutocracy. The biggest nonsense is that the US is the greatest democracy on Earth. There are many other democracies where multiple political parties give citizens far more choices than Americans have. It pays to remember that no nation ever copied the government structure of the US. Instead, other democracies where citizens also have freedom use parliamentary structures with far more political choices and even the ability to more easily get rid of rotten leaders. Here we suffer with disappointing presidents for far too many years.

The most fascinating aspect of our constitutional republic is that one constitutional path to get true, deep reforms of our government and political system has never been used. This proves how powerful, entrenched interests on the right and left have maintained a corrupt, dysfunctional and costly system. Very, very few Americans know anything about the option in Article V of the Constitution for a convention of state delegates that could propose constitutional amendments. You can learn the facts at the Friends of the Article V Convention website. The one and only requirement for a convention has long been met but Congress refuses to obey the Constitution. They fear it. We need it more than ever.

A constitutional scholar such as President Obama could make history by openly demanding that Congress convene the first Article V convention. But that would require dropping the constitutional hypocrisy that he and so many others have. The rule of law is a farce when an important part of the beloved Constitution is ignored.

Notes/Sources:

The above article was written by Joel S. Hirschhorn; entitled: “Why Americans Elect Awful Presidents”

Mr Barak had already warned his fellow Israelis earlier in the year that Israel needed to finalize a peace agreement with the Palestinians soon: “As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel, it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic… [And if] millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state… The pendulum of legitimacy is going to move gradually towards the other pole.” However, it appears that Mr Barak has now reached the conclusion that as long as East Jerusalem remains under Israeli sovereignty, there can be no final status agreement with the Palestinians; something that has been clear for many years.

Nonetheless, Mr Barak’s proposal remains interesting not only because he was in charge of the pre-talks leading up to the direct peace talks just started in Washington – including secret negotiations with the Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas – but also because his proposal was in fact born two years earlier to the former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, who was heading Israel’s caretaker government at the time.

Mr Olmert had proposed to Mr Abbas, at a private meeting on 13 September 2008, an outcome for Jerusalem in which: “The Holy Basin of Jerusalem [comprising of the Old City and its surrounding religious sites] would be under no sovereignty at all and administered by a consortium of Saudis, Jordanians, Israelis, Palestinians and Americans”. It was Mr Olmert that was the first Israeli leader ever to discuss the – albeit only partial – internationalization of Jerusalem; a requirement under international law since 1947. At the same September 2008 meeting, Mr Olmert stated that he could not accept any Palestinian ‘Right of Return’, but that as part of a final status agreement, he would be willing to accept between 2,000 and 3,000 Palestinian refugees as a “humanitarian gesture”.

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, has since confirmed Mr Olmert’s 2008 offer to Mr Abbas: “He was serious, I have to say.” He also confirmed Mr Abbas’ rejection of the offer during a debate on Al-Jazeera TV, as well as the words spoken by Mr Abbas to Mr Olmert: “I am not in a marketplace or a bazaar. I came to demarcate the borders of Palestine – the June 4, 1967 borders – without detracting a single inch, and without detracting a single stone from Jerusalem, or from the holy Christian and Muslim places.” Mr Erekat went on to state: “This is why the Palestinian negotiators did not sign… There will be no peace whatsoever unless East Jerusalem – with every single stone in it – becomes the capital of Palestine.” Finally, during the same TV debate, Mr Erekat confirmed that at a 23 July 2000 meeting at the Camp David talks, the then Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, rejected proposals for joint Israeli-Palestinian sovereignty over Jerusalem’s Holy Basin, saying: “Jerusalem will be nothing but the capital of the Palestinian state, and there is nothing underneath or above the Haram Al-Sharif except for Allah.”

Mr Abbas is certainly not alone in rejecting Mr Olmert and Mr Barak’s proposal for Jerusalem. Whilst in opposition in January 2009, the current Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, warned an audience at the ‘Jerusalem Conference’ that US President Barack Obama would try to internationalize Jerusalem’s holy sites; something that had already been recommended by the former US President, Bill Clinton, and more recently by the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. “Some politicians are trying to blur the importance of the Temple Mount to the Jewish People by referring to it as the ‘Holy Basin’. We, as Jews, know who built the Temple Mount.” It comes as little surprise therefore that one of Mr Netanyahu’s aides has in the past few days clarified the official Israeli Government position on Jerusalem, in response to Mr Barak’s recent statements on the topic: “Our position is that Jerusalem will remain the undivided capital of Israel”.

During the relaunch of peace talks at Washington in the past week, Mr Netanyahu told the Palestinians: “Just as you expect us to be ready to recognise a Palestinian state as the nation state of the Palestinian people, we expect you to be prepared to recognise Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people”. It is well understood that this demand – something Mr Netanyahu referred to as one of two ‘pillars to peace’ – is a not-so-subtle attempt to force the Palestinian leadership to formally renounce the ‘Right of Return’ of Palestinian refugees; a legal right under customary international law. It is therefore a precondition of Mr Netanyahu (as it was for Mr Olmert) – at the same time as offering nothing at all to the Palestinians in regards to Jerusalem – that any final status agreement between the two parties can only be concluded if the more than 5 million Palestinian refugees are to be resettled in the new Palestinian state, “the nation-state of the Palestinian people”, and not within Israel, “the nation-state of the Jewish people”.

In this regard, the most fascinating point that is raised by Israeli proposals to internationalize at least part of Jerusalem, is that neither Mr Olmert nor Mr Barak appears to have considered the future capacity of the State of Israel – which would constitute a minority component of the proposed international consortium of Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the USA – to continue to block the long-established legal right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes; in those cases where their homes had existed or continued to exist within Jerusalem. By agreeing to the internationalization of the Holy Basin, the Israelis would effectively be agreeing to permit all Palestinians who had, or whose forefathers had lived within its environs to return home unimpeded; Israel could no longer veto the capacity of some thousands of Palestinian refugees to exercise their ‘Right of Return’.

Uncomfortably for Mr Abbas and other Arab leadership, such considerations might well lead the millions of Palestinians left languishing for decades within refugees camps to question the true value of Palestinian ‘sovereignty’ over the Holy Basin of Jerusalem; particulary when the faithful among them believe that “there is nothing underneath or above the Haram Al-Sharif except for Allah”, and particulary when it meant that they and their children had to live within the camps, forever. Even more unfomfortably for the PA’s well-appointed ruling class, those very same Palestinians might begin to wonder what the outcome would be if they demanded that historic Palestine be internationalized in its entirety – something that can be easily achieved through the UN General Assembly. Maybe they could all go home?

Notes/Sources:

The above article was written by Cameron Hunt; entitled: “International Jerusalem And The Right Of Return”

The Israelis say they have been inspired by the example of Ilana Hammerman, a writer who is threatened with prosecution after publishing an article in which she admitted breaking the law to bring three Palestinian teenagers into Israel for a day out.

Ms Hammerman said she wanted to give the young women, who had never left the West Bank, “some fun” and a chance to see the Mediterranean for the first time.

Her story has shocked many Israelis and led to a police investigation after right-wing groups called for her to be tried for security offences.

It is illegal to transport Palestinians through checkpoints into Israel without a permit, which few can obtain. If tried and found guilty, Ms Hammerman could be fined and face up to two years in jail.

But Israelis joining the campaign say they will not be put off by threats of imprisonment.

Last month, a group of 11 Israeli women joined Ms Hammerman in repeating her act of civil disobedience, driving a dozen Palestinian women and four children, including a baby, through a checkpoint into Israel.

The Israeli women say they are planning mass “smugglings” of Palestinians into Israel over the coming weeks.

“The Palestinians who join us are mainly looking to have a good time after years of confinement under the occupation, but for us what is most important is our act of defiance,” said Ofra Lyth, who helped establish an online forum of supporters after attending a speech by Ms Hammerman.

“We want to overturn this immoral law that gives rights to Jews to move freely around while keeping Palestinians imprisoned in their towns and villages,” she said, referring to regulations that bar most Palestinians in the occupied territories from entering Israel, and Israelis from assisting them. Exceptions are made for Palestinians with permits, sometimes issued for a medical emergency or to some labourers with security clearance.

For the Palestinian women, though, it is not about making a statement or defying an unjust law, said Ms Lyth.

“The Palestinian women tell us: ‘Go ahead and make your political point, but for us we’re breaking the law so that we can enjoy ourselves and remember how life was before the checkpoints and the wall.’ One woman told me: ‘I just want to be able to breathe again’.”

For Palestinians in the West Bank, it is not often easy to breathe. The territory is home to a growing population of 300,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements. The settlers are able to drive into Israel on roads that the army oversees with checkpoints.

It was through one such settler crossing, near Beitar Ilit, south of Jerusalem, that Ms Hammerman took the three Palestinian teenagers this year.

For their protection, she has not identifed the young women or the West Bank village where they live. She refers to the women as Aya, Lin and Yasmin. They, too, could face jail for breaking the law.

In Ms Hammerman’s article, published in the Haaretz newspaper in May, she admitted that she was aware her actions were illegal.

She told the women, who were 18 and 19, to take off their hijabs for the day and dress in western-style clothes to avoid attracting attention from soldiers at the checkpoint. She also taught them an easy Hebrew phrase — Hakull beseder, or “Everything is okay” — in case a soldier spoke to them.

She then took them on a tour of Tel Aviv, visiting the city’s university, a museum, a shopping mall and the beach, which she noted none of them had ever seen even though it is only about 40km from their village.

Gisha, an Israeli human rights group, said Israel introduced a permit system to limit Palestinian movement out of the West Bank in the early 1990s – about the time the young women were born.

Ms Hammerman wrote that the only dangerous moment during the trip was when a plain-clothes policeman stopped them and asked for the women’s identity cards. Ms Hammerman lied to the officer, telling him that the women were Palestinians from East Jerusalem and therefore entitled to enter Israel.

In June, Yehuda Weinstein, the attorney general, was reported to have approved a police investigation of Ms Hammerman after a settler organisation, the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, complained.

The ranks of Ms Hammerman’s supporters have swollen since the group placed an advertisement, titled “We refuse to obey”, in Haaretz this month. The ad said the group was “acting in the spirit of Martin Luther King”, the US civil rights leader, and demanded that Palestinians be treated as “human beings, not terrorists”.

Over the past week, the online forum has attracted more than 590 Israelis signing up to repeat Ms Hammerman’s act of civil disobedience.

“That has really surprised and encouraged me,” she said. “I did not realise there were so many other Israelis who have had enough of this outrageous law.”

Still, the coverage of Ms Hammerman and her supporters in the Israeli media has been largely hostile. During a television interview last week, she was accused of endangering Israelis with her trips. The show’s host, Yaron London, asked whether she had inspected the Palestinian women’s underclothes for explosives before allowing them into her car.

She will will not be deterred, though. She said the group had discussed future trips for Palestinians, including taking them to pray at al-Aqsa, the mosque in Jerusalem that has been inaccessible to most Palestinians for at least a decade, and visits to Palestinian relatives they cannot see in Jerusalem and Israel.

“We need to get Israelis meeting Palestinians again, having fun with them and seeing that they are human beings with the same rights as us.”

She said her immediate goal was to kick-start a discussion among Israelis about the legality and morality of Israel’s laws and challenge the public’s “blind obedience” to authority.

Ms Lyth added that the Palestinian women “who have gone on our trips are the heroes of their village. They and their families know they are taking a big risk in breaking the law, but harassment is part of their daily lives anyway”.

Till now the trips have been restricted to smuggling Palestinian women and children only, said Ms Hammerman. “It is harder to bring men in without being discovered and the authorities would be likely to treat Palestinian men much more harshly if they were caught.”

Notes/Sources:

The above article was written by Jonathan Cook; entitled: “Israelis Risk Jail to Smuggle Palestinians”

Bismillah
Is an unspoken song on the tongues of the forgotten
ever wonder where will you pray when your skin has abandoned you
or what religion is your skeleton

A note for Manhattan city residents & Mr. President:
if cemeteries have zip codes, air mail this poem to my mother
courtesy of a masjid wings holding my father’s tear.

New York: have you forgotten cities are built not by steel but bones
that breath is turquoise colored accessory of skeletons
wearing mahogany skin as Friday prayer best

Bedstuy bones have a Project Runway dreams – runaway from the projects.
Tired of being told their shade is out of season by men in midnight blue suits
attempting to tie a two-thumb thick bow tie noose around their neck.
Strange Fruit is back
the new and the old Black
in time for spring season
Muslims again the designs
breathing             chest heaving
swinging from government branch limbs.

Dear America: I interrupt your Tea Party
with reminders of ancestral legacy
that picked the very leafs you sip.
They say thirty percent of all slaves stolen from Africa were Muslim
denied prayer on ships
lynched and mocked
whips for the worshipping
shot for salaat

slaves to the dollar: enslaving slaves of Allah

When you built the World Trade Center over our cemeteries
did Senegalese mother’s hold drum circle protest at construction companies
for the steel saliva you layered on their children’s coffins?

New York City’s living pretty luxurious brag
how little skin they own
that one can see their bones through rib cage as if Prada
fashioned design mannequins after auction blocks melanin.
While in 2002, twenty thousand African slaves were discovered
underneath the cat walk modeling states of decay
in basement of today what is called the World Trade Center.

Slaves            Models.
both
believe in God
One:
tolerated for invoking the name in anorexia’s reverse communion
practices Ramadan 365 days a year
stomach lining sacrifice offering to porcelains altars
in city subsidized stalls and clubs.

Other:
is child hiding with no one seeking
holding song of Quran In decomposed lungs for three centuries
the sum of Saladin’s sons and daughters under one hundred three steel exhales
separated from the ummah by a cracked twin tear
only homage to memory street cipher testimony
a windmill break dance spin cycles of seven
for circles never made around the ka’ba in Mecca.

Cordoba: thank you for daring to call adhan
in a den of lions illiterate to love.
They call our cemetery “Ground zero”
de facto nicknaming us en la tierra negative
below
absence of value

America: tell us
in this    space    moment     century
as you stand over our grave
that 20,000 spirits of Muslim African
slaves still do not have a right
or a place to pray.

New York:
Your building zones built homes upon our bones
Must you again deny us in death our rights you denied us in life.
We, deserve after three centuries to finally say

Bismillahir rhaminir rahim

Know our prayers end as they always do.

assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah
assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah
(May Allah’s peace and blessings be upon ALL & you)

Sincerely signed:
x
x
x
x
x (+ 19,995 times)

- Mark Gonzales is a poet, educator, & founder of the Human Writes Project. He has  appeared on HBO Def Poetry, Mun2, NPR & with human rights activists & artists across the globe. Based in Seattle, WA, where his family used to work the fields, he is committed to cultivating dignity through creativity. This poem was contributed to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact him at: humanwrites@gmail.com.

Obama claimed the war on Iraq was initially a war to disarm a state. Really? And then “terrorist” Iraqis attacked our troops in their country. Yet if they had done that in our country, I suspect they would still be the terrorists. And then it became a civil war which we were innocently caught up in. Uh huh.

U.S. participants in this crime are heroes, always and everywhere. That’s sacred. The troops’ mission has involved protecting the Iraqi people, and by golly they’ve done a superb job, as long as we don’t mention the complete devastation of Iraq, the million dead, the millions of refugees, and the intense resentment of those remaining toward our country for what we’ve done to theirs.

The Iraqi people now (dead, in exile, in a ruined nation) have a chance that they supposedly didn’t have before we destroyed their country, a country that was actually a better place to live in in every way in 2003 than it is now, and in 1989 than in 2003. To hear President Obama, this war has been for the benefit of the Iraqi people, and these wars have been about al Qaeda and 9-11.

Obama slid into nonsense about al Qaeda after discussing Iraq and before mentioning Afghanistan, a Bushian maneuver if ever I saw one:

“No challenge is more essential to our security than our fight against al Qaeda.”

Never mind that al Qaeda barely existed before these wars became recruiting tools. “We will disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda” in Afghanistan, the president promised, even though al Qaeda isn’t there. Troop reductions in Afghanistan will begin next August, he said, although the prepared transcript said July, and will be determined by conditions on the ground, even though Afghanistan is not yet as bad as Iraq is.

Obama modeled the future bloodletting in Afghanistan on the myth of the successful escalation in Iraq, ignoring factors that have contributed to the reduction of violence in Iraq, including the promise of complete withdrawal, the beginning of withdrawal, and prior to those factors the incredible level of death and displacement, negotiations and bribes. The test for a “surge” in Afghanistan failed in Marja, and Obama simply behaves as if it succeeded.

And here at home “it is time to turn the page.” Never mind the commission of the supreme international crime of aggression. Never mind the mass murder. Obama said he talked with George W. Bush earlier in the day. Obama lied that the two of them had never agreed on the war, a war Obama voted to fund repeatedly in the Senate. And he lied that Bush was committed to U.S. security, knowing full well that this war has made us all less safe.

“There were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hope for Iraq’s future.”

Except for the majority of Americans who believe the war never should have begun, that it should be immediately ended, and that its architects — starting at the top with Bush, not the bottom with the troops — must be held criminally accountable. Participation in this crime is not a service to anyone.

The most honest part of the speech was this:

“We have spent over a trillion dollars at war, often financed by borrowing from overseas. This, in turn, has short-changed investments in our own people, and contributed to record deficits. For too long, we have put off tough decisions on everything from our manufacturing base to our energy policy to education reform. As a result, too many middle class families find themselves working harder for less, while our nation’s long-term competitiveness is put at risk.”

That’s a remarkable point for the president to dare to make. But there was no mention of the hundreds of billions yet in the works to be wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Pakistan and numerous other countries deserving of our favors.

The big lie, of course, is that the combat mission is, once again, completed. The soldiers in Iraq and the mercenaries and contractors are there for combat. That there are fewer soldiers is movement very much in the right direction, and very much to be applauded, but pretending that those remaining are something else is not accurate. Many of them may see less combat, but I’ll believe they’re not there for combat when their weapons are taken away.

The big question, of course, is what will be done about the deadline of December 31, 2011. Here’s what Obama said on this key point:

“Going forward, a transitional force of U.S. troops will remain in Iraq with a different mission: advising and assisting Iraq’s Security Forces; supporting Iraqi troops in targeted counter-terrorism missions; and protecting our civilians. Consistent with our agreement with the Iraqi government, all U.S. troops will leave by the end of next year. As our military draws down, our dedicated civilians — diplomats, aid workers, and advisors — are moving into the lead to support Iraq as it strengthens its government, resolves political disputes, resettles those displaced by war, and builds ties with the region and the world. And that is a message that Vice President Biden is delivering to the Iraqi people through his visit there today. This new approach reflects our long-term partnership with Iraq — one based upon mutual interests, and mutual respect. Of course, violence will not end with our combat mission.”

Violence will not end. We just won’t call it combat. It’ll be an overseas contingency. But what about all U.S. troops leaving by the end of next year? Obama doesn’t seem to hedge on this the way he does later in the speech on a future withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying that will be “subject to conditions on the ground.” And that’s a good thing. The same day as this speech, the war-loving Washington Post printed a column by Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2007 to 2009, which pushed for a longer occupation with these words:

“And it may be that a new Iraqi government will request a U.S. military presence beyond the end of 2011. If so, I hope we will listen carefully.”

Maybe we should start listening very careful right now. The president speaks of a long-term partnership with Iraq. How do you have that if you’re gone? The answer may be that you aren’t gone, that you maintain a significant military force in the country consisting of mercenaries employed by the State Department.

Here’s what the Bush-Maliki Unconstitutional Treaty says:

“All U.S. forces are to withdraw from all Iraqi territory, water and airspace no later than the 31st of December of 2011.”

However, the same document, as Raed Jarrar pointed out to me, carefully defines U.S. forces to allow exceptions:

“Definition of Terms . . .

‘U.S. Forces’ refers to the entity that includes all the personnel of the American Armed Forces, the civilian personnel connected to them and all their possessions, installations and equipment present on Iraqi territory.

‘Member of the U.S. Forces’ refers to any person that belongs to the army of the United States, its navy, air force, marine force or coast guard.

‘Civilian element member’ refers to any civilian working for the U.S. Department of Defense. And this term does not include the personnel usually resident in Iraq.”

The trick is that not all imaginable U.S. forces have to work for the so-called Department of Defense. If they work for any other department, they’re in the clear. But Iraqis are in their gun sights.

Notes/Sources:

The above article was written by David Swanson; entitled: “More War Lies”