Our Sindhi nationalists are simply not aware of the world trends. They have not idea how powerful and strong the social media has become in today’s world!

In contrast, the Baloch political activists are now quite alert and actively use it to propagate their message to the world through the use of the social media — blogs, social networks, microblogs, etc.

The proof that the world hears them speak is that BBC has now covered the political activists’efforts on Twitter and blogs. According to the reports, in the backdrop of the biased and selective (under-)reporting of the mainstream Pakistani media, it’s the blogs and micro-blogs (Twitter) which have been the source of information for the world on the brutality of the Pakistani state in Balochistan, that is, their kill-and-dump policy against the Baloch nationalists and freedom fighters.

بلوچستان کی حقیقت کون بتائے گا

امریکہ میں بلوچستان پر بحث، پاکستان کو تشویش

Twitter is quite a powerful tool in online activism right now- (who can forget the Arab Spring?) Thanks to Twitter that it’s now possible to ping United Nations (@UN), Barack Obama (@BarackObama), The White House (@whitehouse), Amnesty International (@amnesty), Human Rights Watch (@hrw) — you name it! They are the ones influencing the world affairs.. and they should be contacted frequently.

Or you can also ping Pentagon Press Secretary at @PentagonPresSec. You can even directly pass your comments to Congressman Brad Sherman (@BradSherman), who recently spoke in favor of the US speaking to the Sindhi and Baloch nations (Watch the video).

Although there are some Sindhi nationalists’accounts on Twitter (Like @jssfjsmm, @jssfmediacell, @JssfJsqm, Raja Dahir, Sindhi Xafar but their presence is not quite frequent; whereas, Twitter means continuous pinging the world about your and your issues.

Our Baloch activists have continuously been asking the Sindhi nationalists to be awake and alert on Twitter like them. And I receive tweets like the following frequently:

@AamirRaz Be known, we support you.

—
TheBaloch (@BalaachMarri) January 15, 2012

Amid military operations and sufferings, Baloch pay rich tribute to Saeen GM Syed, icon of Sindhudesh's independence identity.

—
TheBaloch (@BalaachMarri) January 16, 2012

@AamirRaz Bro our sindhi Brothers must be active like their Baloch brothers in their struggle for freedom in Balochistan, love&success 4us

—
Archen Baloch (@ArchenBaloch) February 10, 2012

@BradSherman is aiming 2 promote both d causes of Sindh, Balochistan. @AamirRaz wud b happy 2 hear that. There's a bipartisan support 2 B&S

—
Ratan (@Rattan888) February 08, 2012

@AamirRaz Adda Sindhi dostan kay twitter join karan laye motivate karo. @RajaDahir

—
فیض بلوچ (@FaizBaluch) January 10, 2012

@AamirRaz Ji koshish karo.Twitter asan laye naimat ka'n wadeek aye. @RajaDahir

—
فیض بلوچ (@FaizBaluch) January 10, 2012

However, this blog is not about teaching you how to use Twitter.. rather, it’s more for forcing you to start using it for your sociopolitical activism. It’s just to motivate the Sindhi nationalists to start using the power of the social media as an effective tool for lobbying in this age and time.

Keep tweeting — the world is listening!

[You can follow me on Twitter at @AamirRaz.]

Tagged: Arab Spring, Facebook, Nationalism, Social Activism, Twitter

Oliver North takes the Fifth

Could be. Countdown to the February 2nd Issa-Grassley hearing into Operation Fast and Furious is underway, and one of the biggest questions still unanswered is whether Congress will offer former AUSA Patrick Cunningham immunity for his testimony, and if Cunningham, so immunized, will shed any light on the parentage of an ATF operation that allowed roughly 2000 military-grade weapons to walk across the US-Mexico border and disappear, without a trace, into cartel arsenals.

Nobody seems to be holding his or her breath, but if Congress does pull an ‘Ollie North’ with Cunningham, or any of the witnesses it seeks to depose on Fast and Furious, expect the narrative to change. The irony alone, in a case that so closely resembles Iran-Contra, may provide the MSM with a much-needed jolt: Cunningham reprises North’s role when Congress, challenged by his close hold on the 5th Amendment, compels him to testify by granting him use or (less likely) transactional immunity.

Don’t remember the way it worked with North? Consider the following, pulled from court documents…

In November of 1986, a Lebanese newspaper reported that the United States had secretly sold weapons to Iran. Two months later, Congress established two committees charged with investigating the sales of arms to Iran, the diversion of proceeds therefrom to rebels (or “Contras”) fighting in Nicaragua, and the attempted cover-up of these activities (controversial events popularly known as “the Iran/Contra Affair”). In July of 1987, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver L. North, a former member of the National Security Council (“NSC”) staff, testified before the Iran/Contra congressional committees. North asserted his Fifth Amendment right not to testify before the committees, but the government compelled his testimony by a grant of use immunity pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Sec. 6002. North testified for six days. His testimony was carried live on national television and radio, replayed on news shows, and analyzed in the public media.

The government compelled North’s testimony before Congress during an investigation into the possible illegal export of arms. Sound familiar?

Yes. And then what happens? North is indicted and convicted in 1989 on three counts…

Contemporaneously with the congressional investigation, and pursuant to the Independent Counsel statute, 28 U.S.C. Secs. 591-599, the Special Division of this Court, see 28 U.S.C. Sec. 49, appointed Lawrence E. Walsh as Independent Counsel (“IC”) and charged him with the investigation and prosecution of any criminal wrongdoing by government officials in the Iran/Contra events. As a result of the efforts of the IC, North was indicted and tried on twelve counts arising from his role in the Iran/Contra Affair. After extensive pretrial proceedings and a twelve-week trial, North was convicted in May of 1989 on three counts: aiding and abetting an endeavor to obstruct Congress in violation of 18 U.S.C. Secs. 1505 and 2 (“Count 6″); destroying, altering, or removing official NSC documents in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2071 (“Count 9″); and accepting an illegal gratuity, consisting of a security system for his home, in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 201(c)(1)(B) (“Count 10″). North now appeals his convictions on these counts.

The story, of course, doesn’t end there. In 1990, North’s attorney challenges his client’s conviction before the Court of Appeals, and North, having taken the fall for Iran-Contra, is off the hook…

SUMMARY
Because of the length and complexity of our disposition of North’s appeal, we summarize our holdings.
(1) The District Court erred in failing to hold a full hearing as required by Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441, 92 S.Ct. 1653, 32 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972), to ensure that the IC made no use of North’s immunized congressional testimony. North’s convictions on all three counts are therefore vacated and remanded to the District Court for a Kastigar proceeding consistent with this opinion.

In plainspeak, what the Appeals Court concluded was that, despite the special prosecutor’s rigorous efforts to specify the quantity and content of evidence his team had gathered before North testified in front of Congress, despite Walsh’s submission of this evidence to Congress and other relevant authorities, witnesses involved in North’s prosecution by the federal court after he’d testified on the Hill had indeed been influenced by his initial, immunized testimony. North’s conviction was vacated.

Was North ‘over-protected’?

Democrats, of course, were incensed. There was a push to bring the case to a higher court, the Supreme Court, but that didn’t happen. So we are left, two days before another hearing into an investigation about the possible illegal export of arms, with a dilemma. If Congress compels Patrick Cunningham to testify with use immunity, what are the chances this man will take the fall, challenge any convictions that may result, and walk away, like North, a hero in the eyes of the present Administration and his party?

Clearly, the Issa-Grassley Committee must be pondering the same questions, measuring the distance between the law and realpolitik, and weighing their options.

Here’s what’s at stake. For the better part of a year, the Issa-Grassley Committee, as well as the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, have been homing in on Fast and Furious, hot on a trail investigators plainly believe may lead to the Office of the Attorney General and into the executive offices of DOJ, DHS, State, and even the White House.

Does the narrative include a political subtext? Of course. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md) has issued a Democratic rebuttal of the ‘conspiracy theories’ he believes are the real stuff of the current investigation. The report is good news for Obama supporters, who contend the investigation is a ‘witch-hunt,’ a claim echoed by Attorney General Eric Holder himself. The Attorney General told the press that media focus and much of the public attention devoted to Fast and Furious reflects a kind of latent racism directed at Holder and President Obama because “You know…we’re both African-Americans.”

So there.

Let me ask you another question. Would you hear applause from the Right, from pro-gun advocates, if Fast and Furious turned out to be nothing more than an operational cover for a ideological campaign to support gun control?

Absolutely.

But let’s not forget this bit of euphemistic wisdom, observations gleaned from politics, late 20th century: “Even paranoids have enemies.” And, says author Kathryn Olmstead, “Even conspiracy theories have roots.”

The roots are what Darrell Issa (R-CA) will be digging for on February 2nd.

Get on with it

Forget the politics–keep drilling.

More than 300 deaths and assaults have already been linked to that cache of US-supplied weapons, including the murders of two US enforcement agents gunned down by Mexican thugs carrying AK-47s provided by ATF. Senior ICE Agent Jamie Zapata, headquartered in Mexico, was killed by cartel assassins when he stopped at a checkpoint enroute to Mexico City. Zapata was unarmed, per dictum of the Mexican government, and traveling in a clearly marked US government vehicle.

US Border Patrol Brian Terry, a former marine, was gunned down on US soil, and the weapon his assailant used to end Terry’s life was an AK-47 that ATF allowed to walk across the US-Mexico border. Terry’s family wants to know what’s what. They want to know who authored Fast and Furious, whose wish was father to the act, and, if it is determined that laws were broken, the family wants to see “justice done.”

Do we owe them that much? DOJ, which refuses to comment, suggests no.

Here’s what Congress already knows: ATF had no provisions in place at any time to interdict the weapons before they could be used in the commission of a crime, or to track the arms after straw buyers walked the guns across the border into Mexico.

So much, say skeptics, for the ‘botched operation theory’–if it quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, well, there it is.

The only discernible operational objective, given that ATF did enter serial numbers belonging to the weapons into its eTrace database, appears to have been an attempt to jury-rig the number of ‘illegal’ weapons Mexican authorities recovered from crime scenes and sent back to ATF for identification.

The goal?

Reason, the 1+1=2 kind, tells us the aim must have been to support claims that the real source of cartel violence has been the willingness of US gun dealers, scofflaws all, to sell weapons to cartel straw buyers. In other words, the United States is to blame, to a larger-than-life extent, for the death of 50,000 Mexican civilians over the past five years.

Factor in the worst-kept secret at DOJ–that its policymakers, as well as officials at DHS and State, are designated hitters on the anti-gun team–and you’ve given the conspiracists yet another reason to believe.

Another plot-thickener: ATF’s part in supplying these weapons to straw buyers who trafficked them illegally into Mexico would never have come to light had not ATF Senior Agent John Dodson, one of the officers tasked with implementing the operation in Phoenix, blown the whistle to Congress after being informed that one of ATF’s weapons was linked to the slaying of US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Committee goals

Here’s what Representative Issa and Senator Grassley are after, the aims of the House Oversight Committee:

Key Goals of Investigation
1.Expose the full scope of Fast and Furious
2.Deliver the Fast and Furious facts to the American people
3.Eliminate the program’s dangerous investigative techniques
4.Discover who is responsible for starting Fast and Furious
5.Discover who is responsible for implementing Fast and Furious
6.Discover which high-level government officials knew about Fast and Furious
7.Discover which high-level government officials approved Fast and Furious
8.Expose high-level government officials who failed to stop Fast and Furious
9.Hold accountable those responsible for Fast and Furious
10.Protect taxpayers’ rights to Congressional oversight of the Executive Branch

I’m thinking 4, and 6 through 9 are the big numbers at this point in the game.

There’s more, of course, a chart titled Fast and Furious key players offers readers a clear picture of ‘who’s who’ in this expanding legal tangle and how each player may be linked to the others.

Patrick Cunningham, who just resigned from his position with DOJ as AUSA, Chief of the Criminal Division, Phoenix, wants off this chart, and we don’t wonder why.

Cunningham, a close associate of former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, is the man Eric Holder says wrote a February 4th letter on DOJ stationary and sent it, full of ‘inaccuracies’ about ATF’s ‘gunwalking’ activities, to the House Oversight Committee.

DOJ says Cunningham lied

When the House Oversight Committee obtained incontrovertible evidence that ATF had, in fact, been ‘walking’ guns into Mexico with no plans for interdiction in place, Holder invented a remedy anyone who’s ever regretted pushing the ‘send’ button too quickly will appreciate–the Attorney General merely ‘retracted’ the letter he says his man Cunningham peppered with lies. Took it back, deleting, rendering insubstantial and non-material anything that might have briefly qualified as a falsehood via a little well-placed pressure on what Holder apparently believes is reality’s secret backspace key.

All gone.

But is it, really? The paper and the writing could have disappeared, the letter’s claims lost in a legal shell game, but the author, his recollections intact, remains. Patrick Cunningham, a highly placed US attorney who had handled scores of export control and trafficking cases since the mid-1980s for law enforcement in Arizona, is between a political rock and the hard place called a criminal investigation. And Cunningham, who just this week resigned from Justice and went to work for a private sector firm, needs to live to fight another day.

And this, of course, is where the Fifth Amendment comes into play.

The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution is a wondrous thing. Rooted in the idea (scroll back to 17th century England) that no one’s testimony (gained via torture, duress, or just plain stupidity) can be used in a court of law to incriminate oneself, the Fifth, once claimed, cannot be construed as an admission of guilt or even an admission that one knows, somehow, someway, that a crime has been committed. That’s how the law interprets the Fifth.

In real life, as we know, silence is, in fact, often interpreted as a protective device, and yes, an admission or suggestion that the guy taking the Fifth does so because he knows enough about holes to stop digging. Immediately.

When Patrick Cunningham appeared before the House Oversight Committee on January 24, the former Chief of the Criminal Division in Phoenix refused to give more than his name and title, a move that Representative Darrell Issa (R-Calif) clearly views as significant.

From Fox News:

Chairman Darrell Issa called the decision a “startling development” and in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder wrote that the refusal to testify implies that “Mr. Cunningham may have engaged in criminal conduct with respect to Fast and Furious is a major escalation of the department’s culpability.

Now, Issa knows that Cunningham’s decision to take the Fifth cannot legally be construed as an implied admission of guilt. But he still takes the shot. Why? Because, within the context of the ongoing investigation into Fast and Furious, even Joe Sixpack will argue that this 1+1 equals 2.

There’s more:

Issa said Justice Department officials claim Cunningham misinformed them about Fast and Furious as the department prepared its initial response to Congress’ inquiry into the failed program. Cunningham’s lawyer denies those allegations.

Yes, you heard it right. Believe it or not, Cunningham’s lawyer not only rose to the bait, he swallowed it whole, declaring outright that “Cunningham is innocent.”

Why is this important? Because taking the Fifth only works if the defendant substitutes his or right to remain silent for a plea, and Cunningham’s lawyer has clearly entered a second-hand plea for his client–’innocent.’ Astonishing. The Cunningham legal team, it seems, wants to have its cake and eat it too…

Bad strategy. Cunningham, whom I’m betting almost everyone believes would really like to get up there and wallop the bejesus out of his prosecutors/persecutors, has to understand the hand he’s been dealt–full, my friends, of wild cards.

Cunningham’s options

He’s got a new job in the private sector–the name of the firm appears to be a secret, but I suspect it has close ties to the Democratic party. So Cunningham may believe he can play it safe by taking an ‘Ollie North’–if the Committee’s next move is to grant the man immunity–and emerge tarnished, hugely indebted, but whole, a free man and maybe still employed, or he can hold fast to his Fifth and pray the House Oversight Committee passes him by.

Bypassing Cunningham is a move Issa and Grassley have probably already considered, and it may be the smartest way to go, given the North scenario. But there are other, maybe better, options for the Committee. According to Big Government, “…a determined Congressman Issa has demanded that Cunningham’s underling, Michael Morrissey, Assistant United States Attorney, ‘speak with Committee investigators about his role in and knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious.’”

DOJ is already pushing back.

Since August, the Department has identified Patrick Cunningham as the best person in the U.S. Attorney’s Office to provide information about Fast and Furious to the Committee. The Department has refused to make Michael Morrissey and Emory Hurley, both Assistant United States Attorneys supervised by Mr. Cunningham, available to speak with the Committee, citing a policy of not making “line attorneys” available for congressional scrutiny. Mr. Morrissey, however, was Mr. Hurley’s direct supervisor, and an integral part of Fast and Furious. Importantly, both Morrissey and Hurley are unique in their possession of key factual knowledge about Fast and Furious not readily available from any other source.

Wow.

DOJ has long maintained that Congress has no business handing out subpeonas to ‘line managers’ and that the House Oversight Committee should focus only on the big fish. Morrissey, it seems, may be almost as valuable to the Committee as Cunningham, and Hurley, who was also assigned to the Criminal Division before DOJ shuffled him into Civil, is strong backup. So the question now, of course, is whether Morrissey, and other DOJ officials in line behind him, are all, each and every one, prepared to take the Fifth.

Games

And they’re costing taxpayers millions.

Without Cunningham, Morrissey, or Hurley, the upcoming hearing on February 2 may only be yet another chance for Issa and Holder to bounce one another off the sides of the cage, good for headlines, bad for taxpayers eager for a reasonable return on their money.

The key to maintaining momentum, as Issa clearly understands, is finding a player willing to talk, someone ready to name the guys who gave him his ‘orders’ in return for that ‘get out of jail free’ card.

Identify every ‘who’–all the way to the top–and the ‘why’ will follow.

Give Cunningham immunity, and there’s a chance he may be the last man standing. The fall guy.

But what do I know? Under pressure, and given the right deal, Cunningham might sing like the proverbial canary. There’s always the chance that convictions, in this scenario, might not be vacated down the road, that people might go to jail. And that’s the risk for Cunningham and his cohorts down the managerial line. Given this kind of jeopardy, Ollie North may be too tough an act to follow.

Until the Arab spring movement and its legion of revolutionaries came to clash with President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s regime, demanding an end to decades of autocracy and repression, the Americans considered Yemen’s autocrat a “bulwark” against terrorism, a strategic ally in the region in the fight against al-Qaeda, the well-known Islamic organization.
When it became clear that Yemenis were determined to depose the aging dictator, no matter the amount of blood his armed forces were willing to shed, the White House started to shift its rhetoric, calling for reforms and a transition to more “democratic institutions.”

The “beautiful friendship” which united the 2 countries started to melt away at the pyre of people’s anger, threatening to damage America’s foothold in the region.
Although many democracy militants have accused the United States of America of siding with dictators for it served their middle-eastern policies, accusing them of protecting and in the case of President Saleh harboring war criminals; one could wonder whether America is not playing a much sinister game of plots and betrayals.
One does not need to go back to far up in the history book to remember another well-known autocrat whose friendship was discarded when he failed to fulfill his purpose. Mohamed Reza Shah of Iran was abandoned by his “American friends” and almost sold back to the Ayatollahs when he failed to live up to the White House foreign policies’ expectations.
Could the Obama’s administration turn against Saleh and hand him over to those who are clamoring for his arrest? Could Yemen’s infamous statesman become the new Shah of Iran in his desperate search for political asylum?
One cannot draw away from the remarkable symmetry in between the two deposed leaders. One ran away for his allegiance to the West angered his people so that he feared they would execute him, another was forced to relinquish the power America’s helped him to master for 3 decades. Both turned to the United States and were denied entry, both insisted, both were eventually allowed.
One was betrayed, one is awaiting his fate.

Mohamed Reza Shah of Iran

The very countries which are claiming to be promoting Democracy and Freedom across the Globe, saying that they will always side with those who seek to emulate western standards, are the very ones who crushed the little hope Iran had at becoming a successful democratic state.
Because Iran’s emancipation stood in the way of their economic interests, the United States and Britain decided to assert the Shah’s absolute power over his people.
When Mohamed Mosadeqq, the founder and leader of the National Front of Iran was elected Prime Minister by the Parliament, he immediately announced the nationalization of Iran Oil industry, shutting out the immensely lucrative Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which at the time was one of Britain main economic pillars.
The British then convinced the Americans of the need to overthrow Mosadeqq and re-establish the Shah of Iran as the only authority in the country, arguing that the move would serve both nations interest in the region.
Iran strategic geo-political position and its vast Oil reserves represented too much of an asset for western hegemony to let something such as democracy get in the way.

After a “coup d’état” known as the “operation Ajax” failed, the Shah was pressured into issuing a decree stating Mosadeqq’s demotion. Subsequently the Shah fled to Iraq, then Italy for he feared for his life. He later came back under the protection of his allies.
2 decades later, the Shah was ousted by his people as his attempts to westernize and secularize Iran had anger the people and the political class to such an extent that they sought his execution.
In exile and ill with cancer the monarch turned to the United States of America for safety only to be denied asylum. After he insisted for he said he needed urgent medical treatment, the Pentagon agreed to allow him in for a limited period of time. It turned out that the visit of the Royal coincided with an attack against the American Embassy in Tehran and the kidnapping of some 400 American nationals.
Caught in the middle of much controversy, shun away by his former friends, a terminally ill Shah sought refuge in Latin America to finally come to die in Egypt where he is buried.

Ali Abdullah Saleh

In the wake of the attack on American soil by al-Qaeda in 2001, President Saleh realized that if he had any chance of surviving the military wave which was threatening to come his way he had to quickly seal an alliance with the Western giant.
The Yemeni-American fight against terrorism was born.
And if Saleh manipulated his new “friends” by playing up their fear in exchange for financial support the alliance cost him dearly on the political front.
As Drones attacks became more frequent and civilian casualties mounted, Yemenis started to speak of treason, accusing the autocrat of allowing foreign forces to enter Yemen air space in exchange for cash.
The seeds of revolt were planted.

And although it took Yemen nearly 2 decades to finally mobilize the needed momentum to rise up against the state apparatus, Saleh’s opponents proved impossible to stop.
Having witnessed first-hand the power of the people in Egypt, the White House decided to operate differently in Yemen, preferring to prepare the autocrat’s exit according to a specific set of terms rather than let the mob overtake the presidential palace and potentially ruin any hope of further cooperation on the al-Qaeda front.

But if Saleh successfully secured his political and financial safety as well as that of his extended family, his troubles might not be over yet.
Just as Yemen is preparing to welcome a new president, Saleh who was victim of a bomb attack in 2011 at the very heart of his presidential compound has since been suffering from ill-health, requiring extensive medical attention.
As the Shah did before him, Saleh asked to be allowed to travel to the United States to undergo some much needed medical treatment, only to be refused. Following weeks of intense negotiations and much political controversy, the White House finally agreed to allow Saleh in, providing that his visit be brief and strictly confined to the hospital.

And as the Shah before him, his countrymen are already gathering, demanding that he’d be deported to the International Criminal Court of Justice for crimes against humanity and his assets frozen for having pillage Yemen’s riches.
Only weeks after Yemen’s parliament granted him immunity, Saleh runs the risk, like the Shah did, of being sold out to his opponents for he no longer serves his purpose and has become somewhat of a liability. And since United Nations, Secretary General Ban Ki Moon declared that no immunity would stand in a court of law when it came to war crimes and gross violations to human rights, the White House could in all good conscience leave the autocrat to suffer the fate he deserves.

UNITED NATIONS – On the final day of a three month deadline set by the Quartet – Brussels, Washington, Moscow and the UN – for Israelis and Palestinians to resume bilateral peace talks, Israeli attorney Daniel Seidemann convened an exclusive briefing with the UN Correspondents Association to unveil a grim message he will deliver to President Obama at the beginning of next week: the two-state solution is dead and you are to blame.

Mr. Seidemann, a legal expert on Palestinian-Israeli relations in Jerusalem, has spent the past twenty years lobbying senior-level officials in Washington, Paris, London, Moscow, Cairo and both halves of Jerusalem to broker a two-state compromise which would, if not cure the cancerous conflict eating away at Middle East relations, at least put it into remission.

Cause of Death

“A surge of settlement activity the likes of which we have not witnessed since the early 1970s,” Mr. Seidemann explained, has enabled me “to project with a fair degree of authority what the map of Jerusalem will look like in two years time.”

From that projection two “unprecedented” conclusions can be drawn, he said. First, “the map of Jerusalem will be so Balkanized geographically and demographically that a political division of the city will no longer be possible.”

Second, the White House is for the first time in history completely beholden to Israeli leadership. “During the last six months, my Prime Minister Netanyahu has said in word and in deed, ‘President Obama you have no leverage over me on this issue. I know and you know you will not engage me publicly and probably not privately on these issues until probably after the November elections. I am at liberty to act with impunity.”

The United States’ February 18, 2011 veto of “its own language” on a Security Council resolution condemning settlement activity, together with the defunding of UNESCO a day after Palestine achieved full statehood membership there, reflect Washington’s “colossal trend of self-marginalization” in the peace talks, he said.

Next week, Mr. Seidemann plans to tell President Obama in person that if he chooses to cow to Israeli pressure and ignore the settlements issue until after the November elections, “by the time you get back there may not be anything left to talk about.”

But “short of catastrophe,” he added, “there is not going to be any engagement from Washington until after the elections. And maybe then none.”

A War of Rebirth?

“What I have described here is a state of acute disequilibrium in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Mr. Seidemann said while calling attention to the brewing war next door in Syria. “Having two states of disequilibrium simultaneously creates pressure along the tectonic plates. These things correct themselves in one of two ways: either a new robust political paradigm – which is not in the cards over the next several months – or an armed conflict. I have a feeling that there is a war waiting to break out there to realign things. It just hasn’t decided where it will break out and over what.”

Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Ammar Awad (A general view of a Jewish settlement known to Israelis as Har Homa and to Palestinians as Jabal Abu Ghneim is seen near Jerusalem November 16, 2011. Israel said on Tuesday it will invite bids soon for constructing 814 homes in occupied land it considers part of Jerusalem, pursuing a decision to speed up building in settlements after Palestinians won full membership in the U.N. cultural agency).

Last week, Ertharin Cousin was named by the United Nations to replace Josette Sheeran as the head of the World Food Programme (WFP).  Cousin currently serves as the U.S. ambassador to UN food agencies based in Rome, which include WFP and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Cousin, described by Reuters as a “a stalwart of the U.S. Democratic Party…worked in the retail food sector and served as an executive of Feeding America, the largest U.S. domestic hunger organization. She led that organization’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.”

CBS News described her previous work in government in the “Clinton Administration for four years, including as deputy chief of staff for the Democratic National Committee and White House Liaison at the State Department. In 1997 she received a White House appointment to the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development.”

Cousin will begin her post in April, when Josette Sheeran’s five-year term expires.

Photo credit: WFP/Giulio D’Adamo

(Politico and AP)

So, the environmental movement drew the proverbial line in the sand:  no Keystone XL pipeline.  We’ve been fighting the tar sands for years, and will continue, but the Keystone XL has been the first clear solid rallying point and the first time in years that we greens have taken it to the street.  Bill McKibben, the author and activist who has been driving the Keystone XL opposition, won the man-of-the-year award in my annual review.

Well, McKibben and the rest of the movement got the attention of the White House and in the Fall, Obama and Co. postponed the decision.  The Republican ideologues in Congress are focused first and foremost in all things, the health of the government and nation a secondary consideration, on stopping President Obama’s reelection.  These folks, along with a phalanx of Democrats beholden to Big Oil, upped the ante on the pipeline by legislating that the President had to decide by February 21.

He did.  He said no.  The State Department, in whose bailiwick the permit decision was being processed, had offered that conclusion to the President and he accepted it.  The White House at the same time proffered that the Administration had been increasing energy security during its watch.

One of the arguments that the pipeline’s supporters have been making, and will continue to make in the wake of this extraordinary moment, is that the project meant jobs.  Well, the supporters have likely inflated the numbers.  Not surprising.  The supporters say that the unions will abandon the President on this.  Maybe some will, but I guess a lot of the lunch pail construction union folks weren’t ever all that supportive of Obama.  I took part in a “dialogue” sponsored by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers last year.  Pretty interesting day.  Two top officials of the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, were as dug in on this as the oilmen were.  Again, not surprising.

What might be surprising to you, however, is that union support for these sorts of projects is not monolithic.   Two powerful groups, for instance, the Transport Workers Union and the Amalgamated Transit Union, are dead set against.  One of their conclusions is that “Keystone XL may kill more jobs than it creates, through its contribution to the climate crisis…”  Beyond this, the BlueGreen Alliance has been a powerful voice for the economic engine of clean tech.  It’s a simple but powerful message:  “Transforming our economy through renewable energy, energy efficiency, mass transit and rail, a new smart grid and other solutions to global warming, has the potential to create millions of jobs, while reducing global warming emissions and moving America toward energy independence.”

The Keystone XL just doesn’t fit in that picture.  Neither do the tar sands that the Keystone XL would further enable.  As I wrote at DeSmogBlog a while back, there is a glaring paradox in the pursuit of tar sands oil and America’s drive to decarbonize energy.  The NY Times had an editorial in the wake of the President’s decision that applauded it.  Instead of this boondoggle, it needs to be noted:  “Far more important to the nation’s energy and environmental future is the development of renewable and alternative energy sources.”

David Roberts at Grist had this analysis:  Keystone surprise: Greens stronger & GOP dumber than predicted .  It’s good politics for the President too.  How about that?  The environmental movement will now work hard for this guy.  Bill McKibben lauded the President’s courage:  “Make no mistake—this is a brave decision.”  But as McKibben says, this is not the end of the fight.  The environmental movement in general and his group, 350.org, will, in the coming months and years, “…be fighting to shut off the flow of handouts to the oil, gas, and coal industries, and to take away their right to use the atmosphere as an open sewer into which to dump their carbon for free.”

That’s the job too of everyone who believes that the time is long past, for scores of reasons, to transition to a newer world in which energy is smart, clean and cheap.

By David Horsey for The Los Angeles Times

Newt Gingrich is surging and the guy ahead of him, Mitt Romney, as well the guy behind him, Rick Santorum, are rattled.

Only days ago, Romney was sitting on a comfortable lead in South Carolina’s Republican primary race. Santorum was anticipating a positive bump in his numbers, thanks to the endorsement he received from top Christian evangelical leaders and the good chance that a final, official count of votes in the Iowa caucuses would show he actually beat Romney in that state.

Instead, with Saturday’s vote just two days away, the portly, aloof, intellectually promiscuous and thrice-married ex-speaker of the House seems to be winning the minds, if not the hearts, of more and more staunch conservatives in the Palmetto State.

In fact, Gingrich was even getting a bit of love, as well as respect, from a crowd of several hundred jammed into the banquet hall of Bobby’s Bar-BQ Buffet in Warrenville on Wednesday. Every seat was filled; those without seats stood along the walls and those that couldn’t get inside craned their necks to get a peek through the front door.

Gingrich spoke in front of a Model T Ford – a car only a little more ancient than a great many members of the audience. Clever lines that fell flat when Gingrich delivered them at the tea party convention Tuesday got big laughs with this much-less-grim crowd — like his somewhat-stale knee-slapper about letting Barack Obama use a teleprompter when the two debate.

They loved the parts of his stump speech that are well worn – our rights come from God and cannot be taken away by government – and a new attack on Obama spun off the day’s news – the president’s refusal to approve the Keystone oil pipeline is stupidly driving Canada into the arms of China. And they loved Callista, Newt’s exquisitely coiffed wife.

One audience “question” was this: “I think your wife would make a beautiful first lady, don’t you?”  In the receiving line after the event, a Callista fan said, “I’m anxious to see how you do Christmas in the White House.” There seemed to be a lot of warmth for the once-controversial Callista and for her candidate husband, though he is not all that good at exhibiting warmth himself.

In campaign mode, Gingrich is the polar opposite of Mitt Romney. Reportedly a bit shy, Romney, nevertheless, dives in, shakes every hand, signs every autograph, banters with everyone and smiles, smiles, smiles. It may be rehearsed and straight from some “How to Succeed in Politics” primer, but he’s as good at it as any TV game show host.

Mitt’s even good with babies. At a rally on the outskirts of Columbia on Wednesday night, he held a baby for the cameras and then pretended to walk off with her, delighting the crowd – even the child’s mother. And the baby never cried.

In contrast, Gingrich seems more like the queen of England. On Monday afternoon, at the end of his remarks at Rioz Brazilian Steakhouse in Myrtle Beach, Gingrich remained on the speaker’s platform while the crowd lined up like kids waiting to see a department store Santa. They were shuffled through rapidly; the candidate barely made eye contact, offered the tiniest of smiles and made the briefest request for support.

Is he merely reserved? Awkward? Overly formal? Or simply a man with a busy mind and a lot to get done; sort of like a college professor who resents wasting attention on the undergrads who mob him after class.

Of course, Gingrich actually is a former college professor, and his campaign speech is a lively academic ramble. He interprets history, dives into interesting new economic theories, wickedly picks apart the fallacious ideas of competing practitioners of the political arts and uses terminology that tells you he’s oh-so-much smarter than your typical governor of Texas or Massachusetts.

Gingrich drops names of the intellectual and political elite he has known and boldly lays claim to a major share of the legacy of two presidents, Reagan and Clinton. He brags that his candidacy is so historically significant and so utterly different from any other that it is nearly incomprehensible to the dullards in the media. In front of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, after presenting a litany of intractable problems faced by the nation, he said of himself, “If you have a leader who knows what he is doing, we can turn this around in a year.”

Just one year? The guy seems so full of himself that it is surprising he has caught on with so many voters. He is not the cliche candidate Americans are supposed to prefer – somebody you’d want to have a beer with because he’s just like you. Yet, here he is, still very much in the race and on the verge of messing up smiling Mitt Romney’s big-money campaign.

Filed under: Democracy, Freedoms, President Obama, United States Tagged: American Elections, American politics, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Democrats, GOP, Mitt Romney, Myrtle Beach, Newt Gingrich, Nikki Haley, Republican Party, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Ronald Reagan, South Carolina, South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, Tea Party

By Manzer Munir for Pakistanis for Peace

Today is MLK Day in the United States where it is a federal holiday commemorating the life and legacy of the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr, who would have been 83 years old on January 15. MLK was a great believer in the teachings of non-violence if Mohandas K Gandhi, the leader of India’s independence movement from Britain. King saw that Gandhi’s peaceful civil disobedience and non-violent methods of protest were very effective in bringing down the British Empire in India and as a result Pakistan and the rest of the Indian Subcontinent after some 300 years of direct and indirect rule. Gandhi had believed that people could resist immoral government action by simply refusing to cooperate. Gandhi adopted many peaceful resistance techniques in developing his concept of Satyagraha, which was a philosophy and practice of passive nonviolent resistance.

Gandhi had earlier used this resistance technique in his struggles for freedom and equality for blacks and Indians in South Africa where both minorities were subjected to second and third class citizenry. His methods and refusal to bow down to the injustices that Indians faced in colonial South Africa inspired Nelson Mandela several years later to start his own peaceful struggle that eventually led to the end of Apartheid in South Africa in 1990.

While at Morehouse College, King learned about Gandhi and became very excited about his ideas. He wanted to further educate himself and read many books on Gandhi and his life and beliefs. In his book, Stride Toward Freedom, King states that “Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale. He further writes in his book that “It was in this Gandhian emphasis on love and nonviolence that I discovered the method for social reform that I had been seeking. I came to feel that this was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.”

King felt that he had finally found a way to where oppressed people could successfully unlock social protest through Jesus’ teachings of love. In fact Gandhi himself had said “What does Jesus mean to me? To me, he was one of the greatest teachers humanity has ever had.” He also once mentioned Jesus as the “most active resister known perhaps to history. His was non-violence par excellence” Therefore to the Christian minister living in the pre-civil rights era in the South in America, Gandhi appeared to King as a follower of Christ, someone who preached peace and love even at the expense of suffering. Martin Luther King once said of Gandhi “It is ironic yet inescapably true that the greatest Christian of the modern world was a man who never embraced Christianity.”

In 1959, King visited India and became fully convinced that Satyagraha could be effectively applied to the struggle by blacks in the United States for racial integration. He came back to the United States where he continued the struggle for freedom and equality for all Americans. Like Gandhi, King also talked about suffering as a path to self purification and spiritual growth. He not only experienced this suffering by being jailed, beaten and harassed by the authorities of the day, but he eventually ended up paying for this cause for freedom for all with his life.

Today there is a black man that sits in the White House, minorities are on the Supreme Court bench, and Black heads of Fortune 500 companies who have reached the proverbial mountaintop in ever possible endeavor. Yet there is little doubt that despite how far we have come as a nation, we still have a way to go to achieve equality for minorities and women. Without Dr King’s struggle, leadership and personal sacrifice, the United States, and indeed the world, would be in far worse shape.

Mohandas K Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr were arguably two of the greatest men of the last century. Both men believed that “injustice anywhere was a threat to justice everywhere.” They both led their people and millions of others out of slavery and servitude against seemingly insurmountable odds to freedom and salvation. On what would have been his 83rd birthday, let us recognize that despite an assassin’s bullet and in the greatest democracy in the history of the world, the spirit and dream of a King still lives on.

Filed under: Democracy, Desi, Freedoms, Gandhi, India, Pakistanis for Peace, United States Tagged: Civil Rights, Gandhi, India, Manzer Munir, Martin Luther King Jr, MLK, MLK Day, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Pakistan, Pakistanis for Peace, USA

One of the thrills of life is following Pakistani politics. Never a dull moment in this comedy or farce or tragedy, depending on your sentiments towards the motherland. As far as I am concerned our national politics functions somewhat on the pattern of a merry-go-round. The riders may get a feeling of moving fast but they always remain equidistant from the central pole.

This has now been going on for ages. Whether things are hectic or slow, a lull or a storm, there are only two guaranteed facts. One, all participants of the process, some of them can also be politicians, will come of the ride slightly dizzy, and two, that nothing is going to move the central pole. For the central pole please read the Pakistan armed forces and the allegory will make even more sense.

I am sure the whole world must be watching the latest comic episode that we have managed to conjure up, or should I say the ISI has managed to produce, the Memogate.

Running to packed houses we have a world class show on display. Have to hand it to our intelligence spooks, they have managed to come up with a plot which even Spielberg would be hard pressed to match.

The storyline is amazing. Our ambassador to USA, Mr. Haqqani, who was previously regularly accused of being USA’s ambassador to Pakistan, was allotted a particularly impossible mission by our President. He was to pass a message to the President Barak Obama that the Pakistan military would likely overthrow the civilian government in the aftermath of the Osama Bin Laden episode !!!

Amazing plot to jolt you wide awake, isn’t it? This at a time when our army was the laughing stock of the whole of Pakistan, Kiyani was running around addressing open army durbars in order to avoid a mutiny, and our chief spook Pasha was actually offering to resign. What else would a good soldier think of at this time but to indulge in the time honored pastime of staging a coup. Makes perfect sense.

But wait, this is not all. Mr. Haqqani then goes and sleeps over this momentous task, has a Bram Stoker like nightmare and comes up with a perfect solution. Have to hand it to our dear James Bond in making, never do simply which you can complicate infinitely. Not for him the simple matter of calling up the White House or the Pentagon, no sir, our man had class . He contacts the most reliable person in the world, a certified CIA double agent, Mr. Mansoor Ijaz, who he then texts various self incriminating messages.

Mansoor Ijaz’s background makes for very interesting reading indeed. Crooks in the UK of the old favored running supermarkets or car maintenance garages as both provided ample opportunities for processing large amounts of money. Modern gentlemen of this ilk prefer to be investment bankers which Mansoor Ijaz is. He also has the dubious honor of having ties with ex CIA director James Woolsey and retired General James Abrahamson, former director of the Strategic Defense Initiative of President Regan. And he appears on FOX channel.

With a background like this, Mansoor Ijaz would have had difficulty getting credit from his neighborhood grocery store, but apparently had the fullest trust of Hussain Haqani.

The real nice piece in this whole saga is that our President, who has a direct line to the White House, allegedly goes on to make commitments to USA in the memo which would have Barak Obama rolling about in tears. It promises among others US oversight of our nuclear programme, handing over of jihadi’s sponsored by ISI, cooperation with our western neighbors on Mumbai attacks, disbanding of section “S” of ISI etc.

Oh, by the way, the memo is written on behalf of the National Security Team. Something which simply does not exist. But then when have facts stopped our spooks from spinning a real good yarn.

But the real fun is in the manner our Army has responded to all of this. General Pasha flew off to London to interview Mansoor Ijaz. The meeting naturally enough took place in the Intercontinental, Park Lane, London, where the good General had thankfully rented out a one bedroom suite at the very reasonable rate of £ 715 per night. This trip was off course undertaken without the unnecessary waste of time in getting any government approval. The army then went around expressing great indignation at this threat to national security.

This matter would have died a natural death, because of its sheer absurdity, but for one of our most well meaning, but severely mentally challenged, politician, if that’s the word, Mr. Nawaz Sharif. Our ex prime minister (twice) is one of those rare people who has an immaculate sense of timing. He always manages to do the right thing at the wrong time.

So what does Nawaz Sharif do, but go and petition the Supreme Court. Poor guy, he had hoped to get rid of Zardari and Kiyani at one go. This, as his other grand designs in the near past, will however remain a dream. All that he has managed to do is give the Army a perfect launch pad for a propaganda war against our elected leaders.

One goes weary looking at all this. But then we Pakistanis seem to have been marked out to have these tamashas on a regular basis. The bad news for the politicians, and us poor civilians, is that the Faujis are again going to have the last laugh on our expense. I fear the future is not looking too bright for the present political setup. The enthusiasm of the masses for the political process seems to have unnerved the military who have consistently bad mouthed politics and politicians for decades.

The latest on the court case is that the council for the defense. Ms. Asma Jehangir has withdrawn from the case, alleging undue influence on the honorable justices from the establishment. The establishment being an oblique reference to our dear friends in the uniform. Mr. Haqqani in the meantime remains holed up with the President or the Prime Minister claiming that his life is in danger if he ventures out.

Whatever happens in this saga next, one thing is sure. The merry-go-round is unlikely to slow down anytime soon.

I’ve written a good number of times here about how I admire what the Obama Administration has achieved in the teeth of vigorous – some might say fanatical – opposition from Republicans on the Hill and elsewhere, as well as from Democrats too, mostly those beholden to the fossil fuel special interests.  (Here are some observations along the way:   Obama’s Team, The White House Keeps Driving to the Hoop, Money Where Your Mouth Is Department, Obama and Copenhagen, Cars and Greenhouse Gases, and Taking the Bull by the Horns.)  As sincerely as I respect Joe Romm, I did not and do not subscribe to his contention that Barack Obama will have a failed presidency without having effected comprehensive climate and energy legislation.  (See comment #83.)

Barack Obama has taken at least one well-deserved hit from the environmental community in the past year:  when he quashed EPA’s tightening of the ozone standard.  I don’t have much use for John Broder at the NY Times – I think he takes every opportunity to take a hatchet to Obama and, for that matter, to environmental concerns – but he did tell a compelling story here on how the ozone rule failed for political reasons, cloaked as economic concerns.  (Never mind that a Supreme Court ruling expressly forbids the consideration of economic costs in determining National Ambient Air Quality Standards as the White House maintained in its ruling.  Antonin Scalia, for pity’s sake, wrote the opinion that included this conclusion:  “The EPA may not consider implementation costs in setting primary and secondary NAAQS under §109(b) of the CAA.”)

But the architect of that odd and unwelcome decision by the White House, Bill Daley, has resigned “to spend more time with his family.”  That is, of course, the tried and true euphemism for being forced out.  Politico puts it this way:   Bill Daley resignation: Greens say ‘good riddance’.  So that’s a good signal.

Another plus is that the President has banned uranium mining near the Grand Canyon.  As PlanetArk reports “The Pew group, the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, the Center for American Progress and other environmental and progressive groups applauded the decision as protecting the Colorado River watershed, which supplies drinking water for 25 million people.”  The right-wing Institute for Energy Research, funded by Koch Industries and ExxonMobil, among others, was outraged:  “This latest power-grab by federal regulators is another example of the Obama administration’s willingness to use ideologically driven energy policies as a means to control the U.S. economy.”  Oh dear!

I think you can so often gauge the quality of your decisions by who dislikes them.  This is true as well in the now-epic struggle over the Keystone XL project.  In the wake of the President’s decision in November to postpone a decision until 2013, the Republicans in the Congress held a gun to the nation’s head in pushing a rider to the payroll tax deal in December:  The President has until February 21^st to say yes or no to the pipeline.  The upshot, according to the White House?  “The House bill simply shortens the review process in a way that virtually guarantees that the pipeline will NOT be approved.”

Well, “The Hill” reports that business groups that environmentalists (like me) love to hate are lining up to try to intimidate the White House:  Business groups, Republicans launch onslaught on president over Keystone.  The ever-gracious Jack Gerard, head of the American Petroleum Institute, said Obama had to approve the pipeline or deal with “huge political consequences.”  There’s plenty of political cover available to the President, however, from venerable groups like the National Wildlife Federation:  “In our view, the national Chamber of Commerce’s support for the Keystone pipeline scam demonstrates once again that the Chamber is a pay-to-play operation that has been taken over by big oil companies.”  The Guardian goes farther in its reporting:  Oil lobby’s financial pressure on Obama over Keystone XL pipeline revealed.

Meanwhile, up in Canada, the Guardian also reports, a battle over another tar sands pipeline “turns ugly.”  The Canadian natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, has gone a bit bonkers it seems.  He “…let loose an extraordinary rant against opponents of a controversial project to pump tar sands crude to Pacific Coast ports on Monday, accusing campaigners of colluding with foreign ‘radicals’ and ‘jet-setting celebrities’ to hijack the government.”  Shades of Spiro Agnew.   What the worthy minister doesn’t wish to acknowledge is that there’s a broad-based, intense and growing opposition within Canada to the exploitation of the Alberta tar sands.  The First Nations, for example, are opposed.  See this from PlanetArk.

Joe Oliver accuses opponents of the Pacific pipeline and of the tar sands of  trying “…to undermine Canada’s national economic interest.”  How dare he make such an accusation is my reaction.  It is precisely the oil industry and their myrmidons in Ottawa that are undermining Canada’s national economic interest.  I wrote here in April of 2011 about an important series at The Vancouver Observer detailing how as “…Canadians dig deep to ease their carbon footprint, Alberta’s oil-sands pollution wipes out their sacrifice.”  Economic well being depends on diversity and sustainability, Mr. Oliver.  I guess you didn’t get the memo.

I believe the present administration in the White House did get it.           

By Harry Pasha:

Today is National Global Human Trafficking Awareness Day (NGHTAD), a a day of awareness and vigilance for the countless victims of human trafficking across the globe. Yet President Obama announced that this year, and every year hence forth, January will be known as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month (White House).

Therefore use this day and month to take action, promote awareness, and support those who have been victimized by modern slavery.  Make this the day that you fight to end a global plague that has stolen the freedoms of some 27 million men, women and children.  Be it via the internet or in your own city/town/village across the world, make today a day to remember those who have been victimized by modern slavery and who are unable to govern their own lives. We have it in our power to see that future generations of children are no longer at risk for exploration and slavery. Let us unite to end slavery  in our lifetime.

• There are some 27 million people held in slavery today across the globe.
• According to 2009 State Department Trafficking in Persons Report over 80% of those trans-nationally trafficked are women and children.
• The U.S. State department estimates that some 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year and about 80 percent of them are female and at least 50% are children.
• In 1850 a slave in the Southern United States cost the equivalent of $40,000 today. According to Free the Slaves, a slave today costs an average of $90.

If you suspect a situation or a potential victim, please call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline at 1-888-3737-888 now!  We highly recommend you take a moment to place this number in your mobile phones now.

*The awareness poster is available for free download via Bridge to Freedom Foundation, please see there site to download this poster as well as their two other awareness posters.

By Nida Khan for The Huffington Post

While many Muslims (and people outside the faith for that matter) were heavily embedded in a debate over the controversy surrounding hardware store Lowe’s and its recent decision to remove ads from TLC’s reality show All American Muslim, a more detrimental attack against their future was all but finalized. Reversing an earlier decision to veto provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2012, President Obama made the disturbing announcement that he would sign this legislation into law and thereby solidify the ability of the military and other factions to indefinitely detain anyone they deem an enemy of the state. And on New Year’s Eve, the President unfortunately made good on this promise with the stroke of his pen. At a time when the United States is grossly engaged in both active combat and covert drone campaigns in a multitude of Muslim nations, and when loosely defined terms like ‘terrorist’ can be arbitrarily thrown about, Muslims specifically — and all of society generally — shouldn’t take this disturbing development lightly.

In post-9/11 America, many have sadly grown accustomed and tolerant to routine practices of racial profiling, bias and even attacks against Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim. But in addition to blatant violence, workplace discrimination and subliminal acts of racism, Muslims have also become aware of another nuance that other Americans may not even realize exists — hesitation to give to charity. Because of fear that any charitable Muslim organization or mosque could suddenly be called out for links to a lone extremist faction (whether it’s justified or not), many pulled their money and cut back on donations to the extent that long-established charities found it virtually impossible to survive. Usually without any valid reason, many stopped supporting Muslim aide groups for the simple notion that anyone, anywhere could at any moment single out that organization and in turn put all those who gave money out of goodwill at risk for associating with them. The victims in all this? The impoverished and destitute in many “third world” countries.

At the same time, tragically, other active Muslims who were entrenched in the community or worked in an organizing capacity (much like our president once did for the disenfranchised), ceased their activities over trepidation as to how their efforts towards equality could one day be misconstrued for something nefarious. The climate of society forced many followers of the Islamic faith to alter their involvement on a plethora of levels. Even today, as forces like the NYPD keep Muslims under intrusive surveillance and continued cases of FBI entrapment emerge, many have stopped attending mosques or interacting too much within the community out of sheer apprehension over unwarranted government action. It is an unfortunate reflection of how marginalized groups often times suffer under the radar without a representative voice in government and in the mainstream.

Throughout modern history, we’ve had other instances of outrageous fear mongering, bias and injustice against those whose patriotism we questioned. Though it is rarely covered in classrooms, the internment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese and those of Japanese ancestry during WWII is a perfect example. Literally rounded up and “excluded” from living in the cities and towns they resided in, these “suspicious” individuals were interned in camps because their allegiance to the country “could not be determined.”

In 1950, at the height of the great red scare, Congress passed the Internal Security Act which required the American Communist Party, affiliated organizations and all ‘subversives’ to get fingerprinted and officially register with the Attorney General. This draconian law was so outrageous that then-President Harry Truman even vetoed it (though Congress overruled his veto in the end). The truly tragic and troubling thing about today’s NDAA is that President Obama isn’t even attempting to veto it anymore; he is instead giving it his stamp of approval. Even though the president stated that he has “serious reservations” regarding the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists, and even though he emphasizes that his administration will not indefinitely militarily detain American citizens without trial, what happens after he is no longer in office? Future leaders of the free world, after all, have absolutely no obligation to honor Obama’s signing statement, nor follow in his footsteps.

Yes, our first African American president has changed much of the vitriolic language used when covering the topic of terrorism, and yes he has taken great caution to ensure that Muslims and terror itself are not juxtaposed together. For that, he should be commended. But by finalizing the ability of any president to deem persons — including U.S. citizens (if they so interpret this bill) — an enemy that could then be indefinitely detained without charge or without trial, he sets into motion a frightening precedent. As a former constitutional law professor, President Obama should be inherently aware of the impending ramifications.

During the struggle for civil rights, many journalists, activists and those vocal citizens working alongside Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and other leaders suddenly found themselves targeted for their activities. Countless advocates became political prisoners and others saw their careers and lives ruined. Now at a time when we already have legislation like the Patriot Act renewed, and warrantless wiretapping is openly put into practice, this defense act not only indoctrinates AUMF (2001 Authorization for use of Military Force) and many activities that were previously in existence, but it also leaves open the possibility of silencing anyone on a level with which we never even imagined.

As American Muslims, we’re happy that some are starting to ease the negative imaging and stereotyping against us, and are instead open to learning more about what the Islamic faith truly stands for. As a routinely alienated group, we’re overly ecstatic when a program like All American Muslim actually portrays us in a light other than that of some extremist radical. But while we should embrace the boycott of Lowe’s for its open bigotry, and praise folks like Russell Simmons for stepping up to the plate to purchase ads for the program, we should put just as much focus into the potential of someone like a Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum taking over the White House and having full reign to detain whomever he pleases. Just remember the Bush-era verbiage of “you’re either with us or against us” and the atmosphere of intolerance that permeated under his presidency, and couple that with the ability of someone with his mentality being able to willfully determine any one of us a “traitor,” lock us up and throw away the key.

If Muslims scaled back their activities in the community and their charitable donations out of paranoia over the unrealistic possibility of being tied to something suspicious, just imagine the fear that will ensue if anyone can be instantly and militarily detained over accusations where the burden of proof won’t even be on the accuser. It is indeed an alarming scenario that can (and in all likelihood will) give new meaning to the term reality — no TV required.

Nida Khan is an independent journalist and producer working in print, radio and TV. As a news correspondent for WRKS 98.7 Kiss FM NY, she has covered everything from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign to protests for the defense of Sean Bell.

Filed under: American Muslims, Democracy, Freedoms, Islam, Muslims, President Obama, United States, US Commission on International Religious Freedom Tagged: All American Muslims, American Muslims, Civil Rights, George W. Bush, Islamophobia, Lowe’s, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, Muslim Americans, Muslim Charities, National Defense Authorization Act, Newt Gingrich, NYPD, Patriot Act, President Obama, Racial Discrimination, Rick Santorum, TLC

By Len Hart

In our lifetimes, the best and brightest have been snuffed before our very eyes by the cowardly, unseen, shadowy exercise of pure evil and rotten ambition. The most prominent victims are John F. Kennedy who was, at the time, President of the United States, Robert Kennedy, a former U.S. Attorney General and candidate for his party’s Presidential nomination, Dr,. Martin Luther Kr whose ‘dream’ while liberating to right thinking persons was, in fact, a gauntlet thrown down in front of those who dare to enslave us. Those benefiting most from JFKs murder are most certainly guilty of it. It’s a question of motive, method and opportunity. The American right wing had all three. An analysis of the motives reveal a pattern, a constituency supporting murder as a means of achieving ‘regime change’.

JFK tried to strip the power of the FED, abolish the Oil Depletion Allowance, and ‘smash the CIA into a thousand pieces’. No President since has dared piss off so many powerful and ruthless people.

JFK tried to strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the government at interest. The move would have by passed the Fed by restoring to the government the power and authority to issue currency. Executive Order 11110 gave the US government the ability to create its own money –backed by silver! It just might have put the FED out of business.

Some background and basic economics: to pay it’s bills, the US government borrows money from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Federal Reserve Notes are not backed up by anything. ‘Silver certificates’ issued under the authority of JFKs order would have been backed up by government owned silver. The government would no longer borrow from the FED to pay its obligations. It would have done so with ‘silver certificates’ issued by the government itself.

Like any commodity, Federal Reserve notes are subject to the laws of supply and demand. The demand for Federal Reserve notes might have collapsed altogether and the FED itself might have been forced out of business.

Executive Order 11110 could have prevented the national debt from reaching its current level. It would have would have made it possible for the government to repay its debt without having to borrow worthless ‘notes’ from the Fed and having to repay them later at interest.

Executive Order 11110 was never repealed. One wonders why no other President ever bothered to utilize it. Could it have had anything to do with the fact that JFKs order made him very, very unpopular throughout the banking establishment? In fact, JFK was brutally murdered in Dallas just five months after issuing the order. No more silver certificates were issued. The FED’s gravy train was still intact.

The ‘scheme’ preferred by the Fed allows the Fed to create money which it loans to the government at interest. The private Federal Reserve owners don’t have a trillion dollars to lend the Government, nor do they need it. All they do is create it, via a bookkeeping entry, and write a check to the U.S. Government as the loan in exchange for the U.S. Bonds. The U.S. Government banks at the Federal Reserve Bank so cashing this check is very easy.

It’s a scheme, possibly a scam. Certainly –no hard currency is exchanged. Government agents are never seen walking out of the FED offices –under armed guard –carrying bullion, coins, or, indeed, anything of real value. The Fed makes an ‘entry’ in the books! The government makes an entry in its books! And you thought you had to work hard to make money!

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
–Thomas Jefferson

JFK Threatened to Repeal the ‘Oil Depletion Allowance’!

It’s always been about the ‘price of oil’ at the wellhead and the profits that accrue to ‘big oil’! Having grown up in Texas, I can vouch for the following very short, illustrative history: "Ross Sterling, the former owner of Humble Oil, was elected governor of Texas and took office on 20th January, 1931. The Texas Railroad Commission, under the control of the large oil producers, attempted to limit the production of oil (prorationing) in the new fields of East Texas. On 31st July, 1931, the federal court in Houston sided with a group of independent oil producers and ruled that the Texas Railroad Commission had no right to impose prorationing."

Large oil companies in Texas such as Humble Oil were in favour of prorationing and Sterling came under great pressure to intervene. On 16th August, 1931, Sterling declared martial law in Rusk, Upshur, Gregg and Smith counties. In his proclamation Sterling declared that the independent oil producers in these counties were "in a state of insurrection" and that the "reckless and illegal exploitation of (oil) must be stopped until such time as the said resources may be properly conserved and developed under the protection of the civil authorities".
Sterling now ordered the commander of the Texas National Guard, Jacob F. Wolters, to "without delay shut down each and every producing crude oil well and/or producing well of natural gas". Wolters who was the chief lobbyist of several major oil companies in Texas, readily agreed to this action. Wolters used more than a thousand troops to make sure that the oil wells in East Texas ceased production. The Texas Railroad Commission was now in firm control of the world’s most prolific oil fields. It now controlled the supply of the oil in the United States. As a result, the price of oil began to increase." –Texas Oil Industry and the Assassination of JFK

Humble later became "Exxon". It is not only prices but profits. Big oil was literally guaranteed huge profits by another bit of accounting legerdemain: the oil depletion allowance. the ‘oil depletion allowance’ is like depreciation but more abstract. Depreciation is often visible. Machines wear out, the loss of utility is real. From an accounting standpoint, the ‘oil depletion allowance’ is just a whopping write off, literally a pay off for the oil you will not find later! Now –how would like to be paid now for the money you won’t make later when the business you’re in now is no longer profitable?

Sweet deal, perhaps even better than the ‘sweet deal’ the FED got. I can think of no other industry that has managed to so effectively shake down the government. I can think of few businesses in which you are paid upfront the money you will not make at some point in the future.

By 1962, JFK sealed his fate. He decided to take on the Texas oil industry. He persuaded Congress to ‘remove the distinction between repatriated profits and profits reinvested abroad’. The law applied to all industries but seemed to affect the oil industry particularly. Texas oil fat cats watched earnings from foreign investments fall by one half –or from 30 per cent to 15 per cent.

As President, LBJ, abandoned plans to abolish the oil industry’s sacred cow, the cow it regularly milked. The oil depletion allowance was not disallowed until the Presidency of Jimmy Carter who is still reviled in Texas. One would never suspect that Carter is among the TOP Presidents in terms of economic performance. At that, Carter is among the fortunate; it is only his ‘record’ that has been assassinated.

JFK Threatend to ‘smash the CIA into a thousand pieces’

We know that the CIA had conspired with ‘cuban exiles’ in Florida to assist in the invasion of Cuba. Both entities acted without authorization from the government, without a declaration of war from Congress which alone has the power to declare war –or so says that ‘goddamned piece of paper’, the US constitution.

Certainly, because of Cuba, the CIA was more motivated to murder JFK than was Lee Harvey Oswald. The CIA saw Kennedy as a threat to "national security" and, from the CIA/Cuban exile perspective, he proved it when he refused to order air support during the Bay of Pigs invasion. The axis of CIA/Cuban exiles never forgave JFK this ‘act of betrayal’.

It is at this time in our history that the name George Bush comes up. It was in 1959 –the year that Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba–that George Bush set up Zapata Offshore in a Houston headquarters.

George must have been a frequent visitor to New Orleans. Because of his family’s estate on Jupiter Island, he would also have been a frequent visitor to the Hobe Sound area. And then, there were Zapata Offshore drilling operations in the Florida Strait. On all of these activities, the official "red Studebaker" biographical material and the Zapata Offshore annual reports are extremely cryptic.
…

According to Joseph McBride of The Nation, "a source with close connections to the intelligence community confirms that Bush started working for the agency in 1960 or 1961, using his oil business as a cover for clandestine activities." 1 By the time of the Kennedy assassination, we have an official FBI document which refers to "Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency," and despite official disclaimers there is every reason to think that this is indeed the man in the White House today. The mystery of George Bush as a possible covert operator hinges on four points, each one of which represents one of the great political and espionage scandals of postwar American history. These four cardinal points are:

The abortive Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, launched on April 16-17, 1961, prepared with the assistance of the CIA’s "Miami Station" (also known under the code name JM/WAVE). After the failure of the amphibious landings of Brigade 2506, Miami station, under the leadership of Theodore Shackley, became the focus for Operation Mongoose, a series of covert operations directed against Castro, Cuba, and possibly other targets.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and the coverup of those responsible for this crime. The Watergate scandal, beginning with an April, 1971 visit to Miami, Florida by E. Howard Hunt on the tenth anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion to recruit operatives for the White House Special Investigations Unit (the "Plumbers" and later Watergate burglars) from among Cuban-American Bay of Pigs veterans.
The Iran-contra affair, which became a public scandal during October-November 1986, several of whose central figures, such as Felix Rodriguez, were also veterans of the Bay of Pigs.

George Bush’s role in both Watergate and the October surprise/Iran-contra complex will be treated in detail at later points in this book. Right now it is important to see that thirty years of covert operations, in many respects, form a single continuous whole. This is especially true in regard to the dramatis personae. Georgie Anne Geyer points to the obvious in a recent book: "…an entire new Cuban cadre now emerged from the Bay of Pigs.

The names Howard Hunt, Bernard Barker, Rolando Martinez, Felix Rodriguez and Eugenio Martinez would, in the next quarter century, pop up, often decisively, over and over again in the most dangerous American foreign policy crises.

There were Cubans flying missions for the CIA in the Congo and even for the Portuguese in Africa; Cubans were the burglars of Watergate; Cubans played key roles in Nicaragua, in Irangate, in the American move into the Persian Gulf." 2 Felix Rodriguez tells us that he was infiltrated into Cuba with the other members of the "Grey Team" in conjunction with the Bay of Pigs landings; this is the same man we will find directing the contra supply effort in central American during the 1980′s, working under the direct supervision of Don Gregg and George Bush. 3 Theodore Shackley, the JM/WAVE station chief, will later show up in Bush’s 1979-80 presidential campaign.
…
This FBI document identifying George Bush as a CIA agent in November, 1963 was first published by Joseph McBride in The Nation in July, 1988, just before Bush received the Republican nomination for president. McBride’s source observed: "I know [Bush] was involved in the Caribbean. I know he was involved in the suppression of things after the Kennedy assassination. There was a very definite worry that some Cuban groups were going to move against Castro and attempt to blame it on the CIA."
–Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography — by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, CHAPTER VIII-b – THE BAY OF PIGS AND THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION

I recently quoted Albert Speer’s summation of the Third Reich which, for so long, he served admirably with the best fascist architecture Reichsmarks could buy! Speer summed up the Third Reich. He said that it had been built upon hollow, meaningless platitudes. The same can be said of the GOP in America: "George Bush’s inaugural address of January 21, 1989, was on the whole an eminently colorless and forgettable oration. The speech was for the most part a rehash of the tired demagogy of Bush’s election campaign, with the ritual references to "a thousand points of light" and the hollow pledge that when it came to the drug inundation which Bush had supposedly been fighting for most of the decade…
Bush’s performance during the Panama crisis was especially ominous because of the president’s clearly emerging mental imbalance. Several outbursts during the Noriega press conferences had resembled genuine public fits. Racist and sexual obsessions were reaching critical mass in Bush’s subconscious. These gross phenomena did not receive the attention they would have merited from journalists, television commentators, and pundits, who rather preferred studiously to ignore them. It was during these waning days of 1989 that Bush’s mental disintegration became unmistakeable, foreshadowing the greater furors yet to come." — Chapter XXIII, The End of History

How will we remember the ‘presidency’ since the murder of JFK? I will remember these years for what was not accomplished because JFK was murdered –the dreams that are still unfulfilled, the hopes that were dashed! I will remember an era of GOP dominance distinguished by its celebration of mediocrity. I will remember a GOP that rewarded crookery and made of evil a banality. It took a horrible war and millions of deaths to crush the Third Reich! What will it take to crush the oppressive GOP dominion of some fifty years? Please tell me! We have work to do.