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J'accuse - Patrick Fitzgerald! You didn't do your job either!
You remember him, the supposedly squeaky clean U.S. Attorney who was going to get the slackers responsible for outing CIA agent Valerie Plame. Yeah, that guy.
He's prosecuting the flamboyant former governor of Illinois right now, the still honorable and innocent Rod Blagojevich. The case is being tried in in the United States District Court in Chicago. You won't believe the charges: 1) devising and participating in a scheme "to defraud the State of Illinois and the people of the State of Illinois of (his) honest services" and 2) offering a contract to the Chicago Tribune to dump some editorial writers critical of his administration.
Rights groups call for investigation of Israeli attack on flotilla
Mary Shaw
On May 31, Israeli troops attacked a flotilla headed to Gaza with humanitarian aid supplies. According to the Free Gaza Movement, which organized the flotilla, the six boats were carrying more than 10,000 tons of aid and about 600 passengers from more than 20 countries.
On one of the boats, the scene got ugly and violent, and at least nine people died.
Israel says that its troops were acting in self-defense. According to CNN, "the Israel Defense Forces said its troops 'were met with premeditated violence, evident by the activists' use of clubs, metal rods, and knives, as well as the firing of two weapons stolen from the soldiers.' It said troops responded with 'defensive action on behalf of the forces who felt their lives were endangered.'"
But the human rights group Amnesty International (AI) suspects that the Israeli troops overreacted. "Israeli forces appear clearly to have used excessive force," said Malcolm Smart, AI's director for the Middle East and North Africa. "Israel says its forces acted in self-defense, alleging that they were attacked by protestors, but it begs credibility that the level of lethal force used by Israeli troops could have been justified. It appears to have been out of all proportion to any threat posed." So AI has called for an independent inquiry into the incident.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) agrees. "A prompt, credible, and impartial investigation is absolutely essential to determine whether the lethal force used by Israeli commandos was necessary to protect lives and whether it could have been avoided," said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East director.
And they are not alone.
Canada's War on Islam: The Case of Mohamed Harkat
by Stephen Lendman
Like in America post-9/11, Canadian Muslims have been victimized, vilified, and persecuted for their faith, ethnicity, prominence, and activism. They've been targeted, hunted down, rounded up, held in detention, kept in isolation, denied bail, restricted in their right to counsel, tried on secret evidence, convicted or incriminated on bogus charges, given long sentences and incarcerated as political prisoners or deported to certain torture, imprisonment or death by so-called democratic countries that, in fact, mock the rule of law and judicial fairness.
Israeli’s Nuclear Policy: From South Africa to Iran
James Petras
On May 24, 2010, the Guardian (U.K.) published a highly confidential document released by the South African government. The 1975 document reveals a secret military agreement signed by Shimon Peres, Israel’s Foreign Minister at the time (and today Israel’s President) and South Africa’s Defense Minister P. W. Botha. Israel offered to sell the apartheid regime, weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical and conventional weaponry to destroy and defeat the million person African resistance movement. The Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organization, immediately set in motion the Lying Machine claiming the official minutes of the Israeli nuclear offer and a far reaching agreement on military ties between two apartheid regimes were merely a “conversation” (sic) and that Israel did not “make an offer”.[1] Then without blinking Israel’s apologists went on to contradict themselves by speculating that a nuclear agreement would not have had the approval of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (Daily Alert May 25, 2010). The documents were discovered by a US academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in South African archives and are published in his book, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Alliance with Apartheid South Africa. Apparently the Israeli’s regime thought the documents were more than a “conversation” because they pressured the post-apartheid South African government not to release them.[2]
Jim Webb's DADT mistake
Mary Shaw
The U.S. Congress is moving towards a repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy which keeps gay and lesbian service members in the closet lest they be discharged from duty. It's about time.
On May 28, the House passed an annual Pentagon policy provision that "would allow the Defense Department to end the ban 60 days after military leaders receive a report on the ramifications of openly gay and lesbian soldiers and certify that doing so would not disrupt the armed forces," according to the New York Times.
The previous day, the Senate Armed Service Committee had passed the measure, which will go to the full Senate floor soon.
Brave Israeli Commandos Slaughter Aid Activists at Sea
by Stephen Lendman
Even America's major media can't duck a crime this grave - attacking and slaughtering up to 20 Gaza Freedom Flotilla activists and injuring dozens more.
New York Times writer Isabel Kershner headlined "At Least 10 Killed as Israel Intercepts Aid Flotilla, saying:
"The Israeli Navy raided a flotilla carrying thousands of tons of supplies for Gaza in international waters on Monday morning....The incident drew widespread international condemnation, with Israeli envoys summoned to explain their country's actions in several European countries....The killings also coincided with preparations for a planned visit to Washington on Tuesday (June 1) by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu."
Memorial Day 2010: War Doesn’t Make Cents
By Robert Singer
Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for the 620,000 Americans who died because our beloved President Lincoln wanted to end our right of self-determination.
Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.
Shelby Foote, notable historian of the Civil War, believed that government “of and by and for the people” (a republic) would not have perished from the earth if the south had won the civil war (The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, Thomas DiLorenzo).
Wars throughout history are generally thought to be for fought so that a powerful group of elite, aka The Powers That Be (TPTB) can make (print) more money.
The profane (common man) believes that the greedy immoral debased monsters, whose faces are stained with the blood of millions of innocent human beings, foment wars throughout history so they can make a profit.
War is 100% evil but greed, I am not so sure.
The Freedom Flotilla in the face of the Nazis of our time
Commentary by Khalid Amayreh
As I write these words, around Sunday’s midnight, 30 May, 2010, some of the most noble men and women under the sun are sailing toward Gaza in rough seas in a gesture of hope and selfless love that is meant to say to the people of Gaza “You are not alone.”
Needless to say, these brave men and women, these known and unknown soldiers deserve our utmost admiration and appreciation. They are acting on behalf of humanity, a humanity that has nearly succumbed to callous apathy and criminal indifference toward its weak and its poor.
Eroding Free Expression in Israel
by Stephen Lendman
This writer's earlier article exposed how Israel restricted free expression protests to suppress opposition to its Gaza war. It covered efforts by the police, State Prosecutor's Office, General Security Services (GSS), the courts, and academic institutions to support arrests and imprisonments of Israeli Arabs and Jewish protestors, to keep nonviolent resistance from spreading.
See the complete article at: http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/01/isaeli-prohibitions-against-free.html.
Press Release from Free Gaza flotilla en route to Gaza
From (www.redress.cc)
"Free Gaza flotilla welcomed by Israeli warships, prepares for boarding by Israeli commandoes"
(Cyprus, 31 May 2010) At 2300 Cyprus time and in international waters off the coast of Israel, the boats were contacted by the Israeli navy. “Who are you and where are you going?” Our reply was that we were part of a flotilla and we were going to Gaza to deliver humanitarian supplies.
On the radar, the boats could see three Israeli warships shadowing us, and 15 minutes later, a silent aircraft hovered over the flotilla.
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