Minority Perspective

Kidney Transplant Patient Detained Again

Mark Watson — Sat, 19 May 2012 09:19:33 +0000

By Esmé Madill ©

Roseline Akhalu was detained once again on 16 May 2012 and is at risk of deportation to Nigeria, where doctors warn she will die if she cannot afford medical care.

Ms Akhalu developed end stage renal failure unexpectedly while she was at the University of Leeds on a study visa. In July 2009 she underwent a kidney transplant at Leeds General Infirmary and she needs to be maintained on immunosuppressant drugs if she is to live.

Ms Akhalu’s Consultant, Dr R J Baker, has stated in a letter dated 22nd November 2010 to her former Member of Parliament Fabian Hamilton, that unless Ms Akhalu is able to continue taking her required medication, her transplant kidney will die and she would have to resort to dialysis again. Since she cannot afford the cost of this treatment, the consequence of removing Ms Akhalu would be fatal within a matter of months or even weeks.

Ms Akhalu has never been allowed to work, but since 2007 she has been supported by parishioners from St Augustine’s RC Church, Harehills and the St Vincent de Paul Society in Leeds.

Roseline is much loved and respected by her fellow parishioners and many people in the wider community. In spite of her health problems, Roseline has volunteered tirelessly in the parish and is actively involved in a number of community-based groups.

When she was last taken to Yarl’s Wood Roseline was forbidden from using any toilet facilities by her Reliance escorts. After this degrading treatment, which is the subject of an official complaint, on Wednesday this week she was again transported with Reliance escorts, and is now in Yarl’s Wood detained far from her doctors, friends and supporters at considerable cost to the tax payer. No removal directions have been set and the decision to detain was made without knowledge of the listing of her oral permission hearing, leaving her lawyer Hani Zubeidi to declare:

‘to detain under those circumstances is bewildering.’

Roseline’s MP Greg Mullholland and the Right Reverend John Packer, Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, have both expressed their support for Roseline. Greg Mulholland has stated:

‘The way that the UKBA have handled Roseline’s case has been totally unacceptable, especially given her severe medical condition. The most recent detention, given that she already has an appeal hearing set for the 24 July, is simply a disgrace. Roseline should be released immediately and I have contacted Damian Green, Minister for Immigration, requesting that this happen.’

Dr James Tattersall, one of Roseline’s consultants at St James Hospital in Leeds is gravely concerned that she will miss her clinic appointment on 23 May if she is not released. He writes:

‘Roseline has broken no laws. Her kidney failure is not cause by anything she could control. We saved her life by dialysis and transplant while she was visiting the UK. If we send her back to Nigeria, she will not live long, our efforts and generosity will be wasted. Others facing less provable danger are given asylum. Be generous, let Roseline stay.’

Esmé Madill, is a consultant in the not for profit sector, works with Shpresa Programme and the Women’s Therapy Centre.

Whoops! Coming End of US Wars for Wall St. – Demonstrators Indicting Not Protesting

Mark Watson — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 09:33:56 +0000

By Jay Janson©

Nuremberg Trials: looking down on the defendants' dock. Ca. 194 by from Marion Doss.

Former Veterans For Peace Director Elliot Adams and the Coalition to Ground the Drones indict military and personnel of Hancock, NY Drone Air Force Base along with their chain of command up through Obama. History of the court of public opinion’s power. Goals of the new Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign noted.

In this age of instant world wide personal communication, once calls for prosecution of government officials ordering murderous attacks in vulnerable nations begin they will spread and sweep the world.

Former Veterans For Peace President Elliot Adams wrote an indictment of the military and workers of Hancock NY Drone Air Force Base. It was read by three women from The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones, who were able to reach the air bases entrance gate, a few days ago. Elliot Adams had been arrested with others while marching toward the base.

“Indictment of the Drone Warriors“

‘To the Service Members of Hancock Air Base, Each one of you, when you joined the United States Armed Forces or police, publicly promised to uphold the United States Constitution. We … call your attention to Article VI of the Constitution, which states in the supremacy clause, that, without exception, treaties shall be the supreme Law of the Land.

One Treaty duly ratified by the US is the United Nations Charter. It was agreed to by a vote of 89 to 2 in the US Senate, and signed by the President, in 1945. It remains in effect today. As such, it is the supreme law of the land.

The preamble of the UN Charter states that ‘all nations shall refrain from the use of force against an another nation.’

This Treaty applies both collectively and individually to all members of the US armed forces, who have sworn to uphold the Constitution, which includes Article VI. Under the UN Charter and long established international laws, anyone – citizen, military, politician, or judge, – that knowingly engages in illegal use of force against another nation is committing a war crime.

Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice of the U.S., you are required to disobey any clearly unlawful order from a superior.

We charge that the Air National Guard of the United States of America, headquartered at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base, home of the 174th Fighter Wing of the Air National Guard, under the command of 174th Fighter Wing Commander Colonel Greg Semmel, is maintaining and deploying the MQ-9 Reaper robotic aircraft.

Extrajudicial targeted killings such as the U.S. carries out by unmanned aircraft drones are intentional, premeditated, and deliberate use of lethal force in violation of US and international human rights law.

It is a matter of public record that the US has used drones for targeted killings in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and Pakistan, with no rigorous criteria for deciding which people are targeted for killing, no procedural safeguards to ensure the legality and accuracy of the killings, and no mechanisms of accountability.

The drone attacks either originating at this base or supported here are a deliberate illegal use of force against another nation, and as such are a felonious violation of Article VI of the US Constitution.

By giving material support to the drone program, you as individuals are violating the Constitution, dishonoring your oath, and committing war crimes.

We charge the chain of command, from President Barack Obama, to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, to Commander Colonel Greg Semmel, to every drone crew, to every service member supporting or defending these illegal actions, with the following crimes: extrajudicial killings, violation of due process, wars of aggression, violation of national sovereignty, and the killing of innocent civilians.

We demand that they immediately stop these crimes, and be accountable to the people of the United States and Afghanistan, …

Nuremberg Principles l — Vll, and by Conscience, to refuse to participate in these crimes, to denounce them and to resist them nonviolently.

As citizens of this nation, which maintains over 700 military bases around the globe, and the largest, most deadly military arsenal in the world, we believe these words of Martin Luther King still hold true, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government.” There is hope for a better world when WE THE PEOPLE hold our government accountable to the laws and treaties that govern the use of lethal force and war.

Let all accused in this indictment understand that our words are spoken nonviolently. All are invited to stop the use of drones and refuse to participate in illegal warfare.

Signed by, the Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars” [published by David Swanson, 22 April 2012 in War is a Crime.]‘

Since Truman, presidents of the US National Security State have felt themselves securely above the law in ordering unconstitutional, illegal, undeclared murderous wars in nations anywhere they were advised to.

Obama, though himself a lawyer and therefore precisely aware of the criminal nature of his acts, is no exception. No president before him has been so audacious in preposterously proclaiming the sanctity of the deadly military attacks he has ordered, appearing oblivious to the possibility of future prosecution and punishment.

Corporate controlled media has reinforced the idea that all US wars are above prosecution. Thus everyone participating in this brutal national behavior of taking lives daily, year in year out, feels reassured their participation is not criminal. Kids dutifully pulling the triggers, their parents willingly paying their war supporting taxes, the media personalities knowingly bending the truth to work up public fears and war acceptance, the leaders of organized clergy devilishly calling wars on poor people just, and the financiers behind the wars all try to relax and void their conscience of feelings of guilt.

However there have been many citizen indictments during these sixty-three years of US undeclared wars that bode some reason for alarm among those involved in crimes against humanity. Here below, are noted but a few.

- Quite a number of US soldiers have faced trial for atrocities committed.

- The world has learned that Chief Nuremberg Prosecutor Telford Taylor once said he would have been proud to prosecute the US pilots shot down while bombing cities in Vietnam. GOP Vice-presidential candidate Sen. John McCain was one of those pilots shot down.

- Now, Veterans For Peace, once tough young men tricked into serving murder incorporated for Wall St. shaming themselves and their country are indicting participants in these criminal wars of mass homicide.

- Mothers like Cindy Sheehan, painfully suffering from regret for not preventing their sons from entering the military, lead bitter public condemnation of their public officials.

- Cardinal Spellman is identified in history books as a key proponent of the Vietnam war that Rev. Martin Luther King prosecuted in the court of public opinion as an atrocity.

- At Nuremberg, five Nazi media personalities were tried and sentenced. One was hung.

- Financier David Rockefeller’s close confidants and high appointed war-running officials, the Dulles brothers are now clearly documented in encyclopedias as master war criminals; his Henry Kissinger, now careful where he travels to avoid arrest, was sued in a District Court as an accomplice to murder; Rockefeller cohort Zbigniew Brzezinski tries to excuse his bragging of being responsible for covert CIA attack in Afghanistan to frighten the Soviets in.

- “Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been stripped of legal immunity for acts of torture against US citizens authorized while he was in office. The 7th Circuit Court made the ruling.” [Welcome to Boston, Mr. Rumsfeld. You Are Under Arrest , Global Research , 9/20/2011]

- “Former US Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Elizabeth, have canceled a planned speaking engagement at Toronto’s Metro Convention Centre next month … “He felt that in Canada the risk of violent protest was simply too high. They specifically referenced what happened in Vancouver.” A fierce protest of Cheney’s speech in British Columbia last September necessitated the use of Vancouver riot police and kept Cheney locked inside the speaking venue for seven hours while crowds were dispersed.” Who’s Afraid of War Crimes Prosecution? Cheney Cancels Canada , Global Research , Canada, 5/19/2012

- “Amnesty International called on Canadian authorities Wednesday to arrest and prosecute George W. Bush, saying the former US president authorized “torture” when he directed the US-led war on terror.” [Amnesty calls on Canada to arrest Bush, AFP 13, 2011]

- “there is no longer any doubt as to whether the [Bush] administration has committed war crimes.” said Major General Antonio Taguba, who led the official Army investigation into Abu Ghraib Prison torture, in his report of September 19, 2011

In his mind, does Obama dismiss internationally highly regarded MIT professor, Noam Chomsky’s recently reiterated prescient warning that “Every US President since WW II, if they had brought to trial under the Nuremberg Principles set of laws and convicted, could have been hung?”

This writer imagines a somewhat older Ex-President Obama one day telling a judge and jury “I had no choice.” [but to keep murdering all those men, women and children in nearly a half-dozen nations for more than a decade] “We were attacked on 9/11.”

… And the prosecutor answering, ‘But while you illegally ordered the mass destruction of human beings in so many other nations, you knew the 9/11 suicide attack was carried out and funded by citizens of a US ally, Saudi Arabia, which you never ordered bombed.’

All Americans, who have participated in cruel and inhuman US wars in nations still suffering impoverishment from more than a century of conquest, exploitation and plundering by the investment bank run empires of Europe and America, take heed. There is a now a campaign titled Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now that features, following the examples of peoples historian Howard Zinn and Martin Luther King Jr., an educational country-by-country history of US crimes.

If the world superpower of the moment can prosecute other leaders of governments for crimes, like it did Slobodan Milosovitch and its own wayward agents, Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein, and if an ally like Spain can arrest and extradite US darling Gen. Augusto Pinochet, ex-dictator of Chile, it should not be inconceivable that the world suffering US wars for its Wall Street investments for more than six decades, will one day prosecute US leaders, if for no other reason, for some measure of compensation and restitution.

When such prosecution happens, all adult American citizens will feel the condemnation in the eyes of the citizens of the many nations invaded, bombed and otherwise attacked over more than a half century. For as the demonstrators indictment of ordinary servicemen and personnel of the drone base in New York would seem to indicate, it takes the collaboration of the whole nation to be able to make war on so many many countries over a period of more than a half century.

http://prosecuteuscrimesagainsthumanitynow.blogspot.com/

Article originally publish and headlined by OpEdNews, 4/26/2012

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Jay Janson, 80, archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; lived, worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and the US; now resides in NYC;. Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his. GlobalResearch, InformationClearingHouse, CounterCurrents, Minority Perspective, UK; DissidentVoice, OpEdNews, HistoryNewsNetwork and others have published his articles. Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; articles China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign http://kingcondemneduswars.blogspot.com/ and creator of the Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign http://prosecuteuscrimesagainsthumanitynow.blogspot.com/

which features a country by country history of US crimes. He studied history at CCNY, Columbia U., U. Puerto Rico, Dolmetscher Institut München; Germany; Korean National University of Arts, Seoul; Radiotelevisione italiana, Rome; Zagreb Radiotelevision,Yugoslavia; Hong Kong Arts Academy.

A “Paki Papist”, and a “tribal…African chief” The racist comments of Church of England leaders revealed

Mark Watson — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 11:17:58 +0000

Dr John Sentamu has sold out race for high office.

With Ugandan born Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu set to be in the front running for the new Archbishop of Canterbury post, it has been revealed that white church elders have made racist comments in reference to Asian and Black colleagues such as referring to one Asian Reverend as a “Paki Papist”, and to Dr Sentamu as a “tribal…African chief.”

Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York is the only black bishop in the church of England. He has been very outspoken about racism throughout his career, accusing the church of England as being institutionally racist back in 1999. (Read Church of England accused of racism: BBC: Tuesday, July 13, 1999)

Dr Sentamu is one of the favourites to become the new Archbishop of Canterbury, however his former aide, Rev Arun Arora, told the Daily Telegraph that there is a covert campaign to undermine Dr Sentamu’s chances of becoming the first black Archbishop of Canterbury. (Read Archbishop of York victim of ‘naked racism’, claims ally: By Richard Eden, and Edward Malnick:21 April, 2012)

Rev Arora said that Dr Sentamu has been subjected to “naked racism”, saying “At worst, it has elicited the naked racism which still bubbles under the surface in our society, and which is exposed when a black man is in line to break the chains of history.”

The Daily Telegraph spoke of an unidentified cleric in 2002, who referred to Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, then Bishop of Rochester, as a “Paki Papist”, and the racist comments from white church elders towards Asian and Black colleagues does not end there either.

Two bishops spoke to the Sunday Telegraph anonymously and their views were shocking.

One said:

“I think Sentamu is clearly going to be a very strong front-runner, although I think there are also the people who are not quite sure that he is suitable in terms of the way he behaves, because he is quite tribal and the African chief thing comes through.

“My preferred candidate would be [the Bishop of] Norwich, who is very level-headed, sensible and would actually do the job well and has a lot more kind of stability. You wouldn’t know where you were with Sentamu, whereas you would with Norwich.”

The second bishop who was retired said, “There is something in Sentamu which retains his African views and approach, which can be at one time an asset and another time can be a problem.” Here he was referring to Dr Sentamu’s opposition to same sex marriages. Going by the bishop’s view then the Catholic church as well as many other Christian denominations who are against same sex marriages must also ‘retain his African views’.

Dr Sentamu denies racism

In a quite surprising and remarkable u-turn Dr Sentamu denied that he has ever gone through racism from church members but insisted that the racism he experienced was from outside the church. (Read Archbishop says he has never experienced racism: Northern Echo By Emily Flanagan: Monday, 23 April, 2012)

When Dr Sentamu accused the church of institutional racism back in 1999, who then was he referring to? Dr Sentamu actually said, that the church in general “maintained a white educated elite at its core which did not reflect the make-up of the congregation.” Did he forget this statement? The conclusion can be drawn that Dr Sentamu has backed down from his racial stance to win favour and support for the Archbishop of Canterbury position.

The church in the UK has along history of racism towards black and minority ethnic believers. When I wrote this article Black pastor to take on BNP leader in live debate, I mentioned Reverend Rajinder Daniel, one of the first priests from an ethnic minority to be ordained in the Church of England, who condemned racism in church. In a radio interview with BBC’s Radio Leicester, Sandra Herbert, Rev Daniel said “The church is racist to the core and continues to be today. I have been turned down by at least three parishes because they wanted a white priest…I have been turned down for funerals, weddings and baptisms.” (Read Retiring priest hits out at ‘racist’ church: BBC: 29 August, 2001)

In the same article I spoke about how the British National Party (BNP) felt bold enough to target white Christians with digital posters and billboards on London’s Oxford Street and sites across the country, including major motorways ahead of the Easter holidays back in 2010, including the M1, M25, M11 and A127.(To see a picture of the BNP billboard read BNP plan black church ban in white areas)

The BNP obviously knows something that Dr Sentamu no longer wants to admit publicly, that the church in the UK and many white Christians are racist.

Dr Sentamu has let down the legacy of his ancestors, he has let down black and minority ethnic communities, as well as the believers in these communities who expect to be represented properly.

By going back on his own statements he has proven untrustworthy when it comes to race issues.

For further research:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9218901/Archbishop-of-York-victim-of-naked-racism-claims-ally.html

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/9663679.Archbishop_says_he_has_never_experienced_racism/r/?ref=rss

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/393907.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/features/faith/features/2001_08/racism.shtml

From championing justice for Stephen Lawrence to promoting votes for far right leader Marine Le Pen: The two-face treachery of the Daily Mail

Mark Watson — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 14:52:59 +0000

Is this newspaper really dedicated to racial justice?

The Daily Mail has a long history of inflammatory anti-immigration headlines and racially inciting reports regarding the decline of white birth rates in the UK, so when the newspaper won accolades for championing the story of Stephen Lawrence, many people from black and minority ethnic communities would have raised an eyebrow. How could such a newspaper which has arguably championed far right views be perceived as an advocate of racial justice? Yet once again the Daily Mail is up to its two-faced racial treachery in a story which suggested that far-right leader Marine Le Pen was the best prospect for French voters.

When JUST West Yorshire, an organisation that campaigns for racial justice, civil liberties and human rights in the Yorkshire and Humber region; welcomed the guilty verdicts of Gary Dobson and David Norris for the murder of Stephen Lawrence, they also mentioned that, “The Lawrence campaign became a cause célèbre due to the weight that the Daily Mail threw behind the Lawrence family’s campaign for justice.” (Read JUST welcomes Lawrence verdict)

I took exception to the Daily Mail being presented as a champion of racial justice when for so long they have published story after story inciting racial hatred. In the comments section of the article I wrote:

“…I am concerned that the article mentions the Daily Mail as one of the major supporters of the Lawrence’s campaign for justice.

This is a newspaper which is common for racially inciting headlines such as this: “Immigration and births to non-British mothers pushes UK population to record high” (22nd August 2008)

In another racially inciting headline it reads: “By 2066, white Britons ‘will be outnumbered’ if immigration continues at current rates” (18 November, 2010)

Are we to believe that a newspaper such as this genuinely championed justice for the Lawrence family?”

It did not take long for the Daily Mail to get back to what it does best, which is publishing sympathetic far right stories, and in this particular headline it was suggested that voting for far right leader Marine Le Pen was the best option for French people. Readers can read the entire article and justification for this position here, Despite her flaws, the only responsible vote in France next Sunday is one for Marine Le Pen (By Richard Waghorne: 20 April. 2012)

In this article Richard Waghorn says “Marine Le Pen remains, among an imperfect choice in urgent times, the only candidate capable of saving France’s control over her finances, borders, and identity.”

Marine Le Pen is the daughter of Jean Marie Le Pen, who was the former leader of the Front National in France, which is equivalent to the British National Party in the UK.

Her father was convicted of inciting racial hatred when he used a political campaign poster of a Muslim woman in a burqa next to a map of France covered in an Algerian flag and Muslim architecture shaped as missiles. (Read Le Pen in court accused of inciting racial hatred: France 24 News: 1 March, 2011)

Her father was also convicted in 1999 by a Munich Court for Holocaust denial. (Read Jean-Marie Le Pen repeats Holocaust comments in European Parliament: The Telegraph: By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels: 25 March 2009)

Marine Le Pen herself is no stranger to racial controversy. She compared Muslim street prayers to the occupation of Paris by the Nazis. (Read French ban on Muslim street prayers takes effect: The Nation: 16 September)

This is what Waghorn believes to be the best option for French people, which is much like saying that the British National Party is the best option for British people.

When it suits the British press and newspapers like the Daily Mail they switch sides as quickly as they sell newspapers and they get away with saying things which a person from a black or minority ethnic group would be condemned for if they mentioned the same views from a Black or Asian Nationalist perspective.

Midlands newspapers supported the British National Party by advertising their views.

How many people know that in May 2009, newspapers such as Stourbridge News; Dudley News; Bromsgrove Advertiser; Redditch Advertiser; the Kidderminster shuttle; the Echo-News (Southern Essex); and the Colchester Evening Gazette displayed British National Party adverts in their newspapers?

The slogans of the far-right political party were spotted by Barry Kade an anti fascist who posted the findings on the anti-BNP Lancaster Unity blog website. (Read Spot the difference. Online newspapers or BNP leaflets? It’s hard to tell…)

Would these newspapers have taken adverts from Black Nationalists or Islamic groups? It is highly unlikely; but it does show how sympathetic the British media are to far right views.

Newspapers like the Daily Mail continue to play the divide and conquer tactic, on the one hand they warn whites of soaring ethnic birth rates and then they turn around and claim to be fighting for racial justice for black people.

Hopefully, this article will provoke readers into thinking about what the British press really stands for, because they certainly do not stand for racial justice.

For further research:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2132611/French-elections-2012-Marine-Le-Pen-responsible-vote-France.html

http://www.france24.com/en/20110301-far-right-le-pen-back-court-inciting-racial-hatred

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/5050338/Jean-Marie-Le-Pen-repeats-Holocaust-comments-in-European-Parliament.html

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/French-ban-on-Muslim-street-prayers-takes-effect–30165486.html

http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/spot-difference-online-newspapers-or.html

Syria Savaged by US UK France Israel Turkey Arabia Qatar al Qaeda & Media for Whom? – in Historical Context

Mark Watson — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:00:37 +0000

by Jay Janson©

Death, destruction in Syria, arranged by armed insurrection sustained covertly by foreign powers including the US, NATO nations, Israel, Arabia, Qatar, al Qaeda, and made into an “Arab Spring’ by imperialist media managed “reporting.’ Armed insurgents belonging to Islamist organizations cross the border from Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. US State Dept. proudly admits involvement. Why? for whom? brought into historical context.

When the colonial powers war on Gaddafi was going well, American news commentators did, in rare moments, proudly admit that the CIA was heavily involved. Not so yet, when it comes to the CIA in Syria. It’s still too early. The public has not been yet been sufficiently taught to hate this quiet gentleman President Assad Junior.

We will eventually be told of horrific CIA crimes in Syria created under the media masking ‘Arab Spring.’ We always find out about CIA clever false flags, provocations, violence funding and assassinations once these become past history and Americans are focused elsewhere.

It’s amazing, truly amazing, how a powerful predatory investing elite, owning 98% of media, is able to mold the public mind to finding the despicable, the homicidal, and the immoral as perfectly acceptable, normal, necessary and even good, if it be performed by an official secret criminal agency of their very own American government.

The great cartel of Pentagon/CIA fed media conglomerates, having the great majority of the basically indifferent population of the West in tow, is effortlessly running its usual cascade of disinformation, half-truths, and blacked-out context propaganda fostering justification for military intervention – this time in Syria. But more and more people are noticing this war promotion of strictly one-sided coverage is yet another repeat of previous media promotions of US wars in Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti, Lebanon, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, the Dominica Republic, Cuba, Congo, Guatemala, Korea, Greece and innumerable other countries in between – in every single case, a bloody intervention in a civil war provoked and then used by the US. It is interesting that all this ruthless taking of millions of lives occurred under the guidance of David Rockefeller’s closest confidants, John Foster Dulles, Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski.

But none of this is of much interest to the American public, and when official secret files about how the CIA made an ‘Arab Spring’ in Syria and Libya are declassified and made public, it wont matter anymore than previous revelations did.

How could anything other than Wall Street owned criminal media saturation sound bites matter? Nothing else has mattered for more than sixty-six years.

Did the truth ever matter during the thirty-year ‘heroic’ American and French crucifixion of the colonial rice farming population of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia? For years Walter Cronkite affably reported from the trenches on what King called an atrocity. After a decent interval, the former Secretary of Defense (read War), Robert McNamara proclaimed the war a miscalculation, a mistake, exonerating Americans from having done anything wrong intentionally. The fact that millions were bombed to death didn’t, and still doesn’t, matter.

Did the truth matter when CBS’ Mike Wallace incredulous, his voice almost breaking, reported from a tower overlooking the Santo Domingo airport that US snipers a few feet away from him were merciless cutting down Dominican army troops fighting to reinstate their popular elected President Bosch, who had been overthrown as unacceptable to Washington (read Wall Street investors) .

The truth didn’t matter when, in spite of assurances given the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the CIA, led by Robert Kennedy on his brother’s orders, continued unabated to covertly attack Cuba, sabotage its agriculture and try to assassinate a popular revolutionary leader well liked throughout Latin America.

It doesn’t matter that this is documented in released CIA secret files along with files of witness testimony that Ike put out a contract on the popular first elected president of an independent Congo – files that have Nixon’s memo to Kissinger to “make the Chilean economy scream” to facilitate what would be the death-dealing overthrow of Dr. Salvador Allende’s popular government by the Chicago University School of Neo-Liberal economists’ favorite dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

No, the truth of US imperialist foreign policy never matters to the general American public, even if occasionally appearing in print or on TV. What matters is what is good for business, as described in Network entertainment news day-in-day-out in-between-commercials in a sold-on-materialism consumer society clinging to its exceptionally angelic corporatist media portrait

Because anything the CIA does is acceptable, Presidential adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, without fear of public condemnation, let alone prosecution, could brag to French media ( Le Nouvel Observateur ),[1] that he had Carter authorize the CIA to fund, arm and train hill tribe fundamentalist terror against a popular[2] women-liberating Socialist Kabul administration, in order to frighten the Soviets into military intervention.

When hearing a truth that somehow does not fit with a fantasy world it has been brought to believe in wherein America not Germany is great ueber alles, Mr. and Ms America, so self-occupied with avoiding depression and overeating, just say to each other that politics is complicated and the government must know, or have known, what it had to do to “keep America safe. They console themselves that communists and anti-American terrorists commit worse crimes than capitalists or Americans do.

Those horrible truths of CIA protection and employment of Nazi war criminals; of CIA overthrowing the first democratic government of Iran; of CIA backing of murderous dictators like Saddam Hussein and Gen. Suharto; of CIA building a world market poppy growing industry again in Afghanistan after the Taliban all but eliminated it; of CIA involvement in murderous drug running in Colombia and in Panama with agent Noriega; of CIA funding the most famous acid thrower at unveiled ladies[3]and executioners of teachers for teaching girls[4]; of CIA secret attacks on democratic Guatemala, once reveled in progressive non-corporate funded publications, these heinous crimes simply slip into insignificance.

When Syria or any other overseas conflict is discussed in commercial media or sadly even in progressive media, there seems little reason to ask about CIA. The CIA, is considered part of American democracy, understood as merely one of many agencies of a freely elected government. Since it’s operations and activities are secret, what is the use of discussing them?

Associated Press carries almost daily reports of deadly CIA activity in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but even in progressive journalism it is the domestic policies put forth by the current U.S. president (who surely must be taking, not giving, orders to Robert Gates, Leon Panetta heads of the Central Intelligence Agency) that deserve attention. The CIA, by law connected up solely and secretly to the chief executive, is in itself a glaring contradiction to claims of democracy in the U.S., but this also goes largely unaddressed even on the progressive sites of the Internet.

Unfortunately, it seems that progressives and even socialists in the U.S. are overly cooperative with mainstream media and Congress in hardly ever asking after a secret CIA shadow government.

Almost since the CIA was founded, well before the Korean “police action’ devastation, CIA operatives, in every country in the world, have been acting as commandos penetrating local society, preparing political, financial and where necessary military domination. Its four billion dollar base legal budget is known, but its vast private funding is not. Its mammoth financial empire fueled by corporate donations and funding and far flung net of banks, enterprises, publications, media outlets and infiltrated agencies within U.S. and foreign governments has been researched, documented and much of it can be found on line. CIA exploits of assassinations, overthrowing elected government and hiring goons to support U.S. business friendly dictatorships have become legendary.

A few scholarly sites on the Internet always manage to fill in a bit of what is intentionally blacked out in the Pentagon counseled and fed commercial mass media of the Western pseudo-democracies. Here, Michael Chossudovsky, consultant with a half-dozen UN agencies and publisher of Global Research out of Canada tells us:

“What is unfolding in Syria is an armed insurrection supported covertly by foreign powers including the US, Turkey and Israel. Armed insurgents belonging to Islamist organizations have crossed the border from Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. The US State Department has confirmed that it is supporting the insurgency. This was stated by U.S. State Department official Victoria Nuland. “We started to expand contacts with the Syrians, those who are calling for change, both inside and outside the country.”

“Action against Syria is part of a ‘military roadmap’, a sequencing of military operations. According to former NATO Commander General Wesley Clark–by late 2001, the Pentagon had clearly identified Iraq, Libya, Syria and Lebanon as target countries of a US-NATO intervention: “[The] Five-year campaign plan [included]… a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.’

General Wesley Clark states the following:

”The objective is to destabilize the Syrian State and implement “regime change” through the covert support of an armed insurgency, integrated by Islamist militia. “Reports on civilian deaths are used to provide a pretext and a justification for humanitarian intervention under the principle “Responsibility to Protect’.” [Pentagon official quoted by General Wesley Clark in Winning Modern Wars (page 130)]

‘Responsibility to Protect’ brought UN authorized bombing and Western reconquering of a wealthy Libya (recognized by the same UN as having an Human Development Index higher that than nine European countries with fine free heath care and higher education) only after a successful armed insurrection (similar to Syria’s) called for by a CIA funded Libyan exile organization in London. CNN and al Jazeera produced a saturation of stories of peaceful protests being fired upon, but without corroboration and in contradiction to Reuters and even early BBC coverage of mass murder executions of government soldiers by heavily armed gangs and few civilian casualties.[5]

CNN reports incessantly that the Syrian armed forces and the police are shooting civilian protesters to death usually in double digit numbers. Independent press reports, however, confirm, from the outset of the protest movement, an exchange of gunfire between armed insurgents and the police, with casualties reported on both sides.

In The Destabilization of Syria and the Broader Middle East War, Michael Chossudovsky writes:

“The insurrection started in mid March in the border city of Daraa, which is 10 km from the Jordanian border. The Daraa “protest movement” on March 18 had all the appearances of a staged event involving, in all likelihood, covert support to Islamic terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence. Government sources point to the role of radical Salafist groups (supported by Israel) Other reports have pointed to the role of Saudi Arabia in financing the protest movement. What has unfolded in Daraa in the weeks following the initial violent clashes on 17-18 March, is the confrontation between the police and the armed forces on the one hand and armed units of terrorists and snipers on the other which have infiltrated the protest movement.”

One would be naive to believe that after the half-century of brutal occupation of the Arab lands of Syria, Lebanon, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco by France and those of Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Sudan, Somaliland, Aden, and Yemen by the British, with both occupying Libya after W.W.II, that British M16 and and the French Secret Service would not be indispensable for the johnny-come-lately America empire and its CIA.

But one would have to be even more naive to believe the excellent secret service of Israel, Mossad, at war with the Arab world since 1948 was not playing a key role in Syria and Libya, two adamant adversaries of the UN created State of Israel. Here below is some background of planning that predates the Pentagon briefing of Gen. Clark:

Experts Fear Israeli Design to Balkanize Arab States By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani, 6/19/11

“A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s ,” Written in 1981 by Oded Yinon, then a senior advisor for Israel’s foreign ministry. The essay explicitly calls for breaking up the Arab states of the region along ethnic and sectarian lines. “The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas is Israel’s primary target on the eastern front in the long run.”

A few years ago, New Yorker published investigative reporter Seymour Hersh tried to awaken interest in what the CIA was doing all these years in Iraq during the massive amount of sectarian violence that U.S. government spokespersons and subservient media constantly pointed to as the reason “we have to stay in Iraq.’ Almost no one took up this topic in alternative media.

For decades CIA has sponsored, provoked, initiated, and or prepared overt invasion and occupation by clandestine initiating and stoking civil wars in Greece, Korea, Iran, Guatemala, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Lebanon, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Indonesia, Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Columbia, and is notorious for its success in arranging fratricide to look unprovoked by outside forces. The motive always being to prevent unified independent nations capable of negotiating for their own trade and prosperity.

In Putting Syria into Some Perspective , The Anti-Empire Report, April 8th, 2012, peoples historian William Blum writes of:

“the numerous reports of forces providing military support to the Syrian rebels — the UK, France, the US, Turkey, Israel, Qatar, the Gulf states, and everyone’s favorite champion of freedom and democracy, Saudi Arabia; with Syria claiming to have captured some 14 French soldiers; plus individual jihadists and mercenaries from Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Libya, et al, joining of the antigovernment forces, their number including al-Qaeda veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who are likely behind the car bombs in an attempt to create chaos and destabilize the country. This may mark the third time the United States has been on the same side as al-Qaeda, adding to Afghanistan and Libya.”

Imperialist media would have us believe that no Syrian government forces are fighting against an armed insurrection funded and controlled from forces outside Syria. And CNN would have us discount the periodic massive pro-government demonstrations and believe the smaller anti-Assad demonstrations to be more important, have us disregard Syrian Christian fears: Fearing Change, Many Christians in Syria Back Assad, New York Times , 9/29/2011. “Syrian Christians in the Bab Touma district of Damascus held a rally in support of President Bashar al-Assad“

However, “The plan to destabilize Syria is not working all that well,” surmised Thierry Meyssan in The Plan to Destabilize Syria, Voltaire Network, Lebanon, 6/13/11. “It succeeded in persuading public opinion that the country is in the grips of a brutal dictatorship, but it also welded the vast majority of the Syrian population firmly behind its government. Ultimately, the plan could backfire on those who masterminded it, notably Tel Aviv “

In the wake of Tunisian, Egyptian and Yemeni uprisings of the poor against Wall Street benefiting colonial West installed dictatorships, the Networks have featured discussions from the farcical point of view that the business interests oriented American government is capable of being occasionally in favor of democracy in nations being plundered by Western investment banks. For anchors and commentators, it is what the U.S. president will say that is supposed to be of paramount interest, not what the awkward-to-speak-of CIA might be accomplishing.

Prostituting mainstream media will continue to keep the focus away from CIA, away from the desperate capital accumulation of the rich immorally empowered by their undeserved billions, and focus instead on U.S. Presidents, members of Congress and the Supreme Court, all of whom are, as FDR wrote in 1933, “owned by a financial element.” [6]

Are we never to hear of the mass homicidal crimes of the CIA until files are forced open by law decades too late? No, the three centuries crimes against humanity by European stock empires run by investment banks will not avoid prosecution much longer in this space age of instant personal communication and computers capable of a trillion operations per nanosecond.

Agents of CIA, its NATO, EU, Israeli (Mossad) branches, their commanders-in-chiefs, sundry collaborating gangsters running third world governments and their employing elite group of powerful investors of global ruling ex-’Colonial Powers’ now haughtily calling themselves “The International Community of Nations’ will not be able to keep themselves above prosecution and punishment much longer.

And since their center of operations is the government of the United States of America, initial prosecutions will be of US citizens, and not so very long from now. The absurdity of mindless mathematically mechanical merchandizing being the essence of Man in the universe will be halted before it wears itself out in an ultimate for profit calculation of moronic self-destruction.

Rational Man in all his and her inexpressible miraculously exquisite art in loving imagination will endure, and not be obliterated Man’s lesser fearfully greedy side.

Martin Luther King Jr. followers are accelerating this overcoming of what is exemplified today in the cruel attack on Syrians, with a new Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign

Footnotes:

1 Read Brzezinski’s own self-condemning admission in the ‘Le Nouvel Observateur’ interview attached at the bottom of OEN published Carter Funding Fundamentalists to Sucker Soviets into Afghanistan … “using ethnic and religious divisions to foment civil war goes unprosecuted.”

Afghanistan…”using ethnic and religious divisions to foment civil war goes unprosecuted.”

click here

2 Most experienced Middle East journalist Robert Fisk describes well the popularity of the Kabul government, which had replaced the King, at the time of CIA intervention in his Great War For Civilization- The Conquest of the Middle East.

3 Warlords of Afghanistan Gulbuddin Hekmatyar “throwing acid in the faces of unveiled women … Billions of dollars in US aid flowed through the ISI to Hekmatyar.” and A Deal With the Devil, Newsweek, 3/25/2010

4 This writer remembers a photo on the front page of the NY Times – captioned: three government teachers (face down in a pit, hands wired behind backs) executed for teaching girls.”

5 On the first day, Feb. 15, Reuters reported hundreds of “protesters’ attacking police stations, no deaths, 60 injured.

The next day, Feb. 16, Reuters reported, along with opposition media, 6 dead when more than a thousand “protesters’ attacked more police stations.

Feb. 17th, Internationally planned Day of Rage, The Evening Standard and Al Jazeera English estimated that fourteen people were killed. Reuters, BBC and opposition media reported 14 or 15 dead. After overnight protests, the following day,

18 February 2011, Guardian.co.uk , Ian Black and Owen Bowcott, Article history:

“Amer Saad, a political activist from Derna, told al-Jazeera: “The “protesters’ in al-Bayda have been able to seize control of the military air base in the city and have executed 50 African ["]mercenaries['] . from Capitalism’s Warplanes: CIA & al Qaeda Destroy Socialist Libya’s 53rd Highest Living Standard, OpEdNews Promoted to Headline, 4/22/2011/ republished CounterCurrents http://www.countercurrents.org/janson240411.htm

6 “The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.” A letter written by FDR to Colonel House,

Jay Janson, 80, archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; lived, worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and the US; now resides in NYC;. Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his. GlobalResearch, InformationClearingHouse, CounterCurrents, Minority Perspective, UK DissidentVoice, OpEdNews, HistoryNewsNetwork and others have published his articles. Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; articles China Daily, 1989. Studied history at CCNY, Columbia U., U. Puerto Rico, Dolmetscher Institut München; Germany; Korean National University of Arts, Seoul; Radiotelevisione italiana, Rome; Zagreb Radiotelevision,Yugoslavia; Hong Kong Arts Academy. Is coordinator of King Condemned US Wars and Predatory Investments International Awareness Campaign (King Condemned US Wars) and creator of Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign which features a country by country history of US crimes.

Anders Behring Breivik and the growth of white supremacist views in Europe

Mark Watson — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:06:36 +0000

A smiling Breivik told the court that he deserved a medal for kiling 77 people.

Thirty-three year old Anders Behring Breivik murdered 77 people in Norway last year in an act of far right terrorism which sent warnings to black and minority ethnic communities that racial violence is on the increase in Europe, and there are many more just like him willing to kill for racial purity.

Anders Breivik stands trial for terrorism after he killed 77 people in Norway last year using a bomb and a gun to kill many young people at a summer camp on Utoya island.

Breivik said that his motivations were to combat the Islamic invasion of Norway and he refused to acknowledge the authority of the Norwegian court, saying to the court, “You have received your mandate from political parties which support multiculturalism.” Breivik: Norway Attack ‘Was Self-Defence’ (Sky News: 16 April, 2012)

When Breivik carried out his massacre the mainstream media was quick to mention that he acted alone. There was little in-depth analysis of how Breivik’s beliefs were given expression not only by legal far right political parties in Europe but also, journalists and politicians who have expressed a dangerous anti-Muslim message through the ideology of white supremacy, or more to the point, the threat of Western civilisation from non-white cultures.

The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) published a report on the Oslo Massacre titled, Breivik, the conspiracy theory and the Oslo massacre (BRIEFING PAPER NO.5 – SEPTEMBER 2011), where it was documented how Breivik’s beliefs was encouraged by mainstream politicians and journalists in Europe who made remarks which would have sit comfortably during the era of European white supremacist ideology.

Breivik believed that Muslims conspired to take over Europe, he also believed that Western civilisation was under threat and these ideas he held came from respected politicians and journalists in Europe.

The IRR report cites several commentators who have written about the dangers of Islam and the Islamification of Europe. People such as:

“UK, Conservative Education Minister Michael Gove (author of Celsius 7/7),Douglas Murray (Director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, Associate Director of the Henry Jackson Society and author of Neoconservativism: Why we need it), the Christian Zionist Baroness Caroline Cox (former education advisor to Margaret Thatcher), Melanie Phillips (columnist on the Daily Mail, formerly of the Spectator, and author of Londonistan: How Britain has created a Terror State Within); in Germany, the philosopher and cynic Henryk M. Broder (writer on Der Spiegel, Die Welt and author of Hurrah We Capitulate: On the desire to cave in).” (p.3)

Oskar Freysinger, deputy of the Swiss People’s Party, and secretary of Stop the Minarets movement in Switzerland refers to Islam as aggressive and calls for a ban on the burqa. (p.4)

Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party argues that Islam is incompatible with democracy and modern civilisation and that all Muslims are essentially fundamentalists. (p.4)

The IRR report said, “British neoconservative Douglas Murray of the Centre for Social Cohesion, speaking at a debate in Athens (sponsored by the British Council and Intelligence Squared) on whether the creation of an official mosque would be a good thing, argued against the motion on the grounds that the history of Muslim immigration to the UK had meant that all the bad things associated with Islam had landed on the doorstep of London.” (p.4)

The Koran has been compared to Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ by far right figures such as Geert Wilders, and was even made into a 17-minute film called Fitna in 2008, which was shown at the House of Lords in 2009.

When Wilders was charged with incitement to racial hatred, Douglas Murray wrote to the Daily Telegraph readers saying, “The trial has unparalleled significance for the future of Europe’, for ‘it is not just about whether our culture will survive, but whether we are even allowed to state the fact that it is being threatened.” (p.5)

The IRR report also mentions how the British National Party and the English Defence League (EDL) have both referred to Muhammed and Muslims as paedophiles.

According to the report the EDL said, “The UK has a significant problem with Muslim paedophiles who prey upon English girls and contemptuously abuse them”, which they say “stems directly from the example of their violent paedophile prophet Mohammed.” (p.5)

Breivik got his inspiration from all of these people and more in his 1,500 page manifesto.

The mainstream media in Britain have also promoted the idea that child abuse in Britain is mainly a Muslim problem. In January 2011, former Home Secretary Jack Straw said that Pakistani men had a specific problem in targeting young white girls for sexual abuse. (Read Jack Straw controversially focuses on Pakistani men in sex abuse case)

I pointed out how since the 9/11 attacks and the ‘War on Terror’, the British media has been focusing on criminal activities by individuals who identify themselves as Muslim. How many of us heard about ‘honour killings’ before 9/11?

I also pointed out that child sexual offenders seek the most vulnerable and easy to influence children to seduce, hence why overseas in Africa and Asia child sexual tourism is mostly associated with white Western males.

The British media had essentially politicised and racialised child sexual abuse and individuals such as Breivik picked up on these sensational news stories and wrote about the dangers of European women being raped in his manifesto. (p.5)

The IRR report mentions how Douglas Murray’s Telegraph articles and speeches refers to Islam as a warmongering religion (p.6)

The clash of civilisations: The new white supremacist manifesto

The clash of civilisations is a term associated with American academics Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington, who wrote that the Arab envy for Western civilisation would result in the Muslim world attacking the Western world.

Huntington argued that the new conflict in the post Cold War era would be between different civilisations, namely Islam and the West, and that America’s Christian Anglo-centric identity was being threatened by the ‘Mexicanization’ of the population, in other words race mixing. (p.8)

For black and minority ethnic communities who may think that this new wave of anti Muslim racism does not effect them, a closer look at Breivik’s beliefs, and indeed the views of the individuals I have mentioned in this article will reveal that all non whites are seen as a threat.

Breivik opposed multiculturalism, as do Geert Wilders, Murray, Huntington and others. Even British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke about about the failure of multiculturalism (read Cameron blames multiculturalism for Islamic home-grown extremism).

The rise of the far right in Europe and indeed Western countries in general is part of a backlash by many whites towards the hard-fought equality which black and minority ethnic communities have fought for, for many decades.

The ugly head of white supremacy has finally shown its intentions through individuals such as Breivik, Wilders, Murray, Huntingon, Cameron and others.

White supremacy is now being promoted under the guise of the Muslim threat to Europe and the Western world.

History is being turned on its head as Europeans now claim to be the victims of an Islamic conquest. Left out of their rhetoric is the fact that successive European governments have intervened and committed numerous terrorist acts against Muslims in the Middle East decades before the concept of Islamic terrorism was even thought up. Left out is the fact that the foreign policy of Western governments is responsible for the deliberate under-development of many countries within Africa, the Middle East and elswhere which results in the people of these countries having to migrate to the very countries which exploit their own homeland. Left out is the fact that Europeans perverted and twisted Christianity to invade most if not all of the non European world.

How these individuals continue to believe that they are defending the values of Christianity through white supremacy, the theft of other people’s land and resources and mass murder, continues to defy the laws of rational reasoning.

There is a collective historical amnesia among many Europeans of far right thinking regarding what their ancestors have done to other races. One wonders whether Breivik understands that the European empires are responsible for the mass migration he so opposes?

One has to wonder whether Breivik knows that Christianity was forced upon Africans and many other non whites through conquest? Does he know that Europeans imposed their culture on an entire race, uprooted their culture, spiritual beliefs, names and identity; and denied them their history and civilisation?

The fact is, Breivik, and the other white supremacists cited in this article have no idea what it is like to be colonised and have their identity eradicated. The idea that Muslims are taking over is nonsensical considering that the world’s resources and weapons of mass destruction is concentrated in the hands of Western countries.

Despite all of this though, there are many disillusioned whites who feel just like Breivik and share his views. Just read the comments after the Sky News report here. Breivik, the conspiracy theory and the Oslo massacre

Today it is Muslims, tomorrow it could be Sikhs, Hindus, pentecostal Black Christians etc., after all the British National Party said they would ban black churches in white areas if they were voted in. (Read BNP plan black church ban in white areas)

White supremacy never went away, it was merely in disguise in order to fool black and minority ethnic communities into a false sense of security whilst the resources of their home countries were being plundered ruthlessly and continues to be plundered ruthlessly presently.

Breivik is just the beginning, and those who did not want to rock the boat can no longer sit on the fence. Race ideology has returned to national politics.

For further research:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/worlds-eyes-norway-breivik-trial-begins-010110587.html;_ylt=AlAf7yfLj3f1rpSGQacm6gi_fMl_;_ylu=X3oDMTNyMDVwbWZtBG1pdANKdW1ib3Ryb24gRlAEcGtnAzZmOTRjZGQxLWE0YjItMzgxOC1hZGU2LTdlMzZkNjFjZTkxMARwb3MDMQRzZWMDanVtYm90cm9uX2Nva2UEdmVyAzcwZThiOTljLTg3YTEtMTFlMS1iN2JmLTNlMGM3MmY5MTc3MQ–;_ylg=X3oDMTFvZzY4MG5jBGludGwDZ2IEbGFuZwNlbi1nYgRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25zBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3

http://www.irr.org.uk/pdf2/ERA_BriefingPaper5.pdf

Reflection on Easter: Religious leaders and followers have let down humanity

Mark Watson — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 15:26:39 +0000

Religion: Humanity's inspiration or destruction?

During the Easter break it seems relevant to discuss how the world’s major religious leaders and followers have let down humanity with their support of war, imperialism and mass murder in the name of a divinity which supposedly holds life as the most sacred thing on earth.

Religious leaders have always promoted their faith by saying that religious values has shaped the modern world and in particularly law and order. It has been argued that civilisation owes its values, its system of justice and morality to religion.

Yet the world’s major religions have been responsible for some of the worse massacres and crimes against humanity in human history. The slave trade, the persecution and irrational slaughter of women during the witchcraft trials, the European empires which justified their plunder and pillage in the name of the God that they claimed to represent.

Yet all religions have one common theme, the sanctity and sacredness of life but in today’s world of conflicts and wars for greed, resources and power, the leaders of the world’s major religions remain silent on the atrocities committed in contrary to the laws that they themselves claim forged modern civilisation.

The leader of the Catholic religion, the Pope gives an annual message to his followers and the world each Easter, and each time the message is arguably empty and lacks substance.

Last year during his Easter message, the Pope called for peace in Africa and the Middle East without actually addressing how the Western world is responsible for most of the conflicts in that region. Pope calls for peace around the world in Easter message (CNN World: By the CNN Wire Staff: April 24, 2011)

His messsage is always the same and repetitive, calling for peace around the world without actually denouncing the warmongers and enemies of peace.

The leaders of the world’s other religions are similar in their silence on the atrocities committed by world leaders and their militaries in the name of religion.

Few in the European Christian world stood up to denounce former U.S. President George Bush Senior, when he claimed that he heard God telling him to attack Iraq. Religion and Violence: U.S. encourages “religious fundamentalism” to counter nationalist & socialist movements ( By Ghali Hassan: October 15, 2005)

I was shocked to read a Washington’s Blog article on the Global Research website, where the author said, “Millions of Americans believe that Christ will not come again until Israel wipes out its competitors and there is widespread war in the Middle East. Some of these folks want to start a huge fire of war and death and destruction, so that Jesus comes quickly.” Millions of Evangelical Christians Want to Start World War III … to Speed Up the Second Coming (February 18, 2012)

The author went into depth explaining how the French President Chirac said that George Bush told him the war in Iraq was needed to bring on the Apocalypse. Bush told Chirac, “This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

Imagine a member of the public slaughtering entire families and saying that God told him to do it to bring about a new age; all I can safely conclude is that the individual would be cautioned under the Mental Health Act.

Yet the context of this article is not to question the sanity of religious people, but their morality and commitment to their faith.

American oil corporations gained huge oil fields from their war with Iraq, as well as control over other precious resources, I wonder if that was Bush’s God’s plan?

Whatever you may think of religion and religious people the main commandments are clear and killing is a divine crime, and stealing and greed are crimes also.

That Western leaders can use the name of God to justify their imperialist wars in Africa and the Middle East speaks volumes about the type of Christians which reside in the West, they clearly do not read the same religious books which denounces the very acts these leaders commit.

Peace activist Mahatma Gandhi summed it up for me when he said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Mahatma Gandhi quotes

I like this quote because it sums up what is wrong with religious people, and it is not the religion that they profess but rather the way they distort their beliefs to suit their particular prejudices.

I read an interesting article on the Inter Press News website, by Ashfaq Yusufzai, To Hell With Suicide Bombers, Not Heaven (April 5, 2012) where religious scholars in Pakistan are denouncing suicide bombers, saying that their acts are not approved by Allah, or justified in the Koran. They say that suicide bombers and those who pervert young minds to become suicide bombers are destined for hell and not heaven as they believe; because taking innocent lives is breaking the most sacred law of the Koran.

It would be nice if Christian religious leaders and teachers in the Western world could follow suit and denounce Western leaders who use the name of God to justify wars of imperialism, greed and plunder.

It would be nice to see the Israeli government and military practice what their religion teaches which is the sanctity of human life.

It would be nice if the government of Pakistan and India would follow their sacred laws which forbids the killing of a human being.

Imagine, if in the Pope’s Easter address or the Archbishop of Canterbury’s message, they denounced Western leaders for their mass murders, theft and plunder? Unfortunately this is just a Utopian fantasy and it is unlikely to materialise because as Washington’s Blog suggests, many religious people believe in the end times and disturbingly, many are aiding the slaughter and accelerating the world towards a nuclear Apocalypse with joy because in their mind it will bring in a new age.

Whatever one believes, the world’s religions all teach that life is sacred and killing is wrong, but when followers of these religions justify murder and theft and greed and war, then arguably it is not a new age that this world will enter but a barbaric age which will end humanity.

Some would argue that religion has let down humanity, but I would argue that it is religious people who have let down humanity because they are so unlike the teachings professed in their books.

For further research:

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-04-24/world/vatican.pope.easter_1_pope-benedict-xvi-african-countries-libyan-leader-moammar-gadhafi?_s=PM:WORLD

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1088

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29362

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=107326

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/mahatma_gandhi/

Britain’s police is a sham when it comes to race: When will we admit this?

Mark Watson — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 01:21:41 +0000

Listen to the audio recording of Pc Alex MacFarlane’s racist abuse above

Following media reports that the Met has suspended eight police officers from the force after damning racism allegations it would appear that Britain’s police force is once again is being accused of institutional racism, but ever since the Macpherson Report over a decade ago nothing of substance has been achieved in terms of racial understanding or community relations between black and minority ethnic (BME) communities and the police, this is what the BME communities and Black and Asian police officers have been saying for years. Britain’s police force is a sham when it comes to race, and it is time that we admit this openly.

Twenty-one year old Mauro Demetrio, from Beckton, east London, was arrested on Drug Driving during the London riots, charges which were later dropped, but it was his quick thinking to record PC Alex MacFarlane calling him a nigger on his mobile phone which arguably forced the police force into damage control. Police face racism scandal after black man records abuse (Guardian: Paul Lewis: 30 March, 2012)

Only a few hours later PC McFarlane’s colleague, PC Joe Harrington was placed on restrictive duties after he was allegedly recorded assaulting a 15 year old black boy. Metropolitan police race row deepens after assault claim (Guardian: Paul Lewis: 2 April, 2012)

BME communities should not be surprised

BME communities should not feel surprised about these revelations because Black and Asian police officers as well as members of the BME communities have consistently spoken about the daily racist incidents they have had to endure from members of the police force.

On May 7, I covered the story of Superintendent Paul Wilson, a 51 year old black police officer who had worked in the force for years, who said he was sidelined for promotion because he wrote a critical report on how Black police officers were treated. Police force rocked again after senior black officer claims racism. He took the Met to a tribunal for racism.

In the same story I reflected on the consistent pattern of pervasive racism in the police force. One example, is when the Metropolitan Black Police Officers Association (BPA) boycotted all recruitment drives by the police force to recruit new officers from black and minority ethnic communities in protest of what they described as “a hostile atmosphere where racism is allowed to spread.” (ITN: Monday, 6 October 2008)

In an address delivered by Ratna Lachman, Director – JUST West Yorkshire, at the National Black Police Association Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland, on 5 October 2011, it was revealed in a recent survey carried out by the West Yorkshire Black Police Association, that, “71% of BME officers said they’d experienced discrimination, bullying, harassment and unfair treatment at work and 80% felt that disciplinary investigations and work-performance related issues were not fair, transparent or proportionate. 4% of Asian officers were suspended compared to 0.09% of white officers despite the under-representation of BME officers.” (Speech to the National Black Police Association Conference p.1)

PC Kashif Ahmed faced ten charges on deception and fraud. He spent nearly 50 hours in police custody and interviews in an investigation which lasted 24 months, where according to the report he was falsely arrested 16 times. Friends of PC Ahmed was targeted by the invesitgative police team in what can only be described as a campaign of coercion, harassment and deliberate dirty underhanded tricks.

The cost of this investigation for the taxpayers exceeded a million pounds and at the end of it the judge called for “the entirety of this indictment to be stayed because of the untruthfulness of a number of the investigative team. (p.3)

The judge added that the investigation was “an affront to justice”, and referred to the police officers who conducted the investigation as “untruthful”. (p.3)

Ratna Lachman said:

I am presenting this case – because as the coordinator for the Justice for Kashif Campaign, I couldn’t believe the impunity with which the Professional Standards Department was conducting the investigation. I wrote to the Independent Police Complaint’s Commission calling for an investigation into their conduct and instead of taking my concerns seriously, the matter was referred back to the very department I was lodging a complaint against. This is akin to my Board asking me to investigate a complaint against me by a member of my staff – it would not stand up in front of a Tribunal. The persistence of such practices are in my view tantamount to sticking up the proverbial two fingers to the Macpherson Report and promoting a perpetrator’s charter in which there’s no scrutiny nor accountability in the way in which some senior police officers conduct themselves.

Unfortunately, the police force has been ‘sticking up their proverbial two fingers to the Macpherson Report’ and members of the BME communities for years now, simply because the gravity and seriousness of the racist practices and behaviour present within the force has not been dealt with properly and arguably will not be dealt with properly because they are not held accountable for their actions by the government, their own so called independent complaints bodies, and more importantly, BME communities.

Whilst rioters across the UK were robbing shops for luxury items, I spoke about the seriousness of addressing black deaths in police custody. (Read Black deaths in police custody: We should never forget & London riots: Will it address black deaths in police custody?) I argued that looting and irrational violence would not address these issues. The police can arguably stick their two fingers up to BME communities because of irresponsible acts such as this.

Ratna Lachman spoke about how he knew police officers who had nearly lost their minds because of campaigns of harassment by corrupt, white racist colleagues.

Police officers like David Blair, an award winning black ex-West Yorkshire Police Officer who served in the British Army from the age of 16, and following that joined West Yorkshire Police, where he served his community for 17 years during which he was awarded with Commendations for saving a drowning man and for an investigation which led to the confiscation of an arsenal of guns and ammunition. Apparently, fighting for Britain was not enough for some white officers who conspired to set him up and arrested him on false charges. (Read New website exposes police corruption and racism)

David was suicidal and attempted to throw himself off a bridge, however the case against him collapsed as the judge dismissed it.

PC Simon Jenkins subjected to a similar racist ordeal sadly took his life.

Ratna Lachma cites case after case of false charges brought against BME officers which are later thrown out of court.

He also detailed how Muslim police officers were being treated as terrorist suspects and investigated covertly.

He said, “I believe that the reason why police officers feel they can behave with such impunity is because the institutionally racist culture within the police force merely mirrors the racism within our political culture.” (p.6)

I believe his last point hits the nail on the head, and finally someone has the guts to say it as it is. Finally someone has admitted that all is not cosy with multiculturalism in Britain.

The questions which we all must ask now is how do we deal with a pervasively racist police force, a pervasively racist political system and a pervasively racist mainstream media that deliberately misleads white Britons? It is an uphill struggle, and looting from shops is not going to address these issues.

As long as BME communities continue to stand by and allow these injustices to continue unabated then in the words of Lachman, the police, and not just them, but also politicians, employers, the criminal justice system etc., will forever be sticking up their two proverbial fingers in our faces.

For further research:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/30/police-racism-black-man-abuse?intcmp=239

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/02/police-race-row-assault-claim?INTCMP=SRCH

http://www.minorityperspective.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Speech-to-the-National-Black-Police-Association-Conference-.pdf

It’s easy to find love online as long as you are white according to research

Mark Watson — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 17:25:36 +0000

Research suggests that non whites are unlikely to find success on online dating websites.

According to Online Dating Newsletter over 20 million people visit online dating sites every month and this trend is certainly set to rise, but whilst the exciting prospects of a global online world where people appear to be colourblind attracts many, research suggests that if you are from a black or minority ethnic group you are less likely to find love online.

In a post for Racism Review, written by Jessie, Race, Racism and Online Dating: What the Research Tells Us, Psychologist Gerald Mendelsohn (Emeritus, UC-Berkeley), asked this question in an interview with TIME Magazine, “The Internet has changed things. There is no segregation on the Internet. So the question then becomes, When you have a free situation where people can contact whom they please, what will happen?”

Mendelsohn wanted to explore the idea of race in regards to dating choices on the Internet and what he found has startling implications for race relations and the idea that as a society we have embraced difference races and cultures.

He said, “Taken as a group, whites, women and older people were choosiest about sticking with others of their color. More than four of five whites contacted other whites, while just 3% reached out to blacks. The ratios stayed the same for young and older people, too — 80% chose not to contact others from outside their race. And only 5% of white subscribers responded to inquiries from someone from another race.”

He also said that among whites who said that they were open to meeting anyone in their profile, 80% of them still contacted whites in the end.

Christian Rudder (October 5, 2009) How Your Race Affects The Messages You Get, in a post on oktrends, dating research from OkCupid, the biggest free dating website in the U.S., who have been compiling statistics on online dating, patterns and trends since 2004, supported Mendelsohn’s findings.

In research of over one million people Rudder found that race plays a huge factor in the number of responses individuals get.

In the research Rudder found that black women were the most likely to respond to messages more than any other women which he speculated could be due to a number of reasons such as loneliness, talkativeness or decency.

On the other hand Rudder said that white males got the most responses than any other racial group, and white women preferred white men above any other racial group.

Asian and Hispanic women also preferred white males to any other racial group. In Rudder’s words, “These three types of women only respond well to white men. More significantly, these groups’ reply rates to non-whites is terrible.”

According to Rudder, although black women replied the most, they received the fewest responses.

Racial Stereotypes are alive and well online

Whilst some commentators may portray the internet as the forum of true democracy and racial harmony, the research simply does not support this view.

In a Guardian online article, Racism and online dating: my experience, (Thursday 28 October 2010) freelance journalist and blogger, Bim Adewunmi spoke about her experiences as a black woman looking for love online, and they were disturbing considering that we are in 2012 and not the 17th century.

When she joined free dating website OkCupid, she spoke of her experiences along with other black females:

“In no particular order, I’ve had someone ask me why my profile picture doesn’t show all of my face, before helpfully suggesting it was because I was an “ugly black girl”. More than one person has asked me if it’s true “what they say about black girls”. Several have asked me: “So where do you really come from?” And these were just the straight-up, old-school racist ones. I’ve also had messages from specific skin-colour fetishists, who have complimented my “delicious brown skin”, and despite a profile picture in which I am eating a crisp, “Nubian queenly countenance” (I wish I was joking). I’m not alone: one woman who uses online dating sites, Lola, found it disconcerting that she was approached by men who were obviously interested in just her skin colour. “They haven’t read your profile and don’t have anything in common with you,” she says. “At one point, three friends and I, all black, were on one site and all kept getting hit on by the same guys, regardless of the fact that we are very, very different people.” She describes being viewed as “low-hanging fruit”. She adds: “On these sites, black women seem to be considered least aspirational and/or attractive. Not a single black male professional has ever contacted me. The white guys have all seemed to be fetishists, and there have been assumptions that I must have a ‘thick’ body, and that I must go to church. In one case, a guy in his first email asked me to do a threesome. The men who approach you think you must be desperate and therefore a sure thing.”

In the Guardian article, Michelle, who runs an annoymous dating blog, said “One guy brought up – on our first date – that black men are known for ‘certain assets’, but there was nothing to worry about with him,” she says. “Another asked if I was getting dreadlocks when I mentioned a hairdresser’s appointment. What the hell?”

Forty year-old, South Asian male, ’mym’ who chose to comment anonymously, has qualifications in Computer Science, but said that when he joined numerous online dating websites he received no replies. “I have unsuccessfully tried to benefit from Internet ‘dating’ sites such as Match.com and e-Harmony. I could never figure out why my inbox was empty of messages despite crafting good messages to hundreds of women. I now know the answer why I never received any replies from women on those ‘dating’ sites and it is racism”, he said.

Yunis asked, “From the information contained in the above website is is shocking to learn that most non-white women prefer ‘white’ guys more than their own. Why is this?”

Racial stereotypes are as old as slavery and race ideology, these perceptions still play a strong role in the interactions between Europeans and other races today, despite what the mainstream media is portraying.

In my article BBC’s Mixed Race Britannia: Will it explore all angles?, I covered an aspect of interracial relationships and families that is often ignored by the media. I specifically referred to a book titled “Black British Feminism“, edited by Heidi Safia Mirza, and published by Routledge in 1997. The chapter titled Diaspora’s Daughters, Africa’s orphans? On Lineage, authenticity and ‘mixed race’ identity, by Jaybe Ifekwunigwe, explored how mixed race children were racially abused and discriminated against by a white parent.

The research upon online dating in regards to race and the testimonies from black women themselves, as well as Yunis confirms that racial stereotypes and racial ideology remains firmly embedded in the minds of many whites.

Ironically in Rudder’s research, 93% of white females polled answered no to the question “Is interracial marriage a bad idea“, yet their poll response did not match their actual responses to men from a different race on online dating sites.

When asked “Would you strongly prefer to date someone of your own skin colour/racial background”, 54% of white females in the poll said yes, which was a higher percentage than even white males at 40%.

Race ideology and self hate among non whites

Rudder’s research uncovers much more than the racial attitudes of white women, it also uncovers the apparently deep self hatred amongst men and women from non white ethnicity. When asked, “Would you strongly prefer to date someone of your own skin colour/racial background”, white men and white women answered yes the most compared to other races.

Only 11% of black males said yes, compared to 22% of black females, and similarly, 17% of Indian males said yes compared to 23% of Indian females. Females in all ethnic groups were more likely to say yes compared to the males, and it was females from the Middle East that scored the highest (26%) on the yes answer to this question.

Going back to Yunis’s question about why non white females preferred white males to their own, well first of all Rudders poll suggests that males rather than females from non white ethnicity are more open to interracial relationships. However, to address his question one has to look at the structure of white supremacist ideology which promoted the idea that Europeans are the most attractive and the most intelligent race.

You do not have to look far to see aspects of self hate within non white races to confirm that this ideology continues to have a profound effect on our psychology.

When I wrote the article British psychologist reignites the debate about race ideology in science, I uncovered the fact that racist ideology still informs how some scientists think.

To think that in 2012, Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, would say that black women are less attractive than whites, Asians and Native American women reminded many people that racism is still strong in science today.

However, I also uncovered the shameful and shocking low self esteem among many non whites to the extreme that many are now ‘whitening up’ their appearance to feel more attractive.

Skin bleaching is a growing trend amongst non whites in the non European world and indeed Europe.

Others are coming up with various excuses to why they refuse to date their own race (read Controversy as successful black women are told to marry outside their race by law professor), when in reality all of the internal conflicts reflect self hatred. Non whites have to wonder, black people in particular why it is difficult to find mainstream media articles where a white male or white female states why they do not date their own kind. These issues merely serve to demonstrate how far back we have regressed from the civil rights movement. Instead of airing our dirty laundry in public it would be more dignified and productive to address these issues.

There are reasons why our young men and young women are rejecting each other, why our women feel they need to bleach their skin and resemble European females in their appearance, and as long as we refuse to address these issues the gulf between us will widen further to the point of no return.

All of this is the after effects of over one hundred years of race ideology and white supremacy.

It is this self hatred which offers an explanation to Yunis’s question.

Yet, it is important that readers do not interpret this article as denouncing interracial relationships. What this article denounces is the media’s avoidance of the racial issues discussed in this article.

What this article also denounces is the type of white male and female that the black women spoke about in their experiences. The ones who are clearly not healthy for nor worthy of raising children of mixed race parentage.

Hopefully, what this article will do is promote a healthy, honest and open debate regarding these issues.

For further research:

http://www.onlinedatingnewsletter.com/datingadvice/345/how-many-people-use-online-dating-services.html

http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2011/03/03/race-racism-and-online-dating/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/28/racism-and-online-dating

http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/

Media Ignore Anniversary of King Assassination Court Nuremberg Prosecution for Promoting Wars

Mark Watson — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 10:16:30 +0000

By Jay Janson©

Watch the video above of the American Military desecrating Martin Luther King’s legacy by saying that he would have supported the imperialist wars in Afghanistan and Iraq if he was alive.

Martin Luther King Jr.’ was courting assassination not merely for his condemnation of U.S. crimes against humanity in the neo-colonized poor populations of the world, but for condemning the “unfair predatory investments” that US wars are meant to maintain for the wealthy elite that still rule America and most of the world today.

He was permanently silenced because of his talent for awakening the citizenry, then precipitously being used to demand that all Americans, himself included, take responsibility for these atrocity wars and recognize responsibility to stop them as illegal and inhuman. King did not simply blame their own elected public officials for illegally ordering the genocide planned on Wall Street. He made his moral demand upon all Americans suddenly on April 4th, 1967 with a long sermon that was more a history lesson of his government’s homicidal violence all over the world, violence that was all for the financial benefit of mercilessly immoral powerful investors, in wars on poor people made possible by continual massive false testimony and disinformation from commercial media owned and controlled by these same heartless powerful investors. This world headline making sermon was titled appropriately, Beyond Vietnam – a Time to Break Silence, for in this sermon King agonized over his not speaking up sooner.

A Memphis jury’s verdict on December 8, 1999, in the wrongful death lawsuit of the King family versus Loyd Jowers “and other unknown co-conspirators,” found that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a conspiracy that included agencies of his own government. Take a moment to put King’s condemnation of U.S. wars to use during this anniversary of his assassination documented as described above. (See previous OEN King assassination anniversary articles by clicking on links at the end of this article.)

King’s condemned his country’s government as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world” making headlines internationally. He frightened the international community of investors, because this man capable of arousing the indignation of the nation spoke not to his government’s elected politicians but to the American people who had agreed to immorally accept, acquiesce and support these wars. Here is what was intolerable for the gang on Wall Street – listening to a beloved and proven successful leader of the masses rail against the injustice provoked by investors. This was something ominously frightening for the stability of their investments, and to their keeping their power to rule.

Though progressives expected the commercial media to again ignore King’s assassination anniversary as studiously as the mainstream media always has, they needn’t be silent about it. Our turn becomes stronger the day after we witness the calculated media silence. ‘Their’ media ignores King’s assassination anniversary, just as its entertainment/news media ignores the millions of deaths of even women and children, who fall in harms way of American invaders. We must all the more emphatically raise our voices in condemnation of this blocking mention of the colossal loss of life in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libyan lives in Libya recently taken and now our having the CIA and its five Middle Eastern branches see to what they can accomplish in Syria. This is what King Jr. would have wanted us do. This is what ‘peoples historian’ Howard Zinn spoke to in his radio interviews.

King demanded condemningly, “Look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the country. This is a role our nation has taken, … refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that comes from the immense profits of overseas investments. This is not just.”

There is now a King Condemned US Wars and Predatory Investments International Awareness Campaign. (One can Google its website as King Condemned US Wars)

It is already endorsed by: http://kingcondemneduswars.blogspot.com/

Global Justice and Peace of Riverside Church NYC

Fellowship of Reconciliation

Pax Christi International

Pastors For Peace

Buddhist Peace Fellowship

Thomas Merton Center Anti-War Committee

Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship

Father Paul Mayer

Dr. Serene Jones, Union Theological Seminary

Rev. Emmanuel Char. McCarthy, Center Christian Nonviolence

Dr. Cornell West

Rabbi Michael Lerner

Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space Bruce Gagnon

Veterans For Peace

former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark

Pete Seeger, folksinger

Wynton Marsalis, trumpet soloist, composer

Rep. Cynthia McKinney

Cindy Sheehan, antiwar activist

John Carlos, Olympic medalist

David Amram, composer

Richard D. Wolff, economist, U. of Massachusetts

James Vrettos, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

American Iranian Friendship Committee (AIFC)

Voices For Creative Non-Violence, Kathy Kelly

We Want World Peace

Cultures of Resistance Network

Come Home America US, Angela Keaton

CODEPINK

International Action, Sara Flounders

War Is A Crime, David Swanson

Grandmothers Against the War

Black Agenda Report

Rev. Bruce Southworth

Ann Wright, Colonel US Army (Ret.)

Gen. Smedley Butler Chapter VFP

Minority Perspective United Kingdom

Counter Currents, Kerala, India

OpEdNews

There is another campaign begun regarding bringing the law to bear upon those criminally planning, arranging, investing in, ordering and most importantly, promoting crimes against humanity deviously and masked as ‘just wars.’ Something unexpected! We have been made to believe that in the history of modern investment banking controlled European and European descendant empires that conquered and criminally exploited the non-European majority of Earthlings, will forever be above prosecution. The sole exception to leaders of empires national being prosecutable in established courts is said to be when the leaders, financiers and media personalities of the short lived Nazi empire were tried at Nuremberg (whose crimes, by the way, were made possible by massive investments from most all of the prominent US investing families and almost every single corporation of any significant size in the United States. This happened during a depression that was sustained by this flow of US investment into building the Nazi war machine with low-wage German labor in a Germany made prostate after an investor profitable World War One. WW I was the first international investment bonanza. The second and infinitely greater US investor bonanza was made possible by initial backing of a maniac planning a World War aimed principally at Soviet Socialist Russia, which for its early economic successes had been setting and example that fomented agitation for overthrowing capitalism everywhere – in the colonially occupied world and within the home nations of the Colonial Powers as well.)

Seems it is left to scholars to remember that after every popular revolution against investor controlled imperial rule, the overthrown politicians guilty, of crimes against humanity, were prosecuted in a reconstituted legal court system of criminal law, following their previous prosecution in the court of public opinion during the last days of their rule over society. The French, Mexican, Russian, Cuban, Chinese and Iranian Revolutionary Courts are examples of reconstituted courts prosecuting the very criminals that had already been prosecuted in the court of public opinion while investors had held power over the court system corrupted for their benefit and protection.

Another example to remember during the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’ assassination is that racist crime is now prosecuted in and by the established legal system, but only after King led successful prosecution of racist crime in the court of public opinion (despite all the violence the racist criminals brought down upon King’s non-violent prosecution of them in that court of public opinion.) Following the manner in King explained the history of investor generated wars, this new campaign, Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now contains a country by country history of US crimes. http://prosecuteuscrimesagainsthumanitynow.blogspot.com/

——————————————————

Previous OEN articles on this subject of media avoiding mention of the anniversary of his being shot dead.

MLK Assassination Anniversary Yesterday Unnoticed, Useful Today

A Memphis jury’s verdict on December 8, 1999, in the wrongful death lawsuit of the King family versus Loyd Jowers “and other unknown

co-conspirators,” found that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a conspiracy that included agencies of his own

government. Read UN Ambassador Andrew Young testimony. put King’s condemnation of U.S. wars to use today as ‘peoples historian Howard

Zinn does in his radio interviews!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jay_jans_070405_mlk_assassination_an.htm

Monday, April 5, 2010

APRIL 4! ANNIVERSARY OF ASSASSINATION and ANTI-WAR OUTCRY Excerpts – An Obama Must Read

It has often been suggested that we reread King’s Beyond Vietnam – a Time to Break Silence substituting Afghanistan and Iraq for each time Vietnam is referred to. But in parts of this sermon herein quoted King speaks to a time beyond the end of the war that brought him to cry out against in aguish insisting a breaking of our silence to demand moral change – one year to the day on which he was shot dead.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/APRIL-4-ANNIVERSARY-OF-AS-by-Jay-Janson-100403-337.html

Friday, April 4, 2008

MLK Was Murdered Exactly One Year After Condemning U.S. Imperialist War and Capitalism

(1 comments) It is widely believed that King’s condemnation of imperialist war madness and the capitalist “insanity of putting profit above humanity” cost him his life and cost the U.S. the loss of his much ‘too effective’ leadership. Historian Howard Zinn supports awakening Americans today by quoting from King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech. Read UN Ambassador Andrew Young testimony in the King family’s successful Memphis conspiracy trial.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_jay_jans_080404_mlk_was_murdered_exa.htm

Jay Janson, 80, is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer, who has lived and worked on all the continents and whose articles on media have been published in China, Italy, England, India and the US, and now resides in New York City. Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his. GlobalResearch, InformationClearingHouse, CounterCurrents, DissidentVoice, OpEdNews, Minority Perspective UK, HistoryNewsNetwork, are among those who have published his articles. Is coordinator of King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign (King Condemned US Wars) and creator of Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign with a country by country history of US crimes.

Photo Trayvon Yes! Photos 9 Afghan Children Massacred No! No Interest – Change Coming

Mark Watson — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 10:09:20 +0000

By Jay Janson©

Quite inhuman that Americans show no interest in those nine little children shot to death by a US soldier this month. A rising number of citizens realize how their minds have been conditioned to betray the most basic human instincts of compassion, fairness, cheering for the underdog and imagining oneself in the shoes of those murdered by military serving merciless investment bankers. Prescient resolution by a VFP vet.

http://www.countercurrents.org/janson300312.htm

Trayvon Martin

It’s natural, it’s human nature, and fully expected, that Americans have great interest when one of their own children is shot – even more so, when a racial hate crime is suspected.

It is not so natural and quite inhuman when Americans show little interest in those nine little children shot to death by a US soldier this month.

The news is filled with the story of young Trayvon Martin’s tragic death in Florida. There is also news about the middle-of-the-night massacre of seventeen Afghanis in their homes, nine of them small children. The difference is, whereas, readers and viewers get to see the American kid’s photo pretty much on every news publication and network news programs, there are no photos of the nine dead children when alive in US occupied Afghanistan. There are only photo’s of their alleged US Army killer and the wife of the alleged killer, who is interviewed as well.

It’s like, after all, the alleged killer is American. The massacred children are not American children. We learn of the agony felt by young Trayvon’s relatives, of his character, his dreams, favorite enjoyments, and are saddened by this boy’s life having been cut short by senseless gun fire.

But we don’t seem to want to know about the agony of the parents, siblings, grandparents of each Afghan child, and it never occurs to us to be interested in the faces of the unidentified by name nine boys, girls and infants, how they were beloved, their individual one of a kind personalities, and if they aspired to be doctors, teachers, sport stars, or brave enough to fight the Western invaders so feared for their high-tech killing ability.

Even if Americans did not have their problems of economic recession and personal psychological depression, being overweight and other self-made unhappiness to worry about, they still, for a now legendary American attitude of not be concerned about the latest bunch of poor people murdered in US militarily occupied and neo-colonized third world nations impoverished for having been exploited colonies of industrialized white empire nations for a century or more earlier.

With the 9/11 suicide attack by religious Wahabi Saudi Arabians in retaliation for the deadly US invasion of Iraq, US sanctions causing the death of a half-million infants, a half-century of war on fellow Arab Palestinians and the stationing of US troops in the land holy to all Muslims, the Wall Street owned US government and commercial media was able to propagate fear and justify war on all the nations of the oil rich Middle East with the same fervor and blasphemy of lies that justified a half century of wars against communism in most all third world. Imperial wars have always been for protection of an empire’s predatory investment regardless of fear mongered imaginative pretext.

The average American is so pathetically disinterested in who American troops, ships, planes and CIA are murdering, he or she could not possibly be interested to know that Afghanistan is not even an Arab nation, that Presidential Adviser Brzezinski brought in Arabs from all over the world, he himself calling for jihad in recruiting them to fight on the CIA-Afghan fundamentalist hill tribe terrorist side of a civil war that was funded by President Carter to sucker the Soviets into defending an allied socialist, women liberating, government in Kabul.

Now America conquers entire nations and overthrows governments to combat the ‘evil terrorists’ that Brzezinski brought into Afghanistan. Citizens and allies are told it is these Muslims who want to conquer and control the world, not kind and Godly American imperialism. Before Saudi Arabs counterattacked on 9/11 Americans had been told since 1900, that they must combat a communist conspiracy, not a capitalist conspiracy, seeking to enslave a world ironically still colonially enslaved by white investor run empires.

However, a rising number of American citizens realize how their minds have been conditioned to betray even the most basic human instincts of compassion and fairness, that early American trait of cheering for the underdog and imagining oneself in the shoes of the those oppressed and often murdered by military serving merciless and patently insane investment bankers running European empires.

As impossible as it sounds now in this present era of Orwellian mass-media psyop deception successfully leading the gullible majority to support, condone, or acquiesce mass-murder by one’s own countrymen on a previously unimaginable scale, a minority of Americans and citizens abroad, still capable of discerning independent thinking that penetrates the world screen of calculated lies, will become the segment of the US and world population that will somehow bring Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi’s courageous call to moral responsibility to life, and prosecute our businesslike war criminals in time to prevent the mega-profitable use of the frighteningly stupendous amount of weapons of mass destruction they are massively investing in.

A recent week-end national conference of antiwar organizations saw the introduction of the following prescient resolution by a Korean war veteran, long a member of Veterans For Peace, who might well have been involved in such a massacre as the one this article has sought to expose wholesale public apathy for:

“Whereas during WWII and the Allied occupation of Germany afterward, we soldiers, our folks back home and the citizens of the Germany invaded, bombed, and occupied nations in their hearts, to a great degree, held the German people responsible for the crimes of their soldiers and government, and- whereas there be few adult Americans, who are not in some way or another complicit in the crimes against humanity of their brothers and sisters in colonially impoverished nations since WWII, Be it resolved – that those here assembled will seek to make the public aware of its power to end war acceptance; end war capability in our society; be aware of our citizen responsibility for the crimes against humanity illegally ordered by our elected public servants; and consider the shame of our participation. For during the year before his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. demanded Americans take responsibility for the wars that were atrocities, agonizing over his own previous silence.”

furthermore:

“whereas Martin Luther King Jr. finding no court willing to prosecute racist crimes, successfully led their prosecution in the court of public opinion; – whereas Mahatma Gandhi finding no court would prosecute the crimes of the British Empire, successfully led their prosecution in the court of public opinion; – and whereas the people of Iran finding their courts unwilling to prosecute the crimes of the Shah, successfully led their peoples prosecution in the court of public opinion; – be it resolved law-abiding Americans, finding that US courts will not bring the force of common law, statutory law, Constitutional law and Nuremberg Principles law down upon perpetrators of illegal wars on poor people in colonially impoverished nations, that we citizens of all walks of life will seek to lead prosecution of these illegal and homicidal wars in the court of public opinion to punish these crimes against humanity and prevent them from further happening until our courts can do so.”

The above resolution, now in committee awaiting approval, was introduced by the pro bono coordinator of the the Martin Luther King Jr. Condemned US Wars for Predatory Investments International Awareness Campaign (King Condemned US Wars) and the Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign which feature a country-by-country history of US war crimes.

This article originally published by OpEdNews, US

http://www.opednews.com/author/author1723.html

Galloway wins Respect in Bradford by-election

Mark Watson — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 11:04:59 +0000

Outspoken Respect MP George Galloway won the Bradford by-election with a stunning victory over Labour winning over 10,000 votes more and over 55% of the vote, in a victory he referred to as the “Bradford Spring”.

Respect MP George Galloway, famously known for his vehement anti Iraq war stance, has sensationally returned to political office after trouncing Labour by more than 10,000 votes and winning over 55 percent of the vote.

Galloway referred to his victory as the “Bradford Spring” Triumphant Galloway Hails ‘Bradford Spring’ , telling Sky News that the result was “the most sensational result in British by-election history”, and that “Labour has been hit by a tidal wave in a seat it held for many decades in a city it dominated for 100 years.”

Galloway blamed Labour’s devastating defeat on their betrayal of Bradford’s people, involving the country in foreign wars and what he referred to as “the path of treason” embarked upon by former Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1994.

Why do black and minority ethnic communities continue to stay loyal to Labour?

For a very long time the Labour Party has been seen as the most race friendly party in Britain, and because of its long historic tradition with the trade unions, socialism and equality, many people from black and minority ethnic (BME) communities naturally gravitated towards Labour. In fact, it can be said that Labour can rely on the ethnic vote without even trying hard. For too long the Conservative Party has been associated with the far-right which made them a no go area for many black and minority ethnic voters.

Yet, it seems that BME communities are not aware of the Labour Party’s long history advocating British imperialism. In his book, “Labour: A Party Fit For Imperialism“, published by Larkin Publications in 1992, Robert Clough said that after World War II, the Labour government “exploited the colonies to the full.” (p.77)

He added:

“From 1948 in particular, the Empire was to be milked of all the dollars and superprofits it could earn. Resistance to this was ruthlessly and murderously put down. Three areas were to be critical: the Middle East, Malaya and West Africa. Such plunder was to cushion the British working class from the worse effects of the crises, and help prevent a repetition of the revolutionary struggles that occurred after the First Imperialist War.” (p.78)

Clough argues that Labour achieved what the Conservatives could not, a covert exploitation of the colonies whilst pretending to represent socialism. He referred to it as “socialist colonialism“. (p.106)

In fact it was this exploitation of the colonies that eventually payed for Britain’s social security and national health system.

So Labour just as the Conservatives was the party of empire, the difference being one party blatantly plundered and murdered for resources and the other committed the same atrocities but in disguise.

Once BME communities realise that the so called British left colluded with the empire the scales should fall from their eyes to see that British political parties will never represent them and will never stand for equality at home as well as overseas. They will only pay lip service to it.

I wrote an article titled, BME voters should vote for change over much of the same, in April 2010, where I argued that it was time for BME communities to withdraw their political support from the mainstream political parties and take a fresh look at alternative parties like Respect.

Respect is the only party in Britain with a political mandate which includes opposing imperialist wars, and it also supports investment in local industries rather than the dictatorship of corporate giants, policies which would benefit all who live in Britain.

George Galloway’s victory is great news, but if Respect fail to reach a wider electorate, it may be confined to only winning by-elections, but fail to win substantial mass support and national recognition, and I believe it needs that if British politics is to change from its imperialist traditions.

I believe it is also time for BME communities to switch allegiances from a deceptive Labour Party to Respect.

For further research:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/galloway-may-pull-off-shock-election-win-230711777.html

Clough, Robert. Labour: A Party Fit For Imperialism: Larkin Publications, 1992.

Hindus upset at BBC calling Holi “filthy”

Mark Watson — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:10:09 +0000

Press release by our religion correspondent©

Holi Day aka Festival Of Colours.

Hindus have criticised the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for labeling the Hindu festival of Holi as a “filthy festival”.

The BBC News website posted a short video on March 29 under its “week’s weird videos” in “Newsbeat’s odd box” showing youths playing Holi in Utah (USA) and titled the segment as a “Filthy festival”.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA), said that terming the “festival of color” celebrated by Hindus and others worldwide as “filthy” was very insensitive and belittling of the entire community.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, stated that BBC Director-General Mark Thompson and Trustees Chairman Lord Patten of Barnes should immediately apologise for this inappropriate terminology and hurting the feelings of one billion Hindus and publish it on the BBC website.

Rajan Zed pointed out that under its “our values”, the BBC claimed “we respect each other and celebrate our diversity”, but describing a festival of the world’s oldest religion as “filthy” was highly “disrespectful”. Was calling Holi “filthy” the BBC’s way of educating and informing the world correctly; whose “mission” was listed as: “to enrich people’s lives with programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain”? Zed asked.

Founded in 1922, headquartered in Westminster London, and established under the Royal Charter; the world’s largest broadcaster BBC (autonomous public service broadcaster) has been blamed in the past for racism, an imperialist stance, Indophobic bias, anti-Hindu bigotry, anti-American bias, etc. Helen Boaden is Director of BBC News and Diane Coyle is Trustees Vice Chairman.

Joie de vivre festival of Holi welcomes the beginning of spring and starts about ten days before the full moon of Phalguna. The ceremonies include the lighting of the bonfires, during which all evils are symbolically burnt. Holi also commemorates the frolics of youthful Lord Krishna; celebrates the death of demoness Putana, burning of demoness Holika, and destruction of Kama by Shiva. Holi fell on March eight this year.

Webster’s New World Dictionary describes “filthy” as “full of filth, disgustingly foul; grossly obscene; morally vicious or corrupt“.

Hinduism is the third largest religion of the world and moksha (liberation) is its ultimate goal.

Politicians reap what they sow – the contradictions of electoral racism

Mark Watson — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:51:34 +0000

By John Grayson©

When it comes to race are the mainstream political party leaders that different?

Across the Channel, Nicholas Sarkozy has been shamelessly courting supporters of the extreme-right leader Marine Le Pen by proposing a referendum on illegal immigrants, threatening to pull out of the Schengen agreement, and calling for the labelling of halal meat. (1)

Now, after the Toulouse shootings, he is outbidding her on the ‘Muslim terrorist threat’.

Of course, these are exactly the tactics and politics which British mainstream parties followed in the 2010 general election on the question of ‘immigration’, ‘triangulating’ beyond the BNP and taking on board their policies.

The next UK election campaign is, in effect, already underway. The head of David Cameron’s policy unit, Andrew Cooper, is the former head of political polling company Populus. Driven by the party’s populist Right, the Tories’ ‘retail offer for voters’ (2) has become an extreme xenophobic message that is alienating potential Black and ethnic minority voters. Conservative strategists are aware that ethnic minority voters could decide 100 key urban marginal seats. Thus, playing with far-right themes is indeed playing with fire.

A recent analysis of ‘David Cameron’s race problem’ in The Economist pointed to Labour’s “crushing dominance amongst ethnic minority voters” in 2010, and the failure of the Tories so far to go much beyond token anti-racist gestures. (3)

The Tory Right and ‘far’-right tendencies

The Tory Right are still clearly dissatisfied. Tim Montgomerie of the influential ConservativeHome website, and former aide to Ian Duncan Smith, put his view on Cameron bluntly: “rather than creating a right wing party with a heart, he created a centrist party with cuts”. (4)

David Cameron’s veto in Brussels, and his speech in Oxford last December on the King James Bible pleased the right, linking Euro scepticism to attacks on multiculturalism and a renewed stress on Christianity and Christian values. (5)

As David Edgar has pointed out, the Tory Christian theme popular with the party’s Right tends to include hints about multiculturalism and the threat of Islam. (6)

Eric Pickles, the Local Government Secretary, is adept at exploiting ‘Christian’ arguments. His speeches on the “right to pray” in council chambers and Christians becoming marginal fed the inevitable homophobic media debates on gay marriage and family values.

All of this lurch to the Right was excruciating news to senior Tory strategists, fearing punishment at the polls. Here’s Francis Maude in the Daily Mail:

“the Tory Party will always be seen as the nasty party unless it backs gay marriage, supports unmarried couples and does more to attract ethnic minority supporters . . . too few black and minority ethnic Britons see us as their natural home.” (7)

Tories and the Pope

The Christianity theme then took a remarkable detour. Baroness Warsi, (8) and other Tory ministers headed for Rome on 12 March to see Pope Benedict. Warsi saw this as a ‘return visit’ for the Papal visit to the UK in 2010. Whether deliberately or accidentally, the visit also publicly associated Tory policies with the Pope’s extreme right-wing views. (9)

Here’s Baroness Warsi writing in the Daily Telegraph on the eve of the visit:

“I will be arguing for Europe to become more confident and more comfortable in its Christianity. The point is this: the societies we live in, the cultures we have created, the values we hold and the things we fight for all stem from centuries of discussion, dissent and belief in Christianity.

These values shine through our politics, our public life, our culture, our economics, our language and our architecture. And, as I will say today, you cannot and should not extract these Christian foundations from the evolution of our nations any more than you can or should erase the spires from our landscapes.” (10)

In a European context, this is the rhetoric that underpins the ‘Eurabia’ fantasies of a Europe under siege from Islam. It places the British Conservative party in sympathy with some of the most right-wing movements in Europe. It also sits uneasily with Baroness Warsi’s challenge to ‘dinner table’ Islamophobia in 2011. (11)

Foreign Criminals and Strasbourg rights

Religion is not the only xenophobic theme of Conservative populism. The Tories’ ‘foreign criminals’ theme surfaced with the case of Abu Qatada. On 7 February Theresa May proclaimed: “The right place for a foreign terrorist is a foreign prison cell far away from Britain.” (12).

It was left to an angry and fairly isolated Shami Chakrabati of Liberty, on ‘This Week’ on 8 February, to call for the British courts to try Qatada, and to reject the notion that “justice in Britain depends on what passport you own”.

Attacks on the Human Rights court in the Qatada case again surfaced with the resignation of academic Michael Pinto Duschinsky from the UK Commission on a Bill of Rights. After attacking Ken Clarke and Nick Clegg for restricting debate on the Commission, he betrayed his own agenda.

“I know what the abuse of human rights really means. It is certainly not the kind of nonsense we hear so much about today — parents smacking children, the eviction of travellers from illegal encampments or the deportation of foreign criminals in breach of their supposed right to a family life.” (13)

Andrew Neil displayed his personal bias in his BBC2 documentary Rights Gone Wrong on 14 March, quoting a series of ‘foreign criminals’ cases as well as Qatada, all apparently saved from deportation by the existence of the Strasbourg court and its obsession with the rights to a family life.

Neil argued for the “decent mainstream majority” hostile to human rights, (brushing aside lawyer Michael Mansfield observation that this majority was largely invented by the Red Top press). Human rights, Neil argued, was a concept that had become “political poison“. An argument he pursued with former Home Secretary, John Reid (now Lord Reid), who duly attacked suspected foreign terrorists for “playing the system”. Lord Reid personifies xenophobia’s commercial imperative: a Principal of the Washington-based Chertoff Group (“Global leaders confronting global risk!”) with other commercially minded former statesmen, he is also a director of the world’s biggest security company, G4S.

Caps and contradictions on immigration

Damien Green the Immigration minister, pursuing the Conservative key populist policy around a ‘cap’ on immigration, announced further restrictions on migration and removed the small protection offered to migrant domestic workers, arguing that the UK economy had become “addicted to immigration” and “needed to kick the habit”.

But he was forced to the columns of the Financial Times to defend his policies against attacks from the Conservatives’ business allies. The CBI’s Neil Carberry said the government’s frequent policy adjustments had left global companies unable to take a clear five-year view on the UK’s stance on immigration. Jo Valentine, chief executive of London First, complained of “an unduly complex visa application process” and “an aggressive political rhetoric on immigration” deterring skilled workers. (14)

Where was Labour in these debates?

Labour’s stance on the Coalition’s xenophobic themes was predictable — to support a ‘tough’ security and immigration line on borders and terrorism. There were, however, indications of a rethink from Labour-leaning pollsters including YouGov’s Peter Kellner, in the Guardian:

“Immigration is overwhelmingly a blessing. It brings to these shores new ideas, new enthusiasm and entrepreneurial talent. Those who say immigration does harm, or imply that there is a problem by setting artificial curbs on the numbers coming to Britain are wrong – historically, culturally, economically and morally. I know the polls frighten politicians by showing that immigration is unpopular. But Labour will never win votes by compromising on immigration – the right will always outbid us. We can win over some votes by being honest and courageous.” (15)

A threatening future?

Labour and the Coalition parties have in the past turned to xenophobic populist rhetoric to ‘triangulate’ their reach beyond the BNP and now UKIP and the EDL. This electoral strategy seems to be falling apart.

But the threat from the Far Right still looms large in a period of economic ‘false dawns and public fury’. In the Financial Times, Martin Taylor, chairman of agribusiness Syngenta, suggests:

“the 1930s are not so far away . . . Immigrant and refugee populations, tolerated during prosperous times, are now seen as both the cause of unemployment and a potential source of sedition.” (16)

And EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malstrom, is pessimistic:

“The political mood in many EU member states is sour. We have not seen as many populist and xenophobic parties in European national parliaments since before the second world war . . . we need European and national leadership to make sure that populist rhetoric does not dictate the agenda.” (17)

The question remains whether the Coalition and Labour will produce the political leadership necessary to stop fuelling and feeding a climate of ‘common sense racism’ and actually confront Far Right populism. The prospects are far from encouraging.

A longer version of this piece was published by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) here.

References

1) Angelique Chrisafis 2012, ‘Sarkozy woos right with tilt at immigrants’, The Guardian, Monday 12 March 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/11/nicolas-sarkozy-french-elections-2012

2) Lynton Crosby, the Conservatives’ election adviser, quoted in Sebastian Payne 2012: ‘When will Boris pull his finger out?’ Spectator, 29 February

http://spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/7684733/when-will-boris-pull-his-finger-out.thtml

3) Bagehot 2012, ‘David Cameron’s Race Problem’, The Economist March 3rd 2012

http://www.economist.com/node/21548940

4) George Eaton 2012, ‘The softly spoken assassin feared by David Cameron’, New Statesman, 12 March

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2012/03/cameron-tim-conservative

5) See John Grayson’s ‘Veto Nationalism’ piece http://www.irr.org.uk/news/veto-nationalism-populism-nationalism-and-the-tories/

6) David Edgar ‘We can’t allow the Bible to be highjacked for narrow and partisan politics’ , Guardian, 19 December 2011.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/18/cant-allow-bible-hijacked-politics

7) Tim Shipman 2012, ‘We’re still seen as the nasty party, says minister’, Daily Mail, 7 March

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2111326/Support-gay-marriage-seen-backward-Tories-told.html#ixzz1oQiWHsv3

Baroness Warsi is the first Muslim woman to serve in a British cabinet. According to the Daily Mail ‘A Muslim minister who calls upon Christians to stand up for their faith’, Baroness Warsi was brought up in Dewsbury as a Muslim in a town which has a mosque which is the international centre for the Sunni Deobandi sect ‘preaching a puritan form of Islam, including segregation of the sexes and abstention from any form of participation in politics’ Warsi sent her own daughter to a Catholic school.

She trained as a lawyer with the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Home Office Immigration Service. She had her own solicitors’ practice in Dewsbury. Warsi also had a career as a political insider, advising and writing policy on immigration and asylum for Michael Howard in the 2005 election, alongside speechwriter David Cameron. She was accused of ‘homophobic ‘ election material when she stood as a Conservative candidate in Dewsbury in that election.

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005/apr/27/uk.conservatives1

9) David Gibson 2011, ‘A Christian Europe without Christianity’, Huffington Post, 13 August 2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/13/a-christian-europe-withou_n_924901.html

10) Baroness Warsi 2012, ‘We stand side by side with the Pope in fighting for faith’, The Daily Telegraph, 12 March 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9080441/We-stand-side-by-side-with-the-Pope-in-fighting-for-faith.html
The tone of the Warsi article suggests the influence of Michael Gove who in his ‘neo con’ book ‘Celsius 7/7’ in 2006 called for the West to stand up to ‘Islamism, a ‘totalitarian ideolog[y]‘ which turns to ‘hellish violence and oppression’ in a similar way to the 20th century ideologies of National Socialism and Communism.’

11) David Batty 2011, ‘Lady Warsi claims Islamophobia is now socially acceptable in Britain’ The Guardian 20 January

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/20/lady-warsi-islamophobia-muslims-prejudice

12) Alan Travis 2012 , ‘Abu Qatada should remain behind bars, says Theresa May’, The Guardian, 7 February

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/07/abu-qatada-should-remain-behind-bars

13) Michael Pinto-Duschinsky 2012, ‘I escaped the Nazis-so spare me these sneers about tyranny’, Daily Mail 12 March

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2113615/Ken-Clarke-Nick-Clegg-defying-Parliament-says-expert.html#ixzz1pVXToBrC

14) Helen Warrell and George Parker 2012, ‘Call to end foreign worker addiction’ Financial Times 7 March 2012

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8acc15fa-66b3-11e1-9d4e-0144feabdc0.ktml#axzzlp2ZJDLMn

15) Peter Kellner 2012, ‘The truths Labour must face to regain credibility’, The Guardian 19 February

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/19/truths-labour#history-link-box#history-link-box

16) Martin Taylor 2012, ‘False dawns and public fury: the 1930’s are not so far away’, Financial Times, February 10

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/473c7318-532e-11e1-8aa1-00144feabdc0.html

17) Cecilia Malmstrom 2012, ‘Asylum: it’s vital that Europe present a united front’, The Guardian, 7th March

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/07/asylum-europe-present-united-front

Virtuous Obama Omits US Nuclear Terrorism History Threatens Korea Iran

Mark Watson — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:16:48 +0000

By Jay Janson©

In To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon’s Secret War, 1987, Prof. Michio Kaku, chronicled 12 acts of US nuclear terrorism since it terrorised Japan by A-bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The stream of new revelations about U.S. nuclear planning fills in a picture of what North Korea calls “the increasing nuclear threat of the US,” which it cites as the reason it developed its own atom-bomb program — as a deterrent.

President Obama delivers a speech on nuclear security at Hankuk University in Seoul, South Korea and the world is treated to watching David Rockefeller’s choice for a token minority face for the American empire in superb form – a boyishly young black American carrying a big stick and saying he will have no problem using it, talking down to the colonially exploited non-white majority of mankind like no white American president ever dared.

Obama Warns Iran, North Korea, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74459.html

President Obama double talks the way all US presidents of the US security state have double talked since it was organised under Truman, but Obama, for not being white, gets away with it much easier. Of course he is authorised by his handlers to throw humanity the usual bone, “We have more nuclear weapons than we need” indicating that he can get rid of a few (outdated ones, we are sure).

Those readers who are asleep to the danger of nuclear weapons in the hands of those ruling the US corporatist empire might best read To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon’s Secret War Plans, by eminent Professor of Theoretical Physics Michio Kaku, Stephen Hawking’s closest confident, who in 1987, chronicled the twelve times the US had practiced nuclear terrorism in threatening nuclear bombing of various countries since it dropped atom bombs to terrorise Japan into unconditional surrender by obliterating Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

By 2012, that number twelve would have to be revised upward, if for nothing else, by counting in the times President Obama has threatened Iran with nuclear attack.

(Paperback edition, used, from Barnes and Noble available as low as $3, hardcover $13.) Library review, 1987

“The authors, both university physicists, maintain that U.S. nuclear policy for the past 40 years has not been one of deterrence as publicly stated, but rather has been one of threatening the use of nuclear weapons. This policy has been documented in such books as the New England Regional Office of the American Friends Service Committee’s The Deadly Connection and Barry M. Blechman and Stephen S. Kaplan’s Force Without War: U.S. armed forces as a political instrument. The authors’ thorough analysis of recently released Pentagon documents provides the basis for a description of the nuclear war fighting strategy of the Reagan administration. The authors also outline the attitudes and biases of U.S. nuclear strategists and policymakers. Recommended for public and university libraries [Dennis Felbel, Univ. of Manitoba Lib., Winnipeg]

As of October 2008, China, India and North Korea, have publicly declared their commitment to no first use of nuclear weapons. China was the first to propose and pledge NFU policy when it first gained nuclear capabilities in 1964, stating “not to be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time or under any circumstances” . NATO has repeatedly rejected calls for adopting NFU policy, arguing that preemptive nuclear strike is a key option. The US is a member of NATO. [ First Strike Nuclear, Wikipedia ]

From the 1950s’ Pentagon to today’s Obama administration, the United States has repeatedly pondered, planned and threatened use of nuclear weapons against North Korea, according to declassified and other U.S. government documents released in this 60th-anniversary year of the Korean War.

Air Force bombers flew nuclear rehearsal runs over North Korea’s capital during the war. The U.S. military services later vied for the lead role in any “atomic delivery” over North Korea. In the late 1960s, nuclear-armed U.S. warplanes stood by in South Korea on 15-minute alert to strike the north.

Just this past April, issuing a U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, Defense Secretary Robert Gatessaid “all options are on the table” for dealing with Pyongyang — meaning U.S. nuclear strikes were not ruled out.

The stream of new revelations about U.S. nuclear planning further fills in a picture of what North Korea calls “the increasing nuclear threat of the U.S.,” which it cites as the reason it developed its own atom-bomb program — as a deterrent.

“This is the lesson we have drawn,” North Korea’s vice foreign minister, Pak Kil Yon, told the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Sept. 29.

Even without nuclear weapons, three years of U.S. conventional bombing had devastated North Korea, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. The nuclear planning didn’t stop with the fighting. On Aug. 20, 1953, declassified documents show, the Strategic Air Command sent Air Force headquarters a plan for “an air atomic offensive against China, Manchuria and North Korea” if the communists resumed hostilities. “OpPlan 8-53 — called for use of “large numbers of atomic weapons.”

The new information is contained in Korean War documents released by the CIA to mark this June’s anniversary of the start of the conflict; another declassified package obtained by Washington’s private National Security Archive research group under the Freedom of Information Act; and additional documents, also once top-secret and found at the U.S. National Archives, provided to The Associated Press by intelligence historian and author Matthew Aid. [US repeated threatened to use nukes on N. Korea: declassified documents, Associated Press, 10/9/2012]

The reader can draw his or her own conclusions as to where lies the threat to Mankind from nuclear weapons. Korea, Iran, nations that store many nuclear weapons, or the US, which stores tens of thousands, and whose president pretends that his single superpower country is a reliable, fair and trustworthy friend and protector of the residents of planet Earth?

Black mother acid attacked by white male whilst pushing pram

Mark Watson — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 18:54:06 +0000

Police sketch of the man who attacked the black mother. He is described as haaving blue eyes, a dimple in his chin and a red mark like a burn on his bottom lip.

A black mother was left traumatised and with burns to her back and chest after a white male threw acid over her whilst she was pushing her young baby in a pram.

A twenty-nine year-old black woman was viciously attacked as she pushed her baby in a pram. The woman was approached by a white male said to be in his 40s who made a sexual and racist comment towards her before throwing a container of corrosive liquid over her.

The police believe this to be a random attack and it is being treated as a hate crime. It has also been reported that the baby was not harmed.

The white male fled the scene after the attack and is still at large.

Racism on the rise says report

This vicious racist attack is part of a growing trend of racist violence against black and minority ethnic communities (BME) according to the the Institute Of Race Relations. (IRR)

Dr. Jon Burnett, author of the report, ‘The new geographies of racism: Stoke-on-Trent’, said that Stoke’s BME communities have seen a surge in racist attacks, forcing asylum seekers from schools, deliberate damage to Mosques, attacks at takeaways and against Muslims, and a campaign of racial harassment against the BME community in general, all spurned on by the rise of far-right politics and groups in the area such as the English Defence League.

According to the report:

“Serious racist attacks in Stoke which have taken place in the last few years have included the hospitalisation of an Indian takeaway worker, in November 2011, after he was attacked with a lump of masonry; an attempt to blow up a mosque; a worker in a Turkish takeaway being cut with a knife, a paving slab thrown through the window of the premises and protection money being demanded by the attackers; a delivery driver forced to hide in his vehicle as youths threw bottles and glass at him; and, on the eve of a march by the English Defence League, taxi firms having to suspend their services, reportedly as a result of death-threats against drivers.”

Not only has the harsh economic climate pushed the ugly underbelly of racism to the surface in Britain, there is a poisonous ideology which has been promoted by the mainstream media, which claims that white people are the now the main victims of racist attacks, but this inaccurate and highly racially inciting belief is not supported by the statistics.

According to an IRR report titled, ‘Racial violence – the buried issue’ (April 22, 200):

“The Institute of Race Relations, the only research body in the UK to monitor racial violence, has found that a total of eighty-nine people have lost their lives in racial violence attacks in the UK since the murder of Stephen Lawrence on 22 April 1993.”

“Of these, eighty-three were from BME communities and just six were White (four were White British and two were Polish migrant workers). Forty-six per cent of all victims were Asian and 26 per cent were Black. The vast majority of perpetrators, 94 per cent, were White British people.”

The report highlighted that vulnerable BME groups included those who worked at night such as taxi drivers, takeaway workers and small shops which accounted for 16% of the deaths.

As a result of the economic hardship these are dangerous times for BME communities, particularly when you have a national media deceitfully telling whites that they are the main victims of racist attacks.

It is also important to note that Dr. Jon Burnett mentioned in his report how some victims of racial violence has been let down by the criminal justice system and were even forced to take up self defence to defend themselves and their families. In other words the perpetrators were not brought to justice.

Another important issue in this case is that independent race equality groups that has been providing a vital service for local BME communities has been chronically underfunded or have had their funding cut by local councils.

Arun Kundnani, in a report for IRR said, “A study, published…by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, has found that independent, community-based support groups offer victims of racism a sense of empowerment and a validation of their experience that they are not finding from other agencies, such as the police, housing departments or racial equality councils.” (Victims of racist harassment need independent support groups, research finds: July 2003)

In other words independent community groups are providing a better race equality service than the council, housing departments and police, is this the reason why they are not funded by local councils it can be asked?

It is time that the BME communities pull together and begin to fund these independent groups themselves. If no serious effort is made to bring this to fruition not only will more racist attacks occur without justice for the victims, the current weak, government-controlled race equality organisations will be the only places to turn to.

Victims of discrimination deserve to be represented by the group they represent, if nothing is done on this issue then we all might as well be prepared for a race equality future where those who discriminate against us sit behind the race equality desks.

For further research:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-17509969

http://www.irr.org.uk/news/new-geographies-of-racism-stoke-on-trent/

http://www.irr.org.uk/news/racial-violence-the-buried-issue/

http://www.irr.org.uk/news/victims-of-racist-harassment-need-independent-support-groups-research-finds/

Windrush Project director criticises Big Lottery funding bias for slavery

Mark Watson — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 13:25:39 +0000

The Windrush Foundation Project director Arthur Torrington has criticised The Department for Communities and Local Government and the Big Lottery Fund for rejecting a national memorial day for slavery whilst providing around half a million pounds annually to Holocaust history and activities.

Arthur Torrington is the Project Director of the Windrush Foundation and co-founder of the Equiano Society. He was awarded a CBE for his services to Black Heritage in 2011.

Mr Torrington organised project ‘LIBERATION 1838’, marking “the 175th anniversary of the August 1838 liberation of nearly a million African people in the Caribbean” and “celebrating those who resisted enslavement, those who fought to end it, and others who worked in Britain and the Caribbean for a better social, economic, and political situation for Caribbean people.” (Read Liberation 1838 project)

Although the project initially received £31,500 funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund a full grant was needed for this year, but so far this has been rejected.

In a press release the Big Lottery Fund said that the, “application is not recommended for funding as the project is not targeting those most in need… Consultation is older than 12 months and was not directly with beneficiaries. Those most in need are not effectively targeted by the project.” (Read Big Lottery refuses to fund a memorial day for slavery)

Mr Torrington pointed out that the government provides approximately half a million pounds annually towards Holocaust activities and memorial events, but apparently the African Holocaust is not given the same respect.

In a letter dated 16 March 2012, the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, wrote to Mr Torrington saying:

“You have asked why your particular initiative has not received funding in light of Government support for Holocaust Memorial Day. Whilst the Government recognises the importance of the lnternational Day of Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, it would not be appropriate to make comparisons in this area. The Government took a conscious decision to focus on events around the Holocaust and thereafter, although it did examine requests to consider other atrocities and events that preceded the Holocaust including the Crusades, slavery, colonialism, the victims of Stalin and the Boer War. It is always difficult to draw a line and wherever it is drawn it runs the risk of being misinterpreted.” (Read the full letter NICK CLEGG 1 and NICK CLEGG 2)

Note that Mr Clegg does not directly answer the question to why the government provides funding for the Jewish Holocaust but not the African Holocaust. Instead, he skirts around the issue talking about a line having to be drawn somewhere, raising even more questions than answers. Is Mr Clegg suggesting that only the Jewish Holocaust is important to the government? In the letter he writes he never gives a satisfactory answer.

What Mr Clegg did do in the letter is justify the government and the The Department for Communities and Local Government efforts in combating racial discrimination which does not in any way address the discrepancy in funding when it comes to the African Holocaust.

Mr Torrington wrote a letter to Mr Clegg responding on the 22 March 2012, saying:

“LIBERATION 1838 is not a project about the Slave Trade or its abolition, but about the 1838 liberation of enslaved Africans in the Caribbean. The 200th anniversary of the Abolition Act was in 2007, and the 175th anniversary of African Caribbean liberation is to be celebrated in 2013. Your letter of 16 March 2012 is not a comment on the latter.”

“The project will help Black youth understand what really happened to their ancestors in 1838 (not 1807), and how Africans in the Caribbean survived after the First of August 1838. Over the years, the British education system has failed to deliver this history in schools. Also, the project will discuss why so many of their descendants live in the UK. We strongly believe that a better understanding of this history will help Black youth in their quest for identity, self-appreciation and value. These are some of the topics that LIBERATION 1838 will cover. We hope also to help the British public to understand and appreciate the shared history with African Caribbean people, because we have found that only a few of the former are not in denial about our shared history, or get directly involved.” (Read the full letter here Nick Clegg-3-12)

Liberating ourselves from government aid

There is a saying that if you want something done right it is best to do it yourself and in this situation the saying is justified. Whilst I commend Mr Torrington on his efforts to get this traumatic aspect of African history recognised nationally and in the education curriculum, he has to realise that his efforts will be frustrated as long as he seeks official recognition from the government and government related funding bodies such as as the lottery.

Nick Clegg’s response says it all about the government’s mentality on the African Holocaust, “It is always difficult to draw a line…”, he says. Therefore it could be interpreted that he is implying a line was drawn when it came to the African Holocaust, it is just not that important to the government it can be argued.

Readers will probably be surprised to know that France, a country which is evidently struggling with race relations passed a law in 2001 recognising slavery as a crime against humanity and made May 10 as a national day of remembrance for the victims of slavery.

Labour, under Tony Blair’s leadership on the other hand said that slavery was legal at the time and therefore not a crime against humanity, at the United Nations 2004 anti-slavery World Conference. (Read Campaigners call for Europe to provide reparations for slavery)

Lee Jasper, who was the London Mayor advisor in 2001, resigned from a government committee set-up to implement Tony Blair’s promise of a memorial day for slavery because government officials blocked progress, he said.

The reality is, the British government is just not interested in the African Holocaust, and a national memorial day, along with events and projects which would educate the public about the crimes committed during this era would force people to reflect upon the current state of affairs in the world. Specifically Africa. Is this really what the government would want? Young people of all races questioning government policies on Africa and overseas? Clearly not. However, there is nothing stopping Mr Torrington lobbying the black community in Britain to contribute financially to this project.

The population of the black community in the UK runs into the millions, less than a pound from each of us could provide the funding for the ‘Liberation 1838‘ project and much more.

Mr Torrington asked the following two questions in June 2011 to the black community and members of the wider community in order to demonstrate to the Big Lottery Fund that there was a need for this project:

Do you think there is a need for a community project, which provides information and holds events on August 23 – and throughout the year – featuring stories and activities about transatlantic slavery and its abolition?

Yes?

No?

Will you support a community project, which provides information and holds events on August 23 – and throughout the year – featuring stories and activities about transatlantic slavery and its abolition?

Yes?

No?

What I would actually say is that instead of asking for money from the Big Lottery Fund and the government, Mr Torrington should ask for the funding from the community itself.

This would mean that he and other organisers would have greater freedom on how the money is spent and what aspects of African history is taught which has been previously ignored by the education system and white historians.

One of the the problems with asking the government for funding for projects such as this is that the same government continues to exploit African countries and other countries overseas along the same colonial pattern in which the African slave trade was established. The government will not want these revelations to come to light, a community-funded project on the other hand could expose these truths.

It is time for individuals such as Mr Torrington to turn to the community for these projects so that we can honour our history properly without compromise.

For further research:

http://www.equiano.org/about_us.html

August 23 Chronology – from 2007

DCLG on AUGUST 23

Not a criticism of Holocaust Memorial Day

Slave labour: The real price of the London 2012 Olympics

Mark Watson — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 11:40:48 +0000

Multinational sportswear companies Adidas, Nike and Puma exploit Bangladeshi workers. Image from (bdnews24.com)

Behind the media hype, pomp and excitement leading up to the London 2012 Olympics lies am exploitative world of Bangladeshi slave labour providing sports wear for the big brands such as Nike and Adidas for as little as 72 pence a day or £3.60 a week. This is the real price of the London 2012 Olympics.

Whilst many of us will be watching Jamaica’s Usain Bolt racing in the 100 metres, hoping to see a spectacular feat of human physical performance in this year’s London 2012 Olympics, far from the glare of the media cameras and the watching British public, Bangladeshi workers are working 12 hour shifts for a mere 72 pence a day making sports wear for the big brands advertising at the Olympics such as Nike and Adidas.

According to War on Want, an organisation that “campaigns for human rights and against the root causes of global poverty, inequality and injustice”, in a report titled, “Race to the Bottom“, Bangladesh has the lowest minimum wage in Asia, which is why many multinational companies are swooping in to exploit the cheap labour force.

The report states, “Nike and Puma all publicly state that their suppliers must pay any national minimum wage, but none have yet committed to implementing a living wage for their workers.” (p.6)

War on Want said that their researchers visited six factories in Bangladesh where the local workers provided clothing for Adidas, Puma and Nike, and at five of the factories visited the minimum wage was not even met.

The researchers said that the average worker was working for a mere 16 pence an hour, worked over 60 hours in contrary of Bangladeshi labour law, and worked compulsory overtime.

85 percent of women make up the over three million Bangladeshi slave labourers that work in the garment industry. There is no maternity leave or provisions for child care.

The report refers to 21 year-old Rahima, a mother of one child who worked at one of these factories.

“Rahima came to the capital when she was 16 in search of a job to contribute to the family’s income. In 2007, she started work at a factory and soon after married a rickshaw van driver and has one child.“

“The factory requires her to work for more than 12 hours a day, seven days a week and so she cannot spend time with her child. Working overtime is mandatory; her colleagues are beaten if they refuse to work more hours. Sometimes the factory does not pay the employees for three consecutive months, and if during this time a worker resigns they are not paid for that time at all. She says the managers constantly verbally and physically abuse the workers at the factory.” (P.6)

At the end of the report War on Want urges readers and supporters to write to their MPs, write to the CEOs of Nike, Puma and Adidas, and join them in their campaign for fair wages on a global scale.

War on Want lists as one of their funders, the Department For International Development (DFID), a UK government department which in itself is suspicious as the role of this department is to promote British business overseas.

In a Socialist Worker article titled, “Aid money flows to the water privateers” (2 April 2005), Kelly Hilditch explains how the DFID has been promoting the privatisation of water overseas. How can War on Want reconcile receiving funding from such a dubious source?

They also list Comic Relief as one of their funders, who are linked to corporate sponsors like Sainsburys. Does this even make sense? How can working with the very companies which pursue cheap labour represent workers in Bangladesh?

The problem with existing non-governmental organisations and charities is that they have a cosy relationship with the government and businesses which cause misery for millions of people around the world. Can they be trusted to deliver equality and fairness? Or are they a front for big business to ensure any change is implemented with their consent?

After discovering that Amnesty International could have been infiltrated by MI6 agents as according to an ex member (read Peaceful Assassins: How non-governmental organisations are the new agents of Western imperialism), activists interested in changing the world must tread carefully and be vigilant regarding joining organisations and taking part in their campaigns.

What is needed are grassroots, genuine non-governmental groups with no ties to big business to tackle these issues without the compromising links which most if not all of these existing organisations have.

Boycotting Nike, Puma, and Adidas goods would just be the beginning, but that alone is not enough to address the global inequality caused by big business. Big business must be stripped of their power to make decisions on behalf of citizens who suffer the consequences of their greed. In order for this to happen, the movements or groups that is formed must be divorce from government and business ties.

Genuine movements could improve Rahima’s situation, and many like her who are in similar positions.

It is also disgusting that athletes conveniently ignore the fact that many people are exploited so that they can secure lucrative sponsorship contracts worth millions. It takes the innocence out of the Olympics and makes watching the events uneasy once you are aware of the situation.

For further research:

http://www.waronwant.org/attachments/Race%20to%20the%20Bottom.pdf

http://www.waronwant.org/campaigns/love-fashion-hate-sweatshops/extra/extra/inform/17463-race-to-the-bottom

http://www.waronwant.org/about-us/our-funders

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=6154

Peaceful Assassins: How non-governmental organisations are the new agents of Western imperialism

Mark Watson — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 17:14:50 +0000

Suspicious meetings. Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, leaves the Foreign and Commonwealth Office after meeting British Foreign Secretary William Hague in central London, Nov 21 2011.

Whether it is the Syrian Human Rights Monitoring Centre, responsible for some of the news we hear on television regarding the civil war in Syria, or the Damascus Centre for Human Rights, another news source which the Western media quote in regards to Syria, these non governmental organisations (NGOs) are linked to Western governments and their foreign policy objectives, making them effectively the new agents of Western imperialism and what I refer to as peaceful assassins, Western agents carrying out deadly undercover operations in foreign countries under the guise of human rights.

“Foreign aid is a method by which the United States maintains a position of influence and control around the world…” (President John F. Kennedy quoted in ‘Lords of Poverty, The Power, Prestige, and Corruption of the International Aid Business’ by Graham Hancock, p.71, 1989)

The quote above would probably unnerve even the staunchest charitable person, but it defines how charities are used by Western governments to forward foreign policy objectives.

For those who may find this fact hard to stomach perhaps a quote from American President Nixon will unsettle you even further. He said, “Let us remember that the main purpose of aid is not to help other nations but to help ourselves.” (Hancock: Page 71)

For a disturbing expose of aid and charity organisations read The Deadly Aid Industry which I posted on March 2010. After reading that article you may think twice about donating to a charity when you see an advert portraying starving African children.

In an excellent article by Tony Cartalucci titled, Empire’s Double Edged Sword: Global Military + NGOs: Tearing down sovereign nations & replacing them with global system administrators, (Global Research: February 19, 2012), he explains persuasively how charity organisations became agents of the British empire.

Cartalucci also explains how the economic exploitative system installed by the British rulers in their colonies remains in place to this very day.

More importantly however, he said “Like NGOs of today, the administrative networks that made up the British Empire were in many cases entirely dependent on grants from London…”

This point is important as it contradicts the belief that these organisations are in any way independent.

Cartalucci explains how in 2008, US military strategist Thomas Barnett outlined what he referred to as “system administrators”, or bureaucrats whose purpose is to run the country in the interests of the U.S. elite. NGO’s are part of this system.

The Syrian Human Rights Monitoring Centre, is London based, and financed by the National Endowment for Democracy, a CIA cover organisation. It is this so called human rights organisation where some of the news stories covered by the Western media stems from. (Global Research: Spinning the News from “Reliable” NGO Sources: London-based “Syrian Observatory” Consorting Directly With British Government: By Tony Cartalucci : December 2011)

The Damascus Centre for Human Rights, another source quoted by the Western media is also financed by the National Endowment for Democracy.

Amnesty International, (AI) an organisation once reputable for its human rights work has also been called into question. Professor of International Law, at the University of Illinois, Francis Boyle, who was a former board member of AI exposed the organisation in an interview with Dennis Bernstein, in the CovertAction Quarterly, 2002, p.9-12-27.

In the interview Boyle said:

“Amnesty International is primarily motivated not by human rights but by publicity. Second comes money. Third comes getting more members. Fourth, internal turf battles. And then finally, human rights, genuine human rights concerns. To be sure, if you are dealing with a human rights situation in a country that is at odds with the United States or Britain, it gets an awful lot of attention, resources, man and womanpower, publicity, you name it, they can throw whatever they want at that. But if it’s dealing with violations of human rights by the United States, Britain, Israel, then it’s like pulling teeth to get them to really do something on the situation.”

Boyle shockingly added:

“Amnesty International refused adamantly to condemn apartheid in South Africa. Despite my best efforts while I was on the board, and other board members, they would not do it. They are the only human rights organization in the entire world to have refused to condemn apartheid in South Africa. Now they can give you some cock-and-bull theory about why they wouldn’t do this. But the bottom line was that the biggest supporter, economic and political supporter of the criminal apartheid regime in South Africa was the British government, followed by the United States government. And so no matter how hard we tried, no matter what we did, they would not condemn apartheid in South Africa. Now I just mention that as one among many examples.”

Disturbingly, Boyle describes how AI was involved in the hoax propaganda story leading up to the war in Iraq which involved claims that Saddam Hussein’s military were throwing Kuwaiti babies out of incubators. The daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in the US made a tearful plea to the American people, and George Bush Senior, even held up a copy of the AI report as proof. It was later discovered that the story was an invention of the PR firm Hill & Knowlton, and the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador was coached in acting skills to perform her part. Boyle said:

“Of the six votes in the United States Senate that passed the resolution to go to war, several of those senators said that they were influenced by the Amnesty report…My conclusion was that a high-level official of Amnesty International at that time, whom I will not name, was a British intelligence agent. Moreover, my fellow board member, who also investigated this independently of me, reached the exact same conclusion. So certainly when I am dealing with people who want to work with Amnesty in London, I just tell them, “Look, just understand, they’re penetrated by intelligence agents, U.K., maybe U.S., I don’t know, but you certainly can’t trust them.” (Source: Source Watch)

Having used AI reports in my articles before these revelations tells me that everything we hear and every website or organisation we use must be scrutinised vociferously.

If the mainstream corporate-financed media can pass off a bogus story regarding dead Kuwaiti babies, then why should any of us believe the images and stories we hear daily on the news?

If reputable human rights organisations such as AI can be infiltrated by government agents should we really believe the reports they publish regarding countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia or Latin America?

The deadliest assassins are the ones who come as your friend, and the deadliest weapons of Western imperialism are the NGOs, charities and religious groups who come as friends, but really work to uproot the countries they inhabit and spread disinformation to the wider world. These peaceful assassins must be exposed so that we can all see more clearly about the state of the world we currently live in.

For further research:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29380

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28374

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29787

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27702

http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0004573.html

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amnesty_International

Not Just Our Soldier but You and I Mr & Mrs US Citizen Murdered Those 17

Mark Watson — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:48:54 +0000

Unaccountable atrocities of an expansionist US, “”Eleven members of my family are dead. They are all dead,” Haji Samad, Kandahar province. CNN demands to know what our commanders are doing to protect our soldiers from Afghan wrath, This US soldier, cannot be morally prosecuted separately from those who sent him, maintained him and ordered him to kill anyone in opposition to his being there frightened for his own life: we US citizens!

http://www.countercurrents.org/aljazeera110312.htm US Soldier Kills 17 Afghans In Shooting Spree, by Al Jazeera, 3/11/2-12 [with pathetic photo of one of the children killed]

“A US soldier has killed more than a dozen civilians in a shooting spree in southern Afghanistan before being detained, officials say. A member of the Kandahar provincial council who visited the site of the shooting in Panjwai district told Al Jazeera that at least 17 civilians were killed when the soldier left his base early on Sunday morning and opened fire…”Eleven members of my family are dead. They are all dead,” Haji Samad, an elder from Panjwai district, told the AFP news agency…Anger gripped the nation after US soldiers burned a large number of copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, at a NATO base last month…At least 41 people were killed in protests that followed the burning.”

The CNN commentator asks with displayed concern in his voice, … ‘what are our commanders in Afghanistan doing to protect our soldiers from Afghan wrath in the aftermath of this alleged slaying of seventeen of their people?′ (inside their own homes during the night).

Whoa! Again, this I, me, mine? America First? ‘Only in America?’ What smashed into this network news viewer’s head was ‘Why, on this blessed Earth and Heaven (my editor disallows curse words) was the nice looking African-American commentator not asking what the commanders of out troops are doing to protect Afghan citizens and their children from massacres by the US military? Atrocities the world has been hearing of for six decades of US undeclared wars massacres of people in their own God-damn county, even in their own freaking homes?

This is not something exceptional brand new, some aberration of fine Jack Armstrong-like benevolent US Armed Forces behavior, as President Obama has pleaded. No, its on record, the atrocities in Korea, in Vietnam, in Iraq, and a dozen other countries in my lifetime that harken back to those in Vera Cruz in 1914, in the Philippines and China in 1900, and in a lot of Wounded Knees right here in our land from its beginning as a nation.

Naw, that’s enough! If we don’t want to know the horrific violent history regarding our use of military power, how in the name of all that is Holy will we ever change from savage aggressiveness toward the rest of Mankind to a self-confident normal and peaceful attitude toward our fellow Earthlings.

Imagine a visitor from outer space, who did not know about Wall Street investor’s need for wars and accumulation of capital for the ruling wealthy investing 1%, looking at these innocent people being dispatched far away in their own beloved six or seven small countries by space age armed and equipped Darth Vader appearing armed forces. Imagine this extraterrestrial visitor interviewing the families of these victims only to learn that this savagery is only that of the most recent the white colonial-neocolonial empire superpowers that have ruled the planet over the last three hundred years. It still would make no sense to the visitor from another planet.

For here is a very young country, occupying, overall, the best real estate in the world in terms of abundant natural resources since invading from old Europe and conquering a continent from its indigenous population, and, for a full century, the wealthiest people on Earth, for its financial rulers having gained ownership of more or less half the natural resources wealth of all the rest of the planet. Why, therefore, all this massacring in the world’s poorer nations by US Armed Forces during the last sixty years?

When Martin Luther King Jr. was brave enough to give the answer to this heart-twisting query, he was silenced within a year, by as curious an assassin as was King’s answer curious: “To maintain unjust overseas predatory investments” of the immoral 1%.

Corporatist owned commercial media sources of information buried that answer along with King’s body and kept it buried for the intervening nearly forty-years, but words of wisdom have a an undeniable longevity once resurrected.

http://kingcondemneduswars.blogspot.com/

There is a fast growing-in-endorsements campaign to revive and spread international awareness of King’s condemnation of US wars and predatory investments, which has led now to a second campaign to bring the full force of the law down upon individuals involved in the preparing, planning, promoting, selling and ordering of these ongoing US wars, which King nailed as all for the maintenance of those “unjust predatory investments.” It will be a prosecution of individuals, grouped in conspiracy, against humanity’s right to live in peace, or even perhaps in the future to live at all, given the present unprecedented massive investments in the manufacture and deployment of weapons of mass destruction.

http://prosecuteuscrimesagainsthumanitynow.blogspot.com/

This prosecution can all be done, if nowhere else permitted, in the same court of public opinion that, when aroused into session, can prosecute peacefully an ensconced in power and seemingly unprosecutable Shah of Iran, the British Empire, prosecuted in the court of Indian public opinion by Gandhi, and the arrogant racists prosecuted non-violently in the court of public opinion by Martin Luther King Jr., to name a few examples from recent history.

If the eventual (and probably coming sooner than later in his fast moving age of instant world-wide personal communication), prosecution demands are based upon the Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and on the Judgment of the Tribunal, which became part of the US Constitution by the US Constitutions own law provisions (not to mention common law), then, all of us are going to be looked at for complicity, many of us as accomplices, and an awful lot of us as perpetrators of Crimes Against Humanity:

- Leaders of organized clergy who proclaimed these US wars on poor nations “Just Wars.”

- Celebrated media personnel who, as part of their daily job, sold these wars to a commercialized psyop captivated audience.

- Elected public servant representatives who gave criminal approval of illegal undeclared wars on innocent peoples.

- Government leaders, both office holders elected and those appointed to power, who gave the actual orders to open fire.

- War financiers who planned the wars and contrived and conspired to threaten and pressure public officials to give the order to fire.

Those who actually pulled the trigger on Koreans in Korea, Vietnamese in Vietnam, Laotians in Laos, Cambodians in Cambodia, Dominicans in the Dominican Republic, Lebanese in Beruit, Panamanians in Panama, Grenadians in Grenada, Afghan in Afghanistan, Iraqi in Iraq, Somali in Somalia, Yemeni in Yemen, Libyans in Libya, instead of reacting to criminal orders the way world champion Mohammed Ali did, are punished enough by their memories and own conscience unless so beyond the pale of sensitivity as to make any punishment at all, self or otherwise, moot and not understood.

By all logic, that soldier, yesterday shooting into homes abroad within a nation of people, which in no way attacked any of the community of nations whose armed forces have been bombing and occupying it militarily for ten years under concocted and false pretenses, cannot be morally or honestly prosecuted separately from those who sent him there, maintained him there, and ordered him to kill in the native population waring opposition to his being there fighting for his own life.

It will be unfortunate that the future mass of Americans, eventually turning on their own leaders to prosecute them, as has often happened during the great iniquities of the past, will not be able or willing to prosecute themselves for indifference and moral culpability for having supported perfidy over so many generations. They will however feel a backlash of guilt upon themselves and realize that ignorance and self-preoccupation is never an excuse before the law for being complicit in mass murder.

Your at-your-service author has had the benefit of having lived most of his life outside the States and mostly in nations that have been bombed by his own. This has, perhaps, put a sharpened edge on his perception and produced an inclination to want to represent America’s multitude of non-industrially corrupted victims, whose innocent charm has brought them close to his heart – closer than his own pathetically misled brethren by blood and birthplace.

This article was originally published by OpEdNews aon 3/13/2012

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