Joerie, joerie, botter en brood,
as ek jou kry, slaat ek jou dood

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

VERNIS = VLOEISTOF

Drowning in Hypocrisy
By Paul Craig Roberts
January 24, 2012 "Information Clearing House" ---  The US government is so full of self-righteousness that it has become a caricature of hypocrisy. Leon Panetta, a former congressman who Obama appointed CIA director and now head of the Pentagon, just told the sailors on the USS Enterprise, an aircraft carrier, that the US is maintaining a fleet of 11 aircraft carriers in order to project sea power against Iran and to convince Iran that “it’s better for them to try to deal with us through diplomacy.”

If it requires 11 aircraft carriers to deal with Iran, how many will Panetta need to project power against Russia and China? But to get on with the main point, Iran has been trying “to deal with us through diplomacy.” The response from Washington has been belligerent threats of military attack, unfounded and irresponsible accusations that Iran is making a nuclear weapon, sanctions and an oil embargo. Washington’s accusations echo Israel’s and are contradicted by Washington’s own intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Why doesn’t Washington respond to Iran in a civilized manner with diplomacy? Really, which of the two countries is the greatest threat to peace?
Washington sends the FBI to raid the homes of peace activists and puts a grand jury to work to create a case against them for aiding a nebulous enemy by protesting Washington’s wars. The Department of Homeland Security unleashes goon cop thugs to brutalize peaceful Occupy Wall Street demonstrators. Washington fabricates cases against Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and Tarek Mehanna that negate the First Amendment by equating free speech with terrorism and spying. Chicago mayor and former Obama White House chief-of-staff, Rahm Israel Emanuel, pushes an ordinance that outlaws public protests in the City of Chicago. The list goes on. And in the midst of it all Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other Washington hypocrites accuse Russia and China of stifling dissent.

Washington’s grotesque hypocrisy goes unremarked by the American “media” and in the debates for the Republican presidential nomination. The corrupt Obama “Justice” Department turns a blind eye while goon cop thugs commit gratuitous violence against the citizens who pay the goon cop thugs’ undeserved salaries.
But it is in the War Crimes Arena where Washington shows the greatest hypocrisy. The self-righteous bigots in Washington are forever rounding up heads of weak states whose countries were afflicted by civil wars and sending them off to be tried as war criminals. All the while Washington indiscriminately kills large numbers of civilians in six or more countries, dismissing its own war crimes as “collateral damage.” Washington violates its own law and international law by torturing people.

On January 13, 2012, Carol Rosenberg of McClatchy Newspapers reported that Spanish judge Pablo Rafael Ruz Gutierrez re-launched an investigation into Washington’s torture of prisoners in Guantanamo Prison. The previous day British authorities opened an investigation into CIA renditions of kidnapped persons to Libya for torture.

Rosenberg reports that although the Obama regime has refused to investigate the obvious crimes of the Bush regime, and one might add its own obvious crimes, “other countries are still interested in determining whether Bush-era anti-terror practices violated international law.”

There is no question that Bush/Cheney/Obama have trashed the US Constitution, US statutory law, and international law. But Washington, having overthrown justice, has established that might is right. No foreign government is going to send its forces into the US to drag the war criminals out and place them on trial.

The War Criminal Court at the Hague is reserved for Washington’s show trials.
No foreign government is going to pay Washington several hundred millions of dollars to turn Bush, Cheney, Obama and their minions over to them in the way the US bought Milosevic from Serbia in order to create the necessary spectacle at the War Crimes Tribunal to justify Washington’s naked aggression against Serbia.
No government can be perfect, because all governments are composed of humans, especially those humans most attracted by power and profit. Nevertheless, in my lifetime I have witnessed an extraordinary deterioration in the integrity of government in the United States. We have reached the point where nothing that our government says is believable. Not even the unemployment rate, the inflation rate, the GDP growth rate, much less Washington’s reasons for its wars, its police state, and its foreign and domestic policies.

Washington has kept America at war for ten years while millions of Americans lost their jobs and their homes. War and a faltering economy have exploded the national debt, and a looming bankruptcy is being blamed on Social Security and Medicare.

The pursuit of war continues. On January 23 Washington’s servile puppets--the EU member states--did Washington’s bidding and imposed an oil embargo on Iran, despite the pleas of Greece, a member of the EU. Greece’s final ruin will come from the higher oil prices from the embargo, as the Greek government realizes.

The embargo is a reckless act. If the US navy tries to intercept oil tankers carrying Iranian oil, large scale war could break out. This, many believe, is Washington’s aim.

It is easy for an embargo to become a blockade, which is an act of war. Remember how easily the UN Security Council’s “no-fly zone” over Libya was turned by the US and its NATO puppets into a military attack on Libya’s armed forces and population centers supportive of Gaddafi.

As the western “democracies” become increasingly lawless, the mask of law that imperialism wears is stripped away and with it the sheen of morality that has been used to cloak hegemonic ambitions. With Iran surrounded and with two of Washington’s fleets in the Persian Gulf, another war of aggression seems inevitable.

Experts say that an attack on Iran by the US and NATO will disrupt the flow of oil that the world needs. The crazed drive for hegemony is so compelling that Washington and its EU puppets show no hesitation in putting their own struggling economies at risk of sharply rising energy costs.

War abroad and austerity at home is the policy that is being imposed on the western “democracies.”



Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

VOORTGESETTE DIALOOG

Dis Als


Dis die mond
dis die klank:
dis die pen,
dis die woord;
en gedagtes vorm traag in geslote oord -
dis als...


Dis 'n pionier wat trek
oor berg en vallei,
dis met val en opstaan,
dis 'n volk om te lei -
dis als...

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

MAMMON SE AFGRONDE 2

Op schoolreis met de Antwerpse Rechtbank

Rechters zijn ook maar grote kerstekinderen, die graag in groep op schoolreis gaan. Naar de Grotten van Han en de Waterval van Coo, of in de zomer naar de Vlaamse kust, met schepnet en schop en 's middags wafelschrans bij Moeder Siska. Zo gingen de Antwerpse rechters recentelijk naar het MAS zonder hun boterhammendoos, want er was een lunch gepland in de plaatselijke kantine.

De laatste schooluitstap was op uitnodiging van de Indische diamantairs naar de prachtige Jain tempel in Wilrijk, met aansluitend een etentje : een maaltijd zonder vlees, zonder vis met veel gefriteerde groenten, rauwe bloemen en veel ondefinieerbare njam-njam, want de Jaïn zijn nog een stuk straffer dan vegetariërs.  De rechters, die echt tussen de mensen willen staan, vonden dit een geslaagde uitstap. En alles gratis.

Wij hebben al herhaaldelijk over deze Jain tempel geschreven (zelfs toen hij nog in een primair stadium van opbouw was en niemand in Antwerpen iets afwist van dit exotisch gebouw).  De Indiërs hebben alles zelf gefinancierd, de constructie in zuivere witte marmer werd verwezenlijkt door eigen overgevlogen personeel en materialen. Dit unieke complex, de grootste Jaintempel buiten India is géén toeristische bezienswaardigheid, want je komt er niet in zonder uitnodiging. Van achter een hekkenafsluiting kan je iets zien van de pracht en praal.
Mocht er in Antwerpen geen historisch gegroeide diamantnijverheid bestaan, we zouden hier nauwelijks rijke Indiërs kennen. En zonder rijke Indiërs zou er geen sprake zijn van de weelderige Jaintempel.

Momenteel woont er een kolonie van enkele duizenden Indiërs, hoofdzakelijk  aanhangers van de Jaingodsdienst, in Antwerpen.  Welvarende lieden die hier verblijven met hun families en bedienden en die zich hoofdzakelijk gevestigd hebben in de sjieke woonwijk rond het Nachtegalenpark of in Brasschaat waar zij streng beveiligde peperdure paleizen hebben neergeplant.  De firmabediendes resideren in de omgeving van de Belgiëlei waar traditioneel ook de Joden uit de diamantsector verblijven en waar het goedkoper wonen is.
De Indische kolonie integreert zich niet in de Vlaamse gemeenschap, zoveel is duidelijk, Ze staan niet vijandig tegenover de Vlamingen, zoals bijvoorbeeld heel wat aanhangers van de islam dit wel zijn, maar de Jain zijn nauwelijks geïnteresseerd in de cultuur waarin zij beroepshalve verblijven. Enkelen wonen hier levenslang en ook al kennen zij een mondje Nederlands, hun leven speelt zich af in hun gemeenschap. De meesten keren terug naar hun vaderland als hun activiteiten hier afgelopen zijn.

De Indiërs hebben de Joden stelselmatig verdrongen uit de diamanthandel. Dat is vrij vlug en geruisloos gebeurd, omdat het steentje nu eenmaal een gesloten wereld is met eigen spelregels en officiële bescherming door de lokale, Vlaamse en belgische overheden. Zwarthandel, bloeddiamanten, conflicten, geheimhouding, vals spel, zwart geld, het behoort tot de normale geplogenheden, waarvan zelden iets naar buiten lekt.

Daarom is het vreemd, dat Antwerpse rechters zich gracieus laten uitnodigen voor een bezoek door Indische diamantairs die welbewust mikken op de steun of de sympathie van de rechterlijke macht. Waarom de rechters en niet Gaia of een biljartclub ?  Er loopt momenteel een zoveelste groot onderzoek over het reilen en zeilen binnen de diamantgemeenschap over ontduiking van belastingen, BTW en de belgische wetgevingen terzake. De  procureur-generaal heeft zelfs een huiszoeking laten verrichten bij een Antwerpse substituut, een vrij ongewone tussenkomst.  Er staan grote belangen op het spel en het gerecht is onderhevig is aan allerlei machinaties en interne oorlogjes waarin de partijpolitiek nooit veraf is.

Dat in deze omstandigheden de dwaze rechters van Antwerpen ingaan op zulk een uitnodiging is het zoveelste bewijs van hun wereldvreemdheid.  En dan komen ze met een stalen gezicht voor de televisie vertellen, dat zij bekwaam en slim genoeg zijn om neutraal te blijven. Wie gelooft die mensen nog ? 

Elk dag een ander schandaal scherpt het vertrouwen van de burgers in het systeem aan.

Ray

[Bron: Angeltjes] 



Monday, January 9, 2012

IN 'N ANDER FORUM

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marthinus Nel <thinusnel7@gmail.com>
Date: 9 January 2012 08:48
Subject: Re: THE ELOHIM IN MESSIAH WITHIN MANKIND
To: M
Cc:

This place which we call planet Earth, in fact a spaceship on a never-ending voyage, represents an interface between an infinite number of universes of which at least seven billion are of potential human origin... 


On 9 January 2012 05:32, M wrote:
1.       The awakening of the Spirit within mankind.
2.       The liberation from darkness into the light of Elohim.
3.       The Messiah was the embodiment of the Divine come to tabernacle within mankind.
4.       To bridge the gap from the Spirit realm to the realm of physical existence.
5.       This logos and  “the Messiah” was an intermediary in non human form that connects mankind to Elohim (Energy/Spirit to matter).
6.       Shalom.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

OOR-SIG 2

OOR-SIG 1

GODSWIL/L 2

GODSWIL/L 1


Tareq Aziz, Whose Life Hangs in the Balance: “We are all victims of Britain and America. They killed our country.”


Felicity Arbuthnot



6aziz6677881.jpg
January 6, 2012
"In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli." (Howard Zinn, 1922-2010.)


On 5th December, the first day of the solemn, predominantly Shi’a Muslim marking of Ashura - the martyrdom of Hussein, the Prophet’s Grand son in 680 AD - in a statement few of the main stream media thought worthy of mention, Saad Al Muttalibi, a Minister, ironically, at the Iraqi Ministry of National Dialogue and Reconciliation, announced another impending murder. Tareq Aziz, Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, under Saddam Hussein, would be executed as soon as the Americans left.

The US troops were due to leave by 31st., December, but remaining troops slunk out under cover of darkness – as did the British four years earlier - on 18th December. Another barbaric act representing the "New Iraq", may well be imminent.

At a ceremony marking imminent US military retreat, at Baghdad Airport, on 15th December, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledged that: "We spilled a lot of blood here ... to achieve … making the country sovereign and independent and able to secure itself."

The independence of this now US client state, is as much as a myth as the security, since the occasion took place with America’s home-bound heroes cowering behind vast blast walls. Chairs reserved for the Prime Minister, President and others in Iraq’s Quisling government were empty. Perhaps they were too busy planning more celebratory post-departure blood spilling.
Tareq Aziz has to be top of the list. The fiercely patriotic, nationalistic reminder of an illegally overthrown government, which, whatever else, had put Iraq first and poured the country’s oil revenues in to health- care, education, clean water, modern infrastructure, turning a beautiful, but run down "third world" country in to a "near first world" one, to use the West’s patronizing patois.

Last year, Tareq Aziz gave his first interview(i) in his then, over seven years incarceration by the Americans. His insight was as astute as ever, as was his love, and despair, for his country.

"There is nothing here any more. Nothing. For thirty years Saddam built Iraq, and now it is destroyed. There are more sick than before, more hungry. The people don't have services. People are being killed every day in the tens, if not hundreds. We are all victims of America and Britain. They killed our country."

He talked of the Iraq, prior to the invasion, feeling vulnerable to Iran, the US and Britain. It was this feeling of vulnerability which led, for a long time to Iraq not saying categorically it had no weapons of mass destruction. Instead of those that threatened being uncertain if Iraq could retaliate, the country would be seen as the sitting duck they proved to be.

Further: "We are Arabs, we are Arab nationalists. We must be proud."

Aziz, knows the full extent of both Western and Iranian duplicity toward his country.

Prior to the invasion, this canny politician and diplomat opined that: "What the United States wanted, was not 'regime change’ in Iraq, but rather 'region change.’ " Recent years prove him chillingly correct.

He summed up the Bush Administration’s reason for war against Iraq tersely as: "Oil and Israel."


With a Prime Minister and others with deep ties to Israel, Iran, and the largest US Embassy on earth representing many still seeking to cover the tracks of illegalities, lies and duplicity, no wonder whilst the West counted down to Christmas, this indomitable, frail, ill, incarcerated seventy four year old, was alone, trying to count how many days he has left on earth.

The terrible shadow of Saddam Hussein’s sickening death, in the Christmas season, just before the the West’s New Year dawned, also on the eve of the great Muslim Feast of Eid al Awda, must lie as terror across the hours.

A Christian, he is also reminder of the secular nature of the previous regime, in a country now riven with sectarian divides. "Divide and rule" played to murderous perfection. By 2006 half of Iraq’s Christians had fled the country fearing for their lives(ii), thousands more have fled since.

Last year, Aziz reached such a low ebb, he expressed to his lawyer simply a wish that the nightmare of incarceration, isolation, injustice, untreated illness was over with. Even his hope, indeed courage – as all the former regime, he swore he would never abandon Iraq and did not – faltered.(iii) Now he wants to spend his remaining time with the wife and family he has been parted from for nearly eight years. Ominously, this year he was denied a Christmas’phone call with them, for the first time.

In April 2003, he negotiated safe passage for his family with the invading US: "I told the Americans that if they took my family to Amman (in neighbouring Jordan) they could take me to prison. My family left on an American plane. And I went to prison on a Thursday." The weight of pain and guilt on the family can only be imagined.

"My father served his country for more than twenty two years. He delivered himself to the US Army (after the fall of Hussein) because he wasn't afraid. He didn't do anything wrong. He served his country," Aziz's daughter, Zainab Aziz, has said. "He has been wronged."

Forgotten or conveniently buried is that Tareq Aziz’s trials were entirely American affairs. The Judge who tried him and Saddam Hussein was "trained" by a legal team from Notre Dame University at South Bend, Indiana. Ironically, a Catholic University.

Unsurprisingly there were also highly political overtones. The Law Professor who led the training, Jimmy Gurule has served, among other public law enforcement positions, as: "point person in the hunt for financiers of terrorism in the wake of September 11th 2001, terrorist attacks on America"(iv) to which the US was so keen to attempt to link Iraq.

On September 11th 2008, Nashville,Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University announced that the Iraqi Judge who convicted Saddam Hussein, Ra’id Juhi, was to join the US lawyers who created the Iraqi Special Tribunal, the kangaroo court responsible for his lynching.(v) "Vanderbilt law Professor Mike Newton played a pivotal role in the creation of the (Tribunal) that tried Saddam. He led the training for its judges and continues to advise the Tribunal today."
Chicago’s De Paul University: " … has designed and managed human rights and rule of law projects in Iraq", since 2003.(vi) Saddam Hussein’s hideous treatment, or Tareq Aziz’s alleged forced appearance in Court, in his pyjamas, both heckled by the Judge, are hardly De Paul’s finest legal zenith, either.

St Paul also devised a "Comprehensive Strategic Plan for the Iraq Judiciary", assisted with drafting the new Iraqi Constitution and the trials of former Ba’ath party Members and affiliates. So much for Iraq sovereignty and Georg W.Bush’s:"Let freedom reign."(vii)

Sabah Al Mukhtar, President of the UK-based Arab Lawyers Association, takes a dim view of this Colonial approach: "Under the Geneva and Vienna Conventions, the occupying force has both responsibility and limitations. There is a duty of protection for citizens, children and the environment. The law of the occupied territories cannot be changed."

Holding the British equally responsible, he argues that the occupiers were part of a leadership with: "Huge responsibility, who set up a system of trials that do not meet the basic international standards", in accordance with the Vienna and Geneva Conventions.

Further: "Execution is the ultimate abuse of human rights."

He points out that in the pre-invasion, formerly secular Iraq, where those of all faiths and none, previously shared feasts and celebrations, and where all religious institutions were annually provided maintenance grants by the government equally,Tareq Aziz, a Christian, was in fact charged with undermining Islamic movements.

Referring to a "Kangaroo Court", Al Mukhtar is emphatic that it is incumbent on the Vatican and the Churches also to demand clemency for the seventy four year old.

Aziz of course, visited the Pope in 2003, to plead for the Vatican to intervene, to avert invasion and save his country and people, who had suffered so terribly from 1991 onwards.

Further, says Al Mukhtar: "The US and the UK still have the duty, and indeed the power, to protect Tareq Aziz. This proposed execution is simply vengeance in its lowest form."

Tareq Aziz is the man who above all, stands between the lies, the duplicity, who knows the wickedness of the spin, illegalities, duplicity, subterfuge, betrayal, bribery, theft, traitors and big business - prepared to cull every last Iraqi, so long as they could get their hands on the oil - and establish a base in this strategically vital country. The biggest US Embassy in the world looks pretty like "mission accomplished" – for the moment.

Badi Arif, an attorney who used to represent Mr Aziz, said there is a political motive behind the death sentence: "Mr. Aziz used to always tell me, 'They'll find a way to kill me and there is no way for me to escape this’ ", Arif commented.

Nuri Al Maliki made his groveling subservience to Washington clear, when on the 12th December he requested to go to the city’s Arlington Military Cemetery and jointly lay a wreath with President Obama, at the Memorial to the Unknown Soldier, to pay his respects to US service personnel who lost their lives, decimating the country of which he is – for now – Prime Minister.

Thanking the murderous, marauding, illegal, infanticide-addicted, raping and pillaging invader, must be a historic first.

An extensive search has found no record of Maliki visiting Iraq’s lost and bereaved – from Falluja to Basra, Mosul to Mahmudiyah - the latter, where fourteen year old Abeer al Janabi was multiply raped by US troops, then murdered and set fire to, with all her family. Presumably, they were also Obama’s "unbroken line of heroes", to which he referred, in another defeat ceremony at Fort Bragg.
If legality does not prevail in the case of not alone Tareq Azis and his colleagues, but of all those unaccountably detained, simply for differing political or religious beliefs, facing a terrible demise, in the name of Western "liberation", all we collectively profess to hold dear, with legality’s Treaties and Conventions, stand condemned.

They include the relevant silent United Nations Organisations, cocooned in their great New York and Geneva Ivory Towers, their apparently speech deprived Secretary General, the great religious bastions, the Vatican, Arch Bishop Rowan Williams Lambeth Palace, Vincent Nicholls, Catholic Arch Bishop of Westminster’s and staff in his great building, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, The State Department, the UK Foreign Office, the European Union’s relevant, increasingly life threatened Organs, and the worlds great bastions of international law. They have been repeatedly approached and remained silent to the point of complicity.

Speaking at the 400th Anniversary of the printing of the King James Bible, on 16th December 2011, Prime Minister Cameron stated of the UK:"We are a Christian country and we should not be afraid to say so . The Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today. Values and morals we should actively stand up and defend. The alternative of moral neutrality should not be an option. "

A start would be displaying Britain’s: "morals and values … standing up and defending" a brave, frail, Christian man from a barbarity imposed by an illegal invasion - a "Crusade", that Cameron voted for - and demanding of the US, who call Britain the "indispensable ally", that they ensure Aziz is returned to his family and that 2012 starts with a prisoner amnesty in Iraq.
It shouldn’t be a problem. The US still has 8,000 troops, fourteen war 'planes, 125 helicopters and 28 drones, largely based in Iraqi Kurdistan. (Their "total withdrawal" apparently nearly as phony as George W. Bush’s photo shoot, presenting the troops with a Thanksgiving turkey, which turned out to be plastic. )
"Moral neutrality", is indeed not an option, for one who enjoined in killing this former Foreign Minister’s country.


i. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/05/iraq-us-tariq-az
iz-iran

ii.http://www.christiansofiraq.com/havefled.html
iii.http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25639
iv. http://newsinfo.nd.edu/news/7110-notre-dame-resource-law-pro
fessor-helped-train-saddamrsquos-judge/

v. http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2008/09/media-advisory-iraqi-judg
e-who-convicted-saddam-hussein-joins-us-lawyers-who-created- ..
.vi.http://www.law.depaul.edu/centers_institutes/ihrli/projects/iraq.asp
vii. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/elections
/freedomessay/index.html

Friday, January 6, 2012

GODSWIL/L 1


GODSWIL/L 2




Iraq. Began with big lies. Ending with 

big lies. Never forget.

by William Blum


 January 4, 2012

"Most people don't understand what they have been part of here," said Command Sgt. Major Ron Kelley as he and other American troops prepared to leave Iraq in mid-December. "We have done a great thing as a nation. We freed a people and gave their country back to them."

"It is pretty exciting," said another young American soldier in Iraq. "We are going down in the history books, you might say." (Washington Post, December 18, 2011)

Ah yes, the history books, the multi-volume leather-bound set of "The Greatest Destructions of One Country by Another." The newest volume can relate, with numerous graphic photos, how the modern, educated, advanced nation of Iraq was reduced to a quasi failed state; how the Americans, beginning in 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one dubious excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the government, tortured without inhibition, killed wantonly, ... how the people of that unhappy land lost everything — their homes, their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children, their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives ... More than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized, in prison, internally displaced, or in foreign exile ... The air, soil, water, blood, and genes drenched with depleted uranium ... the most awful birth defects ... unexploded cluster bombs lying anywhere in wait for children to pick them up ... a river of blood running alongside the Euphrates and Tigris ... through a country that may never be put back together again.

"It is a common refrain among war-weary Iraqis that things were better before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003," reported the Washington Post on May 5, 2007.

No matter ... drum roll, please ... Stand tall American GI hero! And don't even think of ever apologizing or paying any reparations. Iraq is forced by Washington to continue paying reparations to Kuwait for Iraq's invasion in 1990 (an invasion instigated in no small measure by the United States). And — deep breath here! — Vietnam has been compensating the United States. Since 1997 Hanoi has been paying off about $145 million in debts left by the defeated South Vietnamese government for American food and infrastructure aid. Thus, Hanoi is reimbursing the United States for part of the cost of the war waged against it. (William Blum, Rogue State, p.304) How much will the United States pay the people of Iraq?

On December 14, at the Fort Bragg, North Carolina military base, Barack Obama stood before an audience of soldiers to speak about the Iraq war. It was a moment in which the president of the United States found it within his heart and soul — as well as within his oft-praised (supposed) intellect — to proclaim:

This is an extraordinary achievement, nearly nine years in the making. And today, we remember everything that you did to make it possible. ... Years from now, your legacy will endure. In the names of your fallen comrades etched on headstones at Arlington, and the quiet memorials across our country. In the whispered words of admiration as you march in parades, and in the freedom of our children and grandchildren. ... So God bless you all, God bless your families, and God bless the United States of America. ... You have earned your place in history because you sacrificed so much for people you have never met.

Does Mr. Obama, the Peace Laureate, believe the words that come out of his mouth?

Barack H. Obama believes only in being the President of the United States. It is the only strong belief the man holds.

Items of interest from a journal I've kept for 40 years, part VI
  • If the US really believed in 2002-3 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction why did they send in more than 100,000 troops, who were certain to be annihilated?
  • In a letter released August 17, 2006, 21 former generals and high ranking national security officials called on President George W. Bush to reverse course and embrace a new area of negotiation with Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. The group told reporters Bush's "hard line" policies had undermined national security and made America less safe.
  • Throughout most of the 20th century, the Catholic Church in Latin America taught its flocks of the poor that there was no need to do battle with the ruling elite because the poor would get their just rewards in the afterlife.
  • The US overthrew the Sandinistas in Nicaragua because the Sandinistas "intended to create a country where there was only a colony before." — Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer
  • "[George W.] Bush said last week that part of the purpose of the Indonesia trip 'is to make sure that the people who are suspicious of our country understand our motives are pure'." (Washington Post, October 22, 2003)
  • "Wars may be aberrant experiences in the lives of most human individuals, but some nations are serial aggressors. American society is unique in having been formed almost wholly by processes of aggression against external and internal Others." — The Black Commentator, June 8, 2006
  • President Obama should accompany the military people when they inform parents that their child has died in the latest of America's never-ending wars. And maybe ask George W. to come along as well.
  • During the Vietnam War some University of Michigan students created a brouhaha when they threatened to napalm a puppy dog on the steps of a campus building. The uproar of indignation at their cruelty was heard nationwide. Of course, when the time came they didn't do it, having successfully made the point that people cared more about napalming a dog than they did about napalming people.
  • "It's a lie and an illusion that we have an inefficient government. This government is only inefficient if you think its job is, as stated in the Constitution, 'to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.' These objectives are beyond our government's talents only because they are beyond its intentions." — Michael Ventura
  • "Get some new lawyers" - US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook when he told her he was informed that the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 (which Albright championed) was illegal under international law.
  • The two countries of the world, along with the United States, which have the greatest national obsession with baseball are two of the main targets of US foreign policy: Venezuela and Cuba.
  • The Cuban Five case: This is the first case in American history of alleged spying and espionage without a single page from a secret document. The government never presented any evidence of a stolen official document or any attempt to steal an official document. This is the first spy case without secrets from the government. (Read more)
  • "If a bomb is deliberately dropped on a house or a vehicle on the grounds that a 'suspected terrorist' is inside, the resulting deaths of women and children may not be intentional. But neither are they accidental. The proper description is 'inevitable'. So if an action will inevitably kill innocent people, it is as immoral as a deliberate attack on civilians." — Howard Zinn
  • "The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Saturday to impose limited sanctions on North Korea for its recent missile tests, and demanded that the reclusive communist nation suspend its ballistic missile program." (Associated Press, July 15, 2006) ... Internet commentator: "Test some missiles that land harmlessly in the ocean? Unanimous condemnation. Fire some missiles at targets on land, kill hundreds of people, and destroy hundreds of civilian targets including power plants, airports, roads, bridges, TV stations, etc., all in violation of the Geneva Convention? Hey, no problem."
  • For some nine years, American B-52 bombers relentlessly dropped tons of ordnance on a southeast Asian country (Vietnam) that still cultivated rice fields using draft animals.
  • "The messianism of American foreign policy is a remarkable thing. When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaks it seems like Khrushchev reporting to the party congress: 'The whole world is marching triumphantly toward democracy but some rogue states prefer to stay aside from that road, etc. etc'." — Natalia Narochnitskaya, vice chairman of the international affairs committee in the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament. (Washington Post, April 3, 2006)
  • Washington ... Propagandistan
  • The bulldozer, driven by an Israeli army soldier on assignment to demolish a home, rolled over Rachel Corrie, who was 23 years old. She had taken a nonviolent position for human rights; she lost her life as a result. But she was rarely praised in the same US media outlets that had gone into raptures over the image of a solitary unarmed man standing in front of Chinese tanks at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre. — Norman Solomon
  • American sovereignty hasn't faced a legitimate foreign threat to its existence since the British in 1812.
  • There are two major patterns in foreign policy: the rule of force or the rule of law. On February 8, 1819 the US decided, after a very long debate in the House, to reject the rule of law in foreign policy. The vote was 100 to 70 against requiring the Congress to approve illegal invasions of other countries or peoples. This pertained to the "Seminole War", actually the invasion of Florida. Since then every president has had the right to "defend America", code words for the use of force against whomever he chooses. — Kelly Gelgering


Thursday, January 5, 2012

BAND OF BRUTHAS 3

BAND OF BRUTHAS 1


Sources of Libyan War. Revelations of Former French Foreign Minister

Alexander MEZYAEV | 31.12.2011 | 00:00

At first glance at the 2011 events in Libya it looks like the decision to attack the country was taken only somewhere in February or March. A number of facts and official documents seem to prove it. In January 2011 the UN was preparing to discuss the human rights in Libya. Not a single state expressed concern, and praises were sung to commend the leadership of the country for outstanding achievements in this field. What was it the main enemies of Libya were saying those days, the same ones in the vanguard to attack it in just a few weeks after? 

Qatar, for instance, not only didn’t say anything critical but highly praised the legislative basis of human rights defense in Libya… the guarantees of bringing them into practice. Qatar then came out with just one recommendation to continue to improve life and material well being of population once the 1990s imposed sanctions were in effect no more (1). The USA suggested that Libya should join the 1967 Protocol to the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. (2)A rather strange proposal! No one can demand a state join this or that international agreement, especially coming from the country keeping away from a large number of international pacts, including the ones related to human rights (until now the USA is not a member of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child). All in all the very wording of the major part of recommendations gave its due to the Libyan government for its merits in making progress in the field of human rights, they started with “to continue efforts”, “to make further progress” etc. Sudan went even further with a proposal to ask the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya …to share with other countries its experience in the field of providing adequate living standards for low income families especially on the basis of providing them with investment opportunities package. (3) A few weeks before the military intervention President of France N. Sarkozy had received Gaddafi in Paris with all due honors. 

But there are facts of completely different nature that give enough ground to say that there was a thoroughly played game aimed at lulling the vigilance of Libyan leadership. And Sudan was part of it.

The book called Sarkozy Sous BHL (4) that has just seen light is written by former Foreign minister Roland Dumas.(5) and well known lawyer Jacque Verges.(6). It offers detailed insight into the responsibility of the French President for crimes against humanity committed in Libya by French military. In particular it sheds light on the possibility of bringing to court the incumbent President (having in mind French membership in the International Crime Court Statute and the adoption of the special legislation incorporating the Satute into the French law). R. Dumas and J. Verges blame N. Sarkozy for bombing Libyan cities, including public and residential buildings, facilities providing for everyday life needs of people, cultural treasures. They adduce documents refuting the official Nato claims there was no damage to civilians.(7). One of the book’s chapters final words say that Monsieur Sarkozy is not an heir neither to general De Gaulle, nor to Giscard d'Estaing or Francois Mitterand. It’s a very important historic confirmation. I could understand it after meeting Roland Dumas and Jacque Verges a few weeks ago at a rather extraordinary conference in Paris. 

December 9 French lawyers, scholars and media men got together to discuss international legal aspects of the attack against Libya in the very heart of the country that was the chief initiator of the war. (8) There were four round table speakers: H. Kirchler, Austrian, R. Merkel (Germany), both international law professors, Russia was presented by the author of these lines and France - by former minister of foreign affairs R. Dumas. The last one came out with an extraordinary and unexpectedly open and above board speech, the one worth special attention. 

R.Dumas (10) said it all started in 1983.A member of parliament he was assigned a secret mission from President F. Mitterrand to establish good ties with Libya. For this purpose he managed to visit the country a few times so that even the French ambassador in Tripoli was not aware of it. But after he became minister of foreign affairs the USA started intensive efforts to make France change the course. A Pentagon delegation came to France in 1985 to make him believe Gaddafi was in possession of chemical weapons. They tried to convince him (and, correspondingly, President Mitterrand) that France had to bomb Libya because Gaddafi became a threat to the West. R. Dumas got angry and asked if this was the case why the US citizens enjoyed visa free entrance to Libya and engaged in oil business there. … In 1988 French prime minister J.Chirac received a request from the USA to give permission for a hundred aircraft to fly over French airspace to attack Libya. Dumas stood for refusal. He thought it was exactly what the President expected from him and he was right, the President refused. No matter Chirac was in disagreement, he complied with the President’s decision. The French refusal to give permission t o cross its airspace didn’t prevent the strikes against Libya but the operation was delayed by 20 hours… All these years France resisted the US pressure to commit an aggression against Libya and now it gave in. Moreover it led the operation. 

Of course the preparation of war against Libya before February 2011 had been evident but, I think, it was the first time somebody, who took direct part in it, told about it so candidly and in an open manner. The revelations of Roland Dumas not only gave clue to all ins and outs of the NATO policy making process, but left no doubt all disturbances in Arab countries were a well planned special operation… 

The considerations for ongoing efforts to liquidate the Syrian state shouldn’t be limited by the “Arab spring” but be seen in much broader context of the last few decades, including the establishment of the International Criminal Court which put in dependence over a hundred and forty countries.10 . Though a few states had enough courage to refuse to join this “voluntary” re-colonization. Libya, for instance, never joined the Statute. So the UN instruments had to be activated (to delegate the Libyan situation to the ICC). Syria was more flexible. It signed the Statute in 2000 but hasn’t ratified it as yet. Probably the West understood that the Syrian signature was a deviating maneuver, so they initiated the use of other additional instruments. Now one can say with high probability the assassination of R. Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, was committed exclusively for the purpose to set an “international” instrument to make short work of Syria. At first an “international” investigative committee was set up, then the Special tribunal for Lebanon. (11) But the main goal of the tribunal is not the Lebanese people as such but rather the pro Syrian forces in Lebanon. One can strike Syria by attacking them. 

There should be no illusions – Syria is the primary target today. How many decades are to pass before we know from witnesses what kind of dirty tricks are used while making preparations to destruct the country? 
F. Mezyaev and R.Dumas at the round table in Paris. December 9 2011. 
R.Dumas and J. Verges , the authors of the book Sarkozy sous BHL and lawyers who filed a lawsuit against the President of France for committing war crimes

(1) “Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review; Libyan Arab Jamahiria”. United Nations Human Rights Council, United Nations Document: A/HRC/16/15 от 4 января 2011 года. С.7,21.
(2) Ibid p.25.
(3) Ibid. P..21. 
(4) Abbr. Bernard-Henri Lévy – French provocateur (formally a journalist and philosopher). BHL played an active part spurring The French government to start military intervention in Libya. In August 2008 he reported from South Ossetia. At present he is calling for military intervention in Syria. 
(5) Rolan Dumas. A lawyer. MP (member of the French National Assembly, Socialist party) 1956 – 1995. 1983 – Minister of European Affairs. 1984 -1993 – Foreign Minister in the François Mitterrand government. President of the Constitutional Council in 1995 – 2000. He was convicted for criticising a public prosecutor in his book. The conviction was found unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights in May 2010. In May 2011, along with attorney Jacques Vergès, he went to ICC to sue French President Nicholas Sarkozy for crimes against humanity in relation to the Nato bombing campaign against Libya. 
(6) Jacques Vergès At prersent he is defending former head of Campuchia (Cambodia) Khieu Samphan before the International Tribunal for Cambodia. As a lawyer he defended Moussa Traore, former Mali’ president, Laurent Gbagbo, former president of Côte d'Ivoire, Tarik Aziz, former Iraqi Foreign minister, Carlos Ilich Ramirez, Klaus Barbie and others. 
(7) Dumas R., Verges J., Sarkozy sous BHL, Pierre-Guillaume de Roux, Paris. 2011. 
(8) The round table was organized under the aegis of the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation. (Institute’s official website and the conference information: http://www.idc-europe.org/fr/Table-ronde-sur--Le-conflit-libyen-et-le-droit-international.-) . The text of the presentation of the author:: http://www.idc-europe.org/fr/--Les-violations-du-droit-international-dans-la---campagne-libyenne--
(9) I use the notes I made personally while R.Dumas’s presentation (the text of the presentation has not been published) . 
(10) As of December 2011 139 states joined the ICC Statute, it’s ratified by 120. South Sudan was the last to join. 
(11) The Special Tribunal for Libya was established beyond the standing international law procedures by the UN Security Council resolution. Russia abstained saying the use of article VII of the UN Charter for the so called establishing of the tribunal is not applicable under the given circumstances. 

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

GETUIENIS 2

In die eerste plek wil ek Hennie bedank dat ek, via Thinus, prof. Neels Moolman se dokument Ooreenkomste tussen Jesus en Boeddha onder oë kon kry en gevolglik die skakel My de-bekering opgevolg het en, trouens, op hiérdie werf herpubliseer het onder die opskrif GETUIENIS 1 – ek hoop nie Neels gee te veel om nie…

Ek dink Neels Moolman sal as akademikus, wie se vakgebied die strafregspleging is, begryp dat getuienis vir my as regsgeleerde van deurslaggewende belang is en hoe ouer ek word, hoe belangriker en oortuigender lyk dit my word getuienis.
Neels se getuienis is eenvoudig, duidelik en reguit.

Aangesien ek as jongeling en later nooit soortgelyke krisisse as hy beleef het nie, was my be-kering nie so uitgesproke nie en my de-bekering ook nie so duidelik soos syne nie – gevolglik sal my getuienis waarskynlik minder dramaties wees, maar ek dink nie daarom minder belangrik of in teëspraak met syne nie, al gaan ek hier-en-daar van hom verskil.

Nadat ons die kinderbybels (meervoud/fout) vir ons drie seuns deurgelees het, het ek en my (Rooms-Katolieke) vrou aan die begin van 1991 besluit om met huisgodsdiens, ná aandete aan die kombuistafel, uit die grootmensbybel voor te lees.
Aangesien ek en my vrou, as regsgeleerdes, nié oor besondere bybelkennis beskik het nie, maar wél oor beduidende kennis van boeke oor die algemeen, het ons besluit om die Bybel op die normale manier te benader en dit van voor na agter te lees soos ’n mens enige ander boek lees, met die enkele uitsondering: ons het elke aand, vóór die skriflesing, God gevra om Sy Woord vir ons te open en te verklaar.

Ons het ons boekevatritueel vir die volgende meer as drie jaar getrou volgehou tot op Vrydagaand, 18 September 1994, toe ek iets in die boek NÚMERI raakgelees het wat my genoop het om dit verder te ondersoek.
Ek het eers later besef dat hier sprake is van ’n sogenaamde kantelmoment en ’n goddelike ingreep, maar waarom sal God sy eie Woord dan ongeloofwaardig maak?

Ons het die ritueel in stand gehou tot ons by JEREMIA 41: 1 – 8 gekom het, wat die laaste perikoop in die Bybel was wat ons op dié manier gelees het.
Die volgende boek wat ons ’n jaar later op dié rituele manier begin lees het – miskien as reaksie? – was die Nederlandse vertaling van Friedrich Nietzsche se boek  Aldus sprak Zarathoestra     Een boek voor allen en voor niemand

Aangesien skuld – in die vorm van opset of nalatigheid – nóg so ’n sine qua non vir die regsgeleerde is, sal Neels verstaan dat ons met hom saamstem wanneer hy “…dink dat die Godsdiensleiers die grootste misdadigers is omdat hulle die mense mislei met die oog daarop om hulle te kan manipuleer met verskeie doelwitte in gedagte.” Ons is egter van mening dat dié opset net bestaan by sogenaamde internasionale godsdiensleiers en nie by die 
plaas-like Afrikaner kerkleiers nie, wat hoogstens nalatigheid ten laste gelê kan word ... indien selfs dit.
Hulle het gewoon nie beter geweet nie en in die lig van die universaliteitstrewe van die Christendom, sou hulle moeilik kon ontsnap aan die bedreiging en indoktrinasie van die boelies op die speelterrein – presies dieselfde as wat ons vandag sien op die sogenaamde internasionale demokratiese politieke terrein.

Ons stem ook saam met Neels se onderskrywing van die “Christelike” moraal sowel as sy stelling dat “Die konsepte hemel en hel is menslike skeppings wat die kerk gebruik om mense te beheer”, maar ons beskou laasgenoemde as omtrent die enigste deug van die kerk aangesien die mensdom daarsónder nog méér sou verwórd en verwílder het.

Ons deel egter nié Neels se geloof in die sogenaamde natuurwetenskap nie, aangesien Darwin se kompas ook maar geyk is in en deur ’n samelewing wat al minstens tweeduisend jaar gelede ’n foutiewe peiling geneem het en gevolglik ’n verkeerde koers ingeslaan het wat net vererger het sedert die sogenaamde verligting.

Só dui álle getuienis van die natuurwetenskaplikes daarop dat – behoudens die planeet Aarde – daar géén ander lewe in dié universum bestaan soos wat ons dit hier ken nie, maar hulle hou vol om daarna te soek en te glo dat die middelpunt iewers anders geleë is.
Aanvaar vir één oomblik (ogenblik) dat die Aarde die enigste lewe in dié universum verteenwoordig en besef hoe besonders dít is!

Miskien verteenwoordig die Aarde dié Ark waarvan die Noaglike en al die ander arke maar net ’n floue afskynsel is.

Miskien is die Aarde die ultieme ruimtetuig waarmee iets/iemand probeer (het) om lewe in dié universum te red, maar het dié-gene wat dit in die res van dié universum vernietig het, óók stilletjies en skelmpies aan boord gegaan en wil van die aarde dieselfde onvrugbare woesteny maak as al die ander miljarde lewelose hemelliggame/hemellyke.

Miskien moet ons wéér méér fokus op ons sélf, ons vólk en óns God – ons stamgod – wat moontlik op ’n verkeerde stam geënt is, maar waaraan ons Afrikaners ’n eíe inhoud en betekenis gegee het en minder op… Mammon.