War Is A Crime .org

  We may yet lose Tokyo….not to mention Alaska…and now Georgia, too 

“Ultimately, the failure of diplomacy between the U.S. and Iran came down to insufficient political will and the atmosphere of mis­trust that granted neither side any margin for error. The proposals put on the table may have been flawed; at different points either side may have played for time or sought to delay talks and goodwill measures may not have been reciprocated. But these phenomena do not make U.S.-Iran talks unique; they are common features in almost all negotiations. Talks that succeed do not do so because the pro­posals are flawless and because both sides play fair. Rather, they succeed because the many flaws associated with the talks are over­come by the political will to reach a solution.”

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By Mazin Qumsiyeh
Copyright, Chapter in Book on Why Peace, edited by Mark Guttman see http://www.why-peace.com/

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh teaches biology and does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities in occupied Palestine. He previously served on the faculties of the University of Tennessee, Duke and Yale Universities. He is now president of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People and serves on the board of Al-Rowwad Children Theater in Aida Refugee Camp. His main interest is media activism and public education. He has published over 200 letters to the editor and 200 op-ed pieces and been interviewed on TV and radio extensively (local, national and international). Mazin has published several books, including Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle and Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment.

By Michael Collins

The Virginia legislature is about to enact a law that requires a transvaginal ultrasound procedure for all women who have abortions (except in the case of a medical emergency). Apparently, the legislators are unaware that the law violates existing sexual assault code or that Virginians oppose the law  by a wide margin.

Here's the procedure.

"You will lie down on a table with your knees bent and feet in holders called stirrups. The health care provider will place a probe, called a transducer, into the vagina. The probe is covered with a condom and a gel. … The health care provider will move the probe within the area to see the pelvic organs." Medline Plus

This isn't an option. It's a requirement for an abortion in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The law is clear:

  Greece: The Epicenter of Global Pillage

by Stephen Lendman

Predatory bankers make serial killers look good by comparison. Their business model creates crises to facilitate grand theft, financial terrorism, and debt entrapment. 

They steal all material wealth and then some. They systematically rob investors and strip mine economies for self-enrichment.

  Gaza Gripped by Crisis

by Stephen Lendman

Punishing years under siege, Cast Lead's devastation, and regular IDF air, land and sea attacks took a terrible toll on Gazans physically, economically and emotionally.

by Common Dreams

John Timoney is the controversial former Miami police chief well known for orchestrating brutal crackdowns on protests in Miami and Philadelphia- instances with rampant police abuse, violence, and blatant disregard for freedom of expression. It should be of great concern that the Kingdom of Bahrain has brought Timoney and John Yates, former assistant commissioner of Britain's Metropolitan Police, to “reform” Bahrain’s security forces.A Bahraini anti-government protester argues with riot policemen. (AP)

Since assuming his new position, Timoney has claimed that Bahrain has been reforming it brutal police tactics in response to recommendations issued by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry. He says that there is less tear gas being used and that while tear gas might be “distasteful,” it’s not really harmful.

I have no idea what country Chief Timoney is talking about, because it’s certainly not the Bahrain I saw this past week, a week that marked the one-year anniversary since the February 14, 2011 uprising.

I was in Bahrain for five days before being deported for joining a peaceful women’s march. During my stay, I accompanied local human rights activists to the villages where protests were raging and police cracking down. Every day, I inhaled a potent dose of tear gas, and came close to being hit in the head with tear gas canisters. Every evening I saw the fireworks and smelled the noxious fumes as hundreds of tear gas canisters were lobbed into the village of Bani Jamrah, next door to where I was staying. The villagers would get on their roofs yelling “Down, Down Hamad” (referring to the King). In exchange, as a form of collective punishment, the whole village would be doused in tear gas. I went to bed coughing, eyes burning, wondering how in the world the Bahrainis can stand this.

From BBC:

A Palestinian prisoner has ended his 66-day hunger strike over his detention by Israel in a deal that will see him released in two months, officials say.

The Israeli justice ministry announced that Khader Adnan would remain in custody until 17 April, when his "administrative detention" would end.

Mr Adnan has not eaten since December, when he was arrested in the West Bank.

He is widely believed to be a leader of Islamic Jihad, which Israel has designated a terrorist organisation.

The Israeli military has said that Mr Adnan - a 33-year-old baker - was arrested "for activities that threaten regional security".

Earlier this month, an Israeli military court ordered that Mr Adnan be placed for four months in administrative detention. Under Israeli law, such prisoners can be held indefinitely without trial or charge.

From Rebecca Solnit:

Occupy Oakland began in early October as a vibrant, multiracial gathering. A camp was built at Oscar Grant/Frank Ogawa Plaza, and thousands received much-needed meals and healthcare for free from well-organized volunteers. Sometimes called the Oakland Commune, it was consciously descended from some of the finer aspects of an earlier movement born in Oakland, the Black Panthers, whose free breakfast programs should perhaps be as well-remembered and more admired than their macho posturing.

A compelling and generous-spirited General Assembly took place nightly and then biweekly in which the most important things on Earth were discussed by wildly different participants.  Once, for instance, I was in a breakout discussion group that included Native American, white, Latino, and able-bodied and disabled Occupiers, and in which I was likely the eldest participant; another time, a bunch of peacenik grandmothers dominated my group.

This country is segregated in so many terrible ways -- and then it wasn’t for those glorious weeks when civil society awoke and fell in love with itself. Everyone showed up; everyone talked to everyone else; and in little tastes, in fleeting moments, the old divides no longer divided us and we felt like we could imagine ourselves as one society. This was the dream of the promised land -- this land, that is, without its bitter divides. Honey never tasted sweeter, and power never felt better.

Now here’s something astonishing. While the camp was in existence, crime went down 19% in Oakland, a statistic the city was careful to conceal. "It may be counter to our statement that the Occupy movement is negatively impacting crime in Oakland," the police chief wrote to the mayor in an email that local news station KTVU later obtained and released to little fanfare. Pay attention: Occupy was so powerful a force for nonviolence that it was already solving Oakland’s chronic crime and violence problems just by giving people hope and meals and solidarity and conversation.

The police attacking the camp knew what the rest of us didn’t: Occupy was abating crime, including violent crime, in this gritty, crime-ridden city. “You gotta give them hope, “ said an elected official across the bay once upon a time -- a city supervisor named Harvey Milk. Occupy was hope we gave ourselves, the dream come true. The city did its best to take the hope away violently at 5 a.m. on October 25th. The sleepers were assaulted; their belongings confiscated and trashed. Then, Occupy Oakland rose again. Many thousands of nonviolent marchers shut down the Port of Oakland in a stunning display of popular power on November 2nd.

That night, some kids did the smashy-smashy stuff that everyone gets really excited about.  (They even spray-painted “smashy” on a Rite Aid drugstore in giant letters.) When we talk about people who spray-paint and break windows and start bonfires in the street and shove people and scream and run around, making a demonstration into something way too much like the punk rock shows of my youth, let’s keep one thing in mind: they didn’t send anyone to the hospital, drive any seniors from their homes, spread despair and debt among the young, snatch food and medicine from the desperate, or destroy the global economy.

That said, they are still a problem.  They are the bait the police take and the media go to town with.  They create a situation a whole lot of us don’t like and that drives away many who might otherwise participate or sympathize. They are, that is, incredibly bad for a movement, and represent a form of segregation by intimidation.

By Norman Fairbanks

Launching A War (3:40) In The Hands Of One Person (3:40) Weapons And Concerns (3:30) Collapse (3:06) The Fix (3:02) Military Budgets (5:30) After The Speech (2:50) This is a free release. If you like it, please donate! Paypal to nf@normanfairbanks.com. Thank you.

  Khader Adnan Ending Hunger Strike

by Stephen Lendman

Ma'an News said Adnan will stop hunger striking following a deal to release him on April 17, according to PA Prison Affairs Minister Issa Qaraqe.

Feb 29th: Shut Down ALEC from Kontra on Vimeo.

  Khader Adnan: Dying for Justice

by Stephen Lendman

He's a legend in his own time. Global human rights groups, activists, and many others support him. 

His extraordinary courage demands acknowledgement and recognition.

  Heightening Anti-Iranian Tensions

by Stephen Lendman

For months, Iran faced baseless accusations. They include:

• the spurious US Saudi ambassador assassination plot;

1. Iran has threatened to fight back if attacked, and that's a war crime. War crimes must be punished.

2. My television says Iran has nukes.  I'm sure it's true this time.  Just like with North Korea.  I'm sure they're next.  We only bomb places that really truly have nukes and are in the Axis of Evil.  Except Iraq, which was different.

3. Iraq didn't go so badly. Considering how lousy its government is, the place is better off with so many people having left or died.  Really, that one couldn't have worked out better if we'd planned it. 

4. When we threaten to cut off Iran's oil, Iran threatens to cut off Iran's oil, which is absolutely intolerable.  What would we do without that oil? And what good is buying it if they want to sell it?

5. Iran was secretly behind 9-11. I read it online. And if it wasn't, that's worse. Iran hasn't attacked another nation in centuries, which means its next attack is guaranteed to be coming very soon.

6. Iranians are religious nuts, unlike Israelis and Americans.  Most Israelis don't want to attack Iran, but the Holy Israeli government does. To oppose that decision would be to sin against God. 

7. Iranians are so stupid that when we murder their scientists they try to hire a car dealer in Texas to hire a drug gang in Mexico to murder a Saudi ambassador in Washington, and then they don't do it -- just to make us look bad for catching them.

7. b. Oh, and stupid people should be bombed.  They're not civilized.

8. War is good for the U.S. economy, and the Iranian economy too.  Troops stationed in Iran would buy stuff.  And women who survived the war would have more rights.  Like in Virginia.  We owe Iranians this after that little mishap in 1953.

9. This is the only way to unite the region.  Either we bomb Iran and it swears its eternal love to us.  Or, if necessary, we occupy Iran to liberate it like its neighbors.  Which shouldn't take long.  Look how well Afghanistan is going already.

10. They won't give our drone back.  Enough said.

By Gareth Porter and Shah Nouri, IPS

WASHINGTON/KABUL, Feb 20, 2012 (IPS) - Nearly a year after the Barack Obama administration began negotiations with the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai on a U.S. military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014, both sides confirmed last week that the talks are still hung up over the Afghan demand that night raids by U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) either be ended or put under Afghan control.

Karzai has proposed the latter option, with Afghan forces carrying out most of the raids, but the U.S. military has rejected that possibility, according to sources at the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida.

Karzai's persistence in pressing that demand reflects the widespread popular anger at night raids, which means that Karzai cannot give in to the U.S. insistence on continuing them without handing the Taliban a big advantage in the political-military maneuvering that will continue during peace talks.

The dilemma for both the United States and Karzai is that the United States has been planning to leave SOF units and U.S. airpower – the two intensely unpopular elements of U.S.-NATO presence in the country – as the only combat forces in Afghanistan beyond 2014.

The US Army last week scheduled a formal arraignment hearing for PFC Bradley Manning, the accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower. The arraignment is scheduled for 1:00 PM EST, February 23, 2012 at Fort Meade, Maryland, just northeast of Washington DC. While the hearing itself is expected to be brief, PFC Manning is expected to be present, and the proceedings are open to the media and public. Washington DC area supporters of the Support Network are encouraged to attend the arraignment.

Court Martial expected in May

By George Zornick, The Nation

As budget wonks comb over President Obama’s outline for fiscal year 2013, a startling White House plan has become clear: the administration is seeking to undo some mandatory cuts to the Pentagon at the expense of critical domestic programs. It does so by basically undoing the defense sequester that kicked in as a result of the Congressional supercommittee on debt. This wasn’t a featured part of the White House budget rollout, and for good reason—it undercuts the administration’s carefully crafted message of benevolent government action and economic fairness.

  Escalating Syrian Tensions

by Stephen Lendman

For nearly a year, externally generated violence wracked Syria. Dirty Western hands planned and implemented it. Rogue regional despots were enlisted for support. 

  Political Prisoners in America's Gulag

by Stephen Lendman

With around 2.4 million incarcerated, America has by far the world's largest prison system. Two-thirds in it are Black or Latino. 

Most held are non-violent. Over half are for drug related charges. Around 75% are Blacks or Latinos. On all charges, many are persecuted political prisoners.