Archives: Articles

Before dying, Richard Holbrooke admitted it, saying “You’ve got to stop this war in Afghanistan.” The Washington Post reinterpreted it, saying:

“Holbrooke’s death is the latest complication in an effort plagued by unreliable partners, reluctant allies and an increasingly skeptical American public.”

They’re not alone. Include noted analysts, administration officials, the influential Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Pentagon top brass. An earlier article discussed it, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/11/imperial-americas-end-time.html

A recent article remembered Chalmers Johnson, best known for calling America’s global wars and imperialism a “suicide option” unless reversed. Access it through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/11/remembering-chalmers-ashby-johnson-8631.html

Naming us our own enemy, he called our policies “arrogant and misguided,” America’s condition dire, and it’s “too late for mere scattered reforms.” We can choose democracy to survive or perish under current policies. He said America is plagued by the same dynamic that doomed past empires unwilling to change, what he called:

“isolation, overstretch, the uniting of local and global forces opposed to imperialism, and in the end bankruptcy,” combined with authoritarian rule and loss of personal freedom.

The other article titled Imperial America’s End Time included two grim assessments – from the Pentagon and CSIS. In discrete understatement, a November Pentagon report said:

“Progress across the country remains uneven, with modest gains in security, governance and development in operational priority areas.” Progress overall has been “slow and incremental….key terrain….relatively unchanged.”

It also explained that violence and Afghan deaths rose sharply as a result of a 300% increase in armed clashes since 2007, and a 70% rise over 2009. Despite the force buildup, “The insurgency has proven resilient with sustained logistics capacity and command and control.”

After over nine years of conflict (now America’s longest war and counting), security is worse than ever. Moreover, “insurgent safe havens” in Pakistan and Iran threaten to widen the war further.” In fact, “(e)fforts to reduce insurgent capacity….have not produced measurable results” despite heightened drone and other attacks.

Yet war continues. Waging, not winning it, matters most. America’s military/industrial/private contractor complex demands it to keep huge profits flowing freely – no matter the cost in lives, human misery, destruction, and hundreds of billions more dollars diverted from essential homeland needs. Imperial war is America’s top priority and has been for decades.

An October CSIS report on Iraq and AfPak expressed alarm, saying:

“We have not yet achieved any meaningful form of positive strategic result (from over seven and a half years of war in Iraq and over nine in Afghanistan), and (both conflicts) may end in a major grand strategic defeat.”

It cited Washington’s futile pursuit of an “end state fallacy,” that officialdom “seems to be in a state of partial denial,” and in Afghanistan:

— there’s “no credible end state to the fighting….that can give the US a credible grand strategic victory or stable outcome.”

AfPak increasingly looks like an unwinnable quagmire, draining America’s resources. Staying the course, committing larger force levels, applying more pressure, and escalating war aren’t solutions. They’ve made conditions worse, not better.

“The US and its allies are pursuing a largely mythical Afghan development plan which lacks core credibility in peacetime, much less in war. There is no development plan for Pakistan. The US is effectively paying an open ended mix of bribes to a country whose economy is now crippled by a catastrophic flood, and whose main security interest is India, not the war the US wants it to fight.”

Successful resolution is impossible. “The challenges are simply too great, and the timelines for credible change are too long….The US cannot afford to allow this situation to continue….After what soon will be ten years of fighting, it is time we not only learned this, but acted on the lesson.”

America’s Iraq/AfPak wars are unwinnable, highlighted in another article, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/07/war-in-afghanistan-illegal-untenable.html

New Intelligence Reports Give Grim Assessments

On December 14, New York Times writer Elisabeth Bumiller headlined, “Intelligence Reports Offer Dim Views of Afghan War,” saying:

Despite official Washington claiming progress, “two new classified intelligence reports offer a more negative assessment and say there is a limited chance of success unless Pakistan hunts down insurgents operating from havens on its Afghan border.”

A more realistic analysis confirms a sustained, committed insurgency – freedom fighters wanting liberation, nothing less. In early December, House and Senate Intelligence Committee members got National Intelligence Estimates (on AfPak). They represent consensus views of America’s 16 intelligence agencies through October 1.

Senior Pentagon officials called them out of date by “desk-bound Washington analysts who have spent limited time, if any, in Afghanistan and have no feel for the war.”

An anonymous official said they lacked “proximity and perspective,” no matter that the above cited Pentagon report tacitly agreed. Perhaps it’s been. H discretely buried to hide how commanders really feel, especially those on the ground commenting publicly on the war’s futility.

According to Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official, now a Brookings Institution senior fellow:

Degrading Taliban fighters, winning the border war, building an effective Afghan army, and relying on it for success “is not the optimal solution, obviously….we have to deal with the world we have, not the world we’d like.” We can’t change reality on the ground.

The report also reveals that some Democrats are losing patience, Rep. Adam Smith (D. WA) saying:

“You’re not going to get to the point where the Taliban are gone and the border is perfectly controlled.” He added that increased pressure on Obama will be applied to end the war, predicting “Democrats in Congress would resist continuing to spend $100 billion annually” on futility. “We’re not going to be hanging out over there fighting these guys like we’re fighting them now for 20 years.”

In an October 27 BBC interview, former Soviet Union leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, agreed, saying victory in Afghanistan is “impossible.” Based on his own 1980s experience, he said America’s only choice is withdrawal “no matter how difficult it will be.”

After over nine years, AfPak is another Vietnam, a quagmire with no conflict end in sight. Frustrated allies announced plans to reduce forces or leave. Some are gone. On December 4, France’s new Defense Minister, Alain Juppe, called the Afghan war a “trap,” saying his government plans withdrawal. Moreover, polls confirm public opposition at all-time highs.

A September New America Foundation report said Obama’s counter-insurgency strategy failed. It can’t succeed. It’s a fool’s errand based on flawed analysis, believing Afghan nation-building can work. The full report can be accessed through the following link:

http://www.afghanistanstudygroup.org/read-the-report/

It called nine years of futility not worth “this level of sacrifice.” Staying the present course “threatens long-term needs and priorities both at home and abroad.” Prospects for success are “dim.” Even Henry Kissinger admitted that “Afghanistan has never been pacified by foreign forces.”

The report added:

“….the war in Afghanistan has reached a critical crossroads. Our current path promises to have a limited impact on the civil war while taking more American lives and contributing to skyrocketing taxpayer debt. We conclude that a fundamentally new direction is needed (short) of a military solution in a region where our interests lie in political stability.”

The alternative is protracted unwinnable war. Tried earlier, bribing Taliban fighters failed. A few hundred at most changed sides. At the same time, NATO estimates their ranks swelled, reaching a 25,000 force level last December. Currently it’s likely much higher and growing.

The longer America’s genocide persists. The greater the civilian casualty count. The deeper human misery becomes in a country already with the world’s gravest, the more determination for liberation will grow. Above all, Pakistanis want cross-border drone attacks stopped and Afghans want war and occupation ended, the Karzai regime ousted, and new governance replacing it. Even Taliban rule improves what’s now ongoing, a nightmarish combination of war, occupation, and human suffering.

A Final Comment

General David Petraeus, Commander, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Commander, US Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A) hopes to parlay an AfPak triumph into a successful 2012 presidential bid, either by portraying defeat as victory or blaming bad Obama policy for lack of it.

The “Vietnamistan” reality, however, should banish him to history’s dustbin after prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Other administration war criminals also as well as Bush era ones who lied the nation into war, waged it in violation of US and international law, and has America bogged down in protracted unwinnable ones.

Law Professor and international law expert Francis Boyle believes:

“Obama is most vulnerable on 3 articles of impeachment:

He like other top past and present officials (including Pentagon ones) committed grievous crimes of war and against humanity, including genocide, mostly recently in Iraq, Afghanistan, and increasingly in Pakistan – the latest confirmation of America’s longstanding tradition, a nation permanently at war. Studying US conflicts since the 1870s, historian Gabriel Kolko called US power:

“violen(t), racis(t), repressi(ve) at home and abroad (as well as) cultural(ly) mendaci(ous).”

It dates from exterminating Native Americans, enslaving Black Africans, persecuting the nation’s poor, disadvantaged, women and people of color, as well as a tradition of waging direct and proxy genocidal wars globally.

Before his death, historian Howard Zinn accused past and current leaders of committing “genocide…brutally and purposefully….in the name of progress (buried) in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth.”

Millions of lives were lost, an endless toll raging out-of-control in AfPak. Ending that atrocity and holding culpable officials accountable would be top priority in any just society. Only America’s victims pay. Its officials, like Richard Holbrooke, are eulogized for services rendered.

A December 14 Wall Street Journal editorial called him “a diplomat who never doubted America is a force for good in the world.” A same day New York Times one concurred, saying he was “an iconic American diplomat (who) never lost his fierce belief in America’s goodness or in its responsibility to make the world a more just place,” no matter how much death and destruction it took to achieve it.

An honest assessment would call him a destructive force for imperial gain, responsible for genocidal wars, wanton destruction and massive human misery. It

continues unabated in AfPak, no matter its lawlessness and futility.

By Stephen Lendman

16 December, 2010

Countercurrents.org

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening

The missing persons of Iraq.

“Iraq has the most disappeared persons in the world”

Forced disappearances and missing persons.

A forced disappearance (or enforced disappearance) is defined in Article 2 of the Convention for the

Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, adopted by the United Nations General

Assembly On 20 December 2006, as the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation

of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization,

support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty

or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person

outside the protection of the law. Often forced disappearance implies murder. The victim in such a

case is first abducted, then illegally detained, and often tortured; the victim is then killed, and the

body is then hidden. Typically, a murder will be surreptitious, with the corpse disposed of in such a

way as to prevent it ever being found, so that the person apparently vanishes. The party committing

the murder has deniability, as there is no body to prove that the victim has actually died.¹

Article 1 of the Convention further states that No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a

state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be

invoked as a justification for enforced disappearance.² Neither Iraq, nor the USA have signed or

ratified this convention.³ The United States refused to sign, saying that the text “did not meet our

expectations“, without giving an explanation.⁴ Once again the United States placed itself outside the

provisions of International Humanitarian law.a

According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which came into force on 1 July

2002, when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed at any civilian

population, a “forced disappearance” qualifies as a crime against humanity, and thus is not subject to

a statute of limitations.⁵

The Human Rights Council Advisory Committee on 3 August 2010 took up, on requests of the Human

 

1 http://wapedia.mobi/en/Forced_disappearances

2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_All_Persons_from_Enforced_Disappearance

3 http://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-16&chapter=4&lang=en

4 http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2007/02/200852513385877874.html

5 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Forced-Disappearance-International-Criminal-limitations/dp/6130247583

Leaked cable suggests US diplomats were briefed by the Red Cross of continued torture in Indian-administered Kashmir

Torture has been routinely used in prisons in Indian-administered Kashmir, a US cable released by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks has suggested.

The cable, released on Thursday, says that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had briefed US diplomats on widespread torture in 2005.

The memo, titled “ICRC frustrated with the Indian government”dates back to April 6, 2005, and outlines a confidential meeting in which the ICRC told diplomats of “torture methods and relatively stable trends of prisoner abuses by Indian security forces”, based on data derived from 1,491 interviews with detainees from 2002-2004.

ICRC was quoted as saying their staff made 177 visits to detention centres in Jammu and Kashmir and conducted 1,296 private interviews, but reported that “they had not been allowed access to all detainees”.

Techniques included electric shock treatment, sexual and water torture and nearly 300 cases of “roller” abuse in which a round metal object is placed on the thighs of a sitting detainee and then sat on by guards to crush the muscles, according to the cable.

The memo added that since torture and ill-treatment continues unbated, “the ICRC is forced to conclude that the Government of India (GOI) condones torture”.

Prerna Suri, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in New Delhi, said though shocking, the allegations were not new.

“Human rights groups and activists have been bringing out all these allegations in the last few years at various public fora,” she said.

“The spokesperson of the government of India said that this is an internal assessment of American diplomats, and for them isn’t something that would warrant a response to.”

Suri added that India has consistently denied human rights abuses in Kashmir, and that it is alleged that the root problem comes from a special dispensation that governs Indian troops in Kashmir.

“The Armed Forces special Powers Act gives the army sweeping immunity … They can pick up civilians who they think are perpetrators, and in some cases they can also get away with killings and torture with any prosecution … and some say that this is where the rot actually stems from”

Growing anger

Suri said the cable was likely to create more restlessness in the region.

“We have seen this year, some of the worst protests on the streets of Srinagar … Hundreds of thousands of people came out on to the streets protesting [against] army rule.”

The cable said the ICRC revealed to US diplomats that in 852 cases, detainees reported cases of ill-treatment, including various forms of torture. As many as 681 detainees were said to be subjected to more than one form of ill-treatment.

The memo added that the ICRC reported that ill-treatment and torture “is regular and widespread” and “always takes place in the presence of officers” and that the ICRC “has raised these issues with the government of India for more than 10 years”.

The cable added that while the ICRC reported that security forces were rougher on detainees in the past, “detainees were rarely militants [they are routinely killed], but persons connected to or believed to have information about the insurgency”.

Violence linked to insurgents in Indian Kashmir has eased since nuclear-armed India and Pakistan launched a peace process in 2004 over the disputed Himalayan region.

But popular pro-independence protests since June have left more than 110 protesters and bystanders — many of them teenagers – dead.

India and Pakistan each hold part of Kashmir but claim it in full

By Aljazeera

 

BUSH AND ASSOCIATES FOUND GUILTY OF TORTURE

KUALA LUMPUR, 11 May 2012 – The five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered a guilty verdict against former United States President George W. Bush and his associates at the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal hearing that had started on Monday.

On the charge of Crime of Torture and War Crimes, the tribunal finds the accused persons former U.S. President George W. Bush and his associates namely Richard Cheney, former U.S. Vice President, Donald Rumsfeld, former Defence Secretary, Alberto Gonzales, then Counsel to President Bush, David Addington, then General Counsel to the Vice-President, William Haynes II, then General Counsel to Secretary of Defence, Jay Bybee, then Assistant Attorney General, and John Choon Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney-General guilty as charged and convicted as war criminals for Torture and Cruel, Inhumane and Degrading Treatment of the Complainant War Crime Victims.

Earlier in the week, the tribunal heard the testimonies of three witnesses namely Abbas Abid, Moazzam Begg and Jameelah Hameedi. They related the horrific tortures they had faced during their incarceration. The tribunal also heard two other Statutory Declarations of Iraqi citizen Ali Shalal and Rhuhel Ahmed, a British citizen.

Testimony showed that Abbas Abid, a 48-year-old chief engineer in the Science and Technology Ministry had his fingernails removed by pliers. Ali Shalal was attached with bare electrical wires and electrocuted and hung from the wall. Moazzam Begg was beaten and put in solitary confinement. Jameelah was almost nude and humiliated, used as a human shield whilst being transported by helicopter. All these witnesses have residual injuries till today.

These witnesses were taken prisoners and held in prisons in Afghanistan (Bagram), in Iraq (Abu Gharib, Baghdad International Airport) and two of them namely Moazzam Begg and Rhuhel Ahmed were transported to Guantanamo Bay.

In a submission that lasted a day, the prosecution showed in an in depth submission how the decision-makers at the highest level President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld, aided and abetted by the lawyers and the other commanders and CIA officials – all acted in concert. Torture was systematically applied and became an accepted norm.

According to the prosecution, the testimony of all the witnesses shows a sustained perpetration of brutal, barbaric, cruel and dehumanizing course of conduct against them. These acts of crimes were applied cumulatively to inflict the worst possible pain and suffering.

After hearing the defence of the Amicus Curiae and the subsequent rebuttal the prosecution, the tribunal ruled unanimously that there was a prima facie case made out by the prosecution.

After hours of deliberation, the tribunal, in the verdict that was read out by the president of the tribunal Tan Sri Dato Lamin bin Haji Mohd Yunus Lamin, found that the prosecution had established beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused persons, former President George Bush and his co-conspirators engaged in a web of instructions, memos, directives, legal advice and action that established a common plan and purpose, joint enterprise and/or conspiracy to commit the crimes of Torture and War Crimes, including and not limited to a common plan and purpose to commit the following crimes in relation to the “War on Terror” and the wars launched by the U.S. and others in Afghanistan and Iraq:

(a) Torture;

(b) Creating, authorizing and implementing a regime of Cruel, Inhumane, and

Degrading Treatment;

(c) Violating Customary International Law;

(d) Violating the Convention Against Torture 1984;

(e) Violating the Geneva Convention III and IV 1949;

(f) Violating the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention of 1949.

(g) Violating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Charter.

The Tribunal finds that the prosecution has established beyond a reasonable doubt that the Accused persons are individually and jointly liable for all crimes committed in pursuit of their common plan and purpose under principles established by Article 6 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal (the Nuremberg Charter), which states, inter alia, “Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit war crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any person in execution of such plan.”

The Principles of the Nuremberg Charter and the Nuremberg Decision have been adopted as customary international law by the United Nations.  The government of the United States is subject to customary international law and to the Principles of the Nuremburg Charter and the Nuremburg Decision.

The Tribunal finds that the prosecution has proven beyond reasonable doubt that the accused lawyers, gave ‘advice’ that “the Geneva Conventions did not apply (to suspected al Qaeda and Taliban detainees); that there was no torture occurring within the meaning of the Torture Convention, and that enhanced interrogations techniques, (constituting cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment,) were permissible.”

The prosecution has also established beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused lawyers “knew full well their advice was being sought to be acted upon, and in fact was acted upon, and such advice paved the way for violations of international law, the Geneva Conventions and the Torture Convention.”

The accused lawyers’ advice was binding on the accused Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney, each of whom relied on the accused lawyers’ advice.  Others, such as CIA Director George Tenet and Diane Beaver, officer in charge at Guantanamo, relied on the accused lawyers’ advice. The prosecution had established beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused lawyers are criminally liable for their acts, and for participating in a joint criminal enterprise.

The president read that the Tribunal orders that reparations commensurate with the irreparable harm and injury, pain and suffering undergone by the Complainant War Crime Victims be paid to the Complainant War Crime Victims. While it is constantly mindful of its stature as merely a tribunal of conscience with no real power of enforcement, the Tribunal finds that the witnesses in this case are entitled ex justitia to the payment of reparations by the 8 convicted persons and their government.

It is the Tribunal’s hope that armed with the findings of this Tribunal, the witnesses will, in the near future, find a state or an international judicial entity able and willing to exercise jurisdiction and to enforce the verdict of this Tribunal against the 8 convicted persons and their government. The Tribunal’s award of reparations shall be submitted to the War Crimes Commission to facilitate the determination and collection of reparations by the Complainant War Crime Victims.

President Lamin read, “As a tribunal of conscience, the Tribunal is fully aware that its verdict is merely declaratory in nature. The tribunal has no power of enforcement, no power to impose any custodial sentence on any one or more of the 8 convicted persons. What we can do, under Article 31 of Chapter VI of Part 2 of the Charter is to recommend to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission to submit this finding of conviction by the Tribunal, together with a record of these proceedings, to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.

The Tribunal also recommends to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission that the names of all the 8 convicted persons be entered and included in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals and be publicized accordingly.

The Tribunal recommends to the War Crimes Commission to give the widest international publicity to this conviction and grant of reparations, as these are universal crimes for which there is a responsibility upon nations to institute prosecutions if any of these Accused persons may enter their jurisdictions.

ends

For further information, please contact

Dato’ Dr Yaacob Merican

Secretary General of the KLWCC Secretariat

Tel: +6012-227 8680

 

Ms Malkeet Kaur

Media Representative of KLWCC

malkeet@dbook.com.my

Tel: +6012-3737 886

 

The Tribunal Members

Tan Sri Dato Lamin bin Haji Mohd Yunus,

Mr Alfred Lambremont Webre

Tunku Sofiah Jewa

Prof Salleh Buang

Mr Alfred Lambremont Webre

Datuk Mohd Sa’ari Yusof.

 

The Prosecution

Prof Gurdial S Nijar

Prof Francis Boyle

Mr Avtaran Singh

Ms Gan Pei Fern

 

Amicus Curiae (appointed Defence team)

Mr Jason Kay

Dr Mohd Hisham

Dr Abbas Hardani

Ms Galoh Nursafinas

The Charge

Crime of Torture and War Crimes against former U.S. President George W. Bush and his associates namely Richard Cheney, former U.S. Vice President, Donald Rumsfeld, former Defence Secretary, Alberto Gonzales, then Counsel to President Bush, David Addington, then General Counsel to the Vice-President, William Haynes II, then General Counsel to Secretary of Defence, Jay Bybee, then Assistant Attorney General, and John Choon Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney-General.

The Tribunal will adjudicate and evaluate the evidence presented on facts and law as in any court of law. The judges of the Tribunal must be satisfied that the charge is proven beyond reasonable doubt and deliver a reasoned judgement. The verdict and the names of the persons found guilty will be entered in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals and publicised worldwide.

About Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC)

The KLFCW established the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (The Commission), to investigate cases of war crimes that have been neglected by established institutions such as the International Criminal Court. The Commission seeks to influence world opinion on the illegality of wars and occupation undertaken by major Western powers.

The aim of The Commission is thereby to hold perpetrators of war crimes accountable for their actions especially when relevant international judicial organs fail to do so.

The Commission

The commission’s function is to:

i) receive complaints from any victim(s) of any conflict on:

(a) Crimes against peace

(b) Crimes against humanity

(c) Crimes of genocide

(d) War crimes

 

ii) investigate the same and prepare a report of its findings. To further call for more evidence or where The Commission is satisfied to recommend prosecution

The Legal Team

The legal team’s aim is to present the complaints of victim(s) of any conflict and to act on the recommendation of The Commission’s report and to frame charges and prosecute accused person(s).

The Tribunal

The Tribunal shall adjudicate on the charges filed against the accused person(s) The applicable standard of proof shall be beyond reasonable doubt.

About the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW)

Malaysia’s fourth Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad founded the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW), a non-governmental organisation established under the laws of Malaysia on 12 March 2007.

The main objectives of the Foundation, as stated in its Statutes are, inter alia:

1.    To undertake all necessary measures and initiatives to criminalise war and energise peace;

2.    To provide relief, assistance and support to individuals and communities who are    suffering from the effects of war and armed conflict wherever occurring and without discrimination on the grounds of nationality, racial origin, religion, belief, age, gender or other forms of impermissible differentiations;

3.    To promote the education of individuals and communities suffering from the effects of war or armed conflict;

4.    To foster schemes for the relief of human suffering occasioned by war or armed conflict;

5.    To provide for mechanisms or procedures in attainment of the above purposes.

“WHY is it that the murder of one man is considered a criminal act whereas the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent people committed in wars, is not considered so? -Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad

 

 

So monumentally arrogant is India’s nuclear establishment that it brazenly brands its critics insane and in need of psychiatric treatment. It has asked the state-run National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS) to “counsel” the tens of thousands protesting against the Koodankulam nuclear power station in Tamil Nadu that it’s perfectly safe.

This marks a new offensive to impose nuclear power upon people who have resisted Koodankulam’s Russian-made reactors since 1988. After Fukushima, the presumption that fears about nuclear hazards are irrational betrays delusional insensitivity.

The police have filed 107 first information reports against an incredible 55,795 people in Koodankulam, charging 6,800 of them with “sedition” and “waging war”. This sets a new record in harassment of popular protests anywhere. Leave alone sedition, there hasn’t been one violent incident during the seven-months-long Koodankulam protests.

NIMHANS psychiatrists, to their shame, are striving to help people “understand the importance of the nuclear power plant”. They treat opposition to nuclear power as a disorder like schizophrenia, paranoia, or craving for victimhood.

By their criteria, more than 80 per cent of the population of Japan, Germany, France and Russia, which opposes new nuclear plants, must be considered insane. As an academic research institution, NIMHANS shouldn’t act as a nuclear propaganda agency.

Role of Foreign Hand

NIMHANS seems to have taken its cue from the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, who attributed the protests to the “foreign hand”. But the real “foreign hand” is Dr Singh himself, who is hitching India’s energy trajectory to imported reactors, including French reactors at Jaitapur (Maharashtra), and American reactors at Mithi Virdi (Gujarat) and Kovvada (Andhra).

After Fukushima, nuclear safety can no longer be analysed from the usual “expert” probabilistic perspective. As the official German Ethics Commission on safe energy says, Fukushima has decisively changed nuclear risk perceptions: “More people have come to realise…that major accidents can indeed occur.” As physicist Mr Alvin Weinberg said: “A nuclear accident anywhere is a nuclear accident everywhere”.

Fukushima occurred in an industrially advanced country, still hasn’t been brought under control, and exposes flaws in the global nuclear industry’s technological risk-assessment methods. Says the Ethics Commission: Fukushima “has shaken people’s confidence … [They] are no longer prepared to leave it to … experts to decide how to deal with… the possibility of an uncontrollable… accident.”

This applies to India too. Its Department of Atomic Energy has a poor safety culture and record. DAE parrots clichés about the Russian reactors’ safety. But it doesn’t even have full access to their design.

It’s the DAE and Nuclear Power Corporation, not the protesters, who are delusion-prone. When the Fukushima crisis decisively turned for the worse with hydrogen explosions, the DAE secretary, Mr Sreekumar Banerjee said these were “purely a chemical reaction and not a nuclear emergency …”.

Of course, the explosions were chemical reactions. But the hydrogen indicated severe nuclear fuel damage. The explosions ruptured plant structures, aggravating the nuclear emergency with three reactor-core meltdowns.

Last September, the government suspended work on Koodankulam until people’s safety concerns are fully allayed by a 15-member ‘expert group’. This failed to convince anyone or furnish any documents, including the environmental impact assessment report. It refused even to meet the independent scientists nominated by the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy.

Koodankulam raises two sets of safety issues: specific to the reactors and site, and generic to nuclear power. The reactors haven’t been certified safe by an independent international or Indian agency. A recent report by nuclear safety experts on Russian rectors shockingly reveals that they are grievously under-prepared for natural or man-made disasters.

Russian reactors are marked by 31 “serious flaws”, including: absence of regulations to deal with contingencies; inadequate protective shelters; lack of records of previous accidents, which would enable learning from past mistakes; and poor attention to safety-significant systems.

The report questions the reactors’ ability to remain safe long enough if cooling systems fail. These systems are vulnerable to metal fatigue and welding flaws. Worse, the earthquake hazard isn’t considered in designing Russian reactors. Many lack earthquake-triggered automatic shutdown mechanisms.

There are serious site-specific issues too, including impact on people and fisheries, and inadequacy of safety systems and waste storage. The site could be vulnerable to tsunamis caused by “slumps” (massive agglomerations of loosely-bound seabed sediments), small-volume volcanic eruptions, and geological and hydrological instability.

Koodankulam is probably the world’s sole nuclear plant without independent freshwater supply. The desalination plant, on which it will fully depend, could fail.

Safety Procedures Bypassed

These issues were highlighted in an impressive 84-page report by PMANE. The official committee hasn’t answered them.

NPC is now bypassing Atomic Energy Regulatory Board safety procedures. It’s rushing into starting the first reactor, which gathered rust for five months. Prior to nuclear-fuel loading, it should be put through another “hot run”, similar to last year’s, says former AERB chairman, Mr A Gopalakrishnan.

In this operation, the core is loaded with dummy fuel and hot water is circulated through it at the same temperature as its operating level to check its vessels, piping, valves, etc. The AERB also mandates an emergency evacuation drill in the emergency planning zone covering a 16-km radius, before fuel loading. Nothing suggests this will happen.

Koodankulam violates the stipulation that there must be zero population within a 1.5-km radius, and only a sparse population within a 5-km radius. Several thousands live in the 1.5-km radius. At least 40,000 people live within a 5-km radius, and 100,000 in the EPZ.

The generic hazards of nuclear power include radiation at each stage, from uranium mining, fuel fabrication, reactor operation and maintenance, to waste storage. Cancer-causing radiation is harmful in all doses. Routine emissions from reactors also pose grave hazards.

Even graver is the problem of nuclear wastes, which remain hazardous for thousands of years. Science knows no safe way of storing, let alone neutralising, them.

Nuclear power is the only form of energy production with a potential for catastrophic accidents like Fukushima. These problems make nuclear power uniquely, irredeemably, hazardous.

Koodankulam concentrates these hazards, dangerously. It must be scrapped.

By Praful Bidwai

15 June, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Praful Bidwai is a senior Indian journalist, political analyst, and activist.

Teaching violence, breeding hate – Settlers create ‘hatetourism’

Gush Etzion has become a hot destination in recent months for tourists seeking an Israeli experience like no other: The opportunity to pretend-shoot a terror operative. Residents of the nearby settlements, who run the site, offer day-trippers a chance to hear stories from the battleground, watch a simulated assassination of terrorists by guards, and fire weapons at the range.”

David Pearl, who heads the Gush Etzion Regional Council, notes that this kind of experience turns the district into a world-famous “tourist gem.” At the end of the thrill-filled day, the tourists get a diploma indicating they “completed a basic shooting course in Israel.”

Israeli tourism is a double edged sword. On one hand, it manufactures enemy images of the Palestinian. Trained guides are taught to scare the tourist about the dangerous Palestinian who is all set to shoot and kill. On the other hand, Israel tourism is there to rake in the billions of dollars on offer – at the expense of the Palestinian. The number of Palestinian heritage sites now appropriated by Israel is yet another instrument of the occupation to take away the best for the occupier and leave Palestine deprived even of its own natural historical culture and heritage.

A study by the Alternative Tourism Group in Beit Sahour says: “Israel claims to present a surplus of tourism products – historical and religious places, beach resorts, heritage locales, archaeological spaces, and nature spots.  The industry relies on what has come to be known as a ‘pilgrim market’ to make its dramatic gains from the tourism industry. However, it is important, at the very outset, to underline that Israel has craftily appropriated a number of Palestinian sites and areas into its own market and parades these important locations as authentically Israeli. This has been possible because Israel, as the occupying power in Palestine, carries out the seizure of these sites through unlawful means.”

Palestine’s main attraction for a large proportion of visitors is the status of Palestine as the Holy Land. Traditionally, pilgrims have visited the country from all over the world. The conflict stemming from the occupation has caused a drastic reduction in pilgrimages. At least 15 military orders and regulations related to tourism have been issued since 1967 by the Israeli military authorities, who have assumed responsibility for tourism in the Occupied Territories. These orders raised the level of requirements for licensing and functioning of tourist institutions, without availing those institutions of the means necessary for the required improvements.

To the question: “Are tourists allowed to enter areas outside of the Israeli responsibility (Palestinian areas)?” the Israeli government is ambiguous but suggests that typically it is not safe.

The Alternative Tourism Group (ATG) argues that travel to Palestine is secure. Hospitality is an extremely important value in Palestine, as it is throughout the Mediterranean world. Palestinians welcome visitors with open arms. The greatest risk does not arise from potential Palestinian violence but dangerous situations that can arise due to the Israeli Occupation.

ATG insists that “Arab people in general and Palestinians in particular, have been demonized in the West for decades. They are often presented in the media as dangerous, conniving, and immoral. It is not uncommon for visitors to Palestine to experience a mix of emotions — bewilderment, confusion, delight, embarrassment, and anger — when they realize how false those demonized images really are.

Negative stereotypes of Palestinians have been purposely reinforced by the Israeli government, which discourages international visitors to have contact with Palestinians. Israel knows that exposure to the present and historical realities of the situation have a transformative effect on the majority of tourists to Palestine, who return to their home countries as opponents to Israel’s oppressive policies against Palestinians.”

In the face of harsh propaganda, Palestinians encourage international visitors to suspend any preconceived notions they have about Palestinians until they have a chance to meet us face-to-face.

When “tourists venture to West Bank to ‘shoot terrorists”, under the tutelage of settlers, then Israel tourism has assumed its most ugly face. Tourism is designed to be a transformational experience- an encounter between peoples that results in enhancing human values and understanding between peoples. Israeli tourism has chosen profits over people, and hate over understanding.

The ynetnews (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4243882,00.html) about how illegal settlers in the West Bank create tour packages for hate and violence must be roundly condemned and steps taken to ban it.

PU readers are urged to act by:

o   Conveying disapproval of such touristic itineraries under the very nose of the Israeli authorities – you may write to Ministry of Tourism at: info@goisrael.com

o   Disseminate this information widely to tour operators and churches- any location from where tours to Israel originate and encourage them to take the tours where ‘human encounters’ for peace, justice and human understanding take place.

The Alternative Tourism Group (www.atg.ps) offers constructive alternatives through which one can “see what Palestine is like beyond the headlines”… to see and meet “with Palestinian families, witness the real effects of occupation, and learn about the history, religions, conflicts, cultures, and traditions of this region.”

Armed Terrorist Group Attacks al-Ikhbariya TV Channel, Three Journalists Martyred

DAMASCUS, (SANA)- Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi on Wednesday said the armed terrorist groups perpetrated the worst massacre against journalism and the freedom of media when they executed the Syria media figures in cold blood.

The Minister held those who instigate against Syria and escalate terrorism against its people fully responsible for this massacre.

Minister al-Zoubi said “This massacre won’t go unpunished and the broadcast of the Syrian al-Ikhbariya Satellite Channel will not stop and we hold the EU, Arab and International organizations responsible for this massacre.”

Al-Zoubi added: “Those who committed this crime had carried out the decision of the Arab League Council to silence the voice of Syria.”

Minister al-Zoubi asserted that the armed terrorist groups who broke into the headquarters of al-Ikhbariya perpetrated a heinous crime executing the journalists, employees and civil guards, telephone operators, exploding the studios, looting some of the Channel technical sets.

Minister al-Zoubi added that the EU decision in Luxembourg to impose sanctions on Syrian TV and Radio in addition to the continued campaigns of provocations against Syria have been crowned today with this terrorist attack against al-Ikhbariya Satellite Channel.

Minister al-Zoubi  referred this heinous crime against the Syrian Media to the EU with all of its institutions, to all ministers of information worldwide, Arab and foreign press, UN, UN Security Council, UN Human Rights Council, Arab League, as well as to Arab league Secretary General.

Syria’s voice with all of its media outlets would ever remain as to encounter the hatched conspiracies, blasting the Arab League recent decision to prohibit Syrian media transmission via Arabsat and Nilesat, holding the League Secretary-General accountable for this legal and political liability.

Three journalists and workers in the Syrian al-Ikhbaryia Satellite Channel were martyred Wednesday morning in a brutal terrorist attack by an armed terrorist group targeting the headquarters of al-Ikhbaryia.

The martyrs who were killed in the terrorist attack against al-Ikhbariya Channel are: Sami Abu Amin, Zaid Kahl and Mohammad Shamma.

The terrorists planted explosive devices in the headquarters of al-Ikhbaryia following their ransacking and destroying of the Satellite Channel studios, including the newsroom studio which was entirely destroyed.

al-Ikhbaryia Satellite Channel, an active Syrian media means in confronting misleading and misinformation campaigns, continued, however, its transmission regardless of the brutal terrorist attack.

Syria has been facing a sinister campaign launched by some Arab media means, especially the Qatari and Saudi, and western media means fabricating and disseminating false, virtual and biased news.

Information Ministry: Terrorist Attack against al-Ikhbariya Channel is an attack against Freedom of Information

The Ministry of Information stressed that on Wednesday, June 27, 2012 an armed terrorist group perpetrated an attack against al-Ikhbariya TV channel headquarters in Damascus Countryside.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Ministry said  ”At Wednesday dawn, June 27th, an armed terrorist group attacked the headquarter and buildings of the Syria News Satellite Channel in the Damascus countryside, adding that ”The terrorists assassinated a number of journalists, media men and technicians of the channel and its security guards.”

”They also planted many explosive charges in the news studio, the administration offices and the technical equipments rooms which completely destroyed them, then set fire to the remaining offices and tied a number of the workers and shot them dead, and abducted others,” the statement added.

The statement went on to say ”As announcing what happened and the martyrs of free word and nationalist honest media, the Ministry of Information places this horrible crime where it must be, as a crime against human norms, media conventions, and journalism.”

”This evil aggression on the freedom of media, its cadre and foundations comes in concurrence and as completion to the attempts to prevent the Syrian national media from satellite broadcasting, and carrying them out directly via the sanctions adopted against this media, the latest of which is what was issued yesterday evening by the EU Council against the General Organization of Radio &Television in Syria, and Addounia private TV channel before,” added the statement.

The statement said that ”The repeated attempts to silence and prevent the Syrian media from delivering the full truth honestly and directly to the Syrian, Arab and world public opinion will end in failure based on the creativity of this free media supported by the decent Syrian people.”

The statement added ”The Syrian Ministry of Information calls on the Council of Arab Ministers of Information to hold responsibility and become aware of the full truth of the aggression against the media men who were martyred, abducted or injured in the incident, and exercise its role to guarantee freedom of media, satellite broadcasting, life and safety of journalists everywhere.”

”The Syrian News Channel and the Syrian media, along with the souls of the martyrs, will always remain nationalist and human minarets despite hatred and terrorism,’ the stamen concluded.

People’s Assembly Denounces Attack against al-Ikhbariya TV as Attempt to Silence the Voice of Right

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Members of the Peoples’ Assembly condemned the barbarian massacre against the Syria media and journalists which aim at silencing the voice of Syria.

In a People’s Assembly session on Wednesday, the Assembly members asserted that terrorism against the Syrian journalists will not dissuade them from continuing their media message to convey the truth. The MPs stressed that the U.S. and Isreali agents in the region and the oil monarchies are behind this terrorist act which targeted the Syrian media because of its role in exposing terrorists who are destroying Syria and those who back them up with funds and arms.

Speaker of the People’s Assembly, Mohammad Jihad al-Laham stressed that the massacre aimed at replacing the stability and security in Syria with terrorism to silence the free voice of the right.

In turn, MP Fayez al-Sayeigh said that targeting journalists leave no room for doubt that what is taking place in Syria has nothing to do with freedom or the ‘Other Opinion’, calling upon Arab and international humanitarian and media organizations to shoulder their responsibilities towards this crime.

For his part, MP Faisal Azzouz stressed that the attack against the Syrian al-Ikhbariya TV is an attack against every Syrian and every journalist in the world, adding that they want Syria to bow down not to change the regime.

MP Omar Ossi stressed that the crime came in line with their theory of ‘creative chaos’ to implement a geopolitical scheme in the region with Israel as its center.

MP Sharif Shhadeh said that the conspirers are angry with Syria because of their failure in misleading others and the success of Syrian media in exposing their crimes.

MP Adnan Suleiman said that the attack against the Syrian al-Ikhbariya TV is a violation of the principles of human rights and part of the conspiracy to prevent conveying the reality and mislead the international public opinion.

In turn, MP Mohammad Ali al-Khabi stressed that Syria will come out stronger thanks to its army, people and leadership and the criminals will be punished for their crimes.

MP Khalil Mashhadiyeh said that those who committed the crime and those who support them do not believe in the freedom of expression, stressing that the Syrian blood is sacrosanct just as the Syrian territories.

The MPs concluded that this terrorist act is rejected and condemned as it aims at concealing the voice of right and truth.

The People’s Assembly approved reports submitted by the permanent committees on electing its offices’ staffs.

The Assembly referred draft laws forwarded by the President on combating terrorism and amending Article 556 of Penalties Law to the constitutional and legislative committee for studying.

The session also tackled establishing new faculties in the Syrian universities and opening a branch for Agriculture Bank in Deir Ezzor in addition to establishing al-Dmeir National Hospital.

The comments dealt with investing transfer plants in Banias and means of distributing essential food materials to villages and towns.

Jamil: Establishing a Ministry concerned in Consumer Protection a message that the State will play a basic role in Economy

DAMASCUS, (SANA)-Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, Minister of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection Qadri Jamil said that establishing a new ministry concerned in the affairs of consumer and the control of markets has a big meaning and a message that the State wants to play a pioneering and basic role in the economic process.

“There is no alternative to the role of the State which particularly occurs during the crises.. concentration will be on promoting the private productive sector,” Jamil said during a meeting with directors of institutions affiliated to the Ministry Wednesday.

He added “we will work to achieve an important step in the social policy within the modernization and development policy and make use of all previous experiments as well as formulating an economic pattern for Syria.”

Jamil referred to some issues and negative indicators which need reconsideration through communicating with citizens, like issues of trouble between wages and profits and the economic loss because of corruption.

Russian Foreign Ministry: UN Report on al-Houla Massacre doesn’t Reflect Violence Carried out by Terrorists in Syria

MOSCOW, (SANA)- The Russian Foreign Ministry underlined that the report of the UN Human Rights’ investigation Committee into al-Houla massacre, issued today, doesn’t reflect the volume of the acts of violence carried out by the armed terrorist groups in Syria.

“The report on al-Houla massacre indicates to the tension of situation where this massacre benefited powers which have interest in destabilizing the situation before debating the Syrian file at the UN Security Council,” Vasily Nebenya, Director of the Human Rrights Department at the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

Russia Today quoted Nebenya as saying that the meeting which will be convened on June 30th in Geneva aims at supporting the plan of the UN Envoy to Syria Kofi Annan, adding that Moscow calls on all sides not to take steps that foil these constructive efforts.

The Russian official warned that the situation in Syria is escalating, calling for backing Annan’s plan to stop bloodshed in Syria.

Syrian Journalists Stage Sit-in in Condemnation of Terrorist Attack against al-Ikhbariya TV

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The Syrian journalists staged a sit-in in front of the General Organization of Radio & Television building, with the participation of Minister of Information Omran al-Zoubi in condemnation of the terrorist attack against al-Ikhbariya TV Channel.

Minister of Information Omran al-Zoubi, in a statement to the journalists, said that the massacre committed against the journalists and a free Syrian TV channel is a literal implementation of the Arab League Council’s decision on stopping the broadcast of Syrian TV channels by force.

He added that the package of sanctions issued by the European Union on Tuesday has been implemented today at the expense of civilians and journalists.

He added that the EU, the UN Security Council, the UN observer team in Syria, the UN Secretary General, the President of the Human Rights Council, the AL Secretary General, Council and foreign ministers are partners in this crime and they should shoulder their responsibilities.

The Minister said that the Ministry of Information and the Syrian state and journalists will not keep silent about what happened, expressing hope that the site of the crime would be available for all those who want to go there and met the locals to closely inspect the reality of what happened and who committed the massacre.

Minister Omran offered condolences to all journalists, adding that the incident requires calmness and review and there is team for this purpose.

Director of al-Ikhbariya TV Channel, Imad Sarah, said that targeting al-Ikhbariya means targeting the national media, the word of right and the other opinion.

A number of journalists, cultural and political figures who participated in the sit-in condemned this terrorist act, expressing confidence that the national media will continue to shoulder its responsibilities now and in the future.

Chairman of Journalist Union Elias Murad said that the AL decisions and the EU sanctions could not silence the Syrian voice.

Director of the Syrian TV , Ma’an Saleh said that targeting media aimed at targeting Syria in all its capabilities, adding that this terrorist act is a message of their failure in political violence so that they turned to terrorism and destruction.

Political analyst Afif Della said that his participation in the sit-in came to express rejection of all attempts to silence the voice of truth.

The participants prayed for the souls of the martyrs of the terrorist attack to rest in peace.

They stressed that terrorism will make them more determined in the face of terrorist acts and the media campaign launched against Syria.

Al- Ikhbariya Journalists: We’ll Continue Conveying Reality of Events

Number of al- Ikhbariya channel journalists stressed that the massacre committed against the channel will not dissuade them from conveying the reality of the events, adding that they are more resolved to defend Syria’s dignity.

Editor-in-Chief of the channel, Abdo al-Assadi, said that this massacre targeted not only al- Ikhbaryia channel, but also all the Syrian media.

Al-Assadi added that the workers who were martyred in the attack were armed only with their words and views.

For his part, Chief Editor Adham al-Taweel, said that this terrorist attack targeted the Syrian media as it managed to confront the misleading and provocative media campaign against the country.

Yara Saleh, al-Ikhbariya correspondent, said that this terrorist attack will motivate all journalists and workers at the channel to unmask these terrorists and their actions.

Sit-in in Tartous to Denounce Massacre Committed against al-Ikhbariya Journalists and Workers

Journalists in Tartous also gathered in front of the headquarters of al-Thawra Newspaper to denounce the massacre committed against al-Ikhbariya TV Channel and all other terrorist acts targeting the Syrian people.

The participants stressed that this criminal acts will push journalists to exert more efforts to expose facts and divulge the lies of the misleading channels.

The participants raised national flags and banners that stress national unity in the face of all instigative campaigns which aimed at spreading chaos.

Journalists in Lattakia pointed out that the attack against al-Ikhbariya TV proved the success of national media in confronting the lies and fabrications of instigative media.

Wide Condemnations of Attack against al-Ikhbariya TV

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The Syrian Journalists Union and National Media Council mourned the martyrdom of three journalists.

They condemned the heinous terrorist attack targeted the Syrian al-Ikhbariya Satellite channel causing the martyrdom of three of its staff.

Chairman of Journalist Union Elias Murad said “We pray for the mercy for the souls of the martyrs of the terrorist attack against al-Ikhbariya Channel and those who failed in facing all kinds of aggression against Syria,” expressing the ability and determination of the Syrian journalists to foil the schemes targeting the Syrian media.

Murad added that the attack against al-Ikhabariya Channel comes in the framework of the continued aggression against the Syrian media and journalists.

In a statement, the National Media council offered sincere condolences for the families of the martyrs, expressing condemnation of all forms of terrorism which targets Syria’s security and stability.

The statement stressed that the Syrian national media will remain one of the most important basis of Syria’s resistance to protect its role and position in the region and the world.

Chairman of the National Media Council, Taleb Qadi Amin, stressed that the terrorist attack against the Syrian al-Ikhbariya channel is a “coward Terrorist act” which aims at silencing the voice of the truth of the Syrian media.

Amin condemned this coward act expressing support of all Syrian media figures to their mates in al-Ikhbariya channel.

He denounced the European Countries’ sanctions on the Syrian TV and the General Board of the Radio and TV, asserting that they completed this issue through this coward act against a Syrian national media institution which represents the voice of truth.

Former Information Minister Adnan Mahmoud stressed that the brutal terrorist crime against the Syrian al-Ikhbariya Channel is a part of the scheme which targets the Syrian media as it conveys the reality of the terrorist acts perpetrated against the Syrian people.

In a phone call with the Syrian TV, Mahmoud called on all the journalists to shoulder their ethical and legal responsibilities towards this crime.

Several Ambassadors accredited in Damascus expressed complete solidarity with the Syrian media and offered, on behalf of their countries, condolences for the families of the martyrs.

Arab Journalists Condemn Massacre against al-Ikhbariya TV as Criminal Act

Chairman of Iraqi Media Council, Hassan Selman, described the attack as a criminal act, adding that the Syrian people is facing a foreign-backed attack carried out by takfiri and terrorist tools.

Tunisian journalist Kawthar al-Beshrawi expressed shock over the silence of the Arab media towards the death of Syrian journalists, holding the instigators accountable for this crime.

“Today we are not taking about media, rather we are talking about camps in which journalists became reserve soldiers despite the fact that these journalists are not convinced with what they are doing,” she added.

Inspecting the site of the terrorist attack, Head of Iranian Radio & TV office in Damascus, Hassan Shemashdi, said that targeting al-Ikhbariya TV Channel aimed at taking revenge on its role in conveying the reality and revealing the conspiracy that Syria have been facing for 15 months.

Shemshadi said that some satellite channels did not broadcast the news on attacking al-Ikhbariya TV Channel which indicate the work mechanism of these channels in ignoring the massacres committed by the armed terrorist groups since these groups receive regional and Arab support.

Amnesty International condemns the attack

Amnesty International condemned the attack which targeted the Syrian al-Ikhbariya TV that claimed the lives of several press martyrs.

“Al-Ikhbariya TV is an independent entity.. its staff is civilian who should be protected against any aggression,” UPI quoted the International organization as saying in a statement today.

For her part, Ann Harrison, Deputy Director of the Organization’s Middle East and North Africa Program, said that all sides should condemn this attack.

Lebanese Amal Movement Condemns Terrorist Attack Against Syrian al-Ikhbariya TV

For its part, Lebanese Amal Movement condemned the terrorist attack against the Syrian al-Ikhbariya Channel and the massacre perpetrated by the armed terrorist group against its staff.

In a statement issued by the Movement’s Central Information Bureau, it said that the attack constitutes an aggression against journalism, media and the freedom of press by the armed terrorist groups.

The Movement expressed solidarity with the Syrian Channel and all free mass media which defend the Arab nation’s legitimate issues , offering sincere condolences for the families of the martyrs.

Golan People Condemn Terrorist Attack against al-Ikhbariya Channel

Citizens in the occupied Syrian Golan condemned the terrorist attack which targeted al-Ikhbariya channel that comes in the framework of the EU sanctions and other Arab-League sanctions against the national media as it conveys the reality of events on the ground and uncovers the western and Arab media fabrications aimed at destabilizing Syria.

In a statement, the Golan people stressed that terrorism will never silence the free Syrian voice from conveying the reality of events to the whole world.

United States Denounce Attack on al-Ikhbariya Channel

The United States denounced the attack which targeted al-Ikhbariya Channel, with White House Press Secretary Jay Carney reiterating his country’s condemnation of the violence in Syria.

Authorities Clash with Terrorists in Douma, Ariha and Deir Ezzor, Kill Many, Arrest Several Others

PROVINCES, (SANA) – Authorities in Damascus Countryside on Wednesday confronted an armed terrorist group who set up barriers at Khorsheed Street in Douma.

A source in the province told SANA reporter the clash resulted in killing 13 terrorists, including Mohammad Walid al-Idrees and Omar Darwish, and seizing their weapons.

In Idelb, the authorities clashed with an armed terrorist group who tried to block Ariha – Jisr al-Shughour highway in Ein al-Hamra village.

A source in Idleb province told SANA reporter that the clash resulted in killing 4 terrorists, among them Sattam Younes who was wanted for several crimes, injuring others and seizing their weapons.

The authorities in Deir Ezzor continued pursuing armed terrorist groups in al-Mwazafeen neighborhood in the city and arrested large number of terrorists who were wanted for charges of committing crimes against citizens and law-enforcement forces and sabotage acts.

Prime Minister Issues Decisions Granting State Ministers Ministerial Powers

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Prime Minister Riyad Hijab on Wednesday issued a number of decisions granting ministerial powers to the state ministers.

Hijab empowered the State Minister Abdullah Hussein Khalil to exercise the ministerial powers related to administrative development and other tasks assigned to him by the Prime Minister.

Minister of State Najm Eddin Khreit was tasked with following up on development projects in the eastern northern region while minister of State Joseph Sweid was tasked with issues related to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent organization.

Premier Hijab empowered Minister of State Mohammad Turki to exercise the ministerial powers related to the People’s Assembly while Minister of State Jamal Shaaban Shahin was tasked with following up investment and development projects in the southern area.

The Prime Minister also issued a decision on delegating Minister of State Hussein Mahmoud Farzat to carry out the tasks assigned to the Minister who is responsible for following up vital projects in the Syrian provinces in coordination with Deputy Prime Minister for Services.

Al-Hamwi: Politicized Work of the UNHRC Might Cause Syria to Consider Halting Cooperation With It

GENEVA, (SANA) – Syria’s Representative to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Faisal al-Hamwi on Wednesday said that the global conspiracy against Syria aims at achieving Israel’s desire to instigate edition and fighting among the Syrian people.

The remarks came during his speech before the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva to discuss a report on al- Houla massacre.

He added that the continued shameful situation in the work of the Human Rights Council, its politicized sessions, sterile resolutions and the biased and non-objective statements by the Office of the Higher Commissioner, may push Syria to seriously consider halting all forms of cooperation with these bodies as they remain unable to offer constructive and objective solutions for the problems.

“How could some sides pretend to be worried about the Syrian people and at the same time arming the terrorists and conspiring against the Syrians,” al-Hamwi said.

He added that “Had these sides been honest, they would have supported Annan’s plan and urged all sides to hold a constructive national dialogue.”

He concluded that Syria’s delegation will not take part in this session in condemnation of its bias which aims at undermining Syria and offend its people.

China: International Community Should Work for Launching Early Political Dialogue in Syria

BEIJING, (SANA) – Spokesman at the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hong Lei, on Wednesday said that “the international community should work on launching a timely political dialogue in Syria.”

He added that the international community should focus on carrying out the proposals of the UN Special Envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, urge all Syrian sides to implement relevant UN Security Council resolutions, halt the violence and launch a political dialogue without preconditions or pre-set results.

The spokesman said that China believes “it is imperative to adhere to the right direction” in regard to finding a political solution to the crisis in Syria.

He reiterated his country’s readiness to work with the international community to push for a peaceful, fair and proper solution to the crisis in Syria as soon as possible.

People of Occupied Golan Express Appreciation for Russia’s Stances towards Syria

QUNEITRA, (SANA) – People of the occupied Syrian Golan expressed appreciation for Russia’s stances in support of Syria against the conspiracy hatched by western and some regional countries.

In a statement to the Russian Embassy, the people of Golan said that they want to convey a letter of thanks to the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, after the Palestinian authorities prevented a popular delegation from the occupied Golan from entering Bethlehem city to greet its honorable guest Putin despite earlier coordination.

In a statement to SANA reporter in Quneitra, the delegation members expressed dissatisfaction with the humiliating behavior of the Palestinian authorities, stressing their firm stance in support of their homeland, Syria.

In a statement to SANA reporter in Quneitra, the delegation members expressed dissatisfaction with the humiliating behavior of the Palestinian authorities, stressing their firm stance in support of their homeland, Syria.

 

A well regarded and qualified author of the prime German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported (in German) how the recent massacre in Houla, Syria, was perpetrated by Sunni rebel forces. I translated the piece to English. There was some push back against the piece and an anonymous rebuttal from Houla activists.

In a new piece (in German) the reporter, Rainer Hermann, extends on the first one and explains why his reporting is correct and why other reporting was terribly wrong.

What follows is my translation of the FAZ piece:

The Extermination

The Houla massacre was a turning point in the Syrian drama. There was great worldwide outrage when 108 people were killed there on May 25, among them 49 children. Calls for a military intervention to end the bloodshed became louder and the violence in Syria has since steadily escalated. Based on Arab news channel and the visit of UN observers on the following day, world opinion almost unanimously blamed the regular Syrian army and the Syrian regime’s Shabiha militia for the massacre.

In the past week and based on reports from eyewitnesses the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung put this version into question. It reported that the civilians killed were Alawites and Shiites. They were deliberately killed by armed Sunnis in Taldou, a town in the plains of Houla, while fierce fighting between the regular army and Free Syrian Army was taking place at checkpoints around the village. Our report was taken up by many media outlets worldwide and was rejected by many as implausible. We have therefore to ask four questions: Why did the world opinion so far followed a different version? Why does the context of the civil war makes the doubted version plausible? Why are the witnesses credible? What other facts support the report?

Firstly, why world opinion follow a different version? It is undoubted that during the first months of the conflict, when the opposition did not yet possess weapons and was defenseless, all atrocities were done by the regime. The assumption is therefore obvious that this would continue. [Note by the translator: Here Mr. Hermann errs. There were reliable reports about deadly attacks against government forces by well armed perpetrators, allegedly foreign financed, as early as April 10 2011.] Furthermore, the Syrian state media enjoy no credibility. They use the standard labeling “armed terrorist gangs” since the beginning of the conflict. Thus no one believes them, when that is indeed the case. Two media outlets, the Arab news channel Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya have become key sources even as their owners, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are two states which are actively involved in the conflict. Not without reason do we know the saying “In war, truth dies first.”

Secondly, why is, in the context of the civil war, the doubted version plausible? During recent month many weapons have been smuggled into Syria and the rebels have long had mid-sized weaponry. Every day more than 100 people are killed in Syria with about equal numbers of dead on both sides. The militias that operate under the banner of the Free Syrian Army control wide parts of the provinces of Homs and Idlib and extend their dominion over other parts of the country. The increasing lawlessness has led to a wave of criminal kidnappings and also facilitates the settling of old disputes. If one looks through Facebook pages or talks to Syrians: Everyone knows everyday stories of “religious cleansing” – of people being killed just because they are Alawite or Sunni.

The plain of Houla, which lies between the Sunni city of Homs and the mountains of the Alawites, is predominantly inhabited by Sunnis and is burdened by a long history of sectarian tensions. The massacre took place in Taldou, one of the largest sites of Houla. Of the names of civilians killed, 84 are known. These are the fathers, mothers and 49 children of the family Al Sayyid and two branches of the family Abdarrazzaq. Residents of the city state that these were Alawites and Muslims who had converted from Sunni to Shia Islam. A few kilometers away from the border with Lebanon, this made them suspect of being sympathizers of Hezbollah, detested among Sunnis. Additionally killed in Taldou were relatives of the government loyal member of parliament Abdalmuti Mashlab.

The homes of the three families are located in different parts Taldous. The members of the families were targeted and killed up to one exception. No neighbor was injured. Local knowledge was a prerequisite for these well-planned “executions”. The AP news agency quoted the only survivor of the family Al Sayyid, the eleven year old Ali, as saying:. “The perpetrators were shaved bald and had long beards.” This is the look of fanatical jihadists, not of the Shabiha militia. The boy said he survived because he had pretended to be dead and smeared himself with the blood of his mother.

On April 1 the nun Agnès-Maryam, from the monastery of Jacob (“Deir Mar Yakub”) which lies south of Homs in the village of Qara, described in a long open letter the climate of violence and fear in the region. She comes to the conclusion that the Sunni insurgents operate a stepwise liquidation of all minorities. She describes the expulsion of Christians and Alawites from their homes, which are then occupied by the rebels, and the rape of young girls, who the rebels pass off as “war booty”; she was an eye witness when the rebels killed a businessman in the street of Wadi Sajjeh with a car bomb after he refused to close his shop and then said in front of a camera from Al Jazeera that the regime had committed the crime. Finally she describes how Sunni insurgents in the Khalidijah district of Homs locked Alawite and Christian hostages into a house and blew it up only to then explain that this was an atrocity of the regime.

Why are, in this context, the Syrian witnesses (in my report) regarded as credible? Because they do not belong to any party of the conflict, but are caught in the middle and have no other interest than to stop a further escalation of violence. Several such people have already been killed. Therefore, no one wants to reveal their identity. In a period in which an independent review of all facts on the spot is not possible there can be no certitude that all details have happened exactly as described. Even as the massacre in Houla took place in the version described here, no conclusions can be drawn from it for other atrocities. As before in Kosovo every massacre must be examined individually after this war.

What other facts support this version? The FAZ was not the first to reported on a new version of the massacre of Houla. Other reports could just not compete with the big key media. The Russian journalist Marat Musin, who works for the small news agency Anna, was in Houla on May 25 and 26, in part became an eyewitness and also published the statements of other eyewitnesses. Additionally the Dutch Arabist and freelance journalist Martin Janssen, who lives in Damascus, contacted the Jacob Monastery in Qara, which has taken in many victims of the conflict with the nuns doing devote humanitarian work, after the massacre.

Sunni rebels perpetrate “liquidation” of all minorities

The nuns told him how on that May 25th more than 700 armed rebels, coming from Rastan, overran a roadside checkpoint of the army near Taldou, how these, after the massacre, piled up the corpses of the killed soldiers and civilians in front of the mosque and how they, on next day, told their version of the alleged massacre by the Syrian army in front of the cameras of rebel-friendly channels and to the UN observers. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced on May 26 at the UN Security Council that the exact circumstances are unclear. The UN could confirm, however, “that there has been artillery and mortar attack. There were also other forms of violence, including shots from up close and serious abuses.”

The following sequence of events can be reconstructed: After the Friday prayers on May 25th more than 700 gunmen under the leadership of Abdurrazzaq Tlass and Yahya Yusuf came in three groups from Rastan, Kafr Laha and Akraba and attacked three army checkpoints around Taldou. The numerically superior rebels and the (mostly also Sunni) soldiers fought bloody battles in which two dozen soldiers, mostly conscripts, were killed. During and after the fighting the rebels, supported by residents of Taldou, snuffed out the families of Sayyid and Abdarrazzaq. They had refused to join the opposition.

15 June 2012

@Moon of Alabama

For a while, the phone stopped ringing. Not completely—reporters called, but many old friends did not.

That’s how my mother remembers the days following my father’s arrest on terrorism charges in February 2003. At dawn, a team of FBI agents and police, clad in black uniforms, descended on my family’s three-bedroom apartment in Tampa, Florida. They arrested my father and carted away dozens of boxes filled with our personal possessions, from school report cards to laptop computers and journals.

My father, Sami Al-Arian, a professor at the University of South Florida, was indicted on fifty-three counts of supporting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which had been designated by the government as a terrorist group. The conspiracy case, which involved three other Palestinian men, was based largely on my father’s charitable contributions, associations, speeches and other First Amendment–protected activities. Prosecutors would introduce as evidence books my father owned, magazines he edited, conferences he organized and, particularly bizarre, a dream one of his co-defendants had about him. My father faced multiple life sentences plus 225 years if convicted. The charges against him included conspiracy to kill and maim persons abroad, yet prosecutors freely admitted that my father had no connection to any violence.

As the government built its case against my father, FBI agents interrogated one Muslim family after another. Overwhelming fear pervaded the community. My father, a pillar of that community, had founded and run an Islamic school near the mosque where he also led prayers. After the arrest, my mother, Nahla, was asked to withdraw my younger siblings from the school that she and my father had worked so hard to build. Returning for a visit, my mother was asked what she was doing there. Shopping for groceries, she saw a longtime friend turn her back to avoid talking to her. “It was shocking and depressing,” my mother recalls.

One day my mother read a letter to a local newspaper that condemned my father’s harsh prison conditions and the one-sided media coverage of his case. The author said my father had the right to a presumption of innocence, adding, “History will teach us that what can happen to one man can happen to any of us. Are we going to sit back and watch, or are we going to speak up?” The letter was signed by Melva Underbakke, a peace activist and English language instructor who also worked at the University of South Florida. My mother called to thank her. They became friends, and Mel, as she became known to us, formed a group called Friends of Human Rights to support my father.

Mel introduced his case to her fellow congregants at the progressive First United Church of Christ. Many joined the cause, including the church’s minister, the Rev. Warren Clark, who began visiting my father weekly in a ritual he dubbed “Tuesdays with Sami.” The two men exchanged jokes, as well as stories from the Koran and Bible about perseverance in adversity.

My father’s trial lasted six months. Prosecutors presented seventy-five witnesses, including nearly two dozen from Israel. Their testimony centered on attacks that even the US government acknowledged my father had nothing to do with. The prosecutors also introduced 400 phone calls out of nearly half a million that the FBI had recorded over a decade of relentless, indiscriminate surveillance of my family. My father’s attorneys did not call a single witness: their defense was the First Amendment.

“This was a political case, discriminatory both in its selection of Dr. Al-Arian as a Palestinian Muslim and of his critical speech against Israel,” said Linda Moreno, one of my father’s trial attorneys. “The case was about speech, popular to some and unpopular to others.”

Outside the courthouse, Friends of Human Rights held weekly protests under the scorching Florida sun, carrying banners that read “Everyone Deserves a Fair Trial” and “Charity to Orphans and Widows Is Not a Crime.” Inside the courthouse, my siblings and I studied the jurors, looking for signs of how they would decide. We dreaded the day they would return a verdict, but Mel was optimistic. Taking walks on the boardwalk and along the nature trails of a neighborhood park, she would reassure my mother that the jury would find my father innocent.

On December 6, 2005, they did just that, acquitting my father on eight of seventeen counts and voting ten to two to acquit him on the rest. The judge, who did not disguise his bias in favor of the prosecution, initially instructed the jurors to keep deliberating, but on realizing that they were leaning toward acquittal, he reversed course and told them to stop. When one juror was asked why he didn’t vote to convict, he stated simply, “I didn’t see the evidence.”

It’s been nearly a decade since my father’s case began, yet he has been under house arrest since 2008. A Virginia prosecutor, Gordon Kromberg, created a pretext to bring new charges against him by calling him to testify before a grand jury investigating a Muslim think tank. It’s the same strategy Kromberg used in the case of Sabri Benkahla, a Virginia man who was acquitted in a 2004 terrorism case: unhappy with the result, Kromberg summoned Benkahla to testify before a grand jury and then charged him with making false statements. Benkahla was sentenced to ten years in prison.

This potential perjury trap put my father in a Catch-22 that violates the plea agreement he made in Florida: testify and possibly be charged with perjury; refuse and be charged with criminal contempt. My father insisted on upholding his plea deal, filing to dismiss the case based on the fact that the government had reneged on its promise to end all dealings with him, including forcing him to cooperate in other cases. My father is now waiting for a judge to rule on whether the case will proceed.

In the meantime, Mel has continued to advocate on behalf of those she believes were wrongly accused of terrorist activities in the wake of 9/11. She has traveled across the country to screen the award-winning documentary, USA vs. Al-Arian, about my father’s case, as well as to speak, often before church groups, about other cases. Mel says she does not think unfair prosecutions, such as those based on speech and association, will be confined to Muslims.

“I think everybody is at risk at this point,” she said. “If we all speak up together, then we’re all safer.”

* * *

My father was not the only Palestinian activist targeted after 9/11. Three months after the attacks, the Bush administration shut down the largest Muslim charity in the United States. The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development focused much of its efforts on giving aid to Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza (though the group was also active in the United States as well as in many other countries, including Bosnia and Turkey). But in 2004 the group and its officials were charged with forty-two counts, including providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization (Hamas), tax evasion and money laundering.

The trial against the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) was considered the largest terrorism financing case in US history. Yet prosecutors did not argue that the charity or any of its officials were involved in violence, either through funding or direct participation. Instead, they told jurors that the charity sent money to schools, hospitals and social welfare programs controlled by Hamas, which has been listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department since 1997. The prosecutors argued that since money is “fungible,” those donations freed up other funds for Hamas to use in violent attacks.

The problem with this argument is that these same Palestinian charities also received donations from organizations like the US Agency for International Development and the International Red Cross. Hadi Jawad, a member of Hungry for Justice, an umbrella group of HLF supporters, said the government has taken sides in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through its prosecution of the HLF. “It’s about demonizing an entire people,” Jawad told me. “They’re saying that [Palestinians] are not worthy of aid and help, even when they’re destitute, hungry and need medical attention.”

Noor Elashi is the daughter of one of the HLF defendants, Ghassan Elashi. She was 18 when her father was arrested. “I saw my father being pushed into the police car,” she recently recalled. “He told me, Keep your head up high, because your father did nothing wrong.”

Noor says the Muslim community was largely supportive, organizing a dinner in honor of the men a few months before trial. “It was a little surreal,” she said. “People stood in a long line to hug each member of the ‘Holy Land Five’ and just said their goodbyes.” People believed in the men’s innocence but were skeptical that they would be given a fair trial.

Despite the show of support, Noor, too, experienced isolation after her father’s arrest. “Someone is not going to have a conversation with you about why they’re not contacting you anymore,” she said. “A lot of it is silence. That’s how people deal with it: they say nothing. And sometimes saying nothing is the worse thing they can do.”

The first attempt to try HLF officials, in 2007, ended in a mistrial after jurors could not reach a consensus. (According to interviews, most wanted to acquit.) But after a retrial a year later, five HLF officials were convicted on more than 100 charges and sentenced to up to sixty-five years in prison.

Since then, attorneys have appealed the case based on a number of questionable occurrences during the trial, including the judge’s decision to allow testimony from an anonymous Israeli intelligence agent, introduced to jurors simply as Avi, who claimed that he could “smell” Hamas. It marked the first time in US legal history that an expert witness was allowed to testify under a concealed identity. In another highly unusual move, prosecutors unveiled a list of more than 300 unindicted co-conspirators involved in the case. Such identities are normally kept secret under the Justice Department’s guidelines. Many Muslim community leaders and the majority of American Muslim institutions were on the list, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a civil liberties advocacy group. Soon after, the FBI cut off its outreach dialogue with the group, hampering its own investigations.

“The problem with being put on a list like that is you have absolutely no legal recourse to clear your name,” CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told me. “With a stroke of a pen, you’re put on a list, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Our detractors have seized on it and repeated it ad nauseam.”

One legacy of the Holy Land trial is the Muslim Legal Fund of America, founded by Texas Muslims in the Dallas suburb of Richardson. Khalil Meek, the co-founder and executive director, compares the group’s mission to that of the NAACP’s legal defense fund. “We take cases that we think have the most impact on the Muslim community and support litigation that’s greater than the individual,” he said. The fund raised $2 million last year; in May it opened chapters in Chicago, Newark, Los Angeles and Washington, with plans to start eight more by early next year. It is also underwriting the National Security Defense Project, based in Texas, which Meek hopes will be a resource center for defense attorneys working on terrorism cases around the country. Meek says that while other American Muslim groups focus on advocacy and education, tackling issues like workplace discrimination, the founders of MLFA realized that no institution was handling criminal cases. As the government pursues more cases targeting Muslims, the need for legal advocacy has increased, inspiring the formation of similar groups across the country. These include the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms, Project Salam and the Muslim Justice Initiative.

* * *

This legal advocacy infrastructure is an important outgrowth of the post-9/11 era. In November 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney created the “1 percent doctrine,” which held that if there is even “a 1 percent chance” that a threat is real, “we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.” As policy, this has led to innocent Muslims being framed or entrapped in plots wholly manufactured by the FBI.

One of the most egregious cases took place in Albany, where a local imam—a Kurdish immigrant named Yassin Aref—found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. The case began with a notebook, discovered in 2003 in the wreckage of a bombed-out encampment in Iraq. Aref’s name was on one of the pages, alongside the Kurdish word kak, which US authorities translated as “commander.” (It actually means “brother.”) With that, Aref was suddenly a government target. The FBI enlisted the help of Shahed Hussain, an informant facing deportation for fraud who has since been involved in several other sting operations throughout the Northeast. Hussain approached a friend of Aref’s, Mohammed Mosharref Hossain, and offered him a loan of $50,000. After giving him the money, Hussain told him it had come from the sale of a missile to be used in an attack against the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations. That, too, was part of the FBI sting.

Aref, knowing nothing about the supposed missile sale, was asked to witness the loan payment. The informant spoke in code, using the word chaudry—a common South Asian surname—to refer to the missile. Aref was arrested and, in March 2007, sentenced to fifteen years in prison on terror charges, including support for a foreign terrorist organization and money laundering.

“It’s fabricated police work,” says Andrew Shryock, a University of Michigan professor, regarding these types of prosecutions using government informants. “And the disturbing thing is not that it produces arrests but that the public tolerates it.”

Aref’s case galvanized peace activists in Albany, who held vigils and wrote letters to the judge calling for Aref’s release. Among them was Steve Downs, a former attorney for New York state, who volunteered in his defense. The day after Aref’s conviction, he visited his client in prison. “He looked at me and said, ‘I want to fire you as my lawyer,’” Downs told me, smiling. “But he said, ‘I want to hire you as my brother.’ He said, ‘I don’t have any family in this country, and I need family more than I need lawyers.’”

Downs and the Muslim Solidarity Committee, as the mostly non-Muslim Albany activists called themselves, raised thousands of dollars to help cover the rent for Aref’s wife and four children. Downs and others also drove Aref’s children to visit their father in prison, fourteen hours away in Indiana.

“I’m not sure I would’ve had the guts to do any of this by myself,” Downs says of the activism around Aref’s case, which drew strength from the number of people involved. Now 70 and retired, Downs says his profession long discouraged him from involvement in political causes, so that for twenty-eight years, he was in a “cocoon.” Today, he is glad to have broken free of it.

“When I was 3 years old, my father died in World War II,” he recalls. “He was a Navy doctor. Later, I asked my mom, ‘Why did he die?’ She would say, ‘Well, there was this war—the Nazis came to power in Germany.’ I would ask, ‘How did Hitler come to power if he was so bad?’ And she would say, ‘Because good people who could have stopped him didn’t do anything.’

“A lot of time growing up, I was angry at good people who didn’t do anything,” Downs says. “Until one day, I realized I was one of those people.”

By Laila Al-Arian

13 June 2012

@ The Nation

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article erroneously stated that the Nation Defense Project is associated with the University of Texas in Austin.

On June 13 journalist Rainer Hermann confirmed his earlier report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung refuting the official version of the Houla massacre in Syria.

The media have almost unanimously described the May 5 events in Houla as an atrocity committed by the Syrian government, relying almost exclusively on reports from the so-called rebels. Western powers have used the massacre as a pretext to whip up pro-war sentiment and intensify their pressure on the Assad regime. The US and UK reacted to the massacre by withdrawing diplomats from Syria.

In his June 7 report, Hermann asserted that the victims of the massacre in Taldou, a village in the Houla region, were members of the Alawite und Shi’ite minorities and that the killers were not troops loyal to the Assad regime, but forces aligned with the Sunni-based, sectarian Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Although the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is one of the most prominent German-language newspapers and Hermann a well-known journalist, the report has largely been ignored by the German and international media and criticized in a few reports.

In his new article June 13 Hermann defends his reporting and adds further details about the massacre. This report has also been met largely with silence.

The Houla plains region, Hermann writes, “is burdened by a long history of sectarian tensions. … Of the names of the civilians killed, 84 are known. These are the fathers, mothers and 49 children of the Al Sayyid family and two branches of the Abdarrazzaq family. … Additionally killed in Taldou were relatives of the … member of parliament Abdalmuti Mashlab.”

Hermann goes on to describe what happened: “The family members were targeted and killed with only one exception. No neighbour was injured. One had to have knowledge of the place to carry out these well-planned executions”.

Hermann then quotes 11-year-old Ali, the only member of the Al Sayyid family to survive the bloodbath: “Those responsible had shaved heads and long beards”. In Hermann’s opinion, this points to “fanatical jihadists” and not the “Shabiha militia”.

The version of the event advanced in the global media, in particularly lurid fashion by Britain’s Observer and Der Spiegel, the German news magazine, blames the Shabiha militias, regarded as assault detachments of the Assad regime. These articles rely on the testimony of a Major Jihad Raslan said to have first served in Assad’s army, who then deserted because he was so appalled by the “events in Houla”. Hermann’s article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung exposes these reports as a bunch of lies.

Hermann reconstructs the sequence of events as follows: “After the Friday prayers on May 25 more than 700 armed people led by Abdurrazzaq Tlass and Yahya Yusuf, forming three groups from Rastan, Kafr Laha and Akraba, attacked three army checkpoints around Taldou. The numerically superior rebels and the (mostly also Sunni) soldiers fought bloody battles in which two dozen soldiers, mostly conscripts, were killed. During and after the fighting the rebels, supported by residents of Taldou, wiped out the Al Sayyid and Abdarrazzaq families. They had refused to join the opposition”.

In his article, Hermann refers to earlier reports by other journalists and nuns from the Jacob Monastery in Qara. Nuns had described to Dutch journalist Martin Jannsen how the rebels piled the bodies of dead soldiers and civilians in front of the mosque and told UN observers their version of the alleged massacre in front of cameras from rebel-friendly television channels.

The nun Agnès-Maryam had already described the escalation of sectarian violence around Homs in an open letter toward the end of April. She warned of a step-by-step liquidation of all minorities by the Sunni rebels and described the displacement of Christians and Alawites from their homes and the rape of young girls who had been given to the rebels as spoils of war.

Herman also refers to Russian journalist Marat Musin who works for the Anna news agency and was in Houla on May 25 and 26, thus becoming an eyewitness of the events as well as a reporter. So far Musin seems to have given the most detailed description of what took place. His version coincides with Hermann’s and that of the nuns on all decisive points.

These reports and the latest article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung confirm that Syria is being ravaged by a civil war deliberately promoted by Western powers to destabilize the country and prepare it for regime change. The rebels do not speak for the majority of the population. They are made up of former members of the regime, soldiers, mercenaries, terrorists and secret agents pursuing a reactionary political agenda, many of them using the support by the West to settle old scores and carry out sectarian conflicts.

International news media are supporting the war preparations of US imperialism and its allies in an unprecedented campaign of agitation and propaganda. That is why Hermann’s article and the well-documented reports of other journalists and eyewitnesses are mostly being hushed up.

By Clara Weiss

16 June, 2012

@WSWS.org