OBAMA-WATCH.COM
46th EDITION March 16, 2012
Jim Houle, Editor/em>

One year after the United Nations gave their approval for NATO to intervene in the civil war just then erupting in Benghazi, their Human Rights Commission has issued a “mousey” report accusing both sides of violations of human rights but purposely avoiding any mention of the destruction of civilians neighborhoods of major cities and the wanton obliteration of whole towns by precision bombing raids conducted by Norway, Denmark, Great Britain, France, Italy and the United States. NATO refused to cooperate in the HRA investigations. The article below by Vijay Prashad carefully summarizes the UN report. It does not take much imagination to see how the same tactics can be employed in Syria: NATO airstrikes to eliminate the air defenses, the import of foreign agents and mercenaries, and the smuggling of weapons.

NATO’S Craven Coverup of Its Libyan Bombing
by Vijay Prashad March 15, 2012
Ten days into the uprising in Benghazi, Libya, the United Nations’ Human Rights Council established the International Commission of Inquiry on Libya. The purpose of the Commission was to “investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law in Libya.” The broad agenda was to establish the facts of the violations and crimes and to take such actions as to hold the identified perpetrators accountable. On June 15, the Commission presented its first report to the Council. This report was provisional, since the conflict was still ongoing and access to the country was minimal. The June report was no more conclusive than the work of the human rights non-governmental organizations (such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch). In some instances, the work of investigators for these NGOs (such as Donatella Rovera of Amnesty) was of higher quality than that of the Commission.

Due to the uncompleted war and then the unsettled security state in the country in its aftermath, the Commission did not return to the field till October 2011, and did not begin any real investigation before December 2011. On March 2, 2012, the Commission finally produced a two hundred-page document that was presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Little fanfare greeted this report’s publication, and the HRC’s deliberation on it was equally restrained.
Nonetheless, the report is fairly revelatory, making two important points: first, that all sides on the ground committed war crimes with no mention at all of a potential genocide conducted by the Qaddafi forces; second, that there remains a distinct lack of clarity regarding potential NATO war crimes. Not enough can be made of these two points. They strongly infer that the rush to a NATO “humanitarian intervention” might have been made on exaggerated evidence, and that NATO’s own military intervention might have been less than “humanitarian” in its effects.

It is precisely because of a lack of accountability by NATO that there is hesitancy in the United Nations Security Council for a strong resolution on Syria. “Because of the Libyan experience,” the Indian Ambassador to the UN Hardeep Singh Puri told me in February, “other members of the Security Council, such as China and Russia, will not hesitate in exercising a veto if a resolution – and this is a big if – contains actions under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which permits the use of force and punitive and coercive measures.”

Crimes Against Humanity
The Libyan uprising began on February 15, 2011. By February 22, the UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay claimed that two hundred and fifty people had been killed in Libya, “although the actual numbers are difficult to verify.” Nonetheless, Pillay pointed to “widespread and systematic attacks against the civilian population” which “may amount to crimes against humanity.” Pillay channeled the Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN from Libya, Ibrahim Dabbashi, who had defected to the rebellion and claimed, “Qaddafi had started the genocide against the Libyan people.” Very soon world leaders used the two concepts interchangeably, “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.” These concepts created a mood that Qaddafi’s forces were either already indiscriminately killing vast numbers of people, or that they were poised for a massacre of Rwanda proportions.
Courageous work by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch last year, then much later the 2012 report from the UN belies this judgment, (as does my forthcoming book Arab Spring, Libyan Winter, AK Press), which goes through the day-by-day record and show two things: that both sides used excessive violence and that the rebels seemed to have the upper hand for much of the conflict, with Qaddafi’s forces able to recapture cities, but unable to hold them.
The UN report is much more focused on the question of crimes committed on the ground. This is the kind of forensic evidence in the report:
(1)  In the military base and detention camp of Al Qalaa. “Witnesses, together with the local prosecutor, uncovered the bodies of 43 men and boys, blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs.” Qaddafi forces had shot them. Going over many of these kinds of incidents, and of indiscriminate firing of heavy artillery into cities, the UN Report notes that these amount to a war crime or a crime against humanity.
(2)  “Over a dozen Qadhafi soldiers were reportedly shot in the back of the head by thuwar [rebel fighters] around 22-23 February 2011 in a village between Al Bayda and Darnah. This is corroborated by mobile phone footage.” After an exhaustive listing of the many such incidents, and of the use of heavy artillery against cities notably Sirte, the UN report suggests the preponderance of evidence of the war crime of murder or crimes against humanity.

There is no mention of genocide in the Report, and none of any organized civilian massacre. This is significant because UN Resolution 1973, which authorized the NATO war, was premised on the “the widespread and systematic attacks currently taking place in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya against the civilian population” which “may amount to crimes against humanity.” There was no mention in Resolution 1973 of the disproportionate violence of the thuwar against the pro-Qaddafi population (already reported by al-jazeera by February 19), a fact that might have given pause to the UN as it allowed NATO to enter the conflict on the rebels’ behalf. NATO’s partisan bombardment allowed the rebels to seize the country faster than they might have had in a more protracted war, but it also allowed them carte blanche to continue with their own crimes against humanity.

With NATO backing, it was clear that no one was going to either properly investigate the rebel behavior, and no-one was going to allow for a criminal prosecution of those crimes against humanity. Violence of this kind by one’s allies is never to be investigated as the Allies found out after World War 2 when there was no assessment of the criminal firebombing of, for example, Dresden. No wonder that the UN Report notes that the Commissioners are “deeply concerned that no independent investigation or prosecution appear to have been instigated into killings committed by thuwar.” None is likely. There are now over eight thousand pro-Qaddafi fighters in Libyan prisons. They have no charges framed against them. Many have been tortured, and several have died (including Halah al-Misrati, the Qaddafi era newscaster).

The section of the UN report on the town of Tawergha is most startling. The thirty thousand residents of the town were removed by the Misratan thuwar. The general sentiment among the Misratan thuwar was that the Tawerghans were given preferential treatment by the Qaddafi regime, a claim disputed by the Tawerghans. The road between Misrata and Tawergha was lined with slogans such as “the brigade for purging slaves, black skin,” indicating the racist cleansing of the town. The section on Tawergha takes up twenty pages of the report. It is chilling reading. Tawerghans told the Commission “that during ‘interrogations’ they were beaten, had hot wax poured in their ears and were told to confess to committing rape in Misrata. The Commission was told that one man had diesel poured on to his back which was then set alight; the same man was held in shackles for 12 days.” This goes on and on. The death count is unclear. The refugees are badly treated as they go to Benghazi and Tripoli.

To the Commission, the attacks against Tawerghans during the war “constitute a war crime” and those that have taken place since “violate international human rights law” and a “crime against humanity.” Because of the “current difficulties faced by the Libyan Government,” the Commission concludes, it is unlikely that the government will be able to bring justice for the Tawerghans and to undermine the “culture of impunity that characterizes the attacks.”
NATO’s Crimes

For the past several months, the Russians have asked for a proper investigation through the UN Security Council of the NATO bombardment of Libya. “There is great reluctance to undertake it,” the Indian Ambassador to the UN told me. When the NATO states in the Security Council wanted to clamor for war in February-March 2011, they held discussions about Libya in an open session. After Resolution 1973 and since the war ended, the NATO states have only allowed discussion about Libya in a closed session. When Navi Pillay came to talk about the UN Report, her remarks were not for the public.
Indeed, when it became clear to NATO that the UN Commission wished to investigate NATO’s role in the Libyan war, Brussels balked. On February 15, 2012, NATO’s Legal Adviser Peter Olson wrote a strong letter to the Chair of the Commission. NATO accepted that the Qaddafi regime “committed serious violations of international law,” which led to the Security Council Resolution 1973. What was not acceptable was any mention of NATO’s “violations” during the conflict,

“We would be concerned, however, if ‘NATO incidents’ were included in the Commission’s report as on a par with those which the Commission may ultimately conclude did violate law or constitute crimes. We note in this regard that the Commission’s mandate is to discuss ‘the facts and circumstance of….violations [of law] and…crimes perpetrated.’ We would accordingly request that, in the event the Commission elects to include a discussion of NATO actions in Libya, its report clearly state that NATO did not deliberately target civilians and did not commit war crimes in Libya.”

To its credit, the Commission did discuss the NATO “incidents.” However, there were some factual problems. The Commission claimed that NATO flew 17,939 armed sorties in Libya. NATO says that it flew “24,200 sorties, including over 9,000 strike sorties.” What the gap between the two numbers might tell us is not explored in the report or in the press discussion subsequently. The Commission points out that NATO did strike several civilian areas (such as Majer, Bani Walid, Sirte, Surman, Souq al-Juma) as well as areas that NATO claims were “command and control nodes.” The Commission found no “evidence of such activity” in these “nodes.” NATO contested both the civilian deaths and the Commission’s doubts about these “nodes.” Because NATO would not fully cooperate with the Commission, the investigation was “unable to determine, for lack of sufficient information, whether these strikes were based on incorrect or outdated intelligence and, therefore, whether they were consistent with NATO’s objective to take all necessary precautions to avoid civilian casualties entirely.”
Three days after the report was released in the Human Rights Council, NATO’s chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen denied its anodyne conclusions regarding NATO.  And then, for added effect, Rasmussen said that he was pleased with the report’s finding that NATO “had conducted a highly precise campaign with a demonstrable determination to avoid civilian casualties.” There is no such clear finding. The report is far more circumspect, worrying about the lack of information to make any clear statement about NATO’s bombing runs. NATO had conducted its own inquiry, but did not turn over its report or raw data to the UN Commission.

On March 12, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon went to the UN Security Council and stated that he was “deeply concerned” about human rights abuses in Libya, including the more than eight thousand prisoners held in jails with no judicial process (including Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, who should have been transferred to the Hague by NATO’s logic). Few dispute this part of the report. The tension in the Security Council is over the section on NATO. On March 9, Maria Khodynskaya-Golenishcheva of the Russian Mission to the UN in Geneva noted that the UN report omitted to explore the civilian deaths caused by NATO. “In our view,” she said, “during the NATO campaign many violations of the standard of international law and human rights were committed, including the most important right, the right to life.” On March 12, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused NATO of “massive bombings” in Libya. It was in response to Lavrov’s comment that Ban’s spokesperson Martin Nesirky pointed out that Ban accepts “the report’s overall finding that NATO did not deliberately target civilians in Libya.”

NATO is loath to permit a full investigation. It believes that it has the upper hand, with Libya showing how the UN will now use NATO as its military arm (or else how the NATO states will be able to use the UN for its exercise of power). In the Security Council, NATO’s Rasmussen notes, “Brazil, China, India and Russia consciously stepped aside to allow the UN Security Council to act” and they “did not put their military might at the disposal of the coalition that emerged.” NATO has no challenger. This is why the Russians and the Chinese are unwilling to allow any UN resolution that hints at military intervention. They fear the Pandora’s box opened by Resolution 1973.

Vijay Prashad’s new book, Arab Spring, Libyan Winter (AK Press) will be out in late March. He is Professor of South Asian Historyand International Studies at Trinity College in Connecticutt and the author of 14 books.

Link: /Obama-Watch.com

Jim Houle - Editor
45th Edition - January 29th, 2012

The Propaganda Buildup to Regime Change in Syria has gone on since last spring but almost no one in the US pays much attention. Partly this is because the stories that are floated on the air waves sound so much like the usual buildup to war: whether it be the NATO intervention in Libya last year, the recent Somalia intervention, or the Iraqi invasion back in 2003. The Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has kept most foreign journalists out and we are left with precious little of that bloody street fighting video our bored TV watchers can sink their chops into. When we tried to enter southern Syria ourselves last May, the border was suddenly closed while the Army proceeded to shoot unarmed protesters in the southern town of Daraa.

Last November, our Arab League vassals got President Assad to invite 165 “observers”, wearing those orange vests that highway workers normally wear around here, to see what Assad was doing. Their mission expired recently and there was little enthusiasm to risk further stray bullets on the streets. They were unsuccessful in curbing the bloodshed and opposition groups within Syria felt they had merely whitewashed the Assad regime's suppression. A spokesman for the Syrian National Council, Burban Ghalioun, complained that: “conditions did not allow observers to submit an objective report”. Nevertheless, the Qatar foreign minister bravely stated: “We are with the Syrian people and with their will and their aspirations” ( NYT -1/22) and wanted foreign troops to enter so long as they were not Qataris. Most of the Arab League seems to want the UN to bail them out and apply a little white wash to the rebellion, as had worked so well in Libya. Nevertheless, a smaller contingent went back to Syria last week to monitor conditions in the restive city of Rankous near the Lebanese border from which the government had earlier withdraw its troops. The observers never made it into town. One member of the team said that Syrian Army officers sitting astride a ring of tanks shelling the deserted town told them it was too dangerous, even with those orange vests. The head of the Arab League, Nabil al-Araby, said the 22-member body decided to suspend the monitors’ mission in Syria because of “a severe deterioration in the situation and the continued use of violence.” (Had they expected a meshoui – a ceremonial young camel roast?)

Will Israel Be Pleased By Regime Change?
We ask if there is any benefit to the United States, or to our dearest ally Israel, in setting Assad aside. He has not threatened his neighbors, has not taken arms against Israel in 45 years and has not pushed very hard for the return of the Golan Heights as ordered by UN Security Council Resolution Number 242 after its seizure by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War. Syria has admittedly operated independently of the United States and supported the Hezbullah in Lebanon in the transit of weapons and missiles from Iran for defense of their southern border. Yet the Assads, father and son, have cooperated in arresting Al Qaeda agents for the CIA, in the clandestine imprisonment and torture of US prisoners shipped abroad, and actually supported the US with troops in that wonderfully short 1991 Gulf War. However, if we replace Bashar with an even more cooperative ruler, we may further isolate Iran, perhaps bring Turkey into the US regional alliance, suppress Hezbullah activity in Lebanon, and grease the skids for Lebanon's conversion to another US client state.

It might please Israel by eliminating the last unfriendly Arab country on their border, although it seems more difficult every day to please the Israelis. Such a regime change would be costly and probably lengthy, for Syria is better armed, more centrally controlled than Libya, and more than twice the size of little Libya. The United States military and economic muscle may not be able to handle another war front just now. Even if replaced, could the next regime harness, as well as Bashar Assad has, those who would make trouble on the Israeli border and would it be worth all the bother just now when Tel Aviv is so taken up with the threat of a nuclear Iran?

Who Wants Regime Change?
France, always willing to do what they can to buff-up their tarnished glory as protector of Greater Lebanon and Syria, asks: “How about Another No Fly Zone?” We do remember, surely, how this NATO tactic eliminated Libya's air force and turned much of Tripoli into a pile of rubble, all under the guise of protecting civilian lives. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls for Syrian regime change and predicts a civil war but does not exactly sign on to the no-fly zone tactic complete with the saturation bombing that this would likely bring about. Phillip Giraldi, a former CIA man, (American Conservative – Jan.18th) claims that there are contingents of French and British Special Forces on the ground already in Syria along with Italian and US/CIA communications specialists. However, the claim that defectors from the Syrian Army are a big factor in the rebellion is mainly a fabrication in Giraldi's view and no one seriously raises the fear that our old bugaboo Al Qaeda will rise again - that's really yesterday's news.

In back offices at the Pentagon and Foggy Bottom, neo-con holdovers have continued to feed a thin stream of stories about armed skirmishes and unsubstantiated civilian murders by the Syrian Army. The Foreign Policy Initiative, a neo-con think tank headed by William Krystal since the mid 1990s, has published: “Towards a Post Assad Syria”, Nov. 8, 2011, by Martin Indyk and John Hannah. Their rumours have included everything from fears of Turkish intrusion across northern borders to suggestions that massive amounts of left-over weapons are being airlifted to Turkish military bases from Libya. In the Asian Times, Aisling Byrne quotes them as saying: “the first stage of war in Iran is Syria: Nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria”. King Abdullah, our Saudi Vassal, opines that: “Syria has a long history of exporting terrorism beyond its borders and is a dangerous enemy of the United States” but the old king has always had a very esoteric set of informants. UN Ambassador Susan Rice, always righteous and eager to pile on, is sure that: “Syria is an urgent moral challenge and a growing threat to regional peace and security”. Robert Fisk, the Beiruti correspondent for London's Independent, says there is “no doubt that weapons are pouring into Syria from Assad's enemies in Lebanon” but he presents no evidence for this whatsoever and we have heard of no battles with well-equipped rebel groups yet. The presence of the 6th Fleet carrier George H.W. Bush bobbing around out there in the Western Mediterranean alongside Russia's lone aircraft carrier Kusnetsov, makes one wonder if we have not both been feeding the war monster once again. President Bashar Assad claims that foreign elements are causing all of his troubles. Turkey is definitely acting as a US military proxy prepared to invade when given the right signal (Ahmed Davit – Turkish Foreign Minister per Phillip Giraldi, Jan 12).

Just How Bad Is Dictator Assad?
Barbara Walters says that Bashar Assad is really a mild-mannered ophthal­mologist and very squeamish about blood. He released political prisoners upon taking power and instituted economic reforms and some modernizations. He was called back reluctantly from a quiet medical practice in London when his older brother Basil, the next in line, killed himself in a drunken auto crash in 1994. Next year, Bashar will preside over the fiftieth year of the Assad Dynasty in Syria. Always brutal in its repression of free speech and democracy, it has actually been a model of social peace, managing a stable country with poor but functional institutions, relatively safe cities, and a bustling life at least in the urban areas (Bassam Haddad: Director of the Middle East Studies Program at George Mason University in Aaliyah, Jan 18th). The withdrawal of state subsidies, economic mismanagement, and heavy favoritism towards the business class, have all eroded this stability recently. GDP grew at an impressive 3.2 % last year but is expected to now drop 2% (The Progressive: Reese Erich: Jan.2012). The country is ruled by the Alawites, a splinter Shi'ite religious faction that represents only 13 % of the population but are a well-disciplined political bloc. Sunni moslems make up the majority of the population and Christians comprise 10%.

While we can demand the downfall of authoritarianism, for the Syrians it has kept foreign intervention at bay, and prevented their becoming just another in our regional collection of client states. Syria has been one of the safest place on earth with no confrontations with Israel since 1982 when Israel stole the Shubra Farms during their withdrawal from southern Lebanon. Yet the Assads have supported Hezbullah and Hamas and somehow remain the only anti-imperialist Arab nation in the region. The opposition within Syria has not so far taken its cues from anyone outside Syria. The Syrian National Council, based outside Syria is the only opposition group that calls for outside intervention. Henry Kissinger argues that we should let the Syrians kill each other and not intervene directly. “Intervention is not seriously on the table yet” he grumbles.

While The New York Times has encouraged regime change, even they were forced to admit, in several articles, that there have been massive rallies in Syria in support of the government. "The turnout of tens of thousands in Sabaa Bahrat Square once again underlined the degree of backing that Mr. Assad and his leadership still enjoy seven months into the popular uprising. That support is especially pronounced in cities like Damascus and Aleppo, the country’s two largest" (Jan.13). This was further confirmed by a poll funded by the anti-Assad Qatar Foundation: " Syrians are supportive of their president with 55% not wanting him to resign" (Jan.2). If people in Syria do not want foreign intervention — a likely reason that so many attended pro-Assad demonstrations. This 55% was an increase from 46% that had earlier thought Assad a good president. No Main Stream Media in the US have bothered to report this however – it upsets the prevailing narrative. Even Stratfor, a conservative Intelligence Think Tank, said that “most of the opposition's more serious claims have proven grossly exaggerated or simply untrue.” and warned that Syrian Observatory should be viewed with skepticism. CIA has refused to sign off on the estimates of 3500 to 5400 killed that the UN Secretary General has been repeating. What about the so-called Free Syrian Army, which claims to speak for the Syrian people?  Like its Libyan counterpart, it appears to be yet another Made-in-the-USA militant group, by means of our ally Turkey, a fact alluded to by the pro U.S.-establishment magazine, Foreign Affairs. They ask: "Why does the Syrian military not fire upon their Free Syrian Army positions or launch a large-scale assault? The FSA fighters are positioned about a mile from the Turkish border, near enough to escape across if the situation turned dire."  Major Maher Numeiri speaking for the Free Syrian Army admits that “we do not have the arsenal necessary to confront the Assad regime directly”.

The Rumble for War and the Demands We Not Interfere
Syria has allies in Algeria, Iraq, Russia and China. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called for intervention this past December and Syrian analyst Peter Harling warns that: “We have not seen anything this ominous in 15 years.” Demands for economic sanctions have been blocked by Russia and China at the UN. Correspondent Franklin Lamb in Beirut doubts their real effectiveness: “The history going back to Iraq and before shows that sanctions are not really effective in changing the behavior of a regime” (RT – 4 Dec 2011). The British based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, funded by Dubai with Saudi money, has published months of unsubstantiated data on civilians killed by Assad as well has the Syrian Transitional Council. No checking on these claims at hospitals and morgues inside Syria has been possible.

Petrodollar Implications
Pepe Escobar in the Asian Times 1/20 reports that the Gulf Counter-revolutionary Council, as he calls the GCC, supports the petrodollar dollar and supplies the world market with 25% of all oil. US supplies $120 billion in armaments to GCC, presumably to counter Iran. China wants to make more investments in the Middle East including Syria, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Iraq and Iran. The Saudis already export more oil to China than they do to the US. China could well propose to buy Saudi oil for Petro-Yuan instead of Petrodollars since there appears to be less and less advantage to the Saudis in the US Petrodollar Alliance as both the Dollar and the Euro weaken further.

We find it difficult to find any serious justification for pushing Assad Aside just now other than as a means to stimulate production of war materiel by the US military-industrial complex at a time when our domestic economy is wobbling.

OBAMA-WATCH.COM
44th EDITION: December 19th 2011
Jim Houle Editor

Oh how easily we are all deceived:
Iraqi Smoking Guns and Mushroom Clouds; The Libyan rebels are all Freedom Fighters;
The Lands of Judea and Samaria (commonly called Palestine) belong to the Jewish people forever;
Iran is well advanced in building a nuclear bomb to wipe out Israel;
Good King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia sends a thousand tanks across the causeway to help little Bahraini King Hamid al Khalifa suppress democracy on a small island where the 70% Shi'ites are ruled by Sunnis royals who control most of the wealth; (Hillary Clinton wrings her hand noiselessly but makes no protest).
Pfc. Bradley Manning goes on trial for releasing confidential (not Top Secret) State Department cables that the government initially dismissed as well-known and not news.

Something is Rotten in Libya: Forty-eight hours after Hillary Clinton lands in Tripoli and calls for “Gadhafi to be captured or killed as soon as possible”, he is captured and brutally assassinated by the TNC. (Ruppee News 11-13-11). TNC is the Transitional National Council we stacked with ex-CIA operatives, a few al-Qaeda types, MI 5s from Whitehall, and assorted bag men. NATO was authorized by the UN (Resolution 1973, 3-17-11) to impose a “No Fly Zone” so as to protect civilians being threatened by Gadhafi in Benghazi and to immobilize Gadhafi's air defenses. The US and its allies subsequently hit 5900 targets in 9700 sorties and left much of the country in ruins.(NYTimes survey 12-18-11). NATO and the UN admit scores of unarmed casualties but won't come up with a death toll. This demolition derby took a mere 240 days. By comparison, Qadhafi had worked for 40 years to increase oil revenues to far more of the people than in most other countries. Individual income rose from $34 per year to $34,000 to day and the people have the best medical care and lowest infant mortality rates in all of Africa. The UN Human Rights Council commended Libya in its 2010 report for its remarkable progress. When confronted with grisly videos of Myomar Gadhafi's death, our own Hillary Rodham Clinton giggled “We came, we saw, he died.”(Christian Amanpour, ABC and Franklin Lamb of RT). The TNC 'democratic rebels' as we like to call them, after having assured Gadhafi's convoy of safe passage, then called in NATO bombers and then captured, tortured and brutally murdered him. The UN Human Rights Commission, the Russian Foreign Minister, Human Rights Watch and many others called for an investigation of this gross violation of the Geneva Convention concerning the rights of POWs. Hillary supported the investigation and showed not a trace of shame.

Smelly Suppression In Egypt: Hilary has just delivered our yearly $2.0 billion bribe to the Egyptian military junta to make sure they thoroughly suppress the democracy movement in Tahrir Square and do not allow a vote on a new Constitution for at least six months. This weekend, the Junta denied using force against protesters despite the many frightening videos including one showing a woman with her hajib pulled off and police clubbing her half-clothed body. There is no image in Arab society that could be more damning than this one. Better the police merely plead that their limited budget does not provide high speed internet service. Instead their media adviser, a retired general named Abdel Kato, accused the protesters of being “delinquents who deserve to be thrown in Hitler's ovens”. I begin to believe that it was Mubarak that actually kept the lid on these fascist lunatics.

Putrefaction in Yemen, Pakistan and Iraq: Obama made a drone Predator attack in Yemen with Hellfire missiles on New Mexico-born US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16 year old son (born in Denver). The grandfather of the family, a Fullbright scholar, protested this violation of the 5th and 6th Amendments to our US Constitution. Earlier President Obama announced to a nation-wide audience on TV (5-1-10) that US Navy Seals had killed an unarmed Osamah Bin Ladin in a “firefight”in Pakistan. (Note that the FBI has never brought charges against bin Ladin for 9/11 because of a lack of evidence). The tradition of violating human rights was well demonstrated by former President Bush back in 2006 when he arranged a kangaroo court in Baghdad to hang Rumsfeld's good buddy Saddam Hussein, without the benefit of a real defense in court nor the ability to bring forth evidence, witnesses, or any of our other revered Constitutional safeguards.

Something is Very Rotten in Washington: President Obama has reneged on his promise just last week to veto the Military Appropriations Bill. A rider attached to this big money bill allows American citizens to be arrested on suspicion of involvement in terrorism (undefined) in the United States or abroad, denied civil trials, and held in military brigs indefinitely without charges. There goes the 5th and 6th Amendments to the Bill of Rights once again! The so-called Homeland Battlefield provisions in the newly passed $662-billion defense authorization bill generated a surprisingly wide range of legal interpretations. There was a brief moment when civil libertarians were stunned to see President Barack Obama actually take a stand in favor of civil liberties after several years of rolling back the basic rights of citizens. Obama said that he would veto the defense bill if it contained a provision for the indefinite detention of American citizens by the Army: “The military does not patrol our streets” he lectured. While many predicted it, Obama has once again betrayed the civil liberties community and lifted the threat of the veto. Americans will now be subject to indefinite military detention and denied trial in federal courts. (Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley RSN (12-15-11).

The White House is now saying that changes to the law made it unnecessary to veto the legislation. With that ridiculous explanation, the administration went into full spin control, using language designed to obscure the authority just handed to the military. “I am not sure which is worse: the loss of core civil liberties or the almost mocking post hoc rationalization for abandoning principle” says Jonathon Turley. The Pentagon brass, the CIA, the State Department and 4 retired generals all opposed this as “strip-mining of your freedom to resist tyranny”. (R.Nader, 1-14-11). Once the Senate approved it 93 to 7 and the House to 286 to 136, Obama, our latest 'profile in courage' caved, explaining that he had found a loophole that allowed him not to enforce this unconstitutional incarceration except when he really had it in for someone. (Oh the wonders of a Harvard education!)

Something is Really Rotten in Damascus: We watch the turmoil in Syria, unable to sort the white hats from the black. France suggests another NATO no-fly zone, pleased as they were with the wide-spread demolition this tactic produced in Libya. A media build-up is underway to explain to us how that Evil Bashir Assad, previously a innocuous opthamologist in London, is employing snipers to kill civilians on the streets. “What's taking place is an attempt by the Arab League to accommodate the US and NATO against one of the few states in the Arab world that still says “no” to US influence.” (Professor Franklin Lamb: RT 12-2-11) The Arab League is dominated by rich US client states such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Emirates, Qatar, Oman and even poor Egypt. The UN High Commission for Human Rights, another willing US handmaiden these days, has put the death toll in Syria at 5,000 and recommended International Criminal Court action (the US is not a member). The Ambassador of the Universal Peace Foundation has called for a dialogue but “it seems that the West has taken the position that there can be no dialogue with the Evil Eye Doctor. The West is seeking a new regime in Syria as a tool to implement its own strategic interests in the region”. (RT.Com. 12-12-11) Arabic-speaking US soldiers, assured they were returning home from Iraq, have been transferred in dead of night to the Jordanian/Syrian border. (Sibel Edmond's Boiling Frog Post: 12-13-11). Turkish troops are also alleged to be gearing up for an assault across the Syrian border. Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi reports that materiel from Gadhafi's abandoned arsenals and unmarked NATO aircraft are being ferried into Iskenderun, Turkey. The American Conservative reports that the CIA even refused to 'sign off' on the UN report of 3500 to 5000 killed in Syria because it is uncorroborated. They also discount mass defections from the Army, widely reported in the US, as a fabrication with few defections confirmed independently. We have found in the past that in circumstances like this, with almost no journalists allowed on the ground, rumors are easily constructed and quickly spread because visits to hospitals and morgues are blocked and access to soldiers and civilian observers refused. “Syrian government claims that it is being assaulted by rebels armed, trained and financed by foreign governments are more true than false” says Giraldi.

Something is Rotten in Denmark: So why do I quote Shakespear's Hamlet about the rottenness in Denmark? Upon Hamlet's return from university in England, he found his father poisoned, his mother quickly married off to the poisoner, Hamlet's uncle, and two of his best college friends bribed to arrange for Hamlet's death once he returns to university. His abuse of his love Ophelia has driven her to suicide. He has confronted evil and rottenness within his royal family and within himself. He finds no way to right all these wrongs, nor to escape the horror and the weakness that he sees most clearly within himself. He goes mad. Perhaps this will be our exit strategy as well. President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic, who died this week in Prague said: “Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life.”

”The time is out of joint; O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!”

OBAMA-WATCH.COM
43rd EDITION
September 7, 2011
Jim Houle, Editor

Our nation-wide shock on September 11th, 2001 at seeing those two airliners penetrate the World Trade Center towers generated a sense of fear and vulnerability deep within our psyches. Seizing upon this, our national leaders convinced us that we must attack Afghanistan and Iraq, where those Al Qaeda terrorists allegedly came from. The majority of Americans still feel vulnerable to terrorist attack and have accepted that we must live in a era of endless war without any coherent rationale. Ten years later, these unending Pentagon battles abroad have become, in the words of the Washington Post's Sept. 5th editorial, our only growth industry. In a declining job market, they represent one of our very few successful jobs programs, employing everyone from GIs to weapons assemblers, from drone makers to private “security” firms protecting our occupiers abroad and taking on tasks our soldiers cannot do. No politician, including Barack Obama, will seriously challenge our huge military-industrial complex, nor question the Pentagon's brilliant propaganda machine that manufactures those new “enemies” we continually must find to justify our ever expanding war program with its enormous profits. Imagine how the Los Angeles Basin would collapse overnight into Depression should the war machine stop ordering new weapons from Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics.

Fear-Based Economics
Now, ten years after September 11th 2001, when 2606 innocent office workers were deliberately murdered, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth believes it is time to seriously examine how these people actually died and if their deaths were really necessary. Why now do the A&E 9/11 Truth people bring this up, after much of the evidence of that day's disaster has been destroyed or well hidden, and when Americans are fully burdened by their need for economic survival? It seems to many that the very shaky story of the 9/11 attack by foreign terrorists upon our Homeland was too quickly accepted by a public driven by fear and is still used as the rationale for our abject surrender to the war machine that drives our entire economy. We have since learned that none of the 19 alleged hijackers were Iraqis or Afghanis, but we invaded those countries anyway. The 19 alleged hijackers actually included 15 Saudi Arabian citizens, 2 from the Emirates, one from Egypt and one from Lebanon.

Keeping Fear Alive
During the past decade, A&E 9/11Truth, an organization of over 1500 Professional Architects and Engineers from all over the United States associated with 12,400 other supporters, have signed The 9/11 Truth Petition calling for a new and independent investigation of one key element of the 9/11 mythology. These engineers and architects, of whom I am one, do not believe that the two 110 story towers and the nearby 44 story WTC-7 building could have each fallen in less than 12 seconds, essentially in free fall merely as a result of the fires ignited by the crash of two airliners and the burn off of their jet-fuel. We find it very disturbing that official investigations have failed to address the extensive evidence of planted explosive devices and incendiaries that likely contributed to the fall of these buildings. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency that so thoroughly botched up New Orleans flood relief, supervised the wholesale destruction of 9/11 evidence prior to the official investigation and contrary to the recommendations of the National Fire Protection Association. FEMA quickly loaded 200,000 tons of structural steel on barges and shipped it off to India and China for recycling. Only a few hundred pieces are now available as forensic evidence showing the high temperature incineration of steel girders that could never have been ignited by the jet fuel on the planes. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) deliberately excluded many relevant facts from their report, such as the presence of chemical residues, particles of un-ignited incendiaries, nanothermite, and molten metal in the wreckage in their rush to close the books on this disaster.

An Investigation Designed To Fail
The 9/11 Commission was unable to explain away the collapse of neighboring WTC-7 eight hours later and therefore conveniently ignored it in their final report. The Bush 9/11 Commission was headed by Governor Thomas Kean of New Jersey and Congressman Lee Hamilton, who after allowing publication of the final Commission Report, wrote their own book trying to disassociate themselves from the official findings. They called it “an investigation designed to fail”. However, many Americans still believe that on 9/11 19 Al Qaeda terrorists were able, without outside help, to reduce the World Trade Center to a pile of smoldering debris in seconds and this mythical story continues to justify our unending wars in the Middle East.

We at Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth have limited our investigations to as examination of evidence concerning the unexplained free-fall of these three Manhattan skyscrapers in seconds. We have not indulged in speculation about who actually planned and executed the 9/11 attacks in New York, nor have we studied the crash of American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon that same day. The Pentagon and our intelligence agencies have refused to release the 80 sets of film they seized of the United Flight 93 crash nor allowed eye witnesses to be interviewed. Until they do, independent investigation of the Pentagon crash cannot get very far and the truth will remain hidden. Some learned analysts point to lack of any new attacks upon our Homeland as proof that our policies in Iraq and Afghanistan have been successful.

We believe that there is now sufficient evidence to conclude that World Trade Center Buildings 1, 2 and 7 were destroyed not by jet impacts and the burning off of jet fuel but by controlled demolition with explosives. We therefore call upon Congress to initiate a new investigation with full subpoena powers. We feel that America can no longer be held hostage by the government's absurd stories as justification for our continuing open-ended wars in the Middle East. Our work is dedicated to the victims and to the families of those who died on September 11th 2001 and to all throughout the world who have been affected, including the hundreds of New Yorkers still dying of cancer as a result of breathing the smoke and dust generated that day. If you are interested in learning more, in signing our petition, and perhaps joining in this effort, you will find additional materials including DVDs available at: www.911Truth.org.