28 April 2006

Iraqi Resistance Report, 27 April 2006

Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice
  • Civilians killed as US launches massive air assault on ar-Ramadi late Thursday afternoon. Residential houses, markets, government buildings, open desert all targeted by lethal American weapons. American assault follows US cut-off of power, water, fuel from the city during the day Thursday.
  • Three US troops reported killed in double bombing in western Hit.
  • Four US troops reported killed in Katyusha attack on US camp near al-Qa’im.
  • Resistance Katyusha rockets blast notorious Abu Ghurayb prison camp.
  • Sister of puppet “Iraqi Vice President” and chief of collaborationist “Islamic Party” assassinated.
  • Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq denounces latest US-imposed sectarian puppet “Government,” noting that only by ending the occupation can Iraq’s problems be solved.
  • Resistance sharpshooter reportedly kills US soldier after Americans steal house from Iraqi family in ad-Dulu‘iyah.
  • Three Italians, one Romanian occupation soldier killed in Resistance bombing in an-Nasiriyah.

Foreclosures on the Rise as Housing Market Nears Collapse

Like a balloon slowly leaking air, the housing bubble created by the Federal Reserve following the dot-com collapse continues its slow seepage into the ground, where it will bury Uncle Sam's working class. Bloomberg reports:
Mortgages entering foreclosure jumped 72 percent during the first quarter from a year earlier, as higher interest rates increased monthly payments and strained the budgets of homeowners with adjustable-rate loans.

Lenders began foreclosing on 323,102 mortgages, a ratio of one in 358 U.S. households, according to a report issued Monday by RealtyTrac Inc. Banks typically start foreclosing on mortgages after payments are 90 days late.
One of the ways in which Uncle Sam created the housing bubble was through high-risk money lending schemes aimed at convincing working class-people to "buy" a home. "No money down" schemes, home equity loans, and variable rate mortgages all came about as a way of doling out cheap money. The fallout from such easy-money schemes for working people is that, when interest rates rise, mortgage payments do, too.

And it is those more expensive loan payments, coupled with a decline in the real wages of working class people, that will cause Uncle Sam's housing crisis to intensify.

Will Turkey Invade Northern Iraq?

Various news reports have, over the last few days, highlighted the preparations undertaken by Turkey (and possibly Iran) for an incursion into Northern Iraq aimed at dampening the gathering impulse among separatist Kurds in the region to form an autonamous Kurdistan with the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk as it's capital.

DozaMe, a Kurdish blog that claims to "transmit the Kurdish cause," has compelling evidence of the pending incursion, including photographs. The author reports:
The armies of Turkey and Iran are getting ready for showdown with the PKK. About 230,000 Turkish soldiers have been massing along the border with southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq) since April 2. The Iranians, in coordination with the Turks, have massed along "their" border with southern Kurdistan with about 30,000-50,000 soldiers according to Kurdish non-media sources close to HPG.
Selcan Hacaoglu of the AP corrborates DozaMe's report and adds that armed clashes between Kurds and the Turkish military have already started to occur.
Turkey has deployed more than 30,000 additional troops in its predominantly Kurdish southeast and along its rugged border with Iraq and Iran to fight Kurdish guerrillas and stop them from coming across the frontier, officials said Thursday.

Kurdish rebels killed two Turkish soldiers and injured a third in a grenade attack Wednesday on a military outpost, the Anatolia news agency reported, raising the number of Turkish troops killed this year to at least 17. More than 40 Kurdish guerrillas have also been killed in the same period in a series of clashes.

The Turkish deployment, which has been going on for several weeks, boosts an already large garrison in the region that by some estimates tops 250,000 soldiers.
Turkey's refusal in 2003 to go along with Uncle Sam's attack on Iraq along with these moves point to a sea change in Sam-Turk relations. Under CrimeBill Clinton, Uncle Sam provided more than $800,000,000 in military support each year to bankroll the Turkish government's slaughter of over 30,000 people along with the displacement of 500,000 to 2,000,000 more as the military laid waste to 3,000 mostly Kurdish villages.

Unlike the 1990s, though, Uncle Sam's interest in cultivating an alliance with Turkey now hinges on the Turks willingness to ignore the perceived threat of Kurdish autonomy and stay out of Iraq. However, actions taken by Apartheid Israel in Iraq and the militant actions of the PKK in Turkey have created a real dilemma for the Turkish ruling class.

Two years ago, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker on Apartheid Israel's campaign to use the Iraqi Kurds' secessionist scheme, over the vocal opposition of their ally Turkey, as a way of enhancing their own position in the region.

These circumstances - both domestic and international - have placed Turkey in a precarious position. On one hand, they know that disobeying orders given by Uncle Sam to stay out of Iraq will have serious consequences (loss of backing for EU membership, for example). On the other hand, their inaction on the Kurdish question coupled with the rise of Kurdish nationalism throughout the region - especially in Iraq - could lead to a domestic uprising that they could find difficult to contain.

While politicians and diplomats in Turkey point out that a move into Iraq, "would be politically sensitive," military leaders have not equivocated. The German Der Spiegel reports:
The chief commander of Turkey's armed forces, General Hilmi Ozkok, has stressed that Turkey has the right to carry out cross-border operations under international law: "If the conditions arise, like every sovereign country, we will use those rights," Ozkok said on Sunday, according to the AP.
Ozkok's backed his words with action. The Kuwait News Agency, KUNA, reported on 26 April:
An incursion into northern Iraq by military units of the Turkish Special Forces was reported Wednesday by a Turkish daily.

"The operation was aimed at chasing Kurdish secessionist armed elements near the Turkish border," the paper said.

"Turkish forces were reported several kilometers deep into Iraqi territory as they were chasing Kurdish gunmen in neighboring Kurdish villages," the paper said.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiar Zibari expressed dismay about the incursion and summoned Turkish Ambassador to Iraq Unal Cevikoz and asked him to convey to Ankara "Iraq's wish that such incusions be halted." Meanwhile, Iraqi Ambassador in Ankara Sabah Omran on Wednesday paid a visit to Turkish Special Representative in Iraq Oguz Celikkols at his office in Ankara and urged him to put a stop to the Turkish incursions because they could "upset law and order in the entire Iraqi territories." Celikkols is due to convey this wish to the Ankara government.
This greater Turkish involvement in Iraq, taken in response to Uncle Sam's failure to contain the autonomist impuses of the Kurds in Northern Iraq, has drawn harsh words from Sambo Rice. NY Times Near East propagandist Steven Weisman quoted Sambo on Wednesday, writing that "Rice, without speaking directly to that threat [of a Turkish incursion into Iraq] clearly sought to discourage the Turks from doing anything on their own."
"Of course we want anything that we do to contribute to stability in Iraq, not to threaten that stability or to make a difficult situation worse," Rice said, referring to the presence of Turkish troops. "That is why a cooperative approach on this problem - cooperation between Iraqi and Turkey and the coalition forces - is very important."
While it has largely remained off the corporate media's radar for the duration of Uncle Sam's occupation of Iraq, the dilemma Sam has created for itself in Northern Iraq has just begun reveal itself. One can hardly expect the lunatic crew of failures and fools that currently occupies the White House to address these politically sensitive problems involving Kurdish nationalism and the strategic prize of Kirkuk in a way that diminishes their volatility.

Given these facts, along with the players and interests involved - Uncle Sam and its Zionist allies, the Turkish military, Kurdish separatists, and the Iranian government - Northern Iraq, like Southern Lebanon, has within it the potential to become the flashpoint that ignites a much wider war in the Near East.

27 April 2006

Iraqi Resistance Report: 26 April 2006

Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice
  • Two US Marines reported killed in Resistance attack near Hit before noon Wednesday.
  • Resistance bomb blasts US patrol west of Abu Ghurayb, reportedly killing two American troops.
  • Three US troops reported killed in Resistance bombing near al-Jadiriyah Bridge in Baghdad.
  • Resistance sharpshooter reportedly kills US soldier in Samarra’.

Savage PigWatch: P.O.C.C. Minister Framed-Up in Chicago

The P.O.C.C. asks that all people of who care about justice help to free JR Valrey by calling District 11, Area 4 of the Chicago PigShop - (312) 746-8386 - to demand his immediate release.

On 4 March, this blog reported on the imbroglio that gathered around the campaign taken up by the Chicago City Council to dedicate a street sign to Fred Hampton, the Black Freedom Fighter executed while sleeping at his home by Chicago's white supremacist Pigs back in 1969.

The Chicago Defender reports today that the fight for the sign, initiated by P.O.C.C. Chairman Fred Hampton, Jr. died yesterday when "Alderwoman Madeline Haithcock said... she will discontinue her efforts to get the ordinance passed." In a press release Haithcock said that, "she did not want to divide the City Council or disrespect police officers," so rather than force fellow Councilmembers to go on the record, she fell in line.

Hampton, Jr. was less conciliatory than Haithcock to the very forces who killed his father. He told the Defender, "No street sign, no compromise."

Rather than allow a debate on the merits of the street sign during the meeting, Chicago's Pigs pre-emptively arrested members of the P.O.C.C. at City Hall, including Minister of Information JR Valrey, on absurd charges that they assaulted Congressman Bobby Rush.

The P.O.C.C. asks that all people of who care about justice help to free JR by calling District 11, Area 4 of the Chicago PigShop - (312) 746-8386 - to demand his immediate release.

Slave Revolt Radio: The Beast Rulers Lock Their Horns

Slave Revolt Radio
The Beast Rulers Lock Their Horns
by Tracey James

A major feud between sectors the ruling sectors of this genocidal private market society is raging. It's a battle over tactical strategies of domination in the Middle East region.

The Neocons strategy is to militarily break up the middle eastern states into tribal, ethnic, and hocus pocus religious subsets by armed force. The Zbigniew Brzezinski C.I.A. faction believe in the economic hit man, 'swarming', covert hits and sabotage method. Both sides agree with U.S. genocidal domination on a privatized global scale. The question and fight between them is how best to get there in the Middle East.

In a (Ruins of Empire) segment called The beast rulers lock their horns: Decoding the conflict over the permanent war strategy between the ruling order factions' Slave Revolt deals with this subject. Clips from Sy Hersh, Donald Rumsfeld, Joseph Wilson, and Zbigniew Brzezinski are hi-lighted and decoded in this internal conflict. A conflict that the Slaves must take advantage of and cleanse from the planet all of the 'Orders' factions.

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Fed Chair Warns of PetroDollar Meltdown

Today's Financial Times reported on Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke's comments to Congress:
With [Fed Chair] Ben Bernanke also warning that the scale of the US current account meant there was a “small risk of a sudden shift in sentiment that could lead to disruptive changes in the value of the dollar”, the greenback tumbled 0.6 per cent to $1.2521 to the euro and 1 per cent to $1.8013 against sterling, both seven-month lows. It also fell 0.7 per cent to Y114.01 against the yen and 0.8 per cent to SFr1.2605 versus the Swiss franc, both three-month lows, and 0.4 per cent to C$1.1230 against the Canadian dollar, a 14-year low.
The same piece also reports that, "Mr Bernanke pointed to signs of a slowing in the US housing market, adding that 'it seems reasonable to expect that economic growth will moderate towards a more sustainable pace as the year progresses.'"

Like Greenspan did for more than a decade, Bernanke is blowing smoke most of the time. But when he gives Congress this time of warning, one should really pay attention.

Apartheid Israel: "We Lie and Frame People"

On Thursday, Yuval Yoaz reported in pro-Apartheid Ha'aretz that the government of Apartheid Israel on Thursday admitted to framing up the former head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, sending him to languish in the Zionist gulag on trumped up charges that even pro-Apartheid Attorney General Menachem Mazuz failed to substantiate.
Ahmed Sa'adat, the former head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the territories, will not be tried in Israel for his part in the assassination of tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi in Jerusalem's Hyatt Hotel in 2001...

Mazuz decided there was insufficient evidence to try Sa'adat for Ze'evi's murder. Instead, Sa'adat and Fuad Shubaki, a former senior PA finance official who is suspected of smuggling arms on the Karine A boat, will be tried in a military court in the West Bank on several security-related offenses.
Of course, Apartheid Israel makes a living framing up innocent Palestinians. The only difference in this case happens to be that that Sa'adat has political clout, whereas the thousands of other innocent men, women, and children forced to languish in concentration camps behind enemy lines do not have high-level poltical contacts.

One should also note that the PFLP killed the tourism minister, ethnic cleansing supporter Rehavam Ze'evi, in retaliation for Apartheid Israel's murder of Abu Ali Mustafa, the group's leader, while he was working at his desk.

26 April 2006

Iraqi Resistance Report: 24-25 April

Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice
  • Resistance car bomber blasts US patrol in ar-Ramadi leaving five US troops reported dead.
  • US troops abuse bodies of two Resistance fighters, dragging them around western Baghdad’s al-‘Amiriyah district tied to their Humvees.
  • Four American troops reported killed in Resistance bombing in the south Baghdad suburb of ad-Durah.
  • US soldier reported killed in Resistance bombing in Ba‘qubah.
  • Resistance bomb in al-Haqlaniyah leaves five Americans reported dead.
  • Three US troops reported killed in Resistance bombing in al-Hadithah.
  • US forces throw 23 families out of their village west of ar-Ramadi, to set up camp there.
  • Resistance fighter detonates explosive belt as Americans raid his house in ‘Amiriyat al-Fallujah, leaving four US troops dead.
  • Resistance ambush in south of ad-Dujayl leaves one US soldier reported dead.
  • US troops kill five members of family going to sell vegetables at al-Miqdadiyah market.
  • Resistance bomb in al-Mawsil reportedly kills US soldier.
  • Iraqi puppet army conceals true number of its casualties in keeping with US practice. Demonstrators demand information on their sons in the puppet army who have disappeared, never to be heard from again.

David Cohen's CIA PigShop and the Frame-Up of Shahawar Matin Siraj

Sometimes the interest the Pigs in New York City have in framing-up perfectly innocent people for crimes that were never committed defies comprehension.

Such is the case with the recent trial of Shahawar Matin Siraj, a 22-year old New York man framed up by David Cohen's Intelligence division in the NY PigShop.

Cohen, who I've written about earlier, is a CIA asset who has built a career fabricating non-existent threats to justify attacks on civil liberties. His perverted Orwellian obsession has landed him in Ray Kelly's CIA-loving fascistic PigShop.

In this case, the PigShop arrested and intimdated a naturalized American citizen named Osama Eldawoody into becoming a snitch. He then proceeded to travel the city, recording conversations in mosques, bookstores and other places, looking for people the Pigs could then entrap, arrest, and frame up.

Which is precisely what's happened in the case of Siraj. He has done nothing wrong, and the only words he's said alluding to 'terrorist' intentions were said at the impetus of Cohen's snitch - never of his own volition.

The snitch is the only witness, and the Pigs have chosen to release only a portion of the 30-hours of recorded conversations. The rest, we must assume, are 'secrets' that only spooks like Cohen and his terrorist ilk are cleared to hear.

To the PigShop, the embarrasing lack of evidence against Siraj hardly matters. They've got their criminal even though "no material for any attack was ever sought or obtained by Mr. Siraj." Now they need to engineer a crime. So we have a show-trial to legitimate their own culpability in the frame-up.

The Putrid Stench of Capitalist Infighting

I don't mean to defend or in any way support companies like the one's named in this article, but the Washington Post has a good piece today explaining the sordid way in which fake-money front companies, called hedge funds, conspire to enrich themselves - often in quite nefarious ways at the expense of other capitalists. Here are some excerpts:
Are Biovail Corp. and Overstock.com Inc. promising companies victimized by unscrupulous investors illegally conspiring with stock analysts and journalists? Or are they troubled firms whose executives have turned to wild conspiracy theories to divert attention from underlying business problems?

That question is at the heart of two lawsuits and a couple of Securities and Exchange Commission investigations into whether there is an improper link between negative reports issued by Gradient Analytics, a Scottsdale, Ariz., research firm, and short-selling investors who have bet that Biovail and Overstock share prices will go down....

Eight of nine analysts who cover Biovail have "hold" ratings, and one calls it an "underperform," according to Zacks Investment Research. Of 10 analysts who follow Overstock, six recommend holding and four recommend selling the stock. Representatives of both companies say they can live with most of the negative coverage by analysts.

But Overstock and Biovail executives argue that Gradient's coverage of their companies crossed a legal line.

In independent lawsuits filed in New Jersey by Biovail and in California by Overstock, both companies accuse Gradient and a predecessor company called Camelback of conspiring with hedge funds to produce negative research reports containing misleading or false information. The lawsuits further allege that Gradient then held off releasing the reports for several days to give the hedge funds a window in which to establish their short positions.

Each lawsuit draws heavily on affidavits from former Gradient employees who say they witnessed fellow employees allowing hedge fund clients to order negative reports, to ghostwrite the content, to add false or misleading information and to then arrange delayed release dates to give the hedge funds time to establish short positions. Overstock's lawsuit alleges that Gradient's principals also were shorting the stock themselves through hedge funds they controlled...

Outside legal analysts agree that, if the allegations are true, falsely billing research as independent and including misleading information could add up to a securities-fraud violation, and trading ahead of research reports could qualify as insider trading.
In other words, hedge fund managers want a stock to tank, so they order a 'custom' report from places like Gradient to issue negative reports. The stock tanks, the hedge fund managers reap profits, and the CEOs whine to the SEC.

Such is the beauty of capitalism.

25 April 2006

Zionist Baby Killers get Free Pass on Sam's Plantation

Isn't it interesting how Uncle Sam's state-managed, corporate media reports any nonsensical PsyOp fabrication whenever it embarasses Islam, but when Zionist religous zealots perform some wretched act of cruel and barbaric savagery, they remain stoicly silent?

Such is the case with Yisrael Valis, a 19-year old man who murdered his own child by throwing him against a wall. Today's right-wing pro-Apartheid Jerusalem Post reports:
The Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday placed Yisrael Valis, the 19-year old haredi man suspected of beating his three-month old son to death, under house arrest. The court's decision came after probation officers determined that Valis does not pose a danger to the public...

Valis is facing manslaughter charges for allegedly repeatedly biting, beating, pinching and punching the infant since his birth because he "did not accept him" due to a congenital defect in the baby's neck muscles, police said.

The baby died in Jerusalem hospital on April 10, days after his father allegedly hurled him against the wall when he started to cry.
Unlike Palestinians who often find themselves sent to Apartheid Israeli torture chambers without committing a crime, this murderer has the benefit of being a Jewish man in Apartheid Israel. The hypocritical and racist mentality that underscores every facet of Israeli life explains why probabtion officers said Valis the Baby Killer did not threaten the public.

Meanwhile, efforts by the corporate media on Sam's Plantation to censor news that doesn't conform to the alternate reality of the Middle East they aim to create - Condoleeza Rice's known collaboration with Zionist spies to kill Iranians or Mordechi Vanunu's continued political imprisonment 20 years after whistleblowing about Apartheid Israel's nuclear weapons program, for example - remain safely swept under the rug by the luminaries on Fox News and CNN.

Iraqi Resistance Report: 23 April 2006

Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice
  • US soldier killed in Resistance ambush in ar-Ramadi Sunday afternoon.
  • Bodies of 25 murdered Sunnis found in various parts of Baghdad on Sunday.
  • Disputed document surfaces implicating son of SCIRI chief in alleged smuggling of oil out of Iraq by permission of US Ambassador Khalilzad.
  • Iraqi Resistance shoots down US Chinook helicopter with troops aboard northwest of Kirkuk Sunday evening

21 April 2006

Has Uncle Sam's Financial Meltdown Begun?

The Financial Times continues to report on the concern held by the world's economic rulers concerning the long-term sustainability of the dollar and, with it, the current incarnation of global capitalism managed by Uncle Sam's Treasury Department & Federal Reserve, the EU and its central banks, and neoliberal economic institutions like the World Bank and the IMF. Over the last few days, this tension has made itself manifest among the global economic elite in several places.

As oil reaches $75/barrel, concern continues to mount in oil-importing economies that a continued escalation in dead-energy prices could blunt economic growth - the lifeblood of capitalism - and precipitate a recession.

But the inflated cost of oil is but one cause for alarm among the world's economic managers - particularly those living on Uncle Sam's Plantation. In a striking Financial Times piece on 21 April, Steve Johnson writes of the moves taken by the economic order throughout the world to move away from the dollar as their reserve currency, pointing to its inherent instability:
The US dollar suffered a terrible week, hitting a seven-month low against the euro, as the market wondered what would support the currency when monetary tightening had run its course....

Strategists’ minds were already turning to what might drive the market once US yield support dissipates. According to most, the future looks ugly for the greenback with the huge US current account deficit seen casting its shadow once more....

Sweden’s Riksbank said it had slashed the proportion of dollars in its reserves from 37 to 20 per cent, pushing its euro holdings up to 50 per cent.

Alexei Kudrin, the Russian finance minister, said at the G7 summit in Washington that the dollar was not the "absolute" reserve currency and that the US external deficit could affect the dollar’s reserve status in the future.

The dollar fell 1.8 per cent over the week to $1.2339 to the euro, 1.7 per cent to $1.7821 against sterling and 1.4 per cent to Y116.93 against the yen....

The South Korean won hit Won944.1 to the dollar, its highest level since the 1997 Asian crisis, amid strong foreign demand for Korean equities and a strengthening Chinese renminbi.
In response to the inherent instability of a global economy sustained by debt, the IMF has begun to raise serious questions about the long-term sustainability of dollar-based global capitalism. A piece written on 20 April for the Financial Times by Krishna Guha and Scheherazade Daneshkhu begins:
The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday stepped up the pressure for far-reaching shifts in exchange rates, declaring that the dollar will have to depreciate “significantly” over the medium term if global economic imbalances are to be resolved in an orderly fashion.
As an alternative to the current economic system predicated on dollar hegemony, the IMF has proposed reducing the influence of Uncle Sam's economic rulers and their European vassals within the body and giving elites in 'emerging' economies like Brazil, China and India a greater say in steering IMF policies.

A dramatic devaluation of the dollar and dramatic rise in the economic power of 'growing' economies throughout the world would no doubt put increasing strain on diplomatic relations between the so-called 'developed' and 'developing' world. And, much as they did in 1910-1914, these developments would almost invariably lead to economic crisis and war on a massive scale.

I do not mean to suggest that the system(s) replacing what Peter Gowan calls the 'Dollar-Wall Street Regime' would allow for the improvement or worsening of material conditions among the world's population - only that a radical realignment of the world economy looms out of which massive change will occur.

And, especially given the crisis of leadership the permeates the whole world, it is pure folly to believe that such a seismic realignment can occur without warfare or bloodshed on a massive scale. In other words, the cataclysm is pre-ordained. Too many wealthy people with too many guns have too much to lose. Which explains why those people - the Cheneys and Olmerts, the Putins and Ahmadinejads - have drawn up sides.

We who stand against explotation must concern ourselves chiefly with opposing this brutal system and the killers who manage it. We must oppose by any means necessary those who defend a system whose only product is crisis and focus like lasers on forging alliances with others used and objectified by it. Only in doing so can we emerge from the pending conflagration with a world worth populating.

Iraqi Resistance Report: 20 April 2006

Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice
  • Resistance sharpshooter reportedly kills US soldier in al-Fallujah.
  • Americans make mass raids and arrests in al-‘Amiriyah in western Baghdad.
  • Abrams tank destroyed, four US troops killed in Resistance bombing early Thursday.
  • US soldier reported killed in Resistance bombing in al-Mawsil.
  • Pro-American Kurdish separatist authorities issue racist regulations banning Arab Iraqis from entering Irbil.
  • Car bomb blasts armored column north of al-Basrah Thursday morning.
  • US-installed Shi‘i sectarian “Prime Minister” al-Ja‘fari orders hundreds of ethnic Arab refugees expelled and handed over to Iranian authorities.

11 April 2006

EU Hypocrites Ally with Apartheid Israel to Starve Palestinians

Terrorism, death, and destruction against the Palestinian people by the occupying army of Apartheid Israel continued unabated this weekend. But rather than condemn the violence wraught on the Palestinian people by their occupiers, the imperialist powers of the world continued to tighten the screws on the people of occupied Palestine who resist the genocidal occupation.

In the upside-down Alice and Wonderland world of international diplomacy, the European Union gave in to the request of Apartheid Israel and hypocritically reneged on their committment of $600,000,000 in humanitarian aid for the people of Palestine. They made this decision to blackmail the Palestinians with the full awareness of Apartheid Israel's ongoing siege designed to "put the Palestinians on a diet," in the words of Dov Weisglass.

The announcement came at nearly the same time as the occupying army of Apartheid Israel killed yet another Palestinian child - this one a 12-year-old girl. Amos Harel writes in the pro-Apartheid Ha'aretz:
The girl was killed Monday by Israeli shelling in the Gaza Strip. Thirteen other members of her family, including toddlers, children and teenagers were injured. Nonetheless, a senior Israel Defense Forces officer Monday night told Haaretz that the widespread shelling of Gaza would continue....

Since Friday, 17 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli shelling. The dead include two children.
To Uncle Sam and the EU, this child's death means nothing. The peace overtures by The Hamas Movement against Apartheid Israel mean nothing. The indiscriminate shelling, bulldozing, and imprisonment of Palestinians means nothing. The Hamas Movement's 15-month cease-fire means nothing.

The imperialist powers of the world have distilled the occupation of Palestine into one simplistic formulation: will The Hamas Movement recognize the existence of Israel? They use this formulation as a convenient pretext to strangle Hamas. Yet even as they do this, these same powers never question whether Israel will recognize Palestine.

I wonder why?

We must realize that the imperialist powers of the world - especially Uncle Sam and the EU - will encourage Apartheid Israel to continue their barbaric savagery. We also know that these same powers will punish the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people as long as they continue to resist their apartheid occupier.

They will do so because they cannot fathom the true scope of their own hypocrisy or moral relativism. But the rest of the world does. And they will pay a heavy, heavy price for cozying up to Apartheid Israel while placing extortionist conditions on humanitarian aid meant for the besieged and dying people of Palestine.

Iraqi Resistance Report: 10 April 2006

Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice
  • Two foreign mercenaries killed in Resistance attack in al-Fallujah.
  • Resistance sharpshooter kills US soldier in al-Fallujah.
  • Resistance bomb reportedly kills US soldier in west Baghdad.
  • Resistance bombing in northern Tikrit leaves one US soldier reported dead.
  • Two US troops reported killed in bombing northwest of al-Yusufiyah.

Slave Revolt Radio: DOLLAR$ & CHAIN$, Part Three - Restructuring America Into a Permanent War Command Society


The U.S. Empire is in a stage of permanent war for 'Full Spectrum Dominance' in today's world arena. This is not based off of one group of administrators (Republicans) for the 'Order' as oppose to another (Democrats). The laws and attacks on the population in America is not for purely sadistic reasons. It's in part to condition the public and the American economy into a permanent war command society.

Slave Revolt explores these issues in a (Ruins of Empire) segment called 'Dollar$ and Chain$ 3: The restructuring of America into a permanent war command society'. From the war on 'illegal' immigration, to domestic surveillance, to indefinite imprisonment, the policies being managed by our enemies are to further discipline the population in a permanent war command mode. It's up to the slaves to blaze up a mightier revolt against these privatized war command operators and their systems. Or be chewed up in the jaws of this beast.

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07 April 2006

Despite Political Setbacks, Apartheid Israeli Terrorism Continues

A court in Britain unanimously ruled on Thursday that Apartheid Israel's occupying army was guilty of murdering a British cameraman in cold blood. AP reported that James Miller, 34, "was shot in the neck by a soldier in the Gaza-Egypt border area of Rafah in May 2003 while filming a documentary about the impact of violence on children in the region."

The subject of his documentary offered reason enough for Apartheid Israel's occupying army to execute him.

Writing in the pro-Apartheid Ha'aretz, Amos Harel reported that at the time of the killing Miller's entire crew had on protective vests marked with the letters "T.V." and were waving a white flag lit with a flashlight. The group's translator said there was no shooting in the area at the time the IDF soldiers opened fire.

The jury elaborated on the ruling:
Based on the evidence laid before us, we the jury unanimously agree it was unlawful shooting, with the intention to kill Mr. James Miller. We can come to no other conclusion than that Mr. Miller was indeed murdered... It's a fact that from day one to this inquest the Israeli authorities have not been forthcoming in the investigation into the circumstances surrounding Mr. Miller's death.
In the Guardian Vikram Dodd adds, "the jury also said Israeli authorities had 'not been forthcoming' about how and why Miller... was killed."

The reason is clear: Apartheid Israel's terrorist government has no interest in admitting its direct responsibility for Miller's murder. So they absolved the head of the occupying army at the scene of the crime and later ruled that there were no grounds for criminal proceedings.

The reprehensibile behavior of the Zionist government occurs in every arena. In addition to giving their military license to kill anyone without repercussion, they launch daily artillery barrages against the Palestinians and encourage beatings, property destruction, and theft of Palestinian land by Zionist settlers. Eli Ashkenazi reports on one such event in Friday's Ha'aretz:
An elderly Palestinian... is being treated for serious injuries at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva. Saber Shtiyeh, 73, of the West bank village of Salem, was attacked and beaten up by four settlers while working in the field...

Shtiyeh was hospitalized with six skull fractures, three broken vertebrae in his neck, four broken ribs, a perforated lung and fractures in his arm and leg. He is on a respirator.
Much like the manner in which they excused James Miller's murderers, this piece concludes that "West Bank police said yesterday that they had yet to identity suspects in the alleged attack on the farmer."

Shocking!

Meanwhile, AP reported a stunning example of the transparent ethnic cleansing and land theft encouraged by the Apartheid government against Palestinians. The piece begins:
Four Jewish families moved into an abandoned Palestinian home, raising tensions in this volatile West Bank city.

The settlers entered the home late Thursday, claiming they had purchased the building legally.
Of course, no such sale occurred. Zionist settlers stole it. The piece continues. "Safwan al-Nazer, an owner of the house, said the alleged deal was illegal. He said the house has been in his family for generations, and ownership is shared by about 100 relatives who would have to approve the sale."

Far from protecting al-Nazer's property, the Apartheid government consented to this ethnic cleansing of 100 Palestinians. The article concludes, "Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that purchase was approved by military authorities in the West Bank, and that police would take no action in the case until a court decision is made."

While the Apartheid government continues to starve Palestinians with their medieval siege of Occupied Palestine and give Zionist settlers carte blanche to steal Palestinian land, they reserve the right to arrest any Palestinian at any time for any reason.

The most recent expression of this policy came with their decision to arrest the Jerusalem Affairs minister for the Palestinian Authority on the grounds that, "Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are not allowed to travel to areas of the West Bank controlled by the Palestinian Authority." They did so in spite of the fact that, "in practice, Palestinians from East Jerusalem freely enter PA-controlled areas such as Ramallah and Bethlehem."

Laws that Apartheid Israel applies to Palestinians don't apply to Jews, pure and simple. And until Palestinian resistance intensifies, this will continue.

The Zionist state will continue to hide behind the campaign waged against Hamas by Zionist collaborator Mahmoud Abbas and call Hamas's myriad peace overtures "tricks" as they brutalize and murder not only Palestinians but, as the case of James Miller demonstrates, anyone who stands in solidarity with the cause of Palestinian liberation.

06 April 2006

Uncle Sam's School of the Assassins Loses Two More Clients

SOA Watch reports that two more countries, Argentina and Uruguay, have added their names to the growing list of nations who no longer want to associate themselves with the world's foremost terrorist training camp, Uncle Sam's School of the America's/WHISC.

In today's Guardian, Duncan Cambell reports, "two Latin American countries are to stop sending troops for training to a controversial military academy in the US... training Latin American soldiers in illegal interrogation techniques. The defence ministers of Argentina and Uruguay have decided to stop sending soldiers to train at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation."

Many well-known terrorists have received training at the camp, located in Fort Benning, GA. Among them are former Venezuelan Army Commander in Chief Efrain Vasquez and General Ramirez Poveda who helped lead the Uncle Sam's failed April 2002 coup which aimed to kill Comrade Hugo Chavez and bring about regime change in oil-rich Venezuela.

In Cambell's Guardian piece, he adds more names to the sordid list.
Graduates included the late Salvadoran rightwing militia leader Roberto D'Aubuisson, known as "Blowtorch Bob" for his interrogation methods; Efraín Ríos Montt, later accused of genocide in Guatemala; Leopoldo Galtieri, the late Argentinian junta leader jailed for human rights abuses, and Manuel Noriega, the former Panamanian leader now serving 40 years for drugs offences in the US.
Many others throughout South America - in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Peru have received training from Uncle Sam in order to better and more efficiently torture and brutalize domestic opposition.

The fact that participation Uncle Sam's torture camps has lost so much appeal throughout South America offers additional evidence to the growing sea-change in the region, led by Venezuela and Cuba, away from the Operation Condor-style domestic repression and towards solidarity with one-another against the brutal and oppressive forces of imperialism.

Iran Continues Preparations to Defend Itself in Case of Imperialist Attack

AP reports today that:
Iran said Wednesday it has successfully test-fired a "top secret" missile, the third within a week, state-run television reported.

The report called the missile an "ultra-horizon" weapon and said it could be fired from all military helicopters and jet fighters.
Unlike the 'peace' movement that mobilized throughout the West in opposition to Uncle Sam's attack on Iraq, in the case of Iran these groups - in particular the pro-occupation MoveOn.org and United for Peace and Justice - have remained notably silent. Their quiescence in the face of Uncle Sam's $75,000,000 PsyOp onslaught has created a sense of inevitabilty on Sam's Plantation that its Jackboots will attack Iran.

Iran's wargaming over the past week has blunted that feeling, putting the ingenuity of the Persian people and their ability to withstand and defend themselves against the pending sneak attack on display for the world to see.

With these exercises, Iran has called Uncle Sam's bluff. Two months ago President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran's enemies "cannot do a damn thing" to prevent them from developing nuclear technology. In the same speech, he addressed those enemies - chief among them Uncle Sam and Apartheid Israel - directly: "We do not need you at all. It is you, who need the Iranian people."

Clearly Iran has learned the lesson of history. Its leadership knows that in 1953 the CIA organized and carried out a coup in Iran, overthrowing the democractically elected Premier, Mohammad Mossadeq, after he nationalized Iran's oil. The coupsters then undemocratically replaced him with the Shah, who they armed to the teeth.

Ironically, because the Shah and his secret police proved ruthless agents of Western imperialism, Uncle Sam even helped the Shah's Iran develop a nuclear weapons program.

Iran finds itself locked into a situation where they must either cower and retreat or stand up to the savage beast of Empire - they do not have the luxury of a middle-ground. While some liberal 'peace' activists may disagree, the fact remains that Iran's recent wargame has done more to avert an attack from Uncle Sam, NATO, and Apartheid Israel than anything they could cobble together even if they really desired 'peace'.

The hypocrisy of the white liberal 'peace' movement on Iran shows that those oppressed by the ruthless boot of imperialsm cannot rely those who act as the soft-imperialist 'yin' to the hardline 'yang' of Uncle Sam's corrupt ruling order. As has occurred in Iraq, they must mount a defense of their own. Even if the wargames are met with chagrin from soft imperialists, the ongoing military exercises serve that precise function.

05 April 2006

The Coming End to Uncle Sam's Economic Ponzi Scheme?

Evidence continues to mount showing that the world has begun to run out of patience bankrolling Uncle Sam. On every relevant financial front - housing, oil, and debt - the news coming out of Sam's Plantation looks bleak.

With a federal debt of $8,384,958,789,853 and public debt dwarfing that breathtaking amount, Sam has maintained its profligate behavior. It has done so firstly by conspiring with the Saudis to make the petrodollar the only currency that can buy oil. This opportunity afforded Uncle Sam an incomparable incentive to leverage their currency's unique position into becoming the world's foremost a loan shark - forcing nations to send goods to the Plantation in exchange for dollars to buy oil.

But with the new Iranian oil bourse, the noose has loosened. Nations can now aquire oil with the more secure Euro instead of the dollar. This move undercuts Uncle Sam's debt-leverage scheme and contains the potential to precipitate a massive downward fall in the Greenback's value (the real reason for the coming attack on Iran).

We have other reasons to fear the coming economic collapse. Another pillar of Uncle Sam's fiscal shell game - the creation of fake money through real estate appreciation - stands on the precipice of collapse, too. Neil Irwin reports in today's Washington Post:
The U.S. economy is more dependent on housing than it has been in a half-century, as the sector fuels consumer spending and has accounted for nearly three-quarters of the nation's job growth in the past five years.

As a result, economists worry that the housing slowdown that began late last year could hurt the broader economy more than past real estate downturns, although other parts of the economy appear to be accelerating.

What makes the real estate boom of the past decade unusual is that its effects have reverberated far beyond closely related sectors such as construction, driving sales in places as varied as furniture stores and motorcycle showrooms, especially in the Washington area and others where home prices have soared particularly rapidly.
When the real estate market wanes and nation's no longer must abide by Uncle Sam's debt-leverage scheme to buy oil, that's bad enough.

Uncle Sam predicates its whole economic policy on the willingness of others to finance a culture of wastefullness, greed, and debt. Japan, China, and the oil producing countries of the world have used dollars accumulated through trade or oil sales to buy US Government Bonds. But they, too, are moving away from this policy as Steve Johnson details in today's Financial Times:
The US dollar fell sharply on Tuesday, hitting a 10-week low against the euro, in spite of the absence of any overwhelming catalyst for the sell-off. The euro hit a record high against the yen.

Two major explanations were advanced for the dollar’s initial slide. One was a return of fears that Asian and Middle Eastern central banks may be about to diversify their reserves out of the dollar, re-opening the debate over the funding of the vast US current account deficit.

Cheng Siwei, a vice-chief of China’s National People’s Congress, started the ball rolling, saying: "China can stop buying dollar-denominated bonds, increase buying of US products and gradually reduce its holdings of US bonds..."

However, just hours later, Kuwait and Qatar joined the United Arab Emirates in suggesting that they might buy more euros, at the expense of the dollar....

Hans Redeker, head of currency strategy at BNP Paribas, argued that the comments were indicative of how the region’s private investors and government-run investment funds, which together carry much more clout, may act in the future.
Especially when one considers the voracious racism demonstrated by Uncle Sam's henchmen during the Dubai Port deal and China's effort to buy Unocal, one can easily imagine a scenario where racism further induces foreign governments cut off their aid to Uncle Sam, thereby accelerating and intensifying the downward spiral of Sam's economic future.

Homeland Security Pederast Caught Soliciting Children

In today's pro-war Washington Post, Spencer Hsu reports that Uncle Sam's Department of Fatherland Security has some problems that have nothing at all to do with terrorizing and spying on the people they've nominally been charged with protecting.
The deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security was arrested last night on charges that he used the Internet to seduce an undercover Florida sheriff's detective who he thought was a 14-year-old girl, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said.
It's sure wonderful to know that while these reprehensible DHS thugs obliterate what few freedoms that remain in this fading republic, they do so while trying to molest your children.

04 April 2006

Duke's Devils Rape the Truth

Does a Black college student working as an exotic dancer in North Carolina have human rights? Can her occupation or her race lead to the implicitly revokation those rights, make her a 'ho' (as fascist blowhard Rush Limbaugh has said), and validate whatever abuse and indignity Vanilla Sam arbitrarily chooses to impress upon her?

Can white students with a sordid history of obnoxious behavior on a lily-white university campus get away with forcing an innocent woman into their bathroom, vilifying her with racial epithets, gang raping her, and then stealing her money?

This question has profound relevance, since this precise scenario unfolded recently at Duke University.

In light of a significant paper trail, important questions now confront the Pigs and administrators who oversee public safety at Duke University. They must now determine whether Duke's lacrosse team will parlay their White Privilege into a blank check to rape a Black woman without consequence.

Rather than openly acknowledge the attack and suspend the lacrosse team immediately, the university stonewalled for nearly two weeks, reporting the news just days after their basketball team lost in the NCAA tournament.

Pure coincidence, of course.

Based on the administration's behavior, we can infer that they will respond by defending the rapists as long as they can. Still, neither the university nor the Pigs can ignore details or evidence in this case that remains largely unchallenged. In her complaint, the victim explained in grueling detail how the assault unfolded.
Two males, Adam and Matt pulled her into the bathroom. Someone closed the door to the bathroom where she was, and said, "sweetheart you can't leave." The victim stated she tried to leave and the three males (Adam, Bret, and Matt) forcefully held her legs and arms and sexually assaulted her anally, vaginally, and orally. The victim stated she was hit, kicked, and strangled during the assault and she attempted to defend herself but was overpowered.
The New York Times account adds some additional detail:
According to the application for a court order seeking DNA samples from the team, a nurse trained to treat rape victims and a physician who treated the woman said they witnessed symptoms consistent with sexual assault. The document also includes details of a search of the house where the woman said she was raped for about a half-hour.

"The victim's four red polished fingernails were recovered inside the residence consistent to her version of the attack," the police statement said. "She claimed she was clawing at one of the suspect's arms in an attempt to breathe while being strangled. During that time, the nails broke off."

The police officers who searched the house also recovered the woman's makeup bag, her cellphone and a stack of $20 bills consistent with the woman's statement that $400 in cash was taken from her purse after the attack, the police statement said.
As they customarily do in cases involving race and rape, the rapists' lawyers have begun their little shuck'n'jive routine, questioning the veracity of the victim's account and the 911 calls corroborating it, to shift blame from the rapists to the raped.

Given the historical nature of 'The Plantation,' the colloquial name given to Duke University, we should assume that the Pigs, Duke, and the judicial system in North Carolina will invoke White Privilege to protect the rapists. The only hope for justice in the face of withering racism that makes even an open-and-shut case complex, will come from intense, relentless pressure on the rapists and their enablers.

03 April 2006

British Military Throws Monkey Wrench Into Conspiracy to Attack Iran

The campaign undertaken by the world's greatest nuclear proliferators - Britain, Apartheid Israel, and Uncle Sam - to hypocritically use Iran's nuclear program as a pretext to launch another war of imperial aggression and resource theft has again intensified. Over the weekend Sean Rayment, defense correspondent for the right-wing, pro-war British paper The Sunday Telegraph, broke the following story:
The Government is to hold secret talks with defence chiefs [Monday 3 April] to discuss possible military strikes against Iran.

A high-level meeting will take place in the Ministry of Defence at which senior defence chiefs and government officials will consider the consequences of an attack on Iran.
Rayment and others in Britain's pro-war media establishment have been reporting on the details of this unfolding campaign - specifically the roles played by Apartheid Israel and NATO - in yet another war of imperial aggression for many months. His piece continues:
It is believed that an American-led attack, designed to destroy Iran's ability to develop a nuclear bomb, is "inevitable" if Teheran's leaders fail to comply with United Nations demands to freeze their uranium enrichment programme.

The United States government is hopeful that the military operation will be a multinational mission, but defence chiefs believe that the Bush administration is prepared to launch the attack on its own or with the assistance of Israel, if there is little international support. British military chiefs believe an attack would be limited to a series of air strikes against nuclear plants - a land assault is not being considered at the moment.
Obviously Britain's ruling elites hoped to hold this meeting in secret - away from public view so as not to betray their own lies or give away their plots, plans, and conspiracies. Many among the military establishment did not share that objective, which explains why they leaked details of the meeting to friendly reporter and forced the Ministry of 'Defense' to cover their ass.

Like the leaks to The Sunday Times, Rayment's piece exposes the subterranean military mutiny afoot in Britain against the push by ruling class politicians and propagandists to attack Iran. Soldiers have begun to rebel because they recognize what the other's simply refuse to acknowledge: any attack on Iran would result in the slaughter of their own armed forces. The military commanders already taste defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan and they know an attack on Iran will produce a calamity that will make them seem insignificant.

Unlike the myriad Hitler and Goebbles wanna-be's who delude themselves into thinking that Iran is a primitive and uncivilized land of savages, military men live in the real world.

They recognize the destructive power the Iranian government can deploy against the West in a wide array of areas - its oil wealth, its regional alliances (including China and Russia), and its military technology - and know the sheer fantasy of the fairy-tale spun by the politicians that an attack on Iran would be limited. They know that if Uncle Sam, Nato, Britain or Apartheid Israel launches a sneak-attack on Iran, an expansion and escalation of the war - into the Persian Gulf, in Iraq, against Apartheid Israel's nuclear weapons facilities, and throughout the region - will immediately ensue.

That's why their leaking.

Late last week, Iran virtually spelled out to the world what an assault against their country would mean militarily. After an Iranian war game, Reuters reported:
Iran's armed forces on Friday successfully test fired a domestically produced missile which can evade radar, state television reported, a development analysts said could be worrying for Western forces in the Gulf....

"The missile command of the air force of the Revolutionary Guards has successfully tested a new generation of missiles," Hossein Salami, head of the Revolutionary Guards air force, told state television.

"This missile can evade radar and it can evade anti-missile missiles," he said.
Israel's Pro-Apartheid Ha'aretz reported that this news sent shockwaves through the ruling order. Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesmen Mark Regev said, "this news causes much concern, and that concern is shared by many countries in the international community, about Iran's aggressive nuclear weapons program and her parallel efforts to develop delivery systems, both in the field of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles."

The piece also quotes Adam Ereli, Uncle Sam's State Department spokesman: "I think it demonstrates that Iran has a very active and aggressive military program under way. I think Iran's military posture, military development effort, is of concern to the international community."

Additionally, Iran made an equally important announcement following the same war game: they now possesses the most world's most sophisticated marine missiles.
Iran said Sunday it has successfully test-fired a high-speed underwater missile, saying it was capable of destroying huge warships and submarines.

The Iranian-made missile has a speed of 100 meters per second underwater, Gen. Ali Fadavi, deputy head of the Navy of the elite Revolutionary Guards, said... "It has a very powerful warhead designed to hit big submarines. No warship can escape from this missile."
In short, this dispatch means that Iran has the power to defend the Strait of Hormuz with cheaply made missiles that can destroy Uncle Sam's naval presence in the Persian Gulf.

If they attack, their seamen better know how to swim.

One cannot overlook the intimate connection between these recent announcements and leaks from the British military clearly meant to slow down the march to war. Given the arrogance and stupidity of prevaricating politicians and propagandists itching for war and Iran's elaborate plans to withstand such an attack, we can expect to a continuation of internecine warfare between the generals who realize the enormity of defeat for the forces of imperialism and politicians whose greed and racism has blinded them to this reality.