Let's be clear about the US assertion that North Korea is showing 'no signs yet' that it is 'prepared to meet conditions', in order to return to the suspended six party talks in Beijing on the North's nuclear programme.
Blithely ignoring Kim Jong il's call for sitting down to talks with 'no conditions', the US is unwilling to restart talks but on its own terms.
Now that is a 'demand' that the North has long rejected. Kim Jong il has signaled his willingness to rejoin talks with 'no preconditions' through two former US presidents--Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton--senior department of state officials, and visiting intellectuals and scholars. President Obama has turned a deaf ear to these messages.
Therefore, as the state department's spokeswoman Virginia Nuland criticises North Korea for dragging its feet on returning to Beijing, her words reek of the propaganda war, coordinated with South Korea, against the DPRK. They are a shroud to cover the stinking corpse of a policy that does not want to deal with North Korea on a level playing field, to resolve nuclear and traditional tripwires in a divided Korean peninsula.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Israel Embassy conspires, FBI wiretaps conversations
Once again the "New York Times" [05 Sep 2011] strips the wraps on the Obama administration's war on leaks. An Israeli born FBI contract translator Schmai Leibowitz split the beans to blogger Richard Silverstein on monitored conversations within the precincts of the Israeli embassy in Washington involving an unnamed Congressman from Texas, a strategy of placing Israeli propaganda that influential supporters of Israel in government, the media, business, and the arts would put their names to, and coordination of Israeli designs to influence American opinion favourably through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Leibowitz pleaded guilty, but here's the rub, the judge sentenced him to 20 months in the slammer without knowing anything about his case on government say so...translation, it is on a need to know basis, and you do not need to know, but trust us!
Isn't this the type of justice, the US roils and moils against when it denounces its enemies? Isn't it an example of a 'Black Star Chamber' whereby the power of the executive is not bound by common law?
Silverstein, according to the 'Times', 'offers a glimpse of American spying on an ally'. This kind of skullduggery is the meat and potatoes of spying. Even the Israelis admit that they are aware of it and just as probably, do it even in the US. Does anyone recall Adlai Stevenson at a UN Security Council meeting denouncing Soviet wiretapping of the US embassy by displaying the American Eagle which housed a listening device in the early 1960s?
Consider: Leibowitz has been under lock and key for over a year, so why, we ask, is the story making front page headlines as an exclusive on today's 'Times'?
According to Silverstein [see his blog 'Tikun Olam', Leibowitz a trained lawyer in Israel before emigrating to the US fear Israeli designs to bomb Iran. Silverstein feeling the heat of the US government centring on him burnt the transcripts he received from the contract translator, to avoid prosecution as 'receiving "classified" documents'.
To answer our question: a new book on US spying is scheduled to appear at year's end, and that may explain why the story appeared now. However, the 'Times' 'scoop' may arise more from the Obama administration's frustration with Netenyahu's pigheadedness. It very well may have to do with Israel's refusal to apologise for and unwillingness to pay compensation to the families of the nine Turks killed on the illegal assault of Israel special forces on the Turkish ship 'Mavi Mamara' in June 2010.
The Netenyahu Likud led government's perverse obstinacy has greatly affected its relations with its once staunch ally Turkey; it has led to a downgrading in military, economic, and diplomatic relations.
Netenyahu has put the US in an embarassing situation: two firm allies of the US engaged in a cold war with each other. Turkey is a member of NATO, to boot. Israel's intransigence further muddies the waters of the Obama's approach to the Arab and Muslim world. So, in other words, the stakes are high. And that may explain the 'scoop' as an expression of Washington's displeasure with Israel.
Is Leibowitz an American patriot by his actions? Silverstein thinks so. He is in a way like Bradley Manning who is under lockdown without being charged. What will become of Manning now that all 250.000 US diplomatic cables are in the public domain? That remains unknown.
In spite of US discomfort over Leibowitz's whistle blowing, which it successfully kept a tight lid on for more than 15 months, it will cast a veto against recognition of Palestine in the forthcoming UN General Assembly. Nonetheless, the Obama administration is telling Netenyahu to clean up his act.
Leibowitz pleaded guilty, but here's the rub, the judge sentenced him to 20 months in the slammer without knowing anything about his case on government say so...translation, it is on a need to know basis, and you do not need to know, but trust us!
Isn't this the type of justice, the US roils and moils against when it denounces its enemies? Isn't it an example of a 'Black Star Chamber' whereby the power of the executive is not bound by common law?
Silverstein, according to the 'Times', 'offers a glimpse of American spying on an ally'. This kind of skullduggery is the meat and potatoes of spying. Even the Israelis admit that they are aware of it and just as probably, do it even in the US. Does anyone recall Adlai Stevenson at a UN Security Council meeting denouncing Soviet wiretapping of the US embassy by displaying the American Eagle which housed a listening device in the early 1960s?
Consider: Leibowitz has been under lock and key for over a year, so why, we ask, is the story making front page headlines as an exclusive on today's 'Times'?
According to Silverstein [see his blog 'Tikun Olam', Leibowitz a trained lawyer in Israel before emigrating to the US fear Israeli designs to bomb Iran. Silverstein feeling the heat of the US government centring on him burnt the transcripts he received from the contract translator, to avoid prosecution as 'receiving "classified" documents'.
To answer our question: a new book on US spying is scheduled to appear at year's end, and that may explain why the story appeared now. However, the 'Times' 'scoop' may arise more from the Obama administration's frustration with Netenyahu's pigheadedness. It very well may have to do with Israel's refusal to apologise for and unwillingness to pay compensation to the families of the nine Turks killed on the illegal assault of Israel special forces on the Turkish ship 'Mavi Mamara' in June 2010.
The Netenyahu Likud led government's perverse obstinacy has greatly affected its relations with its once staunch ally Turkey; it has led to a downgrading in military, economic, and diplomatic relations.
Netenyahu has put the US in an embarassing situation: two firm allies of the US engaged in a cold war with each other. Turkey is a member of NATO, to boot. Israel's intransigence further muddies the waters of the Obama's approach to the Arab and Muslim world. So, in other words, the stakes are high. And that may explain the 'scoop' as an expression of Washington's displeasure with Israel.
Is Leibowitz an American patriot by his actions? Silverstein thinks so. He is in a way like Bradley Manning who is under lockdown without being charged. What will become of Manning now that all 250.000 US diplomatic cables are in the public domain? That remains unknown.
In spite of US discomfort over Leibowitz's whistle blowing, which it successfully kept a tight lid on for more than 15 months, it will cast a veto against recognition of Palestine in the forthcoming UN General Assembly. Nonetheless, the Obama administration is telling Netenyahu to clean up his act.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
The world has gone by leaving US policy on Palestine in the dust
The world has moved on as to the matter of Palestine. Now, the US is taking a last ditch stand to ‘buy off’ the Palestinian Authority from seeking recognition of Palestine as a state at the up coming session of the UN General Assembly. It has fallen back on bribery and arm twisting to stall the PA initiative. Washington is in a muddle, which it itself is to blame for favouring Israel’s designs throughout decades owing to the demands of domestic politics.
The Obama administration is desperate: it will cast a veto when the resolution to come to a vote in the Security Council. American diplomats have done the sums and have come up short in killing the GA’s bestowing legitimacy on a Palestine the territory of which is under 44 years of Israeli occupation, punctured with illegal land seizures and Jewish colonization in pursuit of a grand design for a ‘Greater Israel’ from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.
Events are quickly changing in the Arab world and the Middle East that have left the US flat footed. It stuck too long to Mubarak in Egypt; has shown itself ‘pusillanimous’ facing down the right wing Israeli irredentist ‘Bibi’ Netenyahu; and failed in its efforts to patch up the broken alliance of Turkey and Israel, owing to the Zionist state’s intransigence in the ‘Mavi Mamara’ killings.
America’s foreign policy in the Arab world is broken. Like Humpty Dumpty, try as any US administration might try, it cannot be patched together again. Yes, the world has moved on and America is caught with its pants down.
The world has moved on as to the matter of Palestine. Now, the US is taking a last ditch stand to ‘buy off’ the Palestinian Authority from seeking recognition of Palestine as a state at the up coming session of the UN General Assembly. It has fallen back on bribery and arm twisting to stall the PA initiative. Washington is in a muddle, which it itself is to blame for favouring Israel’s designs throughout decades owing to the demands of domestic politics.
The Obama administration is desperate: it will cast a veto when the resolution to come to a vote in the Security Council. American diplomats have done the sums and have come up short in killing the GA’s bestowing legitimacy on a Palestine the territory of which is under 44 years of Israeli occupation, punctured with illegal land seizures and Jewish colonization in pursuit of a grand design for a ‘Greater Israel’ from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.
Events are quickly changing in the Arab world and the Middle East that have left the US flat footed. It stuck too long to Mubarak in Egypt; has shown itself ‘pusillanimous’ facing down the right wing Israeli irredentist ‘Bibi’ Netenyahu; and failed in its efforts to patch up the broken alliance of Turkey and Israel, owing to the Zionist state’s intransigence in the ‘Mavi Mamara’ killings.
America’s foreign policy in the Arab world is broken. Like Humpty Dumpty, try as any US administration might try, it cannot be patched together again. Yes, the world has moved on and America is caught with its pants down.
The world has moved on as to the matter of Palestine. Now, the US is taking a last ditch stand to ‘buy off’ the Palestinian Authority from seeking recognition of Palestine as a state at the up coming session of the UN General Assembly. It has fallen back on bribery and arm twisting to stall the PA initiative. Washington is in a muddle, which it itself is to blame for favouring Israel’s designs throughout decades owing to the demands of domestic politics.
The Obama administration is desperate: it will cast a veto when the resolution to come to a vote in the Security Council. American diplomats have done the sums and have come up short in killing the GA’s bestowing legitimacy on a Palestine the territory of which is under 44 years of Israeli occupation, punctured with illegal land seizures and Jewish colonization in pursuit of a grand design for a ‘Greater Israel’ from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.
Events are quickly changing in the Arab world and the Middle East that have left the US flat footed. It stuck too long to Mubarak in Egypt; has shown itself ‘pusillanimous’ facing down the right wing Israeli irredentist ‘Bibi’ Netenyahu; and failed in its efforts to patch up the broken alliance of Turkey and Israel, owing to the Zionist state’s intransigence in the ‘Mavi Mamara’ killings.
America’s foreign policy in the Arab world is broken. Like Humpty Dumpty, try as any US administration might try, it cannot be patched together again. Yes, the world has moved on and America is caught with its pants down.
The world has moved on as to the matter of Palestine. Now, the US is taking a last ditch stand to ‘buy off’ the Palestinian Authority from seeking recognition of Palestine as a state at the up coming session of the UN General Assembly. It has fallen back on bribery and arm twisting to stall the PA initiative. Washington is in a muddle, which it itself is to blame for favouring Israel’s designs throughout decades owing to the demands of domestic politics.
The Obama administration is desperate: it will cast a veto when the resolution to come to a vote in the Security Council. American diplomats have done the sums and have come up short in killing the GA’s bestowing legitimacy on a Palestine the territory of which is under 44 years of Israeli occupation, punctured with illegal land seizures and Jewish colonization in pursuit of a grand design for a ‘Greater Israel’ from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.
Events are quickly changing in the Arab world and the Middle East that have left the US flat footed. It stuck too long to Mubarak in Egypt; has shown itself ‘pusillanimous’ facing down the right wing Israeli irredentist ‘Bibi’ Netenyahu; and failed in its efforts to patch up the broken alliance of Turkey and Israel, owing to the Zionist state’s intransigence in the ‘Mavi Mamara’ killings.
America’s foreign policy in the Arab world is broken. Like Humpty Dumpty, try as any US administration might try, it cannot be patched together again. Yes, the world has moved on and America is caught with its pants down.
The Obama administration is desperate: it will cast a veto when the resolution to come to a vote in the Security Council. American diplomats have done the sums and have come up short in killing the GA’s bestowing legitimacy on a Palestine the territory of which is under 44 years of Israeli occupation, punctured with illegal land seizures and Jewish colonization in pursuit of a grand design for a ‘Greater Israel’ from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.
Events are quickly changing in the Arab world and the Middle East that have left the US flat footed. It stuck too long to Mubarak in Egypt; has shown itself ‘pusillanimous’ facing down the right wing Israeli irredentist ‘Bibi’ Netenyahu; and failed in its efforts to patch up the broken alliance of Turkey and Israel, owing to the Zionist state’s intransigence in the ‘Mavi Mamara’ killings.
America’s foreign policy in the Arab world is broken. Like Humpty Dumpty, try as any US administration might try, it cannot be patched together again. Yes, the world has moved on and America is caught with its pants down.
The world has moved on as to the matter of Palestine. Now, the US is taking a last ditch stand to ‘buy off’ the Palestinian Authority from seeking recognition of Palestine as a state at the up coming session of the UN General Assembly. It has fallen back on bribery and arm twisting to stall the PA initiative. Washington is in a muddle, which it itself is to blame for favouring Israel’s designs throughout decades owing to the demands of domestic politics.
The Obama administration is desperate: it will cast a veto when the resolution to come to a vote in the Security Council. American diplomats have done the sums and have come up short in killing the GA’s bestowing legitimacy on a Palestine the territory of which is under 44 years of Israeli occupation, punctured with illegal land seizures and Jewish colonization in pursuit of a grand design for a ‘Greater Israel’ from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.
Events are quickly changing in the Arab world and the Middle East that have left the US flat footed. It stuck too long to Mubarak in Egypt; has shown itself ‘pusillanimous’ facing down the right wing Israeli irredentist ‘Bibi’ Netenyahu; and failed in its efforts to patch up the broken alliance of Turkey and Israel, owing to the Zionist state’s intransigence in the ‘Mavi Mamara’ killings.
America’s foreign policy in the Arab world is broken. Like Humpty Dumpty, try as any US administration might try, it cannot be patched together again. Yes, the world has moved on and America is caught with its pants down.
The world has moved on as to the matter of Palestine. Now, the US is taking a last ditch stand to ‘buy off’ the Palestinian Authority from seeking recognition of Palestine as a state at the up coming session of the UN General Assembly. It has fallen back on bribery and arm twisting to stall the PA initiative. Washington is in a muddle, which it itself is to blame for favouring Israel’s designs throughout decades owing to the demands of domestic politics.
The Obama administration is desperate: it will cast a veto when the resolution to come to a vote in the Security Council. American diplomats have done the sums and have come up short in killing the GA’s bestowing legitimacy on a Palestine the territory of which is under 44 years of Israeli occupation, punctured with illegal land seizures and Jewish colonization in pursuit of a grand design for a ‘Greater Israel’ from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.
Events are quickly changing in the Arab world and the Middle East that have left the US flat footed. It stuck too long to Mubarak in Egypt; has shown itself ‘pusillanimous’ facing down the right wing Israeli irredentist ‘Bibi’ Netenyahu; and failed in its efforts to patch up the broken alliance of Turkey and Israel, owing to the Zionist state’s intransigence in the ‘Mavi Mamara’ killings.
America’s foreign policy in the Arab world is broken. Like Humpty Dumpty, try as any US administration might try, it cannot be patched together again. Yes, the world has moved on and America is caught with its pants down.
The world has moved on as to the matter of Palestine. Now, the US is taking a last ditch stand to ‘buy off’ the Palestinian Authority from seeking recognition of Palestine as a state at the up coming session of the UN General Assembly. It has fallen back on bribery and arm twisting to stall the PA initiative. Washington is in a muddle, which it itself is to blame for favouring Israel’s designs throughout decades owing to the demands of domestic politics.
The Obama administration is desperate: it will cast a veto when the resolution to come to a vote in the Security Council. American diplomats have done the sums and have come up short in killing the GA’s bestowing legitimacy on a Palestine the territory of which is under 44 years of Israeli occupation, punctured with illegal land seizures and Jewish colonization in pursuit of a grand design for a ‘Greater Israel’ from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.
Events are quickly changing in the Arab world and the Middle East that have left the US flat footed. It stuck too long to Mubarak in Egypt; has shown itself ‘pusillanimous’ facing down the right wing Israeli irredentist ‘Bibi’ Netenyahu; and failed in its efforts to patch up the broken alliance of Turkey and Israel, owing to the Zionist state’s intransigence in the ‘Mavi Mamara’ killings.
America’s foreign policy in the Arab world is broken. Like Humpty Dumpty, try as any US administration might try, it cannot be patched together again. Yes, the world has moved on and America is caught with its pants down.
Lunacy seizes Israel's relations with Turkey
The British writer Rebecca West thought men in power ‘lunatics’. The reputedly ‘savvy’ Israeli prove her point. The Zionist state’s leadership unwillingness to ‘apologise for’ and pay compensation to the families of the nine Turks its defence forces killed on the Turkish ship ‘Mavi Mamara’ in international waters as part of a Freedom Flotilla to break the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza, has now brought the expulsion of the Zionist ambassador to Ankara, a break in military cooperation, a cutting off the Israeli materiel for Turkish forces.
The final break came after more than a year to patch up tattered relations between the two countries, with the publication of a flawed UN report on the ‘Mavi Mamara’ incident of June 2010. The report is a ‘yes, but…’ explanation of this event. On one hand, it pins the blames of unjustified force on the Israel, yet it does not condemn them as carrying out an act of piracy on ships in international waters. On the other hand, it equates any resistance of unarmed passengers on the ‘Mavi Mamara’ for resisting Israeli’s assault, thereby putting on equal footing a highly trained, highly armed Israeli special forces that aggressed an armed group of people wanting to break the illegal Zionist blockade of Gaza by ferrying material to rebuild infrastructure, medical supplies, and food, and the like to a Palestinian population aggressed by Israel’s preemptive three week war in December 2008, called ‘Cast Lead’.
The report pours salt on open wounds by saying that Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza is seen as licit under international law [a spurious reading], and tilted its concern more towards the Israeli military than to their victims dead or alive who were very roughly handled.
Turkey reacted strongly as noted above, for Israel acts as a law unto itself, ably assisted by the US and some of its western allies. The break with Turkey opens a can of worms for the Zionist state, not the least consequence is Ankara’s seizing the International Court of Justice challenging Israel’s blockade of Gaza. The Likud led Netenyahu government has set itself for a fall in the UN when in the 2011 General Assembly will recognize a Palestinian state in spite of Israel’s 43 occupation of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem. As a spearhead of Muslim countries, a globally recognized Palestine will force Israel into a diplomatic ghetto of its own making; throw mud on the US’ attempt to ‘broker’ peace and reconciliation in the region by always backing up the Zionist state for internal American politics.
Finally Israel’s nightmares might not be over: Egypt might expel Israel’s ambassador to Cairo, and loosen ties military and commercially almost to the point of breaking. And the docile Jordan might also follow suit.
Israel has made the point of idiocy by its refusal to own up to crimes on the high seas and killing nine Turks on the ‘Mavi Mamara’.
The final break came after more than a year to patch up tattered relations between the two countries, with the publication of a flawed UN report on the ‘Mavi Mamara’ incident of June 2010. The report is a ‘yes, but…’ explanation of this event. On one hand, it pins the blames of unjustified force on the Israel, yet it does not condemn them as carrying out an act of piracy on ships in international waters. On the other hand, it equates any resistance of unarmed passengers on the ‘Mavi Mamara’ for resisting Israeli’s assault, thereby putting on equal footing a highly trained, highly armed Israeli special forces that aggressed an armed group of people wanting to break the illegal Zionist blockade of Gaza by ferrying material to rebuild infrastructure, medical supplies, and food, and the like to a Palestinian population aggressed by Israel’s preemptive three week war in December 2008, called ‘Cast Lead’.
The report pours salt on open wounds by saying that Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza is seen as licit under international law [a spurious reading], and tilted its concern more towards the Israeli military than to their victims dead or alive who were very roughly handled.
Turkey reacted strongly as noted above, for Israel acts as a law unto itself, ably assisted by the US and some of its western allies. The break with Turkey opens a can of worms for the Zionist state, not the least consequence is Ankara’s seizing the International Court of Justice challenging Israel’s blockade of Gaza. The Likud led Netenyahu government has set itself for a fall in the UN when in the 2011 General Assembly will recognize a Palestinian state in spite of Israel’s 43 occupation of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem. As a spearhead of Muslim countries, a globally recognized Palestine will force Israel into a diplomatic ghetto of its own making; throw mud on the US’ attempt to ‘broker’ peace and reconciliation in the region by always backing up the Zionist state for internal American politics.
Finally Israel’s nightmares might not be over: Egypt might expel Israel’s ambassador to Cairo, and loosen ties military and commercially almost to the point of breaking. And the docile Jordan might also follow suit.
Israel has made the point of idiocy by its refusal to own up to crimes on the high seas and killing nine Turks on the ‘Mavi Mamara’.
South Korean monks in Pyongyang; revival of anti Americanism in South Korea
Thirty seven Buddhist monks from South Korea have journeyed to North Korea, to partake in the observance of the millennium of the ‘Tripitaka Koreana, ‘the world's most comprehensive and oldest intact version of Buddhist canon in Hanja script, with no known errors or errata in the 52,382,960 characters which are organized in over 1496 titles and 6568 volumes’, at a ceremony at the Pohyon Temple in the mountains near Pyongyang.
The arrival of South Korean monks in the North’s capitol is significant: one, a lifting of South Korea’s ban of all civilian travel to the DPRK, other than for humanitarian purposes. Two, it comes immediately after the appointment of Yu Woo ik as Unification Minister. [Yu replaced Hyun In taek, known for his strong hard line towards the Kim Jong il government.] Although the North Korean leadership insist that the nomination is cosmetic, Yu’s new position might force the shut door of travel to the North of South Koreans.
On the other hand, the demonstrations against the construction of a South Korean naval base on the semiautonomous and self governing island of touristic and natural flora and fauna of Jeju, has aroused the barely sleeping serpent of anti Americanism, which festers like a sore tooth of US ROK relations since 1945. A court has ordered the suspension of the building of the port, but it has nonetheless continued. Squads of military and civilian police are on hand to halt demonstrations, rough up and arrest protesters.
Strategically a naval base on Jeju will better control sea lanes and position South Korea so that it can readily respond to irredentist claims to rock formations by Japan or China that the ROK also claims ownership. Furthermore, geophysical data suggest huge gas reserves which the three countries covert. Militarily speaking, the projection of South Korean naval power in the surrounding waters impinges on the claims of China and Japan as an infringement on what they consider their ‘mare nostrum’. The new port will welcome US ships and nuclear powered vessels, which will certainly send danger signals to a China intent on its own naval expansion in the region.
Finally the US is fulfilling its promise of us$900.000 in aid to ‘flood hit’ North Korea, through NGOs. America’s supplies have no food for the starving North Koreans; they consist of emergency relief items such as blankets, soap, and hygiene kits. A US representative spoke of ‘concern about the well being of North Korean people, and this humanitarian assistance is not linked to any political or security issues’. Of course the absence of food shows that politics are in play. The Obama administration harbours a strongly felt feeling that food would be funneled to North Korea’s armed forces, in spite of the contrary of past food distribution, say, by Mercy Corp. or Swiss NGOs.
The arrival of South Korean monks in the North’s capitol is significant: one, a lifting of South Korea’s ban of all civilian travel to the DPRK, other than for humanitarian purposes. Two, it comes immediately after the appointment of Yu Woo ik as Unification Minister. [Yu replaced Hyun In taek, known for his strong hard line towards the Kim Jong il government.] Although the North Korean leadership insist that the nomination is cosmetic, Yu’s new position might force the shut door of travel to the North of South Koreans.
On the other hand, the demonstrations against the construction of a South Korean naval base on the semiautonomous and self governing island of touristic and natural flora and fauna of Jeju, has aroused the barely sleeping serpent of anti Americanism, which festers like a sore tooth of US ROK relations since 1945. A court has ordered the suspension of the building of the port, but it has nonetheless continued. Squads of military and civilian police are on hand to halt demonstrations, rough up and arrest protesters.
Strategically a naval base on Jeju will better control sea lanes and position South Korea so that it can readily respond to irredentist claims to rock formations by Japan or China that the ROK also claims ownership. Furthermore, geophysical data suggest huge gas reserves which the three countries covert. Militarily speaking, the projection of South Korean naval power in the surrounding waters impinges on the claims of China and Japan as an infringement on what they consider their ‘mare nostrum’. The new port will welcome US ships and nuclear powered vessels, which will certainly send danger signals to a China intent on its own naval expansion in the region.
Finally the US is fulfilling its promise of us$900.000 in aid to ‘flood hit’ North Korea, through NGOs. America’s supplies have no food for the starving North Koreans; they consist of emergency relief items such as blankets, soap, and hygiene kits. A US representative spoke of ‘concern about the well being of North Korean people, and this humanitarian assistance is not linked to any political or security issues’. Of course the absence of food shows that politics are in play. The Obama administration harbours a strongly felt feeling that food would be funneled to North Korea’s armed forces, in spite of the contrary of past food distribution, say, by Mercy Corp. or Swiss NGOs.
Friday, September 2, 2011
A one term president? or ABO
The Elephant party has long been trumpeting Anything but Obama. We don't want him around after 2012.
It doesn't take rocket science to figure out Republican strategy: if president Obama suggests measures that the plodding pachyderms desperately want, in a show of spite, they will vote them down.
Obama isn't no FDR who took the fight into the trampled politics of the Elephants gleefully. Nonetheless even at the nadir of his popularity the 45 president of these 50 states can sally out for a battle royal which will in the end damage the Republicans.
T'aint no secret the strategy comes from the old Southern states which even today have strong vestiges of racism. How can you explain Obama's embracing the Elephant senator Tom Coburn, a Southern Baptist, 'not only a dear friend, but a brother in Christ' when months later this very 'brother' slapped the president's cheek by saying in essence were Obama not black and took advantage of 'social promotion' to get in Harvard and then catapulted into the presidency in 2008?
It does not take a rocket scientist to come up with the trumpeting Elephants strategy to defeat Obama at the polls in 2012 when he runs for a second term: that plan of action has less to do with the president's leadership or managerial skills but more to do with the ugly strain of racialism among the southern influenced evangelical Christianity.
We are witnessing the tyranny of the 'peasant' mentality that has raised the flag of revolt across in America, especially in the emergence of the Tea Party; the political system has disrupted, if not destroyed, the social and economic underpinnings of their comfort and security. As a result, they fall back on an America where blacks, browns, and yellows know their place and left the world to the whites, meaning Protestant Christians, to rule.
It doesn't take rocket science to figure out Republican strategy: if president Obama suggests measures that the plodding pachyderms desperately want, in a show of spite, they will vote them down.
Obama isn't no FDR who took the fight into the trampled politics of the Elephants gleefully. Nonetheless even at the nadir of his popularity the 45 president of these 50 states can sally out for a battle royal which will in the end damage the Republicans.
T'aint no secret the strategy comes from the old Southern states which even today have strong vestiges of racism. How can you explain Obama's embracing the Elephant senator Tom Coburn, a Southern Baptist, 'not only a dear friend, but a brother in Christ' when months later this very 'brother' slapped the president's cheek by saying in essence were Obama not black and took advantage of 'social promotion' to get in Harvard and then catapulted into the presidency in 2008?
It does not take a rocket scientist to come up with the trumpeting Elephants strategy to defeat Obama at the polls in 2012 when he runs for a second term: that plan of action has less to do with the president's leadership or managerial skills but more to do with the ugly strain of racialism among the southern influenced evangelical Christianity.
We are witnessing the tyranny of the 'peasant' mentality that has raised the flag of revolt across in America, especially in the emergence of the Tea Party; the political system has disrupted, if not destroyed, the social and economic underpinnings of their comfort and security. As a result, they fall back on an America where blacks, browns, and yellows know their place and left the world to the whites, meaning Protestant Christians, to rule.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
The Guardian 'wars' against Wikileaks
It is no secret that Wikileaks Julian Assange had an uneasy relationship with David Leigh, editor of the British newspaper 'the Guardian' in publishing the initial batch of US diplomatic cables. In this he was ably assisted by Bill Keller of the 'New York Times'.
Assange has a prickly personality, but Leigh and Keller display the arrogance of self styled authority of journalism, the jealousy of having to share a major scoop with an 'amateur'.
The recent release of some 130.000 American diplomatic cables has focussed attention of Assange. This said, Wikileaks contends, and proof there is that Leigh for all his 'journalist integrity' breached Wikileaks security by publishing a password to unlock its secrecy. Suddenly out in the open came 'unredacted' cables that named names of informants big and small.
Leigh may have a vicarious thrill in 'sticking it to Julian' yet where is his much publicised concern for the people mentioned in the cables? This 'Guardian' editor has a long trail in his 'animus' against Assange, including a long 'expose' on the Wikileaks' founder's sexcapade in Sweden that has caused him a lot of legal trouble to thread in the British courts to avoid being extradited to Stockholm, in spite of Aussage's willingness from the beginning to answer questions about his intimate relations with two consenting women which Swedish authorities rejected after initially dropping charges.
Behind the campaign to put Aussange in prison is a not so strange gaggle of bedfellows: the US government caught with its diplomatic pants down and the wrath of editors who had egos bruised.
And rotting in a cell is the 'alledged' arch leaker Bradley Manning whom the US government has not charged but for almost two years has kept under lock and key, using Abou Gharib techniques to make him crack. They failed.
The onus is on the US government for its lax security. The winners are governments and the ordinary man and woman on the street everywhere but in the US who now have access to these cables. Only Americans in the US are denied full access to them for obvious reasons.
Assange has a prickly personality, but Leigh and Keller display the arrogance of self styled authority of journalism, the jealousy of having to share a major scoop with an 'amateur'.
The recent release of some 130.000 American diplomatic cables has focussed attention of Assange. This said, Wikileaks contends, and proof there is that Leigh for all his 'journalist integrity' breached Wikileaks security by publishing a password to unlock its secrecy. Suddenly out in the open came 'unredacted' cables that named names of informants big and small.
Leigh may have a vicarious thrill in 'sticking it to Julian' yet where is his much publicised concern for the people mentioned in the cables? This 'Guardian' editor has a long trail in his 'animus' against Assange, including a long 'expose' on the Wikileaks' founder's sexcapade in Sweden that has caused him a lot of legal trouble to thread in the British courts to avoid being extradited to Stockholm, in spite of Aussage's willingness from the beginning to answer questions about his intimate relations with two consenting women which Swedish authorities rejected after initially dropping charges.
Behind the campaign to put Aussange in prison is a not so strange gaggle of bedfellows: the US government caught with its diplomatic pants down and the wrath of editors who had egos bruised.
And rotting in a cell is the 'alledged' arch leaker Bradley Manning whom the US government has not charged but for almost two years has kept under lock and key, using Abou Gharib techniques to make him crack. They failed.
The onus is on the US government for its lax security. The winners are governments and the ordinary man and woman on the street everywhere but in the US who now have access to these cables. Only Americans in the US are denied full access to them for obvious reasons.
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