Presumably, Bren Carlill, "policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council," thinks he can get away with peeing on our legs while telling us it's raining (New world in their hands: Palestinians must demonstrate they can establish a viable state before peace can come, The Australian, 13/9/08):
"Since the Palestine Liberation Organization's inception in 1964, 3 years before Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began, its objective was to destroy the Zionist entity and replace it with a Palestinian state." Presumably, the PLO emerged out of thin air. Presumably, it could have no possible reason for replacing "the Zionist entity," aka Israel, with "a Palestinian state."
"By signing the Oslo accords, Arafat signalled a policy reversal." Presumably, PLO policy was set in stone from 1964 to 1993.
"But this didn't happen. The pro-Israel Palestinian Media Watch, established to examine what the Palestinian leadership said about Israel to Palestinians, raised the alarm. Conspiracy theories were rife: Israelis were said to have distributed poisoned lollies in front of Palestinian schools, spread HIV-AIDS in Palestinian society and so on." Presumably, "the Palestinian leadership" (presumably Arafat) turned Palestinians against Israel. Presumably, the mass expulsions of Palestinians in 1948, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, the theft of Palestinian lands to make way for Israeli settlements, walls, roads, military bases and security zones, the daily murder and maiming of Palestinian civilians, their imprisonment and torture, the demolition of their homes, and the strangulation of their economy had nothing to do with it.
"Televised sermons told Palestinians Jews were Allah's enemies." Presumably, Israeli rabbis were as one in telling Israelis Arabs were Jehovah's friends.
"Educational programs prepared Palestinians for a life instead of, not beside, Israel." Presumably, Israeli educational programs have been preparing Israeli citizens for an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories for the past 41 years. Presumably, all those settlers who now live beside, around, in the midst of, or on top of, Palestinian towns and villages flunked Civics 101.
"Most shocking was the indoctrination of children. Instead of teaching ideals of peace, maps in schoolbooks omitted the word Israel. Summer camps for children were frequently named after Palestinian terrorists. Hatred of Jews was encouraged not rejected." Presumably, Israeli textbooks overflow with references to Palestine, clearly delineate the Green Line as Israel's border and do not refer to the occupied West Bank as Judea and Samaria. Presumably too, there are no monuments memorialising Israeli terrorists in Israel. The Menachem Begin Heritage Centre, for example, is a figment of the imagination. And presumably, hatred of Palestinians is not only discouraged, but punished - by sending the offenders to live among them, albeit in fortified playpens aka settlements, in the occupied West Bank.
"If Israelis were betrayed by anti-peace Palestinian statements and actions, Palestinians felt betrayed by the increasing number of roadblocks and settlements." [Nice: Israelis are betrayed, Palestinians merely feel betrayed.] Presumably, whenever Israelis talk about peace, hearing-impaired Palestinians only hear piece (of Palestine). This hurts Israelis deeply. They feel rejected, even betrayed!
"The settlement movement began in the late 1960s, after Israel's offer to return the occupied territories in exchange for peace had been rejected." Presumably, the following account, by Israeli historian Tom Segev, is a mere figment of the author's imagination: "Israel offered a withdrawal from Sinai and the Golan in return for direct negotiations for a peace treaty... Under the proposal... Israel would hang on to the Gaza Strip... [and] was also required to agree to a demilitarization of the Sinai Peninsula... Syria was asked to give up the disputed territory along the border, which had, until the war, been a demilitarized zone. The Syrians would have also had to agree to demilitarization of the Golan Heights and to undertake not to obstruct the flow of the Jordan River sources into Israel. These proposed peace agreements with Egypt and Syria were mutually exclusive, but both countries were required to disregard Jordan: the offers... included not a single word about the future of the West Bank, or about Jerusalem and its residents." (1967, pp 500-501) " Presumably, a prototype of Barak's 'generous offer'.
"Back in Jewish hands for the first time in milleniums, the West Bank is the biblical heartland. From Amos to Zechariah, almost every personality in the Old Testament lived and operated in the area. [Careful, Bren, your Christian Zionism's showing.] Often religiously motivated, the settlers established communities near culturally significant sites or on the ruins of Jewish villages destroyed 19 years earlier in the 1948-49 war of independence." [Nice: the kibbutz is now a "village." How bucolic!] Presumably, Israeli settlements have God's backing, so they're kosher.
"Despite finding work in the settlements, Palestinians resented their presence." Funny that. Presumably, those about to be shot should be grateful for the grave they're forced to dig first.
"Adding to this resentment, Israeli security measures, enacted because of Palestinian terrorism, affected all Palestinians." Presumably, the Palestinians should have welcomed the Israeli occupation with flowers and handed over their keys and title deeds to the Holy Rollers from the west before hitting the road.
Presumably, the bottom of AIJAC's barrel can't be too far away.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
A Rose by Any Other Name
[To be read in conjunction with my earlier posts on the Rose Jackson saga: A Faustian Bargain (25/8/08) & Working Out the Mechanics of Our Relationship (18/1/08).]
"The rising Labor star and Waverley Council candidate, Rose Jackson, had an early baptism in politics as campaign manager on George Newhouse's high-profile tilt for Wentworth during the last federal election. Ms Jackson, who was then 22, awoke one morning to a damning front-page story in The Australian accusing her of espousing anti-Zionism in an online student discussion forum. 'I went straight into the bathroom and vomited', she said yesterday. 'I knew I had been misrepresented in such a fundamental way... it not only made me question why I was in politics, it made me feel like my career was over'." (Energy & charisma may take Jackson to a council seat, Josephine Tovey, Sydney Morning Herald, 10/9/08)
Let's get this straight. Rose was heaving over her toilet bowl after reading The Australian. As you would. Specifically, however, after reading a "damning" story "accusing" her of "espousing anti-Zionism." Oh no, not that, not anti-Zionism! Not opposition to colonialism, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, racism, collective narcissism, and general swaggering thuggery!
Guess it just wasn't your day, Rose.
Update: This popped up in The Australian's Cut & Paste of 12/9/08: "Would-be Labor councillor Rose Jackson claims in The Sydney Morning Herald that she was "fundamentally misrepresented" in The Australian: [insert above quote from the Herald] But in an article in The Australian on August 23, Jackson admits she did espouse anti-Zionism as a student activist: 'Rose Jackson said two years ago she opposed Zionism because it calls for the creation of a Jewish state, 'and I think all governments should be secular. No Jewish, Islamic, Christian states... in the world, just good, robust, secular democracies'. 'Looking back, I think I just bought the prevailing polemic on campus at the time that Israel was some sort of quasi-theocracy. Having explored the subject more deeply since then, I understand this is nonsense', she told The Australian Jewish News this week. 'I realise I just misunderstood'."
You're branded for life, Rose.
"The rising Labor star and Waverley Council candidate, Rose Jackson, had an early baptism in politics as campaign manager on George Newhouse's high-profile tilt for Wentworth during the last federal election. Ms Jackson, who was then 22, awoke one morning to a damning front-page story in The Australian accusing her of espousing anti-Zionism in an online student discussion forum. 'I went straight into the bathroom and vomited', she said yesterday. 'I knew I had been misrepresented in such a fundamental way... it not only made me question why I was in politics, it made me feel like my career was over'." (Energy & charisma may take Jackson to a council seat, Josephine Tovey, Sydney Morning Herald, 10/9/08)
Let's get this straight. Rose was heaving over her toilet bowl after reading The Australian. As you would. Specifically, however, after reading a "damning" story "accusing" her of "espousing anti-Zionism." Oh no, not that, not anti-Zionism! Not opposition to colonialism, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, racism, collective narcissism, and general swaggering thuggery!
Guess it just wasn't your day, Rose.
Update: This popped up in The Australian's Cut & Paste of 12/9/08: "Would-be Labor councillor Rose Jackson claims in The Sydney Morning Herald that she was "fundamentally misrepresented" in The Australian: [insert above quote from the Herald] But in an article in The Australian on August 23, Jackson admits she did espouse anti-Zionism as a student activist: 'Rose Jackson said two years ago she opposed Zionism because it calls for the creation of a Jewish state, 'and I think all governments should be secular. No Jewish, Islamic, Christian states... in the world, just good, robust, secular democracies'. 'Looking back, I think I just bought the prevailing polemic on campus at the time that Israel was some sort of quasi-theocracy. Having explored the subject more deeply since then, I understand this is nonsense', she told The Australian Jewish News this week. 'I realise I just misunderstood'."
You're branded for life, Rose.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Hamish Does Hasbara
"Israel developed its bomb not because it thought it an essential part of being an independent state, but as a precaution against any of its regional enemies getting one. As the Israeli politician Yossi Beilin once explained it to a group of reporters in New Delhi, this set it apart from the Indians or Chinese. Unlike India, Israel would be ready to trade its bombs away in a genuine and all-inclusive regional non-nuclear pact."
This example of Israeli apologetics cropped up in a Sydney Morning Herald piece, Iran strike a costly attempt to buy time (6/9/08) by Asia-Pacific editor Hamish McDonald.
McDonald's claim that Israel, the Middle East's only nuclear-armed state, is, of course, completely groundless:
"Less than 72 hours before it completes its 2-year term in the 15-member UN Security Council, Syria formally introduced a resolution Monday calling for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the politically volatile Middle East... Syrian Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad... said Syria introduced the proposal on behalf of the 22 Arab countries at the UN. The resolution was also endorsed by the 117 members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the 54-nation Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), he added. If the Council fails to vote on it by Wednesday, Mekdad said, the new Arab member in the Council, Algeria, 'will continue to pursue the objectives of the resolution'." (Syria calls for nuclear free Middle East, Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service, 30/12/03)
"Egypt Wednesday proposed the creation of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East and blasted Israel for standing in the way, at a meeting in Vienna of the UN atomic watchdog... Egyptian ambassador Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy told th 139-nation general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency that 'Egypt will be tabling a draft resolution on... a nuclear-free zone' and hopes for 'a serious international commitment in this area'." (Egypt proposes nuclear-free zone in Middle East, AFP, 28/9/05)
No prizes for guessing Israel's responses.
This example of Israeli apologetics cropped up in a Sydney Morning Herald piece, Iran strike a costly attempt to buy time (6/9/08) by Asia-Pacific editor Hamish McDonald.
McDonald's claim that Israel, the Middle East's only nuclear-armed state, is, of course, completely groundless:
"Less than 72 hours before it completes its 2-year term in the 15-member UN Security Council, Syria formally introduced a resolution Monday calling for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the politically volatile Middle East... Syrian Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad... said Syria introduced the proposal on behalf of the 22 Arab countries at the UN. The resolution was also endorsed by the 117 members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the 54-nation Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), he added. If the Council fails to vote on it by Wednesday, Mekdad said, the new Arab member in the Council, Algeria, 'will continue to pursue the objectives of the resolution'." (Syria calls for nuclear free Middle East, Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service, 30/12/03)
"Egypt Wednesday proposed the creation of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East and blasted Israel for standing in the way, at a meeting in Vienna of the UN atomic watchdog... Egyptian ambassador Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy told th 139-nation general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency that 'Egypt will be tabling a draft resolution on... a nuclear-free zone' and hopes for 'a serious international commitment in this area'." (Egypt proposes nuclear-free zone in Middle East, AFP, 28/9/05)
No prizes for guessing Israel's responses.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
American Jihad
What the mainstream media say:
"Over the past decade, every major terrorist attack by Islamic militants against Western interests can be traced back to Afghan training camps and Pakistani madrassas." (Editorial, Afghan challenge: The West cannot waiver in its commitment, The Australian, 9/9/08)
And what they don't say:
"How did right-wing Islamism, an ideological tendency with small and scattered numbers before the Afghan War [1979- 1989], come to occupy the global center stage after 9/11? The answer lies in the Afghan jihad [against the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan], which gave it not only the organization, the numbers, the skills, the reach, and the confidence but also a coherent objective. Before the Afghan jihad, the right wing of political Islam was divided into 2 camps: those identified with pro-American regimes, as in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and those opposed to these same regimes, seeing them as American stooges that had betrayed the Palestinian cause. Unlike Islamists who organized political parties and sought to galvanize ordinary people into political activity, however, the right-wingers had no program outside of isolated acts of urban terror. Until the Afghan jihad, right-wing Islamists out of power had neither the aspiration of drawing strength from popular organization nor the possibility of marshaling strength from any alternative source. The Reagan administration rescued right-wing Islamism from this historical cul-de-sac. The American jihad claimed to create an Islamic infrastructure of liberation but in reality forged an 'infrastructure of terror' that used Islamic symbols to tap into Islamic networks and communities. To understand the deep-seated effects of the decision to ideologize the war as Islamic, it is necessary to look at different aspects of the mobilization that was the American jihad.
"The blueprint for the Afghan jihad was worked out by the CIA, in collaboration with the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan. For the actual conduct of the war, the CIA acquired weapons and specialists in guerilla warfare from different countries and delivered them, along with intelligence and surveillance information on Afghanistan, to the ISI. The ISI was responsible for transport of weapons to the border, supervised the training of Afghan fighters in Pakistan, and coordinated their operations inside Afghanistan. While ISI was the main regional proxy in the operation, the second line included the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, with the intelligence services of Britain, China, the Philippines, and even Israel also involved.
"... Beyond the front-line proxy states and their intelligence agencies, increasingly the intermediaries were private institutions, both religious and secular. The overall effect was progressively to privatize the war on an international basis. From this dynamic emerged the forces that carried out the operation we know as 9/11.
"Had the anti-Soviet crusade been organized in a national framework, the CIA would have looked for mainly Afghani recruits to wage it. But with the war recast as an international jihad, the CIA looked for volunteers from Muslim populations all over the globe. Outside of Pakistan, the Arab countries were the main source of volunteers, who became known as Afghan-Arabs...
"The CIA looked for a Saudi prince to lead this crusade but was unable to find one. It settled for the next best, the son of an illustrious family closely connected to the Saudi royal house... Bin Laden was recruited, with US approval at the highest level, by Prince Turki al-Faisal, then head of Saudi intelligence. According to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, Osama bin Laden first travelled to Peshawar in 1980 and met mujahideen leaders there, and for the next 2 years he returned frequently with Saudi donations for the cause. In 1982, he decided to settle in Peshawar. In 1986, bin Laden worked as the major contractor to build a large CIA-funded project: the Khost tunnel complex deep under the mountains close to the Pakistani border. The Khost complex housed a major arms depot, a training facility, and a medical center for the mujahideen. It is the Khost complex that President Clinton decided in 1998 to bomb with Tomahawk cruise missiles. It is also in the Khost complex - the famed mountain caves - that the United States later fought al-Qaeda remnants in its own Afghan War.
"Though Osama bin Laden had been a student of Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, the first Afghan-Arab gatekeeper of the jihad in the mid-80s, a break between Azzam and bin Laden came towards the end of the Afghan jihad. The parting of the ways was the result of a disagreement in 1989 over the future of the jihad: bin Laden 'envisioned an all-Arab legion, which eventually could be used to wage jihad in Saudi Arabia and Egypt', whereas Azzam 'strongly opposed making war against fellow-Muslims'. Soon after, Azzam and 2 of his sons were blown up by a car bomb... A meeting was held toward the end of 1989 in the town of Khost to decide on the future of the jihad. One of the 10 at the meeting was a Sudanese fighter named Jamal al-Fadl. He testified in a New York courtroom in one of the trials connected with the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in East Africa that a new organization was created in that meeting to wage jihad beyond the borders of Afghanistan. The organization was al-Qaeda, 'the Base'. Bin laden thus emerged as the organizer and patron of the most prominent privatized arm of the American jihad."(Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, Mahmood Mamdani, 2004, pp 129-133)
"As the turf war culminated in a seesaw battle for Kabul, the [Afghan] civil war [which followed the 1989 Soviet withdrawal] turned vicious. When it became obvious that [Gulbuddin] Hikmatyar's forces [Hizb-i-Islami] were losing ground, the Pakistani army shifted its backing to the Taliban, a group mainly comprising students it had trained since 1980 in madrassahs in the North-West Frontier Province. The ISI saw the Taliban as amenable to the tight control and thus a preferable substitute for the now discredited Islamic coalition led by Hikmatyar. With the Cold War over, the focus of official America also narrowed to a percuniary dimension: oil. And for American oil interests - particularly Unocal, the giant oil company that hoped to build a trans-Afghan pipeline from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean as an alternative to going through Iran - any group that could offer security in Afghanistan would do. On October 4, 1996, The Los Angeles Times reported that a new rumor was making the rounds of Kabul - 'many are sure that the Clinton administration is supporting the Taliban, the victorious Islamic militia' - and added that the conspiracy theory was 'plausible, given the great mystery that shrouds the Taliban's rise and rapid advance: How did a ragtag force that emerged in late 1994 among Muslim religious students in the southern region of Kandahar and adjacent areas of Pakistan grow so quickly that, two years later, it has become master of three-quarters of Afghanistan? Who paid for its weaponry, ammunition and vehicles? Who organized its training and logistics? Is intelligence or military assistance received from outside one of the reasons the Taliban has enjoyed astonishing, and relatively bloodless, successes over experienced mujahideen who, for nearly a decade, fought occupying Soviet forces?' It cited 'generous support' from Pakistan but still wondered whether the United States was involved. A ranking UN official said: 'The U.S. wants law and order in Afghanistan, and the Taliban now seem like the best bet'. A local director of a foreign charity was equally cynical: 'There are two different things - American state interests and human rights. For the politicians running America, human rights take second place.' And a Kabul university graduate who worked as a translator asked the reporter, 'How can your country want to deal with people who whip women for not conforming to their dress code?' After a State Department meeting with a visiting Taliban delegation on February 3, 1997, a senior U.S. diplomat explained his government's point of view: 'The Taliban will probably develop like Saudi Arabia. There will be Aramco, pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that.' " (ibid, pp 159-161)
"Over the past decade, every major terrorist attack by Islamic militants against Western interests can be traced back to Afghan training camps and Pakistani madrassas." (Editorial, Afghan challenge: The West cannot waiver in its commitment, The Australian, 9/9/08)
And what they don't say:
"How did right-wing Islamism, an ideological tendency with small and scattered numbers before the Afghan War [1979- 1989], come to occupy the global center stage after 9/11? The answer lies in the Afghan jihad [against the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan], which gave it not only the organization, the numbers, the skills, the reach, and the confidence but also a coherent objective. Before the Afghan jihad, the right wing of political Islam was divided into 2 camps: those identified with pro-American regimes, as in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and those opposed to these same regimes, seeing them as American stooges that had betrayed the Palestinian cause. Unlike Islamists who organized political parties and sought to galvanize ordinary people into political activity, however, the right-wingers had no program outside of isolated acts of urban terror. Until the Afghan jihad, right-wing Islamists out of power had neither the aspiration of drawing strength from popular organization nor the possibility of marshaling strength from any alternative source. The Reagan administration rescued right-wing Islamism from this historical cul-de-sac. The American jihad claimed to create an Islamic infrastructure of liberation but in reality forged an 'infrastructure of terror' that used Islamic symbols to tap into Islamic networks and communities. To understand the deep-seated effects of the decision to ideologize the war as Islamic, it is necessary to look at different aspects of the mobilization that was the American jihad.
"The blueprint for the Afghan jihad was worked out by the CIA, in collaboration with the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan. For the actual conduct of the war, the CIA acquired weapons and specialists in guerilla warfare from different countries and delivered them, along with intelligence and surveillance information on Afghanistan, to the ISI. The ISI was responsible for transport of weapons to the border, supervised the training of Afghan fighters in Pakistan, and coordinated their operations inside Afghanistan. While ISI was the main regional proxy in the operation, the second line included the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, with the intelligence services of Britain, China, the Philippines, and even Israel also involved.
"... Beyond the front-line proxy states and their intelligence agencies, increasingly the intermediaries were private institutions, both religious and secular. The overall effect was progressively to privatize the war on an international basis. From this dynamic emerged the forces that carried out the operation we know as 9/11.
"Had the anti-Soviet crusade been organized in a national framework, the CIA would have looked for mainly Afghani recruits to wage it. But with the war recast as an international jihad, the CIA looked for volunteers from Muslim populations all over the globe. Outside of Pakistan, the Arab countries were the main source of volunteers, who became known as Afghan-Arabs...
"The CIA looked for a Saudi prince to lead this crusade but was unable to find one. It settled for the next best, the son of an illustrious family closely connected to the Saudi royal house... Bin Laden was recruited, with US approval at the highest level, by Prince Turki al-Faisal, then head of Saudi intelligence. According to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, Osama bin Laden first travelled to Peshawar in 1980 and met mujahideen leaders there, and for the next 2 years he returned frequently with Saudi donations for the cause. In 1982, he decided to settle in Peshawar. In 1986, bin Laden worked as the major contractor to build a large CIA-funded project: the Khost tunnel complex deep under the mountains close to the Pakistani border. The Khost complex housed a major arms depot, a training facility, and a medical center for the mujahideen. It is the Khost complex that President Clinton decided in 1998 to bomb with Tomahawk cruise missiles. It is also in the Khost complex - the famed mountain caves - that the United States later fought al-Qaeda remnants in its own Afghan War.
"Though Osama bin Laden had been a student of Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, the first Afghan-Arab gatekeeper of the jihad in the mid-80s, a break between Azzam and bin Laden came towards the end of the Afghan jihad. The parting of the ways was the result of a disagreement in 1989 over the future of the jihad: bin Laden 'envisioned an all-Arab legion, which eventually could be used to wage jihad in Saudi Arabia and Egypt', whereas Azzam 'strongly opposed making war against fellow-Muslims'. Soon after, Azzam and 2 of his sons were blown up by a car bomb... A meeting was held toward the end of 1989 in the town of Khost to decide on the future of the jihad. One of the 10 at the meeting was a Sudanese fighter named Jamal al-Fadl. He testified in a New York courtroom in one of the trials connected with the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in East Africa that a new organization was created in that meeting to wage jihad beyond the borders of Afghanistan. The organization was al-Qaeda, 'the Base'. Bin laden thus emerged as the organizer and patron of the most prominent privatized arm of the American jihad."(Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, Mahmood Mamdani, 2004, pp 129-133)
"As the turf war culminated in a seesaw battle for Kabul, the [Afghan] civil war [which followed the 1989 Soviet withdrawal] turned vicious. When it became obvious that [Gulbuddin] Hikmatyar's forces [Hizb-i-Islami] were losing ground, the Pakistani army shifted its backing to the Taliban, a group mainly comprising students it had trained since 1980 in madrassahs in the North-West Frontier Province. The ISI saw the Taliban as amenable to the tight control and thus a preferable substitute for the now discredited Islamic coalition led by Hikmatyar. With the Cold War over, the focus of official America also narrowed to a percuniary dimension: oil. And for American oil interests - particularly Unocal, the giant oil company that hoped to build a trans-Afghan pipeline from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean as an alternative to going through Iran - any group that could offer security in Afghanistan would do. On October 4, 1996, The Los Angeles Times reported that a new rumor was making the rounds of Kabul - 'many are sure that the Clinton administration is supporting the Taliban, the victorious Islamic militia' - and added that the conspiracy theory was 'plausible, given the great mystery that shrouds the Taliban's rise and rapid advance: How did a ragtag force that emerged in late 1994 among Muslim religious students in the southern region of Kandahar and adjacent areas of Pakistan grow so quickly that, two years later, it has become master of three-quarters of Afghanistan? Who paid for its weaponry, ammunition and vehicles? Who organized its training and logistics? Is intelligence or military assistance received from outside one of the reasons the Taliban has enjoyed astonishing, and relatively bloodless, successes over experienced mujahideen who, for nearly a decade, fought occupying Soviet forces?' It cited 'generous support' from Pakistan but still wondered whether the United States was involved. A ranking UN official said: 'The U.S. wants law and order in Afghanistan, and the Taliban now seem like the best bet'. A local director of a foreign charity was equally cynical: 'There are two different things - American state interests and human rights. For the politicians running America, human rights take second place.' And a Kabul university graduate who worked as a translator asked the reporter, 'How can your country want to deal with people who whip women for not conforming to their dress code?' After a State Department meeting with a visiting Taliban delegation on February 3, 1997, a senior U.S. diplomat explained his government's point of view: 'The Taliban will probably develop like Saudi Arabia. There will be Aramco, pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that.' " (ibid, pp 159-161)
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Bloody Fools & Rabid Dogs
In my 19/5/08 post, Supping With the Devil, on Israel's arms exports, I cited Australia's projected purchase (initiated by the Howard Government) of Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The following updates (3/9/08 & 5/9/08) have appeared in The Australian:
1) "The axe is poised to fall on... the $150 million contract to buy UAVs for the Australian Defence Force... The Israeli-built 1-View 250 UAV system is dogged with technical problems and more than 2 years behind schedule. The relationship between the partners in the project, US aircraft builder Boeing and Israel Aerospace Industries, has deteriorated in recent months... A new regiment... had been raised to operate the Tactical UAVs, which are designed to provide the army with airborne surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaisance capabilities for ground operations." (Defence contract faces axe, Mark Dodd)
2) "The Rudd Government last night confirmed it would axe a troubled $150 million defence contract to buy a UAV capability for the army... The ADF will still get a UAV capability, Defence Procurement Secretary Greg Combet told The Australian last night. 'This Government wants nothing more than to get a UAV capability into theatre (Afghanistan) for the army... This is important to counter emerging threats such as IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and the Government is currently investigating alternatives', Mr Combet said... The federal Government was committed to spending $100 billion over the next 10 to 15 years on defence contracts... " (Defence axes $150m Boeing drone deal, Mark Dodd)
$100 billion!!!? To blow on blowing away those who don't get with the Israeli/American program in the Middle East? What bloody fools we are.
Exactly what we are squandering our billions on emerged earlier in the week: "Suspected Taliban militants arrested by Australian special forces in Afghanistan have been detained in 'dog pens' in actions that have left Australian Muslim groups outraged and prompted a protest from the Afghan ambassador in Canberra." (Fury as diggers admit Taliban held in dog pens*, The Australian, Mark Dodd, 2/9/08) Notice how the word "Taliban" in The Australian's headline gives way in the body of the article to "suspected Taliban"?
Of course, that rag's letter writers were fairly frothing and foaming at the mouth at the very idea that local Muslims might take offence at such goings-on.
Graham Pinn of Buderim, Qld frothed: "Perhaps the solution would be for the Australian special forces to tow an air-conditioned mobile prison into the mountains, complete with a mosque and gourmet halal food." IOW, suspects should be presumed guilty.
Irene Buckler of Glenwood, NSW foamed: "... Australian Muslim groups should be expressing outrage that the Taliban keep Muslim women and girls penned up permanently." Outrageous Islamophobic smears? No problemo for The Australian.
Graeme Manning of West Hobart, Tas frothed: "If an Australian Digger were to be captured by the Taliban, he would be very lucky to reach a dog pen." What are "Australian Diggers" doing there in the first place?
Ralph Clark of Hervey Bay, Qld foamed: "A more important question is why this matter deserves front-page headlines when the continued killings of countless non-combatants by the Taliban** does not." But I thought this was supposed to be a conflict between Civilization & Barbarism?
Peter West of The Vines, WA frothed: "Does it occur to those protesting about the SAS treatment of Taliban prisoners that if the Taliban stopped behaving like mad dogs, then the SAS would have no occasion to treat them as such." So the suspects were bona fide mad-dog Taliban, were they?
Alice Murphy of Unley, SA foamed: "What is the Afghan ambassador... and the Islamic High council going to say or do about my cultural sensitivities being abused by the murder of aid workers in Afghanistan?" Hello? Because aid workers are being murdered, it's OK for Australian troops to degrade Taliban suspects?
K Moncrieff of Stafford Hts, Qld frothed: "It's to be hoped that the IHC expresses the same degree of concern for Australian troops and Afghan civilians killed and injured by the al-Qa'ida-backed Taliban terrorists** in Afghanistan, as it does for the 4 Taliban suspects imprisoned in dog pens for 24 hours..." The question of what the hell Australian troops are doing there in the first place never arises (See my 27/2/08 post Bush's Taxi to the Dark Side).
The only exception to the above instances of froth & foam was this from Ian Semmel of Maleny, Qld: "Whenever allegations of torture and cruel punishment arise in the so-called war on terror, the defence is always that we are dealing with really bad people and they deserve it. Mark Dodd invokes this defence* when he writes that the use of dog pens to detain the Afghan prisoners 'pales into insignificance compared with the atrocities committed by the Taliban...' But the 4 Afghans involved were 'suspected Taliban insurgents', not convicted prisoners. Most of the inmates of Guantanamo Bay are in a similar position and what we have there is innocent people being tortured. If the Australian military believes it has the right to do whatever it likes in Afghanistan, all our troops should be withdrawn immediately."
Precisely!
[*Mark Dodd's 'report' was interesting in another respect. Dodd quoted a defence "spokesman" as saying, "'... this holding area provided the best secure, safe and isolated short-term accomodation until the following day'." This was followed by: "And the use of pens pales in significance compared with the atrocities committed by the Taliban before the regime was ousted in the aftermath of the US terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Then, alleged adulterers were stoned to death. Remnants of the regime are still committing abuses. Earlier this month suspected Taliban extremists abducted and executed a Japanese aid worker. His death was preceeded days earlier by the killing of 3 Western women aid workers just outside the capital Kabul." As these sentences are not attributed to the aforementioned defence "spokesman," one can only assume that either Mr Dodd (or his editor) deliberately threw them in to in some way mitigate the Australian troops' penning of Taliban suspects. If this is the case, Dodd/his editor have turned what should have been a straight news report into a reportorial.]
[** "To the villagers here [in Azizabad], there is no doubt what happened in an American airstrike on Aug. 22: more than 90 civilians, the majority of them women and children, were killed. The Afghan government, human rights and intelligence officials, independent witnesses and a UN investigation back up their account, pointing to dozens of freshly dug graves, lists of the dead, and cellphone videos and other images showing bodies of women and children laid out in the village mosque... For 2 weeks, the United States military has insisted that only 5-7 civilians, and 30-35 militants, were killed in what it says was a successful operation against the Taliban..." Evidence points to civilian toll in Afghan raid, Carlotta Gall, The New York Times, 8/9/08)]
1) "The axe is poised to fall on... the $150 million contract to buy UAVs for the Australian Defence Force... The Israeli-built 1-View 250 UAV system is dogged with technical problems and more than 2 years behind schedule. The relationship between the partners in the project, US aircraft builder Boeing and Israel Aerospace Industries, has deteriorated in recent months... A new regiment... had been raised to operate the Tactical UAVs, which are designed to provide the army with airborne surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaisance capabilities for ground operations." (Defence contract faces axe, Mark Dodd)
2) "The Rudd Government last night confirmed it would axe a troubled $150 million defence contract to buy a UAV capability for the army... The ADF will still get a UAV capability, Defence Procurement Secretary Greg Combet told The Australian last night. 'This Government wants nothing more than to get a UAV capability into theatre (Afghanistan) for the army... This is important to counter emerging threats such as IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and the Government is currently investigating alternatives', Mr Combet said... The federal Government was committed to spending $100 billion over the next 10 to 15 years on defence contracts... " (Defence axes $150m Boeing drone deal, Mark Dodd)
$100 billion!!!? To blow on blowing away those who don't get with the Israeli/American program in the Middle East? What bloody fools we are.
Exactly what we are squandering our billions on emerged earlier in the week: "Suspected Taliban militants arrested by Australian special forces in Afghanistan have been detained in 'dog pens' in actions that have left Australian Muslim groups outraged and prompted a protest from the Afghan ambassador in Canberra." (Fury as diggers admit Taliban held in dog pens*, The Australian, Mark Dodd, 2/9/08) Notice how the word "Taliban" in The Australian's headline gives way in the body of the article to "suspected Taliban"?
Of course, that rag's letter writers were fairly frothing and foaming at the mouth at the very idea that local Muslims might take offence at such goings-on.
Graham Pinn of Buderim, Qld frothed: "Perhaps the solution would be for the Australian special forces to tow an air-conditioned mobile prison into the mountains, complete with a mosque and gourmet halal food." IOW, suspects should be presumed guilty.
Irene Buckler of Glenwood, NSW foamed: "... Australian Muslim groups should be expressing outrage that the Taliban keep Muslim women and girls penned up permanently." Outrageous Islamophobic smears? No problemo for The Australian.
Graeme Manning of West Hobart, Tas frothed: "If an Australian Digger were to be captured by the Taliban, he would be very lucky to reach a dog pen." What are "Australian Diggers" doing there in the first place?
Ralph Clark of Hervey Bay, Qld foamed: "A more important question is why this matter deserves front-page headlines when the continued killings of countless non-combatants by the Taliban** does not." But I thought this was supposed to be a conflict between Civilization & Barbarism?
Peter West of The Vines, WA frothed: "Does it occur to those protesting about the SAS treatment of Taliban prisoners that if the Taliban stopped behaving like mad dogs, then the SAS would have no occasion to treat them as such." So the suspects were bona fide mad-dog Taliban, were they?
Alice Murphy of Unley, SA foamed: "What is the Afghan ambassador... and the Islamic High council going to say or do about my cultural sensitivities being abused by the murder of aid workers in Afghanistan?" Hello? Because aid workers are being murdered, it's OK for Australian troops to degrade Taliban suspects?
K Moncrieff of Stafford Hts, Qld frothed: "It's to be hoped that the IHC expresses the same degree of concern for Australian troops and Afghan civilians killed and injured by the al-Qa'ida-backed Taliban terrorists** in Afghanistan, as it does for the 4 Taliban suspects imprisoned in dog pens for 24 hours..." The question of what the hell Australian troops are doing there in the first place never arises (See my 27/2/08 post Bush's Taxi to the Dark Side).
The only exception to the above instances of froth & foam was this from Ian Semmel of Maleny, Qld: "Whenever allegations of torture and cruel punishment arise in the so-called war on terror, the defence is always that we are dealing with really bad people and they deserve it. Mark Dodd invokes this defence* when he writes that the use of dog pens to detain the Afghan prisoners 'pales into insignificance compared with the atrocities committed by the Taliban...' But the 4 Afghans involved were 'suspected Taliban insurgents', not convicted prisoners. Most of the inmates of Guantanamo Bay are in a similar position and what we have there is innocent people being tortured. If the Australian military believes it has the right to do whatever it likes in Afghanistan, all our troops should be withdrawn immediately."
Precisely!
[*Mark Dodd's 'report' was interesting in another respect. Dodd quoted a defence "spokesman" as saying, "'... this holding area provided the best secure, safe and isolated short-term accomodation until the following day'." This was followed by: "And the use of pens pales in significance compared with the atrocities committed by the Taliban before the regime was ousted in the aftermath of the US terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Then, alleged adulterers were stoned to death. Remnants of the regime are still committing abuses. Earlier this month suspected Taliban extremists abducted and executed a Japanese aid worker. His death was preceeded days earlier by the killing of 3 Western women aid workers just outside the capital Kabul." As these sentences are not attributed to the aforementioned defence "spokesman," one can only assume that either Mr Dodd (or his editor) deliberately threw them in to in some way mitigate the Australian troops' penning of Taliban suspects. If this is the case, Dodd/his editor have turned what should have been a straight news report into a reportorial.]
[** "To the villagers here [in Azizabad], there is no doubt what happened in an American airstrike on Aug. 22: more than 90 civilians, the majority of them women and children, were killed. The Afghan government, human rights and intelligence officials, independent witnesses and a UN investigation back up their account, pointing to dozens of freshly dug graves, lists of the dead, and cellphone videos and other images showing bodies of women and children laid out in the village mosque... For 2 weeks, the United States military has insisted that only 5-7 civilians, and 30-35 militants, were killed in what it says was a successful operation against the Taliban..." Evidence points to civilian toll in Afghan raid, Carlotta Gall, The New York Times, 8/9/08)]
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
The Israeli Mystique
How many death squad leaders do you think could make it to Australia on a tour sponsored by a 'local' women's organization, and be given a platform in a major broadsheet to lecture its readers on security? But it's OK. He's Israeli and that's sooo cool. His name is Juval Aviv. Juval supposedly* "led a deadly team of 5 assassins to avenge the 1972 massacre of 11 Israeli athletes [at the Munich olympics.]" He's "on an Australian tour sponsored by the Women's International Zionist Organization." And he's appeared, complete with pic, to proffer his pearls in the Sydney Morning Herald (A bloody & vengeful claim to fame, Daniel Flitton 2/9/08).
What a mensch is Juval!
Herald journalist Flitton was spell-bound: "This much is clear. Mr Aviv is a fascinating storyteller with strong views on the present-day terrorist threat."
If only the former Howard government had listened to Juval back when and followed his sage advice, we would never have joined the Coalition of the Willies! Cop this: "I'm in the loop, I'm seeing a lot of information, and I can tell you that Australia was always far away, the dark side of the moon... You were isolated, you were in a bubble, and you were secure... Australia's troop deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan make it a bigger terrorist target, lifting it to rank alongside the US, Israel and Britain." Oh, John/Peter/Alexander & Co, what have you done?
But now, warns Juval darkly, "That bubble has burst... Australia today is exactly where America was before 9/11 - gullible, believing you are secure because you are an island. You have done a lot [fridge magnets?], but you are light years away in Australia from really being ready for an attack. A lot of people really don't believe it is going to happen."
Shit! Juval, save us! Waddawegonnado, O Great "White House & Congressional Counter-Terrorism Consultant"? - You "should sit down and work out emergency plans, including places to meet if [your family] cannot return home and who will pick the children up from school." Gee, thanks, Juval, I feel so much better prepared now. - You're welcome, just make the cheque out to my "New York private investigation firm."
Enough of the banter - what really interested me in Flitton on Juval was the light shed by the latter on Israeli law enforcement methods: "We found those 11 terrorists, and one by one, we brought them to justice - which we only know how to do in Israel, as I always say." You m-m-m-mean, stammered Flitton, as a chill ran down his spine, "executions"? The "stocky and smiling" Juval nodded. "At the time, " he said, we had "to send a message of strength."
There you have it: Israeli 'justice' has always been more about bloody corpus than habeas corpus.
* 'Supposedly'. As in 'according to Juval'. Have the good ladies of WIZO been conned? Has Juval's "700-strong audience in Melbourne last week" been dudded? Is Juval really who he claims to be? I'm sure it doesn't matter to WIZO, of course. Political Zionists thrive on delusion. What actually happened is neither here nor there for them. Truth, like Australian or American politics, always boils down to 'Is it good for Israel?' Anyway, fact or fiction, Juval has no doubt stiffened the spines of the Zionist faithful wonderfully, so I'm sure WIZO got their money's worth. And the audience most likely found his tales of derring-do as spell-binding as Flitton did. The latter, of course, did note that "[Juval's] story has been challenged by Israeli intelligence officials" - but that, folks, isn't the half of it:-
Ponder this excerpt from Secret Agent Schmuck: The spooky truth behind the media's favorite 'spy' by Chris Thompson, writing in The Village Voice of 16/10/07: "... Aviv has built a remarkable career for himself. In 1989, following the Pan Am 103 bombing that killed 270 people in Lockerbie, Scotland, airline officials hired Aviv to investigate the incident. His report - alleging that the bombing was a CIA gun-and-drug smuggling operation gone terribly wrong - was leaked to the press, reportedly by Aviv himself. News outlets like Time, NBC, ABC, and Barron's picked up the story. But as more skeptical journalists began to examine Aviv's report, Pan Am officials suddenly dropped their plans to use it as a defence, and the media outlets that had run Aviv's allegations squirmed under the scrutiny. A Brooklyn federal magistrate later found Aviv's report to be utterly without merit. Today, American intelligence officials who were charged with investigating the Pan Am 103 bombing are still furious with Aviv - and they fume over the fact that national television outlets treat him as anything but a fraud. 'This crud, this piece of dirt, went around inventing stories about how this plane got destroyed, because he was paid money to do so', says Vincent Cannistraro, the former chief of operations and analysis at the CIA's Counterterrorism Centre. 'The man is not worth being in human company, frankly'. 'This guy's full of shit', says Larry Johnson, who served in the CIA and as a deputy director in the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. 'What's true is, yes, he has a security and corporate-intelligence firm, and he's big at playing up the Israeli mystique. If you say it with a foreign accent, you're good to go'." (http://www.villagevoice.com/)
And how's this for chutzpah: according to Flitton, secret agent schmuck wears "a round badge with the CIA emblem proudly pinned to his lapel." Nice!
What a mensch is Juval!
Herald journalist Flitton was spell-bound: "This much is clear. Mr Aviv is a fascinating storyteller with strong views on the present-day terrorist threat."
If only the former Howard government had listened to Juval back when and followed his sage advice, we would never have joined the Coalition of the Willies! Cop this: "I'm in the loop, I'm seeing a lot of information, and I can tell you that Australia was always far away, the dark side of the moon... You were isolated, you were in a bubble, and you were secure... Australia's troop deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan make it a bigger terrorist target, lifting it to rank alongside the US, Israel and Britain." Oh, John/Peter/Alexander & Co, what have you done?
But now, warns Juval darkly, "That bubble has burst... Australia today is exactly where America was before 9/11 - gullible, believing you are secure because you are an island. You have done a lot [fridge magnets?], but you are light years away in Australia from really being ready for an attack. A lot of people really don't believe it is going to happen."
Shit! Juval, save us! Waddawegonnado, O Great "White House & Congressional Counter-Terrorism Consultant"? - You "should sit down and work out emergency plans, including places to meet if [your family] cannot return home and who will pick the children up from school." Gee, thanks, Juval, I feel so much better prepared now. - You're welcome, just make the cheque out to my "New York private investigation firm."
Enough of the banter - what really interested me in Flitton on Juval was the light shed by the latter on Israeli law enforcement methods: "We found those 11 terrorists, and one by one, we brought them to justice - which we only know how to do in Israel, as I always say." You m-m-m-mean, stammered Flitton, as a chill ran down his spine, "executions"? The "stocky and smiling" Juval nodded. "At the time, " he said, we had "to send a message of strength."
There you have it: Israeli 'justice' has always been more about bloody corpus than habeas corpus.
* 'Supposedly'. As in 'according to Juval'. Have the good ladies of WIZO been conned? Has Juval's "700-strong audience in Melbourne last week" been dudded? Is Juval really who he claims to be? I'm sure it doesn't matter to WIZO, of course. Political Zionists thrive on delusion. What actually happened is neither here nor there for them. Truth, like Australian or American politics, always boils down to 'Is it good for Israel?' Anyway, fact or fiction, Juval has no doubt stiffened the spines of the Zionist faithful wonderfully, so I'm sure WIZO got their money's worth. And the audience most likely found his tales of derring-do as spell-binding as Flitton did. The latter, of course, did note that "[Juval's] story has been challenged by Israeli intelligence officials" - but that, folks, isn't the half of it:-
Ponder this excerpt from Secret Agent Schmuck: The spooky truth behind the media's favorite 'spy' by Chris Thompson, writing in The Village Voice of 16/10/07: "... Aviv has built a remarkable career for himself. In 1989, following the Pan Am 103 bombing that killed 270 people in Lockerbie, Scotland, airline officials hired Aviv to investigate the incident. His report - alleging that the bombing was a CIA gun-and-drug smuggling operation gone terribly wrong - was leaked to the press, reportedly by Aviv himself. News outlets like Time, NBC, ABC, and Barron's picked up the story. But as more skeptical journalists began to examine Aviv's report, Pan Am officials suddenly dropped their plans to use it as a defence, and the media outlets that had run Aviv's allegations squirmed under the scrutiny. A Brooklyn federal magistrate later found Aviv's report to be utterly without merit. Today, American intelligence officials who were charged with investigating the Pan Am 103 bombing are still furious with Aviv - and they fume over the fact that national television outlets treat him as anything but a fraud. 'This crud, this piece of dirt, went around inventing stories about how this plane got destroyed, because he was paid money to do so', says Vincent Cannistraro, the former chief of operations and analysis at the CIA's Counterterrorism Centre. 'The man is not worth being in human company, frankly'. 'This guy's full of shit', says Larry Johnson, who served in the CIA and as a deputy director in the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. 'What's true is, yes, he has a security and corporate-intelligence firm, and he's big at playing up the Israeli mystique. If you say it with a foreign accent, you're good to go'." (http://www.villagevoice.com/)
And how's this for chutzpah: according to Flitton, secret agent schmuck wears "a round badge with the CIA emblem proudly pinned to his lapel." Nice!
Monday, September 1, 2008
Kicking for Justice?
"About 160 Muslim, Jewish, Aboriginal and Christian youth from various schools... huddled together last Thursday for a chance to kick balls with the Israeli-Palestinian team, which is competing in the AFL International Cup this week. Vic Alhadeff, CEO of the Jewish Board of Deputies (NSWJBD), welcomed the youth to the Auskick Harmony Day clinic, a joint venture of the Australian Chapter of the Peres Centre, AFL NSW/ACT, Erebus International and the NSWJBD. 'We leveraged the presence of the Peace Team to promote a message of goodwill, harmony and acceptance of difference here in Sydney', he said. 'I watched the team train in Israel 6 months ago, and it is inspirational to see Muslim and Jewish young men overcome logistical and cultural barriers and work together as a unit. The symbolism is very powerful'." (Kicking for peace, Chantal Abitbol, The Australian Jewish News, 29/8/08)
Quite! But if Palestinians are good enough to play football with, why aren't the Palestinian refugees (and their descendants), ethnically cleansed by Israeli forces in 1948, good enough to return to Israel as equal citizens? Wouldn't it be "inspirational" to see Israeli Jews and former Palestinian refugees "working together as a unit" as equal citizens of a secular, binational state of Palestine/Israel? Now there's an idea to kick around, Vic.
Quite! But if Palestinians are good enough to play football with, why aren't the Palestinian refugees (and their descendants), ethnically cleansed by Israeli forces in 1948, good enough to return to Israel as equal citizens? Wouldn't it be "inspirational" to see Israeli Jews and former Palestinian refugees "working together as a unit" as equal citizens of a secular, binational state of Palestine/Israel? Now there's an idea to kick around, Vic.
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