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Posturing and laughter as victims rot

Robert Fisk: Posturing and laughter as victims

rot
Mahmoud Abbas stepped further into humiliation by saying the only option for Arabs is to make peace with Israel Independent, 20 January 2009The front page of the Beirut daily As-Safir said it all yesterday. Across the top was a terrible photograph of the bloated body of a Palestinian man newly discovered in the ruins of his home while two male members of his family shrieked and roared their grief. Below, at half the size, was a photograph from Israel of Western leaders joking with Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister. Olmert was roaring with laughter. Silvio Berlusconi, arms on the back of Olmert’s shoulders, was also joshing and roaring – with laughter, not grief – and on Olmert’s right was Nicolas Sarkozy of France wearing his stupidest of smiles. Only Chancellor Merkel appeared to understand the moral collapse. No smiles from Germany.Europe laughs while Palestinians mourn their dead. No wonder that in the streets of Beirut, shops were doing a flourishing trade in Palestinian scarves and flags. Even some of Palestine’s most serious enemies in Lebanon wore the Palestinian keffiyeh in solidarity with the people of Gaza. Over and over again, Al-Jazeera television strapped headlines on to their news reports of Palestinians carrying the decomposing corpses of their dead: "More than 1,300 dead in Gaza, 400 of them women and children – Israeli dead in the war 13, three of them civilians." That, too, said it all. Read More »Posturing and laughter as victims rot

Iranian protestsus color revolution?

Is This the Culmination of Two Years of Destabilization?
Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated "Color Revolution?"


By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

A number of commentators have expressed their idealistic belief in the purity of Mousavi, Montazeri, and the westernized youth of Terhan. The CIA destabilization plan, announced two years ago (see below) has somehow not contaminated unfolding events.

The claim is made that Ahmadinejad stole the election, because the outcome was declared too soon after the polls closed for all the votes to have been counted. However, Mousavi declared his victory several hours before the polls closed. This is classic CIA destabilization designed to discredit a contrary outcome. It forces an early declaration of the vote. The longer the time interval between the preemptive declaration of victory and the release of the vote tally, the longer Mousavi has to create the impression that the authorities are using the time to fix the vote. It is amazing that people don’t see through this trick.

As for the grand Ayatollah Montazeri’s charge that the election was stolen, he was the initial choice to succeed Khomeini, but lost out to the current Supreme Leader. He sees in the protests an opportunity to settle the score with Khamenei. Montazeri has the incentive to challenge the election whether or not he is being manipulated by the CIA, which has a successful history of manipulating disgruntled politicians.

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International jurists bewail damage to law byUSwar on terrorism

International jurists bewail damage to law by U.S. war on terrorism

By Nick Cumming-Bruce

GENEVA: The U.S.56has done "immense damage" to international law, lacks a credible legal basis and should be repudiated by the administration of President Barack Obama, a panel of eminent judges and lawyers said Monday.

The panel, organized by the International Commission of Jurists, a nongovernmental human rights group, also criticized the culture of secrecy associated with the violation of international laws, which it said afforded impunity to those acting unlawfully.

The report also said abuses were becoming pervasive in democratic as well as repressive states.

The panel based its assessment on a three-year study of terrorism and counterterrorism practices on behalf of the commission that took evidence from hundreds of witnesses in 40 countries. The chairman, Arthur Chaskalson, a former chief justice of South Africa, described the report as "the most extensive study of these issues yet conducted."

 

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