US considers use of nuclear weapons against Iran - Yahoo! News

US considers use of nuclear weapons against Iran - Yahoo! News: "WASHINGTON (AFP) - The administration of
President George W. Bush is planning a massive bombing campaign against
Iran, including use of bunker-buster nuclear bombs to destroy a key Iranian suspected nuclear weapons facility, The New Yorker magazine has reported in its April 17 issue.

The article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said that Bush and others in the White House have come to view Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a potential Adolf Hitler.

'That's the name they're using,' the report quoted a former senior intelligence official as saying.

A senior unnamed
Pentagon adviser is quoted in the article as saying that 'this White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war.'

The former intelligence officials depicts planning as 'enormous,' 'hectic' and 'operational,' Hersh writes.

One former defense official said the military planning was premised on a belief that 'a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government,' The New Yorker pointed out."

This is the same sort of thinking that lead to the Iraq war. These people said the Iraqis would throw roses at us and welcome us a liberators. They didn't. Of coarse, it is much more likely that this will rally the Iranians behind the mullahs and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

I don't believe even Bush is stupid enough to fall for that a second time, so I am no longer willing to believe he fell for it the first time. There is an alterior motive here, and I don't know what it is.

I am guessing Bush is just serving his military industrial complex friends by putting the nation on a collision coarse with virtually everyone on the planet. Even the Brits won't put up with this. Everyone will be hurt by this action other than people who live in non electrified cabins and ride bicycles all year round. This will most certainly make the price of oil go higher, and hasten China's switch to Euros. It is bat shit crazy.

More Than 500,000 Rally in L.A. for Immigrants' Rights - Los Angeles Times

If the Democrats don't recruit these working class Latinos they are truely lost.

More Than 500,000 Rally in L.A. for Immigrants' Rights - Los Angeles Times: "More Than 500,000 Rally in L.A. for Immigrants' Rights
By Teresa Watanabe and Anna Gorman, Times Staff Writer
2:51 PM PST, March 25, 2006

Joining what some are calling the nation's largest mobilization of immigrants ever, hundreds of thousands of people boisterously marched in downtown Los Angeles Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall on the U.S. southern border. Spirited crowds representing labor, religious groups, civil-rights advocates and ordinary immigrants stretched over 26 blocks of downtown Los Angeles from Adams Blvd. along Spring Street and Broadway to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting 'Si se puede!' (Yes we can!). The crowd, estimated by police at more than 500.000, represented one of the largest protest marches in Los Angeles history, surpassing Vietnam War demonstrations and the 70,000 who rallied downtown against Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that denied public benefits to undocumented migrants.

The marchers included both longtime residents and the newly arrived, bound by a desire for a better life and a love for this county.

Arbelica Lazo, 40, illegally immigrated from El Salvador two decades ago but said she now owns two business and pays $7,000 in taxes annually.

Jose Alberto Salvador, 33, came here illegally just four months ago to find work to support the wife and five children he left behind; in his native Guatemala, he said, what little work he could find paid only $10 a day. 'As much as we need this country, we love this country,' Salvador said, waving a stick with both the American and Guatemalan flag. 'This country gives us opportunities we don't get at home.'"

If only the antiwar movement could pull off a demonstration that big from out of the blue, we'd kick ass.

As Nick Miroff points out the Latin American left are doing by far the best job countering the influence of the Bushistas. Bush has truely united them. He is doing a better job of uniting them than Che ever dreamed of.

Has Latin America ever had such a unifying figure?

At political rallies, his visage is held aloft as a beacon to regional independence and self-determination. He's helped forge new trade partnerships to spur economic growth and alleviate poverty. And his leadership has fanned a gale-force electoral trend that's sweeping the hemisphere to topple one pro-Washington government after the next.

Who is this grand inductor of Latin American leftism? Venezuelan fireball Hugo Chavez? Blue-collar Brazilian Lula Ignacio da Silva? Bolivia's coca-farmer-cum-president, Evo Morales?

¡Epa! It's George W. Bush, the accidental revolutionary............

The macroeconomic proposals of the Washington consensus have not been working," says Guillermo Delgado, professor of Latin American Studies at UC Santa Cruz. "That model was supposed to create prosperity and, after so many years, such prosperity has not been seen and class polarization has grown deeper."

Sensing an opportunity, new social and political movements in the region began marshalling their forces. Then George W. Bush came along, combining Yankee hubris with a Che-worthy radicalizing touch.

Bush has since presided over one of the most significant political re-alignments in the history of the Western Hemisphere. By this summer, every major Latin American nation but Colombia is likely to be run by elected leaders with stronger backgrounds in Marx than free markets. If Cold War-era "domino theory" has been a bust in the Middle East, it's working with textbook precision in Latin America.

Of coarse the modern dlc democrats are perpetually antiworking class. Remember how they reacted to the transit strike? They will probably ignore this just as they willfully ignore the peace protesters, and marginalize antiwar candidates.

Those of us in the antiwar movement could throw a monkey wrench into the system by courting this energetic and vital immigrant group. I doubt Cegelis could have lost if we did that. What potential might Ned Lamont have if he appeals to this group.

Shia Death Squads Target Iraqi Gays

I am pretty sure that ordinary Americans didn't have this in mind, when they they attempted to install a Democracy in Iraq.

Shia Death Squads Target Iraqi Gays: "Shia Death Squads Target Iraqi Gays

Three Years On, Americans Ignore Pleas of Repression Even Worse than Saddam’s

BY DOUG IRELAND

Courtesy OutRage! London

Left, Ammar, aged 27, was abducted and shot in back of the head in Baghdad by suspected Badr militias in January 2006. Right, Haydar Faiek, aged 40, a transsexual Iraqi, was beaten and burned to death by Badr militias in September 2005.


Following a death-to-gays fatwa issued last October by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani,death squads of the Badr Corps have been systematically targeting gay Iraqis for persecution and execution, gay Iraqis say. But when they ask for help and protection from U.S. occupying authorities in the Green Zone, the secure area officialdom has carved out within Baghdad, gays Iraqis are met with indifference and derision.

“The Badr Corps is committed to the sexual cleansing of Iraq,” said Ali Hili, a 33-year-old gay Iraqi exile in London who, with some 30 other gay Iraqis who have fled to the United Kingdom, five months ago founded the Abu Nawas Group there to support persecuted gay Iraqis. The group is named for a revered eighth-century classical poet of Arab and Persian descent known throughout Middle East cultures and famous for his poems in praise of same-sex love."

This apparently follows a fatwa given by the supposedly moderate Iranian cleric Ayatollah Sistani.

The Ayatollah Sistani, the 77-year-old Iranian-born cleric who is the supreme Shia authority in Iraq, is revered by SCIRI as its spiritual leader. His anti-gay fatwa—available on Sistani’s official Web site—says that “people involved” in homosexuality “should be killed in the worst, most severe way of killing.”

Apparently Badr Corp, isn't just killing them when they find them either. They are actually entraping them, in what gay advocates are calling systematic "sexual cleansing"

“Badr Corps agents have a network of informers who, among other things, target alleged immoral behavior,” Hili continued. “They kill gays, unveiled women, prostitutes, people who sell or drink alcohol, and those who listen to Western music and wear Western fashions.”

“Badr militants are entrapping gay men via Internet chat rooms,” Hili said. “They arrange a date, and then beat and kill the victim. Males who are unmarried by the age of 30 or 35 are placed under surveillance on suspicion of being gay, as are effeminate men. They will be investigated and warned to get married.

“Badr will typically give them a month to change their ways. If they don’t change their behavior, or if they fail to show evidence that they plan to get married, they will be arrested, disappear, and eventually be found dead. The bodies are usually discovered with their hands bound behind their back, blindfolds over their eyes, and bullet wounds to the back of the head.”

This result, of the Shia taking over, if we toppled Saddam, was both predictable and predicted. This is not worth any American life. Iraqis clearly do not want a "liberal democracy," at this point in time, and it is impossible for a foreign power to install one. Maybe one day they will want a liberal democracy, but we only put off that day when we associate Liberal Democracy with oil imperialism in the minds of the muslim world. Needless the say the christian fundamentalist, defence contractors, oil men, and other right wingers that pushed America into the war have no empathy for gays either. This callousness to the gays of Iraq, proves they weren't fundamentally motivated by a concern for Human Rights.

Another Israeli talking point dies! - Yahoo! News

Olmert sees permanent Israeli borders by 2010 - Yahoo! News: "In one of two interviews published by Israeli media on Thursday ahead of March 28 elections that his Kadima party is expected to win, Olmert said the controversial security barrier Israel is building in the West Bank would largely follow the final borders.

Olmert said the barrier's final route could change depending on circumstances, the Haaretz newspaper said. Israel officially calls the barrier a security measure while Palestinians dub it a land grab meant to pre-empt any future border negotiations.

In a separate interview with the Jerusalem Post, Olmert said within the next four years he intended to 'get to Israel's permanent borders, whereby we will completely separate from the majority of the Palestinian population.'

He made similar comments to Haaretz."

For years, the Israelis, the Republicans and the establishment Democrats like Hillary Clinton have been telling us it was a security barrier only, and that the wall wouldn't follow the final border. They also chastized the Hague because of its objection to the wall. This admission makes them look like fools.

New York's two senators, Democrats Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, joined Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Gillerman, in front of UN headquarters on Friday to denounce the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on the West Bank separation fence.

"It makes no sense for the United Nations to vehemently oppose a fence which is a non-violent response to terrorism rather than opposing terrorism itself," Clinton said to a crowd of about 100 people.

Democratic presidential nominee Senator John Kerry said he was disappointed with the court's decision. Kerry said Israel's separation fence was a legitimate measure in view of its security needs and its wish to defend itself against terrorist attacks.

The National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abe Foxman, said, "We thought for a moment the court would rise above prejudice, but as it turns out, it didn't." The ruling was meant to be a critical moment not only for Israel but also for the court's legitimacy, Foxman added.

Well the talking point that it is a security fence rather than a land grab officially died today, just as the talking point that there was no partner for peace died the other day when Yuval Diskin admitted that Arafat didn't start the intifada.

City Pages - Bin Laden's Game

Remember Osama?

City Pages - Bin Laden's Game: "CP: Can you talk about the role that the Iraq war has played in his recruiting successes?



Scheuer: I have to tell you, Sir, I'm not an expert on Iraq. I don't know what the threat was from Saddam.My own judgment is, as a nation-state [Saddam's Iraq] was probably containable. But our invasion of Iraq broke the back of our counter-terrorism policy, because it validated in the Islamic mind so much of what bin Laden had said through the past decade. He said, Americans will do anything to defeat a strong Muslim government. We took Saddam out. He said we would take on and defeat any Muslim state that threatened Israel. I think Iraq is an indication of that being true, from their perspective. He said we would occupy their sanctities and try to destroy their religion. From the Islamist's perspective, we occupy all three of their sanctities now—the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, and Jerusalem. The Israelis hold Jerusalem, but increasingly in the Islamic world, Americans and Israelis are viewed interchangeably. He said we were going to try to take all the oil from the Muslim world. And certainly the view predominates that one of the reasons we went to Iraq was oil.

And so, in terms of perception, the Iraq war was a validation of what bin Laden had said. In addition, bin Laden and Zawahiri are not trained Islamic clerics or jurists. The argument was always made that they had no authority, therefore, to declare a jihad. Well, when we invaded Iraq, it was kind of a textbook example of an event that necessitates jihad in the Islamic world. Now, any number of well-credentialed clerics and jurists and scholars have authorized jihad against the United States around the world, because we invaded a Muslim land. In my view, the invasion of Iraq accelerated the transformation of al Qaeda from a man and an organization into a philosophy and a movement.

We're at the point where it's still very important to kill—preferably to kill, or else to capture—Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri. But because of Iraq, our problem is far from over if that happens."

Michael Scheuer is an ex cia analyist. He has written a book called "Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam and the Future of America"

This is the Real Outrage

Tariq Ali, the writer of "Clash of Fundamentalisms," makes a some good points
.

This is the Real Outrage: "But the cartoon depicting Muhammad as a terrorist is a crude racist stereotype. The implication is that every Muslim is a potential terrorist. This is the sort of nonsense that leads to Islamophobia.

Muslims have every right to protest, but the overreaction was unnecessary. In reality, the number of original demonstrators was tiny: 300 in Pakistan, 400 in Indonesia, 200 in Tripoli, a few hundred in Britain (before Saturday's bigger reconciliation march), and government-organised hoodlums in Damascus burning an embassy. Beirut was a bit larger. Why blow this up and pretend that the protests had entered the subsoil of spontaneous mass anger? They certainly haven't anywhere in the Muslim world, though the European media has been busy fertilising the widespread ignorance that exists in this continent.

How many citizens have any real idea of what the Enlightenment really was? French philosophers did take humanity forward by recognising no external authority of any kind, but there was a darker side. Voltaire: 'Blacks are inferior to Europeans, but superior to apes.' Hume: 'The black might develop certain attributes of human beings, the way the parrot manages to speak a few words.' There is much more in a similar vein from their colleagues. It is this aspect of the Enlightenment that appears to be more in tune with some of the generalised anti-Muslim ravings in the media.

What I find interesting is that these demonstrations and embassy-burnings are a response to a tasteless cartoon. Did the Danish imam who travelled round the Muslim world pleading for this show the same anger at Danish troops being sent to Iraq? The occupation of Iraq has costs tens of thousands of Iraqi lives. Where is the response to that or the tortures in Abu Ghraib? Or the rapes of Iraqi women by occupying soldiers? Where is the response to the daily deaths of Palestinians? These are the issues that anger me. Last year Afghans protested after a US marine in Guantánamo had urinated on the Qur'an. It was a vile act and there was an official inquiry. The marine in question explained that he had been urinating on a prisoner and a few drops had fallen accidentally on the Qur'an - as if pissing on a prisoner (an old imperial habit) was somehow more acceptable."

Why oh why can't the muslim world launch a world wide protest movement over these issues?

Haaretz - Israel News - Brainwashed by intelligence people

This story probably won't stop the hasbara people from making the claim that Arafat launched the last intifada, but many Israeli officials privately acknowledge this is not true, which means unilateral disengagement and the idea that there is "no partner for peace," is also bunk. Just read the comments by former Shin Bet agent Yuval Diskin.

Haaretz - Israel News - Brainwashed by intelligence people: "Brainwashed by intelligence people
By Akiva Eldar

American and Israeli parents found out in recent days that their governments are sending their sons to kill and be killed in inane wars. Paul Pillar - until recently, the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia - publicly declared that President George Bush had tweaked assessments in order to justify the war in Iraq. On the same day almost, Israel's Channel 10 aired parts of a lecture in which Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin asserted that the riots in the territories were not premeditated, and that 'an Arafat-devised contingency plan did not spark them off.'

These statements undermine claims by political and military officials that the intifada was a stage in a plan by Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat to crush the Oslo Accords on the way to the destruction of Israel. Diskin's statements also cast much doubt on the argument that the Palestine Liberation Organization is not, and never has been, a partner, and that since September 2000, Israel has been waging a just and unavoidable war."

It goes without saying that the government and the ruling party, which has thrived magnificently on the no-partner theory, did not make a big fuss of the bomb dropped by the Shin Bet chief. And even the left-wing opposition waived the elections gift it received from the head of the organization responsible for intelligence assessments in the territories.

Diskin is not the first to challenge the basic premise on which Israel's peace and security policy has rested ever since Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount. He was preceded by Major General (res.) Amos Malka, head of Military Intelligence at the time of the start of the intifada. In June 2004, Malka told Haaretz that MI did not have a shred of evidence to indicate that Arafat had initiated the riots.

This means that the late Sharon's Kadima party platform is based on bunk. There are indications of a revolt against Olmert within the ranks of Kadima by another former Shin Bet agent Avi Dichter. As reported by Jpost, Dichter largely concurred with Diskin.

"It was not at all a political statement, it was a professional statement," he told Israel Radio.

"It is totally clear that when Yuval Diskin is invited to the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, he is essentially being invited to the program 'Meet the Press,' since all of his comments will be publicized after that, but with alterations as each Knesset member relates them. Therefore, I am convinced that when he spoke in Eli, just like when Ami Ayalon spoke in the past in yeshivas... I'm sure Yuval took into consideration that what he said would be published. I'm sure he was fully aware," Dichter emphasized.

Dichter is also on record opposing further unitateral withdrawals.

n his first interview with an Israeli newspaper since he entered politics, Dichter said he would accept any portfolio offered to him in a prospective Kadima-led government and explained why the road map was the best diplomatic solution for Israel.

Speaking at party headquarters in Petah Tikva, Dichter said the perception among the public that Kadima would withdraw from much of Judea and Samaria regardless of what happens with the Palestinians was incorrect.

Dichter, a supporter of the Gaza Strip disengagement plan, said the West Bank was different from Gaza.

"The Palestinians haven't enforced any of the many plans that we signed with them," he said. "We have time. We are not in a hurry. We're not going to try to end the problem without solving it. We're not going to withdraw from the West Bank unilaterally just because it was done in Gaza."