Day: March 31, 2016

Am I A Target (Again)?

There is no secret that I am a supporter of Palestine and of the BDS Movement which calls for sanctions against Israel and anyone that supports its policy of killing, stealing and destruction…..

I was a target back in the 70’s of the US program known as COINTELPRO because of my political activism…….it seems that I could be a target yet again…..(I must be doing something right)……

The call by Israeli Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz for a “targeted civic prevention effort” waged against activists in the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is alarming, illegal incitement, says the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.

The call was announced in the first Israeli conference organized to combat the mounting pressure of BDS, a global campaign to increase political, economic and academic pressure on Israel to honor the rights of Palestinians.

”  Whether one agrees or disagrees on the goals of BDS, it is a form of peaceful protest practiced in different countries around the world, especially Europe and the United States,” says Ramy Abdu, chairman of Euro-Med Monitor. ”  The Israeli Minister’s call, in fact, provides cover to violation of human rights and international law, which protect the security of persons exercising freedom of speech.”

 During his speech, Katz alluded to attacking BDS leaders  and activists, accusing them of working in partnership with elements hostile to Israel. He concluded that Israel may legitimately respond to BDS speech by “isolating activists and passing information on them to intelligence agencies around the world.”

“This is a blatant attempt to intimidate and intervene in the affairs of other countries,” Abdu says. “The Israeli minister’s incitement challenges the rights of people to security , freedom of expression and peaceful protest, even though all of these rights are guruanteed under human rights conventions—most prominently the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Israel is a signatory.”

Oh goody!  Something else to look forward to in the future.  Maybe they will target me like they did that Palestinian cleric in a wheelchair….after all I am an old man and they seem to have this knack of doing old men that do not agree with them.

But that is okay with some, especially those on the Right….it is perfectly okay top target people they do not agree with on a wide array of subjects.

Some News Is More Important Than Other

I think the MSM is about as worthless as the proverbial tits on a boar….while we were bombarded by some political crap like Trump’s abortion statements or this piece of newsworthy crap….

John Kasich will have to do better if he wants to win over New York voters in next month’s primary. The Ohio governor went to a Queens pizza shop on Wednesday and committed a local faux pas: He used a fork when eating a slice, reports ABC News. This prompted reaction along the lines of this headline in the New York Post: “WTF is wrong with John Kasich?” Kasich then had to explain himself on Good Morning America on Thursday morning. “Look, look, the pizza came scalding hot, OK? And so I use a little fork.” Other politicians who have caught flak over this include Bill DeBlasio and, as Politico notes, none other than Donald Trump back in 2011, who explained that he was avoiding the crust to keep his weight down.

If this is news to you then I suggest that you go back to day care where you will locate your mental equals…..

While that was being taunted as news this report came in from Lebanon…….

An ex-wife of Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, with whom he had a daughter, wants to live in Europe “in freedom,” she told Swedish daily Expressen in an interview published Thursday.

“I want to live in a European country, not an Arab country,” Saja al-Dulaimi said in the interview filmed in Lebanon.

Dulaimi was freed several months ago from a Lebanese prison, where she had been held since 2014 with her children on suspicion of links to extremist organizations.

“I’m branded a terrorist but I’m far from all that,” lamented Dulaimi.

“I want to live in freedom,” the 28-year-old said, while praising Islamic Sharia law which she said provided “freedom and rights for women.”

Her seven-year-old daughter, Hagar, said she wanted to go to Europe to “study.” A DNA test conducted by Lebanese authorities confirmed she was Baghdadi’s child.

Born into a well-heeled Iraqi family, Dulaimi said she had been married to an Iraqi member of Saddam Hussein’s personal guard. They had twins together.

Widowed, she married again in 2008, on the advice of her father, to Bagdhadi.

Dulaimi described Baghdadi, who also had children from an earlier marriage, as “a normal family man” and university professor adored by his offspring.

Baghdadi was at the time fighting in the ranks of Al-Qaida in Iraq, from which the Islamic State group was born. In 2010, he took over the reins of IS.

(Naharnet)

She could be a significant intel asset or she could be playing the West like a cheap flute…..either way this person should be watched and watched closely.

Me?  I could care less how you or anyone eats their pizza….after all who the Hell puts BBQ sauce on a pizza?

Let me know if you see this report about Baghdadi’s ex anywhere else……

What Goes Around, Comes Around

The most recent terrorists attacks have brought up all the rhetoric again….and we have even returned to the debate about torture……since the loudest proponent of this is the GOP front runner, Trump…..the rhetoric is even louder than normal….

It seems that thanx to the election rhetoric most Americans think the torturing of another human being is acceptable…….

Donald Trump made some waves in early March when he made pro-torture statements at a GOP debate (he walked that back somewhat the next day). But he likely wouldn’t have offended a good number of Americans, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll. Per the poll of nearly 2,000 US adults (18 and over) between March 22 and March 28, almost two-thirds of respondents are OK with the US using torture methods to get info from terror suspects, Reuters reports. About one-quarter of those asked agreed torture is “often” justified “against suspected terrorists to obtain information about terrorism,” with another 38% saying it was “sometimes” justified; just 15% said it should never be employed.

And 64% of US citizens feel like a terror attack within the next six months is “very likely” or “somewhat likely,” the Hill notes. There’s a disparity, too, between political parties, with 82% of Republicans noting torturous methods are “often” or “sometimes” justified, while only 53% of Democrats feel this way. Trump himself may be exacerbating Americans’ fears due to recent attacks overseas (e.g., France, Belgium) and at home (San Bernardino); he’s said that techniques like waterboarding should be on the table, despite outcry from human rights groups, and that he’ll “bring back a hell of a lot worse” methods if he assumes the White House. “The public right now is coping with a host of negative emotions,” says a Vanderbilt University professor. “Fear, anger, general anxiety: [Trump] gives a certain credibility to these feelings.”

I am opposed to torture…..PERIOD!

But for the sake of this post I have one more thing yo say…….”Try it then we can talk”!

Torture is like war….those that are the strongest defenders are the ones that have tasted neither.

My opinion is that if you have not experienced a thing then there is NO way one can make a rational conclusion.

But this poll was taken after the latest attack in Brussels……so emotional responses kicked in.

A recent study by the U of Maryland found that the chances of an attack here in the US is low……

“In global terms, this is a relatively low level of activity,” according to the study, first reported by The Washington Times .

“North America is the least-likely region to be involved in a terrorist attack, though this is not the general impression among many of its residents,” says Steve Killelea with the Institute for Economics and Peace, which published the study using statistics and analysis from the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism .

Source: Study: U.S. at ‘Low’ Risk of Terror Attack – US News

This is a significant study but as usual the media did not report on this because it would not feed the fear that they want to perpetrate….without information Americans have kneejerk responses…..and kneejerk responses lead to disastrous decisions.

The Clinton Investigation Enters a Dangerous Phase

Yes, I know that everyone has had enough of the e-mail issue for the Clinton campaign people…..the problem is that there may well be something “sinister” in this whole issue and not just the with hunt that the Repubs were trying to stir up.

Hillary may have done something not quite kosher with her e-mail account…..like any other issue we will have to wait and see just what the Justice Department finds out during their investigation….

(Read it for yourself and then decide…….)

The FBI investigation of former Secretary of State……. Clinton’s failure to protect state secrets contained in her emails has entered its penultimate phase, and it is a dangerous one for her and her aides.

Federal law enforcement sources have let it be known that federal prosecutors and the FBI have completed their examination of raw data in the case. After the FBI acquires raw data — for example, the nature and number of the state secrets in the emails Clinton failed to protect or the regular, consistent, systematic nature of that failure — prosecutors and agents proceed to draw rational inferences from that data.

Source: The Clinton Investigation Enters a Dangerous Phase – Reason.com

Personally, I want to know if the law was broken….

The Trump Challenge

So much as happened with this election……so much that the media has missed completely until it was too late…..there is a wave of populism that few saw coming…..

I am not a Trump supporter by any stretch of the imagination…..but he has done a few things that I can appreciate.  He has challenged the powers that be on foreign policy and the war hawks are running scared,,,,his ideas may seem like isolationism but they are something else…..what?  I am not too sure just yet.

What is the hardest thing for me because I am a devotee of international relations, is to try and figure out what is it that Trump is proposing for the US foreign policy if he is elected……

A great article….but was little help for me but it could help my readers understand the foreign policy of Donald Trump…..

The candidacy of Donald J. Trump has upended American politics, and, indeed, has changed the political landscape in ways our liberal and conservative elites never expected and clearly abhor. He talks like an ordinary person, for one thing – a rarity in a realm where politicians routinely speak as if they are giving a speech […]

Source: The Trump Challenge – Antiwar.com Original by — Antiwar.com

Intifada for Dummies

I have been writing about the “intifadas” of the Palestinians….I was in the area when the first one was happening….December 1987……I witnessed some amazing bravery and gonads by the Palestinian protesters…..

Americans do not understand what or why the intifadas were important…..they were the people of the Occupied Territories trying to reclaim their heritage and their rights…..something most Americans could understand and would understand if it were anybody but Palestinians protesting Israel.

I have tried to explain as best as I can but I have fallen short on every occasion……I did find a good article by Ramzy Baroud that does the very thing that I tried……

Please check it out if you are interested in knowing why a people would resort to this sort of situation……

Whether history moves in a straight or cyclical line, it matters little. The uncontested fact is that it is in constant motion. Thus, the current situation in Palestine is particularly frustrating to a generation that has grown up after the Oslo Peace Acco

Source: Intifada for Dummies: Why a popular uprising is yet to take off?

Take a little time and see why a people would feel the necessity to resort to this as a way to make a point…….

An Old Evil Returns

These days there are many that are worried about the refugees from war….how it will impact their society and so on…..but while they were laser focused on a “maybe” problem and old horror is returning all across Europe and possibly the world….

An evil from the early days of the 20th century is slowing and methodically taken over the mindset of the people….

To paraphrase an old Yiddish saying about kings and queens, you learn one heck of a lot more from a blanket silence from state authorities than from a roster of proclamations and declarations. What geostrategic calculation (or miscalculation) could possibly underlie the hushed-up decision of the West to go along with a drastic revision of World War II history that not only obfuscates the Holocaust and glorifies Hitler’s local East European collaborators and killers, but in effect rubbishes the history narrative of the Grand Alliance that freed Europe of Hitlerism? Not to mention the vast sacrifices of the Allies, still in the immediate family memory of millions of people, to free Europe of Nazism.

We recently reported on these pages about the February 16th neo-Nazi march in central Kaunas (Lithuania’s interwar capital and present second city) that featured a banner of six “national heroes,” five of whom were Holocaust collaborators. That piece concluded with a challenge to the mayor of the capital city, Vilnius, to ban or move the next-in-line March 11th neo-Nazi parade in central Vilnius. Alas, it went ahead without public comment from him, or from the American or British (or for that matter, any other) ambassador. The “good news” is that it featured “only” two Holocaust collaborators in the pantheon of heroes on the lead banner, there was “just one” hugeantisemitic image, and “only” a few swastikas in the Lithuanian style (with added lines) proudly worn in front of the nation’s prime institutions of government on the march’s route. There were the usual slurs against Poles, Russians, LGBT people and more.

Source: WHAT’S BEHIND THE WEST’S WALL OF SILENCE ON EASTERN EUROPE’S GLORIFICATION OF NAZI COLLABORATION?

It is time for the world to see this for what it is…..a return of evil…..a return of hate……that cannot end well.