Seven Reasons Why We Can’t Stop Making War

William J. Astore: Explaining Why it is That Our Wars Today Never Seem to End

• CBS News’ David Martin reports on the changes ahead for American war operations in Afghanistan, as Gen. David Petraeus is set to take command of U.S. forces in that region.

• U.S. troops at combat outpost in the Jalrez Valley in Afghanistan’s Wardak Province on Friday, Sept. 25, 2009. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)  (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

(CBS) If one quality characterizes our wars today, it’s their endurance.  They never seem to end.

Though war itself may not be an American inevitability, these days many factors combine to make constant war an American near certainty.  Put metaphorically, our nation’s pursuit of war taps so many wellsprings of our behavior that a concerted effort to cap it would dwarf BP’s efforts in the Gulf of Mexico.

Our political leaders, the media, and the military interpret enduring war as a measure of our national fitness, our global power, our grit in the face of eternal danger, and our seriousness.  A desire to de-escalate and withdraw, on the other hand, is invariably seen as cut-and-run appeasement and discounted as weakness.  Withdrawal options are, in a pet phrase of Washington elites, invariably “off the table” when global policy is at stake, as was true during the Obama administration’s full-scale reconsideration of the Afghan war in the fall of 2009.  Viewed in this light, the president’s ultimate decision to surge in Afghanistan was not only predictable, but the only course considered suitable for an American war leader.  Rather than the tough choice, it was the path of least resistance.

Why do our elites so readily and regularly give war, not peace, a chance?  What exactly are the wellsprings of Washington’s (and America’s) behavior when it comes to war and preparations for more of the same?

Consider these seven:

1.  We wage war because we think we’re good at it — and because, at a gut level, we’ve come to believe that American warscan bring good to others (hence our feel-good names for them, like Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom). Most Americans are not only convinced we have the best troops, the best training, and the most advanced weapons, but also the purest motives.  Unlike the bad guys and the barbarians out there in the global marketplace of death, our warriors and warfightersare seen as gift-givers and freedom-bringers, not as death-dealers and resource-exploiters.  Our illusions about the military we “support” serve as catalyst for, and apology for, the persistent war-making we condone.

2.  We wage war because we’ve already devoted so many of our resources to it.  It’s what we’re most prepared to do.  More than half of discretionary federal spending goes to fund our military and its war making or war preparations.  The military-industrial complex is a well-oiled, extremely profitable machine and the armed forces, our favorite child, the one we’ve lavished the most resources and praise upon.  It’s natural to give your favorite child free rein.

3.  We’ve managed to isolate war’s physical and emotional costs, leaving them on the shoulders of a tiny minority of Americans.  By eliminating the draft and relying ever more on for-profit private military contractors, we’ve made war a distant abstraction for most Americans, who can choose to consume it as spectacle or simply tune it out as so much background noise.

4.  While war and its costs have, to date, been kept at arm’s length, American society has been militarizing fast.  Our media outlets, intelligence agencies, politicians, foreign policy establishment, and “homeland security” bureaucracy are so intertwined with military priorities and agendas as to be inseparable from them.  In militarized America, griping about soft-hearted tactics or the outspokenness of a certain general may be tolerated, but forceful criticism of our military or our wars is still treated as deviant and “un-American.”

5.  Our profligate, high-tech approach to war, including those Predator and Reaper drones armed with Hellfire missiles, has served to limit American casualties — and so has limited the anger over, and harsh questioning of, our wars that might go with them.  While the U.S. has had more than 1,000 troops killed in Afghanistan, over a similar period in Vietnam we lost more than 58,000 troops.  Improved medical evacuation and trauma care, greater reliance on standoff precision weaponry and similar “force multipliers,” stronger emphasis on “force protection” within American military units: all these and more have helped tamp down concern about the immeasurable and soaring costs of our wars.

6.  As we incessantly develop those force-multiplying weapons to give us our “edge” (though never an edge that leads to victory), it’s hardly surprising that the U.S. has come to dominate, if not quite monopolize, the global arms trade.  In these years, as American jobs were outsourced or simply disappeared in the Great Recession, armaments have been one of our few growth industries.  Endless war has proven endlessly profitable — not perhaps for all of us, but certainly for those in the business of war.

7.  And don’t forget the seductive power of beyond-worse-case, doomsday scenarios, of the prophecies of pundits and so-called experts, who regularly tell us that, bad as our wars may be, doing anything to end them would be far worse.  A typical scenario goes like this: If we withdraw from Afghanistan, the government of Hamid Karzai will collapse, the Taliban will surge to victory, al-Qaeda will pour into Afghan safe havens, and Pakistan will be further destabilized, its atomic bombs falling into the hands of terrorists out to destroy Peoria and Orlando.

Such fevered nightmares, impossible to disprove, may be conjured at any moment to scare critics into silence.  They are a convenient bogeyman, leaving us cowering as we send our superman military out to save us (and the world as well), while preserving our right to visit the mall and travel to Disney World without being nuked.

The truth is that no one really knows what would happen if the U.S. disengaged from Afghanistan.  But we do know what’s happening now, with us fully engaged: we’re pursuing a war that’s costing us nearly $7 billion a month that we’re not winning (and that’s arguably unwinnable), a war that may be increasing the chances of another 9/11, rather than decreasing them.

Capping the Wellsprings of War

Each one of these seven wellsprings feeding our enduring wars must be capped.  So here are seven suggestions for the sort of “caps” — hopefully more effective than BP’s flailing improvisations — we need to install:

1.  Let’s reject the idea that war is either admirable or good — and in the process, remind ourselves that others often see us as “the foreign fighters” and profligate war consumers who kill innocents (despite our efforts to apply deadly force in surgically precise ways reflecting “courageous restraint”).

2.  Let’s cut defense spending now, and reduce the global “mission” that goes with it.  Set a reasonable goal — a 6-8% reduction annually for the next 10 years, until levels of defense spending are at least back to where they were before 9/11 — and then stick to it.

3.  Let’s stop privatizing war.  Creating ever more profitable incentives for war was always a ludicrous idea.  It’s time to make war a non-profit, last-resort activity.  And let’s revive national service (including elective military service) for all young adults.  What we need is a revived civilian conservation corps, not a new civilian “expeditionary” force.

4. Let’s reverse the militarization of so many dimensions of our society.  To cite one example, it’s time to empowertruly independent (non-embedded) journalists to cover our wars, and stop relying on retired generals and admirals who led our previous wars to be our media guides.  Men who are beholden to their former service branch or the current defense contractor who employs them can hardly be trusted to be critical and unbiased guides to future conflicts.

5.  Let’s recognize that expensive high-tech weapons systems are not war-winners.  They’ve kept us in the game without yielding decisive results — unless you measure “results” in terms of cost overruns and burgeoning federal budget deficits.

6.  Let’s retool our economy and reinvest our money, moving it out of the military-industrial complex and into strengthening our anemic system of mass transit, our crumbling infrastructure, and alternative energy technology.  We need high-speed rail, safer roads and bridges, and more wind turbines, not more overpriced jet fighters.

7.  Finally, let’s banish nightmare scenarios from our minds.  The world is scary enough without forever imagining smoking guns morphing into mushroom clouds.
There you have it: my seven “caps” to contain our gushing support for permanent war.  No one said it would be easy.  Just ask BP how easy it is to cap one out-of-control gusher.

Nonetheless, if we as a society aren’t willing to work hard for actual change — indeed, to demand it — we’ll be on that military escalatory curve until we implode.  And that way madness lies.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

By William J. Astore
Reprinted with permission from TomDispatch.

Franklin Lamb’s Tribute to Ayatollah Fadlullah

Allow them to own a home? La, Abadan! ( No, never!)

No “implantation” of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon!

Franklin Lamb

Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp, Beirut

The explosive issue of Palestinian civil rights in Lebanon will move to  center stage under the  Parliamentary spotlight this week, with  meetings of parliamentary committees and a  legislative session now scheduled to consider late breaking  proposals by the March 14  alliance, led by Prime Minister Saad Hariri. The main holdouts, as predicted, will be the right wing Christian Phalange party and its allies and former Prime Minister Fuad Siniora has been tasked  this week with getting them on board. The Washington DC-Beirut based Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, not heeding the admonition of the late Mahatma Gandhi,  who when following various pre-Independence  reports of ‘progress’  with representatives of Her Majesty the Queen,   Bapu told the assembled  media: “Promises are made and fools rejoice!.” The PCRC, admittedly with temerity is predicting progress in the Palestinians struggle for the right to work and just maybe  some progress with home ownership.

What will likely be achieved is at least an ‘adjustment’ to the current Kafkaesque administrative process so that Palestinian refugees can more easily apply for a work permit.

According to a PCRC Board Member, Lebanese Human Rights Ambassador Ali Khalil: “ We expect at least the loosening of the current impossible to fulfill work permit requirements for Palestinians. It won’t be enough, but it will be a significant first step on a long March for justice. This campaign must and will continue until full civil rights are achieved  for Palestinians including the right to own a home, obtain an ID card that allows travel, and access to some social services pending their return to  Palestine.”

The struggle continues for the civil right to own a home

Were one to contrast the vitriol spewing from certain political/religious quarters in Lebanon and refracted into Parliament resulting from the proposal to  grant Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees the right to work with the invective resulting from the additional  Parliamentary proposal to  allow the refugees  the elementary right to own a home,  the latter might just white out the former in a blinding light of fury.

Over the past decade arguments have not changed  significantly since the March  2001 law forbidding Palestinian home ownership was enacted.  But the political alignment n Parliament has. In favor of granting  Palestinian refugees the right to purchase a home, are the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), the Loyalty to the Resistance grouping (Hezbollah+Amal), the Nationalist Syrian Social Party, the Arab Socialist Baath Party, and the Hariri group, now called the Future Movement.  Those opposed to Palestinians owning a home  are the right-wing Christian parties, the Phalange (the Gemayals), Lebanese Forces ( Samir Geagea), National Liberal Party ( Dori Chamouns) and their allies.

Pro March 14 (US and Saudi backed) Minister of Labor Boutro Harb has declared Palestinian home ownership out of the question and even expressed his concern this week about using the “civil rights” label  that could connote rights close to those Lebanese citizen possess and as mandated by international and Lebanese law.  According to Harb: “Among the major principles that should be adopted when it comes to addressing the Palestinian refugees’ “rights” (emphasis his)  is to put an end  even to the use of the term “civil rights”, given its political connotation which is linked to the concept of citizenship, to which only the Lebanese are entitled.”

Minister Harb’s  position is seen by many as a ‘red herring’ since the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have no interest, as some here seem worried about, in citizenship, naturalization, settlement, tawtin, integration, implantation, voting rights, seeking political office, normalcy, nationality, permanent residency, setting down roots, normalization, ‘staying in Lebanon all their lives’ or even, ‘hanging around’ an hour longer than necessary.  As ‘Mona’, a Palestinian nurse  would works at the rehabilitating clinic in Beirut’s Mai Elias refugee camp put it the other day: “ While we are grateful for Lebanon allowing us to stay here as refugees, we just seek some dignity and the right to own a home while we our struggle to return to Palestine.

Lebanese law  historically has imposed  relatively modest restrictions on  foreign ownership of real estate beginning with the 1956 (Decree 15740),  Law 59 of 9/1/69, Decree 16614 of 6/4/69/ and on 1/4/69 when the cabinet adopted Decree 11614. The result made foreign ownership of land conditional upon the acquisition of a license if the size exceeded 5,000 square meters (10,000 square meters for foreign companies).

But on March 20, 2001, a blatantly discriminatory home ownership law designed specifically to target Palestinian refugees as part of a wave of  an anti Palestinian measures following the expulsion of the PLO and the 1989 Taif Accords.  This  blatantly discriminatory and internationally illegal action of  outlawed the  refugees right to own a home or purchase  any kind of real estate in fee simple. Law 296 of 2001 abolished the right of any Palestinian refugees to own real estate in Lebanon period. Never mind if refugees had purchased the home before the law was enacted, had registered the property with the Ministry of Interior or that they had inherited the home from their parents. The draconian law prohibits “the acquisition of  any real estate property, by any person who is not carrying a nationality from a recognized state ( Ed:the discriminatory use of the  ‘reciprocity requirement’ again), or by any person if the property is contradictory with the constitutional precepts concerning the rejection of (Palestinian) (Tawteen)”.  This law means in practice that no home ownership is allowed to Palestinians. Tawteen (naturalization) being an often employed scare tactic and catch-all political/legal  black hole designed to prevent Palestinian refugees from obtaining civil rights.

The law  was claimed by its supporters to be necessary to encourage foreign investment. It has never been convincingly articulated how in any way if achieves that and in fact the opposite proposition could be  much more convincingly argued.

Another argument against allowing Palestinians refugees the right to own a home, as Phalange Party MP Sami Gemayel warned during an interview with LBC TV on 7/3/10,   is that “allowing  Palestinian refugees the right to own a home risks keeping them in Lebanon rather than helping their return home.”  Gemayal, with a straight face, advised the Palestinians refugees “to  be aware that  giving them civil rights in Lebanese society is an Israeli and U.S. plot to prevent their return to their homeland.”

On the question of Palestinian home ownership, Gemayel argues that it is out of the question since  many Lebanese don’t own a home and  Lebanon is one of the countries with the highest number of Palestinian land ownership relatively to its size. Academic and NGO studies suggest otherwise. So do statistics supplied by the Lebanese Ministry for Finance, dating back to 1993 which  reveal that  combined Palestinian ownership of real estate in Lebanon is less than one quarter of what foreigners own in Lebanon, or 0.00001 percent of Lebanon’s total area.

Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun, allied with Hezbollah but playing to his political base of Maronite Christians, which the Gemayals  are trying to cut into these days,  told his followers on 7.7.10  that Palestinian refugees in Lebanon cannot ever be granted the right to own property.

Democratic Gathering bloc leader MP Walid Jumblatt questioned recently how public figures could be against granting Palestinian refugees in Lebanon the right to own a home while foreigners from Arab countries have the right to own three percent of the properties in every district in Lebanon. “We allow other Arabs to own properties saying this would encourage investment, yet we deprive poor Palestinians from this right,” Jumblatt said.

The 2001 law also forbids Palestinian refugees from bequeathing real estate, even if the property was acquired and legally registered before  the  law took effect. The draconian law, shocked not just the Palestinian refugees but many others in Lebanon and it  was immediately contested when 10 members of Parliament led by Hezbollah, filed an appeal before the Lebanese Constitutional Council. The Appellants quickly lost the case when the Council ruled, without  oral argument or presenting in their finding any  rational nexus between their ruling and the fact of Palestinian home ownership. The CC simply concluded that  “ preventing the permanent settlement of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is of higher national interest.”

The effect of the 2001 law meant that thousands of Palestinian refugees who had purchased apartments on installments, even if they had one payment left to make or had made all their payments were not able to register and legally own them. The ruling  also means that even if Palestinians had registered property they  had purchased or their parents had purchased and bequeathed to them before the 2001 law, their title is still null and void.  It was widely alleged that two weeks before the 2001 law came into effect, the relevant  Ministries instructed  Lebanon’s Notaries Public not to register Palestinian property in order that they  could not possibly escape its provisions.  This practice has been viewed by some as simply  a governmental effort to ‘loot’ Palestinian property.

Other problems the 2001 law created include:

• If a Palestinian rented a property she/he inherited or purchased before the 2001 law, the Tenant, learning about the 2001 law sometimes stopped paying rent with the explanation:  “Show me that your property is legally yours and is registered and I will pay rent. Otherwise this is my property!”  No court in Lebanon would find for the Palestinian in a case like this according to legal experts here.
• Children who inherited the family home and  continue to live in it become ‘occupiers’ after their parents death and gain no legal title, with each succeeding generation having even less of a right to live in the family irrespective of any testamentary devise document or Will from their parents.

One Palestinian academic, at a Palestinian research center who has studied this dilemma thoroughly  told this observer, “About the only thing that keeps some in the  government from trying to physically confiscate Palestinian real estate like they do in occupied Palestine is their sure knowledge that someone like Ahmad Jabril of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC)  would resist on behalf of the refugees.  So we don’t expect the government to move for  Israeli style evictions no matter that some would like to,  but  the 2001 law must be changed.”

The  simple,  sisterly, moral, and internationally mandated Parliamentary solution is to amend the 2001 law to correct the pre 200l law registration problems and to allow Palestinians to own at least one home if they are able to afford it.  Like granting the Palestinian refugees the elementary civil right to work, allowing the right to own a home and inherit and bequest it  becomes a win-win solution for Lebanon and the refugees pending the latter’s return to their country.

Franklin Lamb volunteers with the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign-Lebanon. He has devoted his life for the cause of the Palestinians .

–
Palestine Civil Rights Campaign-Lebanon

PLEASE SIGN HERE!

http://www.petitiononline.com/ssfpcrc/petition.html

“Failure is not an option for the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, our only choice is success”

15 year old Hiba Hajj, PCRC volunteer, Ein el Helwe Palestinian Camp, Saida, Lebanon

Please check our website for UPDATES:
www.palestinecivilrightscampaign.org

Franklin P. Lamb, LLM,PhD
Director, Americans Concerned for
Middle East Peace, Wash.DC-Beirut

Board Member, The Sabra Shatila Foundation and the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Beirut-Washington DC
Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp

fplamb@palestinecivilrightscampaign.org

The Moron Masses–(a.k.a. Idiot Nation)

–[a.k.a. Idiot Nation]–

The Moron Masses

BY ALI.MOSTAQUE

In India Goondawood, funded by the Indian underworld with Ibrahim Dawood, and cricket fills the empty void of the poverty stricken masses. This is their escapism, and their short lived moments away from the reality of the daily grind of the one meal a day, the smell, dust, noise, crowd……….where they for a while at least put all their hopes, aspirations, angst and fear into non-existent OTT pantomime characters from Goondawood (unlike Western audiences, Indian cinema audiences are very animated, because they live in their films).

And a few young men who have become skilled at hitting, catching, bowling a wooden ball wrapped by leather.

To be part of the moron masses in the richest country on earth is still to be envied to a certain degree. To be part of the poverty stricken masses in India, and in addition to be exploited by the elite of that country who loot its wealth and deposit the nations wealth in off shore accounts……because they fundamentally have no faith in their own country, that is to be truly pitied by non-Indians, and loathed by Indians themselves.

A nations destiny rests not on the masses, but essentially on the elite, and especially the intellectual elite.

Its is their efforts and designs which determine the future of a nation and the well being of the masses. In India’s case now it is led by an Italian lady with no education, and a weak imperial ICS, left behind by the British. Thus India stumbles along into the future with the largest population on earth in the near future, with no infrastructure………..and many more poverty stricken individuals.

______________________________________

American Idolatry Intensifies as Nation Sinks into Depression

Programmed zombies get hysterical about basketball while their future is being destroyed. Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com

The sight of American citizens gathering to protest basketball player LeBron James’ decision to join Miami Heat last week, after Ohio Governor Ted Strickland joined celebrities to serenade James in a bizarre appeal video entitled “We are LeBron,” was a shocking reminder of how millions of Americans are more concerned about sports teams than the fact that their country is collapsing around them, and how potent a threat such wanton delusion is to the survival of freedom and prosperity in the United States.

In a You Tube clip that went viral after appearing on the Drudge Report website, Alex Jones explained how ominous it was to see Americans transfixed by bread and circuses while at the same time the New York Times reports on how the country is sinking into another depression.

But how did we reach the stage where scenes from Idiocracy, a satirical movie set 500 years in the future where humanity has “degenerated into into a dystopia where advertising, commercialism, and cultural anti-intellectualism run rampant and dysgenic pressure has resulted in a uniformly stupid human society devoid of individual responsibility or consequences,” seem eerily contemporary in 2010?

Americans are watching more television than ever before, both through conventional TV sets and on the web, as the range of channels continues to expand, the screens get bigger and the quality of the picture increases as new hi-definition and 3D technologies arrest and shorten attention spans to a greater and greater degree.

Americans are now a nation of spectators, watching a shocking average of nearly 5 hours of TV a day, up 20% from just 10 years ago.

Hooked in to this matrix medium that tells them how to behave, what to care about, and how to treat people who deviate from this spoon-fed consensus, people are literally being programmed into accepting a contrived false reality that bears little or no resemblance to what is actually taking place in the real world. This is why the assembly line of zombies being manufactured by this process will roll their eyes when warned about real issues that affect them – the crumbling economy, unemployment, the BP oil spill – yet will become visibly upset when an event that has no bearing on their existence whatsoever, like where LeBron James throws a basketball around, takes place.

We are literally being trained like dogs to react to meaningless stimuli while burying our heads in the sand in reaction to issues of real significance. This behavior training encompasses an entire outlook, an entire lifestyle that people have adopted to the point where their moral compass, they way they dress, the way they speak, what they eat, what drugs they take, the way they respond to events and how they treat other people is solely a construct of the babylon system to which they are addicted.

The fact that this matrix system constantly promotes damaging and destructive messages is why people are fat, unhealthy, unhappy, addicted to drugs, and unsuccessful in maintaining relationships. They are a product of their brainwashing. Downloading viruses from an infected culture on a daily basis, people’s hard drives – their brains – are corrupted, lethargic, and barely able to function. This is why people seek out destructive pursuits that do nothing to benefit their long-term personal interests. This is why people no longer talk to their neighbors or get involved in their communities. This is why people care more about LeBron James than their own country collapsing around them – because that’s the content of the programming they have downloaded.

The controllers of this babylon system have superimposed a fantasy world over reality, they have slapped blinkers over the eyes of millions of Americans who continue to lead deluded, stunted and oblivious lives while the criminals behind the curtain scheme to wreck the country. A perfect example of this is how the government keeps insisting that the economy is getting better while in reality unemployment grows, tent cities pop up in major areas and the housing market gets worse.

When Americans know more about baseball and basketball than they do about their own history – to the point now where as a recent Jay Leno clip exemplified, college professors can’t even relate basic facts about the founding of the country – America is in danger.

America used to be the source of the best and the brightest, but the ravages of a 21st century entertainment monster has contributed to plunging test scores allied to weaker curriculums as American school children continue to be outperformed by their counterparts even in third world countries like Costa Rica.

Freedom and prosperity can only continue to exist in a country where informed and active citizens act as watchmen and women to protect those virtues. History has taught us that decadence, moral and intellectual decay are always followed by a collapse in society as darkness fills in the void that good has vacated.

Americans have to look themselves in the mirror and decide whether or not worshipping LeBron James is worth the price of a destitute and demoralized country in which living standards are eviscerated and freedoms are easily revoked.

Imagine if Americans got as angry and upset about the fact that their country is being seized by criminal globalist interests who want to destroy the United States in pursuit of a global government as they do when their sports team loses or their star player is transferred?

Our job is to issue a jolt of shock therapy to millions of hypnotized Americans who have the establishment-imposed mantra running through their heads that everything will be OK as long as they just continue to ignore reality and keep their head buried in American Idol or the NBA season.

Only through a massive media backlash can we reach people and make them understand that they have been conditioned into accepting a false sense of reality and that real happiness and fulfillment can only be achieved, and that America can only be rescued, once they fully embrace the truth of what is really happening around them.

BY ALI.MOSTAQUE

U.S. media independence: the rot within

NARAYAN LAKSHMAN

APIn this file photo protestors demonstrate the use of waterboarding in front of the Justice Department in Washington. “Torture at Times: A Study of Waterboarding in the Media”, authored by students of Harvard University does not show up the U.S. print media in a good light in terms of its degree of freedom and independence of the government.

The findings of a study on media freedom in the U.S. do not show up its print media in a good light in terms of its degree of freedom and independence of the government.

When a country engages in self-aggrandising talk of being the world’s oldest and freest democracy, at the very least one would expect it to be home to a free press. When that country also regularly berates other nations across the world for stifling media freedom, it would be expected to have a government that tolerates criticism from its own media. And when that country unabashedly uses “lack of media freedom” as a tool in its policy arsenal for promoting regime change abroad, then it would be hypocritical for it to have a subservient, self-censoring media on its soil.

And yet, according to a recent, empirically rigorous study of media freedom in the United States, none of these conditions applied to the country. Torture at Times: A Study of Waterboarding in the Media, authored by students of Harvard University, takes a close and statistically uncompromising look at the degree of media freedom in the U.S. The papers studied were The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.

Its findings do not, to put it mildly, show up the U.S. print media in a good light in terms of its degree of freedom and independence of the government.

By examining how the torture technique of waterboarding was described in news reporting and opinion columns of four most widely read newspapers, the study focussed on the sudden change in those descriptions during the early 2000s. That the first decade of the 21st century was also the time when the Central Intelligence Agency was charged with engaging in waterboarding was no coincidence, a point that this insightful study makes early on.

In particular, the authors found that, “From the early 1930s until the modern story broke in 2004, the newspapers that covered waterboarding almost uniformly called the practice torture or implied it was torture.” By contrast, they explained, “from 2002-2008, the studied newspapers almost never referred to waterboarding as torture.”

Before delving into the detail, let’s get the facts straight — waterboarding istorture by most reasonable standards, even if Karl Rove, adviser to the former President, George W. Bush, disagrees. More specifically it is, as Torture at Times explains, the practice of intentionally inducing the sensation of drowning in the victim, usually in the context of interrogation, and invariably producing an intense sense of panic and fear of death.

In the past, this sensation has been achieved by placing a cloth or plastic wrap on the face of the victim and pouring water over it; by pouring water directly into the mouth and nose; by placing a stick between the victim’s teeth and pouring water into his or her mouth, often until the victim’s stomach becomes distended, then forcing the water back out of the mouth; or by dunking and holding the victim’s head under water.

That waterboarding is torture rather than merely a “coercive interrogation technique” (as famously described by Mr. Rove) was best conveyed by none other than the U.S. print medium itself — prior to 2002, of course. As the Harvard study notes, The New York Times characterised it thus in 81.5 per cent of the articles on the subject and The Los Angeles Times, in 96.3 per cent of the articles during the earlier period.

And it was not just the four newspapers studied that were unambiguous in their view of waterboarding. Waterboarding featured regularly in the news throughout the 20th century, the Torture at Times authors say, “from the Philippine insurgency to World War II to the Vietnam War.” They added that in addressing waterboarding for more than 70 years prior to 9/11, major newspapers and even American law consistently categorised the practice as torture.

However, in a sharp indictment of the U.S. media, the results of the study showed that since waterboarding began receiving significant media attention in 2004, after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and other revelations of waterboarding by the U.S. (including allegedly in secret CIA prisons overseas and in Guantanamo Bay), media sources appeared to have changed their characterisation of the practice.

The New York Times described waterboarding as torture or implied it was torture in 1.4 per cent of articles after 2002. The Los Angeles Times did so in a mere 4.8 per cent of articles, the study found. The Wall Street Journal called it torture in 1.6 per cent of its stories and, worst of all, the USA Today “never” wrote of waterboarding as torture or even implied it was torture.

Does this show up the U.S. media as slavish to the diktats of the government? There is an even more egregious tendency discovered by the Harvard study: the newspapers analysed were far more likely to describe waterboarding as torture “if a country other than the U.S. is the perpetrator.”

The evidence is clear: in The New York Times, 85.8 per cent of the articles that dealt with a country other than the U.S. called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture, while only 7.69 per cent did so when the U.S. was responsible. Similarly The Los Angeles Times characterised the practice as torture in 91.3 per cent of its articles when another country was charged with waterboarding, but in only 11.4 per cent of articles when the U.S. was the perpetrator.

As media commentator Glenn Greenwald observed: “We do not need a state-run media because our media outlets volunteer for the task … once the U.S. government decrees that a technique is no longer torture, U.S. media outlets dutifully cease using the term. That compliant behaviour makes overtly state-controlled media unnecessary.”

And among all U.S. media, it would appear that those operating within the Washington beltway — in dangerous metaphorical proximity to government — were most culpable. Following the recent McChrystal-gate scoop for Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone magazine, Politico, a hardcore Washington insider, wrote that “Hastings had pulled off his … coup because he was a freelance journalist rather than a beat reporter, and so could risk burning bridges by publishing many of McChrystal’s remarks.”

Similarly Frank Rich of The New York Times admitted in his column: “It’s the Hastings-esque outsiders with no fear of burning bridges who have often uncovered the epochal stories missed by those with high-level access.” Notably, Mr. Rich added, Woodward and Bernstein were young local reporters, nowhere near the White House beat, when they cracked Watergate; and “it was uncelebrated reporters in Knight Ridder’s Washington bureau, not journalistic stars courted by Scooter and Wolfowitz, who mined low-level agency hands to challenge the… W.M.D. intelligence in the run-up to Iraq.”

What is even more telling — and ironic — is that little protest has followed Defence Secretary Robert Gates’ decision, in the aftermath of the McChrystal fiasco, to clamp down heavily on any further media access to army personnel.

If there is one thing that this accumulating evidence suggests, it is that a rot has afflicted the U.S. print media — the rot of complacency born of an institutional intimacy that is antithetical to the very core principles of a free press. However given how deeply entrenched the media-government relationship is already, this may not be a rot that can be stemmed.

In that case it is the American people who stand to lose most of all, as their government increasingly obfuscates its way out of serious blunders committed, and a pliant press happily amplifies propagandistic messages.

Azerbaijan deals blow against Nabucco

By Adam Newman

No gas from Azerbaijan?

It has not been a good week for the Nabucco pipeline; first the AGRI project – a planned Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania-Interconnection (AGRI) project to transport LNG from Azerbaijan to the EU through Georgia and Romania – was said to be moving rapidly to being finalised ahead of Nabucco and today, the development of Azerbaijan’s Shah-Deniz gas field, one of the main sources of gas for the European pipeline, was pushed back.

Azerbaijan report stated that the delaying of the development of the second stage of its large Shah-Deniz gas field was due to the lack of a way to export the gas to Europe. As such, gas is not expected to be yielded from the site until 2016 which means the Nabucco Pipeline is officially in trouble.

Without a source of gas, there is a good chance the project could be scrapped. While Azerbaijan and Turkey are in active talks on gas supplies during which they are discussing gas prices, transport tariffs and volumes to be supplied to Turkey and Europe, the lack of an official agreement could halt construction of the pipeline designed to relieve Russian energy dependency.

It is however not the only blow dealt to Nabucco this week

South Stream support grows

Meanwhile, one of Nabucco’s main rivals - the South Stream project – has been finding support in Europe with Italy’s ENI and France’s EDF officially joining the plan to transport Russian gas past the Ukraine and under the Black Sea to Bulgaria and inwards to Serbia and Europe.

However, news that Austria has also come on board the project could put the final nail in the Nabucco coffin. Prime Minister Putin is planning to visit both Austria and Italy at the end of the week, and Russian Energy Minister Sergey Shmatko has hinted that agreements could be signed during the trip.

“Inter-governmental agreements on building South Stream are issues that are determined by those who are authorized,” Shmatko said.

If Austria is on board, that would mean that it joins a host of other European countries supporting South Stream: Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Greece and Italy.

Russia woos RWE, Nabucco dead in the water?

By Adam Gibson

The EU-backed Nabucco Pipeline has arguably been on its last legs for months now, with European firms jumping ship to the Russian alternative South Stream one after the other. However, it appears Russia has finished torturing the European pipeline with news that it has discussed its alternative pipeline with German utility RWE, another clear attempt to undermine the Nabucco project.

RWE is one of the last remaining participants to the Nabucco Pipeline, which has long been planned to end continental dependency on Russian supplies, but has faced frequent obstacles.

Reuters has sources that both state that Gazprom and RWE met to discuss the South Stream project that aims to deliver gas to Europe under the Black Sea, however both companies are playing their cards close to their chest.

“It was just a preliminary discussion, nothing concrete. They are interested in entering the project,” a Gazprom source said. An RWE source said the project had been discussed but declined further comment, saying it remained committed to Nabucco as “the best project for RWE at the moment”.

Nabucco’s nemesis

Nabucco’s plan was to see gas delivered from Azerbaijan, central Asia and Iraq to southern Europe, but delays have seen the Russian South Stream project gain momentum. On top of that, Russia has often described Nabucco as “politically-motivated” and “not economically viable project” saying it lacked firm gas contracts. With the recent Azerbaijan delay, it is fair to say this is an accurate assessment.

Russia’s dominance of the situation has also continued with Gazprom winning a gas imports deal with Azerbaijan and signing another key Nabucco member, Austria’s OMV, for South Stream.

Other European suppliers that have switched to South Stream include Italy’s Eni and France’s EDF, while the Nabucco consortium also includes Hungary’s MOL, Turkish Botas, Bulgaria’s Bulgargaz and Romania’s Transgaz, although there are rumours that Transgaz may also be close to switching.

According to Upstreamonline.com, RWE would not be the first Nabucco shareholder to have a hand in both projects. Austrian energy group OMV, which has close business ties with Gazprom, signed up to build part of South Stream in May but maintains that Nabucco is its priority.

Bolivia Petitions UN To Make Water Universal Right

Bolivia Asks UN to Declare Water a Human Right

LA PAZ – Bolivia’s Ambassador to the United Nations Organization (UN) Pablo Solon formally requested that entity to declare water an irrevocable human right, national press stated.

The state-own Agencia Bolivana de Noticias (a news agency in Bolivia with local news and events) duplicated the letter sent by the diplomat to the UN in which reminds that at this time a draft is submitted for further analysis for presentation to the head of the organization.

The draft will be discussed by the Member States next weeks and the final text will be presented by the General Assembly President by the end of July of the current year.

It is the first time is requested to the General Assembly to address the issue of water and sanitation, which is not in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.

The fact that the water is not an obligatory human right has permitted water policy decisions passed from the UN to other institutions which do not respond to Member States and do not follow its decisions.

According to Solon, it is important that the majority of the Member States to support this resolution and to be approved in the plain language in which it was drafted.

The Bolivian proposal appears in the memorandum letter of the First World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth that took place last April in Cochabamba.

This issue is related to the life of millions of people. The world in general wants a clear signal that water is a matter of high priority.

According to Los Tiempos newspaper the letter recalls that when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 was written, nobody could foresee the day on which the water would be an area of difficulty.

However in 2010 is not exaggerated to say that the lack of access to clean water is the greatest violation of human rights in the world, the letter says.

According to official records offered by the Ambassador lack of access to drinkable water and sanitation services kills a child every eight seconds, the highest death rate on the planet.

Last, it states that every time is higher the need to recognize this right because by 2030 the global demand for water will exceed supply by 40 percent

Iran lawmaker says Moscow “manipulated” by West

TEHRAN

(Reuters) – A senior Iranian lawmaker hit back at Russia on Tuesday after an unprecedented Kremlin rebuke over Iran’s nuclear programme, saying Moscow risked being manipulated by Western spies.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday that it was obvious Iran was gaining the ability to develop a nuclear bomb, the strongest signal yet that the Kremlin is moving closer to the West’s position on Iran’s nuclear programme.

Medvedev’s comments were welcomed in Washington as a sign of international unity behind a harder line toward Tehran, which denies accusations by Western powers that it is seeking atomic weapons.

“A powerful country like Russia should not be manipulated by American and British intelligence services,” said Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the Iranian parliament’s Foreign Affairs and National Security committee.

“Medvedev’s remarks are based on false information gathered by western agents,” he told the semi-official Fars news agency.

Russia has been Iran’s main international nuclear partner and is building Iran’s first nuclear power plant near the southern port city of Bushehr, which is set to begin operations later this year.

The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama has made a priority of seeking Moscow’s support for its tougher line toward Tehran, and appears to have had increasing success in recent months.

Russia backed a U.N. Security Council resolution on June 9 to impose new sanctions on Iran, and Russian officials have expressed frustration at what they describe as Iran’s failure to disclose full details of its nuclear programme.

The United States, its European allies and Israel fear Iran is trying to build atomic weapons under the cover of its civilian nuclear programme. Iran says it needs nuclear technology to generate power.

“Our nuclear programme is peaceful and we work in the framework of the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” Boroujerdi said.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Peter Graff)

Pak-US Forum Discuss Low-Intensity Operations

Pakistan, U.S. defense forums open dialogue on security

13.07.2010 14:33

Top defense institutions of Pakistan and the United States are holding dialogue in Islamabad ” to foster understanding” between the two forums and the respective countries, an army statement said on Tuesday.

The National Defense University,Islamabad and the National Defense University Washington Strategic Dialogue will also know each other’s perception about some of the vital international and regional issues, the statement said, Xinhua reported.

The dialogue will conclude on Tuesday.

Besides the delegates representing both the institutions, about 75 participants including eminent scholars from all over the country are attending the inaugural session.

The Dialogue will focus on four major themes, including Pak-U.S. relations: Overcoming misperceptions and promoting long term cooperation, Situation in Afghanistan and its spillover: Quest for stability, Strategic stability in South Asia: U.S. role and influence, and Recent and ongoing counterinsurgency and Low Intensity Conflict operations.

During the two-day long deliberations eminent civil and military scholars and experts from both sides will speak on the topics as highlighted above, followed by discussion, the statement said.

The dialogue is held at a time when Gen. David Petraeus, NATO International Security Force Commander, met Pakistan’s army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the U.S. embassy and Pakistan army have said

This was Gen. Petraeus’ first visit to Pakistan as the NATO ISAF Commander, although he has long-established relationships with the Pakistani military from his time as the U.S. Central Command commander, the embassy said in a statement.

“Recent events demonstrate both the common threat posed to Pakistan and Afghanistan by insurgents and the efforts that the Pakistan military are making to counter this threat,” said Gen. Petraeus after the meeting, according to the U.S. embassy

“I look forward to continuing to work with General Kayani to identify areas of mutual interest and to cooperate in efforts that can help improve regional security.”

An army statement said that both military commanders discussed the matters of professional interest and expressed satisfaction over the level of cooperation between the two forces.

Libyan ship to reach Gaza waters by Wednesday, official says

13.07.2010 15:01

A ship carrying aid from Libya for the Gaza Strip is expected to arrive off the coast of Gaza by Wednesday morning at the latest, a Palestinian official in contact with the crew said on Tuesday, DPA reported.

The Moldovan-flagged, Greek-owned Amalthia, with some 15 pro- Palestinian activists and 12 crew members and 2,000 tons of food and medicine, sailed from Greece on Saturday afternoon.

In the wake of May’s interception of a Turkish ship on its way to run the Gaza blockade, in which Israeli naval commandoes shot dead nine knife- and stick-wielding civilian activists, Israel greatly eased its restrictions on the entry of goods into the strip.

“The Libyans and the crew insist on reaching Gaza directly,” Jamal al-Khodari, the head of Gaza’s Popular Committee against the Siege, said Tuesday.

Israel’s efforts to exert diplomatic pressure on the organizers and have them redirect their journey to the Egyptian port of al-Arish or the southern Israeli port of Ashdod “have failed,” al-Khodari told the German Press-Agency dpa.

“The Israeli threats to stop the Libyan ship are completely unacceptable,” he said.

Al-Khodari said his organization was coordinating dozens more siege-breaking boat journeys with activists from various countries.

Israel has called the attempt to break its naval blockade of Gaza an “unnecessary provocation.”

While export and the passage of people remain highly restricted, all civilian products with the exception of some dual-use items including cement and metal are now allowed into Gaza, following heavy international pressure on Israel.

“As in previous cases we have sent diplomatic messages to resident countries explaining that humanitarian aid must either go through the port of Ashdod or through Egypt and that no one should try to break the blockade,” Israel Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told dpa Tuesday.

“Of course this time, trying to break the blockade would seem even more absurd now that there are almost no restrictions on anything that goes into Gaza,” he said.

He would not detail the operational preparations the Israeli military was preparing in case the organizers would go ahead with their attempt to violate the Israeli naval blockade.

The ship was commissioned by the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Association, headed by Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, the second-born son of the Libyan leader.

Aid aboard the ship includes cartons and sacks of wheat, flour, maize, rice, sugar, olives, tomato paste, milk and vegetable oil, all of which has been donated by Greek companies and charities.

Also on board the 92-metre vessel are a crew of 12 from Haiti, India and Syria, under the command of a Cuban-born captain. Most of the activists on board are from Libya, except for one Nigerian, one Algerian and one Moroccan.

Major anti-crime sweep in Italy

An unidentified man covers his face with a warrant of arrest document outside the Carabinieri, paramilitary police, headquarters, in Reggio Calabria, southern Italy, Tuesday, July 13, 2010, following one of the biggest operations ever against the powerful ‘ndrangheta crime organization, in which 300 people were arrested including top bosses, and million of dollars (euros) in property seized. The pre-dawn raids Tuesday involved some 3,000 police across the country. Charges include murder, extortion, arms and drug trafficking and criminal association. Investigators described the operation as one of biggest blows ever to an organization that today is considered more powerful than the Sicilian Mafia. (AP Photo/Adriana Sapone)

By ALESSANDRA RIZZO (AP)

ROME — Italian police on Tuesday carried out one of the biggest operations ever against the powerful ‘ndrangheta crime organization, arresting 300 people including top bosses, and seizing million of dollars (euros) in property.

The man believed to be the ‘ndrangheta’s top boss, Domenico Oppedisano, was picked up earlier in the day in Rosarno, a small coastal town in Calabria, the southern region where the organization is based, police said.

Also arrested was the man in charge of the gang’s businesses in Milan, where the ‘ndrangheta has been making major inroads.

The pre-dawn raids Tuesday involved some 3,000 police across the country. Charges include murder, extortion, arms and drug trafficking and criminal association.

Investigators described the operation as one of the biggest blows ever to an organization that today is considered more powerful than the Sicilian Mafia. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said the sweep struck at the heart of the ‘ndrangheta in terms of both its organization and of its finances.

The sweep dismantled some of the most powerful families in the organization, Italian news agencies said. It also enabled investigators to shed light on the ‘ndrangheta structure and power hierarchy.

The biggest operation was in the Milan region of Lombardy, where 160 people were reportedly arrested. They included businessmen and the director of state medical services in the city of Pavia.

The last big operation against the Calabrian mob dates to the 1990s. Since then it has expanded its power, not only in Italy but in such countries as Germany.

A clan war spread to Germany in 2007, when six Italians were gunned down by a rival gang in retribution for an earlier killing as they left a birthday celebration in the western city of Duisburg. Italian officials have said all three people responsible for the shooting have been arrested.

Anti-mafia prosecutors say Milan has become the economic center for the organization, which migrated to the north in the 1970s and 1980s. Nearly all of the clans are present in Lombardy.

Prosecutors say wiretaps are key to investigating hard-to-infiltrate mafia clans, and have complained bitterly against a proposed new bill that aims to limit the use of electronic eavesdropping. Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who has been stung by some embarrassing disclosure in published transcripts of private conversations mostly unrelated to investigations, is pushing the measures through parliament.

While terrorism and mafia investigations are exempt from the proposed restrictions, magistrates complain that big probes often stem from low-level criminal cases. Passage of the law, they say, will give criminals operating in Italy protection.

The restrictions include a strict time limit on wiretaps, which prosecutors say is insufficient, and a level of proof needed to obtain permission to launch the wiretaps that investigators charge is tantamount to evidence needed for a conviction.

Associated Press Writer Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report.

Russia to upgrade radar stations in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan

13.07.2010 15:47

Within the framework of military-technical cooperation with countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Russia will upgrade radar stations inTajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as will supply spare parts and equipment for air defence hardware of CIS states, according to materials of a session of the coordinating committee on air defence at the CIS Council of Defence Ministers, Itar-Tass reported.

The radar station P-18 will be partially updated in Kyrgyzstan, and a similar radar station will be updated in Tajikistan. The Almaz-Antei air defence concern has received applications from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and considers supplies of spare parts and equipment for air defence hardware in these countries. Belarus has also applied for repairs of components to the air defence missile weapon system C-300 by Russian specialists.

In line with plans of joint combat training within the framework of the joint CIS Air Defence System, a command-and-staff exercise, as well as two bilateral command-and-staff drills of air defence of Russia and Uzbekistan and Russia and Ukraine are scheduled for October.

Common Economic Interests Pulling Former Soviet States Back Together

At the Black Sea wave

In Yalta, held an informal summit of CIS

At the weekend took place in Yalta on the informal summit of CIS. On Friday night, opening the “Slavic Bazaar” in Vitebsk, Alexander Lukashenko said that he was going to Ukraine to congratulate Yanukovych on his anniversary. Incidentally, the working program of the six presidents gathered in the Livadia Palace (Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine), was informative. As it became known, they have agreed to continue work on a new treaty on free trade zone and to consider this issue at the next meeting of the Council of Heads of CIS States. The desire to solve the economic problems together can breathe new life into the Commonwealth.
All participants of the informal meeting of a positive view of its outcome. The liberalization of trade between the CIS countries is becoming a priority for the development of this regional organization. Engine of these processes acts Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia. Played a significant role as Ukraine’s intention to actively operate in the Commonwealth.
Particular emphasis on the economy today seems quite logical. First, in our region also makes itself felt global crisis, from which the best solution collectively. Secondly, the two decades since the collapse of Soviet Union, former Soviet republics were able to build a new relationship in which economic relations play a cementing role. “Ensuring the growth of living standards of citizens and improve their well-being are the main aims of the CIS in the present conditions, but also consider strengthening the economic cooperation a priority for the Commonwealth,” – said a joint statement following a meeting of Heads of State.
In Crimea, the press office of the President, were also discussed investment cooperation and joint projects of transport and tourism infrastructure.
At the summit in Yalta there was one clear focus – sports. 2012, recall, declared the Year of Sport and healthy living in the CIS. In Ukraine, will be the European football championship. In 2014 held in Sochi Winter Olympic Games, and, of course, the world hockey championship in Minsk. The Presidents noted the desirability of joint participation of stakeholders in the construction and upgrading of stadiums and other sports facilities and necessary infrastructure.
There is one important common theme. In Ukraine, CIS heads of state expressed their support for next April in Kiev International Conference “Twenty-five years after the Chernobyl disaster. Guaranteeing the Future” …
On Sunday night, told me the head of the press-service of President Paul Light, held talks Alexander Lukashenko and Viktor Yanukovych. They take the form of one on one, without the press. It is known that the Belarusian-Ukrainian relations today, there are many serious issues that will certainly also discussed the Presidents.
Traditionally, the big question – that economic and trade cooperation. The problem of turnover – to reach and surpass pre-crisis level. The new Ukrainian leadership is of the same course to strengthen ties with Belarus, which followed the previous leaders of this country, and more – making further steps forward. Those relatively minor problems that existed before, now removed. In general, the Belarusian-Ukrainian border, have established a favorable, warm climate. The two countries can easily implement international cooperative projects involving third countries – will be of mutual benefit.

Author of: Igor Kolchenko

Photo: BELTA

Russian legislature cracks down on freedom of assembly

[The new "democracy" of Vladimir Putin in action.  Welcome to "Neo-Sovietism."]

MOSCOW – Daily News with wires

Police officers detain an activist with a camera during a banned anti-Kremlin protest in Moscow on May 31. AP photo

Russia parliament took a step toward severely tightening the screws on public rallies, passing a bill in a first reading that would ban people from organizing them if previously convicted for offenses as minor as speeding or riding a commuter train without a ticket.

The bill, supported by 312 deputies out of 450, was criticized by Gennady Gudkov, a senior member of the A Just Russia party, as “foolish” and “aimed at hindering the organization of rallies and making them impossible.”

The draft said no individual or legal body, including a political party, may organize a public gathering if convicted of an administrative offense, The Moscow Times reported Monday.

The list of administrative offenses includes speeding, traveling without a ticket and minor fire safety violations, as well as a broad range of offenses related to elections and organizing public gatherings.

Rally organizers will also not be permitted to inform the public about their plans, including the topic of the rally, until local authorities approve the date and place of the event, Friday’s draft said.

To stage public rallies, organizers currently must file a notice with local authorities, who under the bill will have three working days to reject a planned route and propose a new one.

Rallies that are particularly unwanted by authorities, such as gay pride parades and opposition events, have often failed to secure permission from local authorities in recent years on the grounds that the desired location or route was unavailable.

Moscow City Hall has denied all requests for gay pride parades since 2006, and the St. Petersburg City Hall followed suit last month.

Opposition rallies calling for the constitutionally protected right of free assembly, held on the 31st of every month since last July, regularly end in riot police crackdowns.

The bill was submitted by two deputies, from the ruling United Russia party and A Just Russia. A deputy with the Liberal Democratic Party was listed on the draft as a third author, but his party has demanded that he withdraw his support.

Maxim Rokhmistrov, deputy head of the Liberal Democratic Party’s parliamentary faction, called the bill unconstitutional because an administrative offense cannot result in a person losing their right to free assembly.

“After paying the fine, a person convicted of an administrative offense cannot be further deprived of other rights,” he said.

But Sergey Markov, a deputy with United Russia who worked on the bill, said it “does not limit the right of parties and movements to stage public meetings in the slightest.”

No date for the crucial second hearing has been set.

Iran says “abducted” scientist flees to Pakistan embassy in US

Iran’s Press TV shows two images of Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri whom the Islamic republic says was kidnapped by US agents.

TEHRAN – An Iranian nuclear scientist Tehran claims was abducted by US intelligence agents has taken refuge in the Islamic republic’s interest section in Washington, state media reported on Tuesday.

“Shahram Amiri, the abducted Iranian expert, took refuge in Iran’s interest section in Washington hours ago,” state television’s website said.

In a separate report, Mehr news agency said Amiri who was “abducted by Americans went to Iran’s interest section… and asked for a quick return to Tehran.”

Iran’s interests in the United States are managed by the Pakistan embassy as Tehran and Washington have had no diplomatic ties for more than three decades.

Iranian officials have long maintained that Amiri was kidnapped by US agents from Saudi Arabia last year where he had gone for a Muslim pilgrimage.

Iran last week said it had submitted “evidence” to the Swiss embassy that Amiri was abducted by US intelligence agents. The Swiss embassy manages Washington’s interests in Iran.

“We expect that based on the US administration’s obligations… the US authorities will announce the results of their investigation regarding this Iranian national,” foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanaparast had said.

On June 29, Iranian television screened a video of a man claiming to be Amiri and saying that he had managed to escape from the hands of US intelligence agents in Virginia.

“I could be re-arrested at any time by US agents… I am not free and I’m not allowed to contact my family. If something happens and I do not return home alive, the US government will be responsible,” he said.

“I ask Iranian officials and organisations that defend human rights to raise pressure on the US government for my release and return to my country,” the man said, adding he has not “betrayed” Iran.

US officials have dismissed the allegations in the Iranian broadcast.

Amiri disappeared in June 2009 after arriving in Saudi Arabia for a pilgrimage.

Iran accused US agents of abducting him with the help of Saudi intelligence services.

ABC news in the United States reported in March that Amiri had defected and was working with the CIA. US officials have rejected these allegations.

- AFP/ir

Turkey To Stop Undermining American Vendetta Against Iran

Turkey agrees to stay out of Iran nuke issue

WASHINGTON – Associated Press

A senior U.S. official said Turkey has agreed to stay out of international efforts to pressure Iran on its nuclear program, Associated Press reported on Tuesday.

The official told reporters that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had asked Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu in a 45-minute conversation Monday to leave the issue to U.N. Security Council powers and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation, said Davutoğlu agreed.

U.S.-Turkish relations have suffered since Turkey voted against U.S.-backed sanctions that ultimately passed in the U.N. Security Council last month.

The vote came shortly after Turkey tried to broker a nuclear fuel-swap deal with Iran as an alternative to sanctions.

The Turkish Embassy had no immediate comment on the Clinton-Davutoğlu talks.

International Powers Are Responsible For Balochistan Burning–Khair Baksh Marri

Q: Is Balochistan burning?

(excerpt from interview with Baloch nationalist leader Sardar Khair Baksh Marri)

A: Yes, yes. That is the question! Balochistan is engulfed with a conflagration.

Q: Who is responsible for this pain of Balochistan?

A: International powers are responsible for it. And Pakistan is the biggest subordinate of the international community. They are sinful as they have controlled our natural resources.

Q: Isnt’ it strange that here you hold the international powers responsible but in front of your people, you only oppose the Establishment?

A: Yes comrade [referring to the interviewer] maybe it is this way. The Pakistani Establishment represents them (the international powers). Whatever happens in front of us, we obviously talk about it. We will talk about them who are in front of us. They are sinful. The US is running Pakistan. Otherwise, they (the Establishment) do not have the spunk to rule on the Balochs.

Q: Balochistan was ruled by the English and now by Pakistan. How would you differentiate between both rulers?

A: Yes, to some extent. The slavery (of the English) was the initial slavery for us. Now, the Pakistani and English slavery is no longer the primary slavery. In this (Pakistani slavery), we faced considerable loss.

Q: What do you mean with ‘primary ‘ (slavery)?

A: The British only laid the foundation of our slavery but the Punjabis bathed us in blood and kept us slaves. What would we do in such circumstances? Obviously, we would retaliate. I would reiterate: Punjabis are the subordinates of dictatorship (imperialism). Ultimately, the United States will have to negotiate with us (the Balochs).

Q: Have the Baloch sardars been able to learn  a lesson from their historical consciousness?

A: Yes, (they are) learning. But there are some who are crooks. They still believe that they would get something. Now, the solution of Balochistan does not lie in packages. Now, we have gone too far. These packages are meant to fool us.

Q: Can you name (those Baloch sardars) you are referring to.

A: [Angrily] These Raisanis, Magsis, some Bugtis and, yes, some members of the Marri tribe who are being pampered with some money.